My toxic trait is that I am far more interested in the socio-economic and geopolitical implications of ABO settings than the smut.
For example: I can't read any ABO AUs set in England or France because while I can suspend my disbelief far enough for a gender trinary set up, I can't suspend it enough to believe those two countries would still be distinct entities in a alternate history where Richard the Lionheart could have impregnated Philip II.
If there was a viable dynastic future with Richard, Philip would have climbed him like an oak and dragged him to the altar if he had to. It's a match that makes perfect sense from both their points of view: Philip gets Aquitaine back under French rule, the best general in Europe on his council, and a powerful check on the Angevins... then unexpectedly (after Henry the Young bites it) the entire Kingdom of England for his Capetian dynasty. Richard meanwhile gets to stick it to his father, secure Aquitaine's prosperity, and gets the leverage to start pushing for his mother's release. Then when Henry kicks the bucket Richard doesn't actually have to be King of England in anything but name: Philip can run the countries and unify the Crowns and what not while Richard runs off to go Crusading.
Plus they also like, loved each other and stuff and being able to get to be together long term instead of being torn apart by politics would have been cool. But I'm mainly obsessed with the historical and dynastic implications.
All this to say any ABO au set in England or France that doesn't have them united as a singular Anglo-Frank empire is doing it wrong.
The concept of A/B/O also introduces the question of what succession law would look like under a gender trinary. England historically used cognatic succession, where female scions and their descendants could inherit titles if there were no surviving males from the previous dynast’s line, whereas France used agnatic succession, where succession could only pass through male lines.
In this AU, it’s unlikely that an Anglo-Frank union could last due to differences in succession laws between the two realms. What would happen if an Alpha died without an heir? Would Betas be treated similarly to Alphas for succession purposes? Could succession pass through Beta or even Omega lines? Succession laws were quite difficult to change, with modifications to royal succession often resulting in civil and/or international wars.
So I see your A/B/O geopolitical hypothetical and raise you that while Philip WOULD climb Richard like an oak and bear him multiple viable heirs, the Anglo-Frankish Union wouldn’t last long due to differences in how the kingdoms would be inherited by the descendants of those multiple heirs. And with the complexities of succession laws in a gender trinary, the War of the Roses would only be more insane.
This is literally what the Schleswig-Holstein Question was about. Well, the “conflicting laws of succession” bit, anyway. Not so much the ABO stuff. (But with the Schleswig-Holstein Question, who knows? Well, Lord Palmerston and two other people. But you see my point.)
What being on this site is like: every so often one of the flaming dumpsters floating by drops a fully realized academic paper overboard, and it floats over to you and you read it and it upends your understanding and revolutionizes your appreciation of a major geopolitical underpinning of European history upon which the very shape of modern civilization rests.
It's got medieval-style illustrations of Richard the Lionheart balls deep in Philip the Second, and they're thematically relevant.
How are we factoring in women because I reckon Eleanor of Aquitaine was an alpha. Could she and Henry II have been alpha/alpha, but alpha women can have kids?
Richard the Lionhearted, some kind of alpha? Trust me, he was an omega bitch who thought "deficit spending" was an infinity balance checking account. His brother Prince John (yes, that one) was a much- set- upon alpha who kept having to raise taxes to pay for whatever war his brother had gotten them into this month.
If Richard the Lionhearted was an Omega his Alpha brother would have inherited before him since Richard’s main role would be to get pregnant
I really doubt role would supersede birth order. A boy is a boy, whether he's an a, o, or b. Same reason alpha women can't become witches, because they share in Jesus' divine phallic-ness as discussed by Thomas Aquinas.
If anything, his involvement in the war was him trying to have a love child with Saladin- who was another much- set- upon Alpha who *just* wanted to raise the pilgrimage fee enough to cover guarding the caravans properly. But, because Christian-Moslem relationships would've been forbidden, even in an omegaverse, they'd have had to keep it a secret from *both* sets of camps.
The French kings, by the way? Every one of them a beta with an underdeveloped prefrontal lobe on par with a modern AIbro. Starting *yet another* war while hopped up on the equivalent of Monster *and* Five Hour Energy Shots.
No, I am not a history major. That was my dad, and I'm kind of scared of the kind of crackass historical fic mom would've written if she'd been into omegaverse. Some kind of political intrigue with a plot so impossibly convoluted it'd take years to figure out.
