Any ideas on how things would go if Tim and Dallas' roles were reversed/personality swap? (Dallas being the sociopath, and Tim just being there.)
I sat on this way longer than I planned too 😅🫠 sorry!
This would change, quite a bit actually. For Tim. Dallas would be pretty similar.
Assuming still trying for Snakeoil to happen
A lot of Tim's choices and actions over the years are made around the fact that he cannot feel guilt or empathy. So the only repercussions he gets are from his peers or from figures of authority.
He doesn't usually get a lot of pushback from his peers because for one he's intimidating and for two he's profitable.
He doesn't get punished by authority often because he either doesn't get caught or (in the case of a priest catching him stealing and later murdering someone that's sitting in my WIPs) they feel guilt or empathy for him.
A prosocial*1 Tim wouldn't be as capable so early on of hurting/killing to get his way, nor would he have the initial intimidation*2
So he'd have to rely on his ability to fight a lot more, he'd be more prone to violence, probably a lot more like canon Dallas than my usual Tim is, his childhood would be more fucked up because now he can experience guilt alongside everything else.
But the twins would have much better lives. They'd be better adjusted.
Prosocial Tim isn't likely to leave them lovked in the house alone for most of the day, they won't be isolated nearly as much and would get to experience some normal childhood things and meet new people, their social pool will be bigger than Tim and one or two of whoever he trusts most at the time. He'd find people to watch them and as they got older people who will give them some kind of work to do. They might even go to school.
Dallas would experience ASPD differently than Tim does, he'd probably be more violent, and atleast for the first few years he wouldn't have an EP to keep him grounded. Recklessness, violent behavior, thrill seeking, antisocial behavior, all of it would be dialled way up for him. He has no regard for his own health or how his actions would effect anyone else. He also gets to have a hyper-addictive personality type, cause dopamine addiction fucks us up and I don't give that aspect to Tim lol
First meeting with Tim will go a lot of the same really. Dallas shows up to Tulsa, probably riding on Two-Bit's ankles again, because Two is beneficial enough to stick around. Tim and Dallas immediately dislike each other, they fight, Tim still wins (because he's three years older and a good enough fighter to be a gang leader, still)
Maybe the same thing happens. Maybe Tim becomes Dallas's current obsession, something to poke and prod and fuck with until it's boring and you toss them away and move on. This is a common enough theme with B Cluster friendships. So maybe Dallas follows his same example of my og au, following Tim around and picking fights until Tim acknowledges him.
Except now Dallas is more malicious, less regard for Tim's life and more interested in how Tim would react to a genuine danger- fights he would usually step in to help Tim with he stands aside and watches, maybe he sets up a few situations to have Tim jumped on his own. Outright stealing from Tim and otherwise blatently disrespecting him, just to see a reaction.
His favorite reactions are when he hurts any of Tim's gang. He gets so pissed and aggressive, the fight is so much more interesting when Tim is the aggressor.
And when Chambers jumps Tim, Dallas feels possessive of him for the first time. Seeing Tim nearly go down after taking a bottle to the face sends Dallas into a blind rage, he hurts Chambers a lot worse in this au. He drags Tim home and insults him the whole way, snapping at the twins to fuck off if they're home when he's stitching up Tim's face.
Tim's a lot more lenient with him after that. He's figured out at this point that Dallas will only keep getting worse if he keeps giving him the reactions he wants so Tim stops. Boredom is fucking killer for people with B cluster traits, and it would be much worse for Dallas.
Dallas would be the one to go through the addiction arc, prosocial Tim and therefore the twins wouldn't get hooked. So Tim would be the one to tie Dallas to the bed and force him to detox- and Dallas would fucking hate the entire experience, and would definitely still be pissed after he'd sobered up. It would be a point of contention for a long time despite Dallas avoiding heroin afterwards.
I think Dallas would be the one to initiate a relationship, still. He'd be much more manipulative, Tim would probably be an EP by this point and Dallas could see the appeal of locking him down before he can find someone else. Though this Dallas would probably take Tim's not minding of him sleeping around as an open ended offer, and this Tim would almost definitely regret it when he's emotionally invested into the relationship.
After Dallas learns about Tim being in love with him he gets a lot more overtly manipulative; threatening to break up with Tim over the smallest things, all the toxic things.
Prosocial would be devastated at Dallas's death here, but in the long run it'd be much better for him, and years down the line he would probably be relieved it ended when it did. (In Dallas!lives aus it's him that's left bitter and spiteful about Tim so it'd be pretty much a reverse)
*1 prosocial is just a quick way of saying someone who doesn't have ASPD/BPD etc, using it in this context as I usually write him with ASPD
*2 (this is something that I developed around the time I fully developed ASPD, where people around me reacted fearfully or timidly when I would enter their vicinity, with some of the more confident folk outright telling me I, at 12 years old, made them nervous in the same way a rabid dog would.)
Yes I realize I make relationships with B cluster seem awful but actually it's just these two lmao. I have had a WIP for a sociopath Jack Hammer/Peter Parker for years that's a very longform super healthy, communication and effort heavy story I just, haven't written it yet, I will when my Marvel hyperfixation comes back lmao
