Board Thread:Misc./@comment-14745711-20170517034952/@comment-1327106-20170517061356

I will be horribly disappointed if the cast isn't sporting those giant moustaches of the time period. ;)

Kidding aside, I don't know too much about the Franco-Prussian War, but 1914 is when WW1 started so if you're going historical and you expect your audience to know something of the time period, they're probably going to expect WW1. (I know I would.  I eat up WW1 stuff.)  Is there any reason you can't set it in 1870 like when the war happened in history? Is it that you want more modern technology but otherwise the older culture?

I would be careful with racism and sexism. Sometimes modern day creators paint too broad a brush, which doesn't really deal with the nuances of the problem. It helps if the characters who exhibit those flaws are also sympathetic in some manner since no one from the POV of their own story is being a d-bag. If you have sexist and racist characters and mysteriously none of your AU main cast behaves this way and it's only "other people" that's not really interesting (or accurate). It just means everyone else is a jerk.

You could have something like an AU Erwin is considered strange for being willing to take a chance of a female soldier (since gambling and doing something unconventional is entirely in character) and AU Levi not wanting to put up with women in the army (because we know he likes to bitch). It's easy to picture Levi complaining "Are we so desperate now that we've resorted to recruiting women?" but he goes along with it because even if he disagrees he generally listens to Erwin. Levi is a likeable character and some people might not like a sexist version of him, but if you want to tackle that kind of stuff in the name of historical accuracy, some of the cast is going to have to act like it. And if you want to make a plot point out of it, put that obstacle in the cast itself. They can always get better later.

Personally I really like the three military branch system in AoT. If you were doing WW1 I would totally make the Survey Corps the Imperial German Flying Corps (who were also considered daring and crazy), the Garrison the army, and I guess the Military Police would end up being the Kaiserliche Marine? I'm not sure what you can do to adapt that for 1870 though. And I guess with Walls you wouldn't really have a navy. :\

Aside from that, one thing I'd like to see you keep is the death toll. It's not AoT without a lot of people dying! But change it up so people don't know what's going to happen. :)  Kill different people.  Maybe Marco lives and Connie dies.  Maybe Annie doesn't spare Armin just because she recognizes him.  Maybe someone from Levi's Squad makes it out alive.  Heck, you could plot twist things and maybe Bertolt and Reiner aren't the Colossal and Armored Titans and it's instead Jean and Marco.  It's AU, have some fun with it.