Now, see, THIS is the kind of slavefic I'd read in a heartbeat. :D :D :D
I love how you've handled them here, Peter in particular -- especially with the elaboration in the above comment; I can totally see him taking this approach to both law enforcement and slavery in the world in which he lives. (Peter, love him though I do, is definitely a "work within the system even if you know it's flawed" kind of person; he's a "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" type moderate, not the sort of person who agitates for change, generally. But then there's this thing he does where he seems to try to use the influence that he has to form this little safe space around and under him -- like, in canon, it's clear that Diana feels comfortable to be openly out at work with Peter as her boss, and it's also clear that he's not going to tolerate Neal being mistreated on his watch, even by someone who has a legal right to do so, a la Rice or Kramer.)
And I'm also really intrigued by how subtly different Neal is, under these different circumstances -- not at all the ridiculous "being a slave makes you naturally submissive" thing that fandom does in slave AUs all too often (which I HATE HATE HATE LIKE BURNING) but a more nuanced reflection of the habits he's had to pick up in order to survive under the circumstances: the ways in which he can and cannot be like canon Neal. (I suppose that I still would expect Neal to be doing more escape planning and rebelling in small ways, but he also got nabbed a lot earlier in his criminal career, before he had time to pick up a lot of the habits that had become entrenched by the time Peter caught him in canon, so he wasn't quite the Neal we know even when he was captured here.)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-06-22 10:50 pm (UTC)I love how you've handled them here, Peter in particular -- especially with the elaboration in the above comment; I can totally see him taking this approach to both law enforcement and slavery in the world in which he lives. (Peter, love him though I do, is definitely a "work within the system even if you know it's flawed" kind of person; he's a "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" type moderate, not the sort of person who agitates for change, generally. But then there's this thing he does where he seems to try to use the influence that he has to form this little safe space around and under him -- like, in canon, it's clear that Diana feels comfortable to be openly out at work with Peter as her boss, and it's also clear that he's not going to tolerate Neal being mistreated on his watch, even by someone who has a legal right to do so, a la Rice or Kramer.)
And I'm also really intrigued by how subtly different Neal is, under these different circumstances -- not at all the ridiculous "being a slave makes you naturally submissive" thing that fandom does in slave AUs all too often (which I HATE HATE HATE LIKE BURNING) but a more nuanced reflection of the habits he's had to pick up in order to survive under the circumstances: the ways in which he can and cannot be like canon Neal. (I suppose that I still would expect Neal to be doing more escape planning and rebelling in small ways, but he also got nabbed a lot earlier in his criminal career, before he had time to pick up a lot of the habits that had become entrenched by the time Peter caught him in canon, so he wasn't quite the Neal we know even when he was captured here.)
tl;dr I would love to read more in this 'verse!