in the not-too-distant past, some people around tumblr came up with an idea for a really rad paranorman au, and it’s been getting a bit more attention lately. not a lot of people know what it’s about, though, so we decided to take a shot at making an explanatory post for those who are in the dark!

the prenderghastly au, in it’s most basic sense, is where agatha prenderghast’s and norman babcock’s roles in the story are swapped. (it’s called “prenderghastly” because it’s a spooky-themed play on the main character’s name, like paranorman.) so aggie is the neighborhood kid who can speak with the dead, while norman was the little puritan boy executed for his odd gift.

swapping ALL of the people from aggie’s and norman’s timelines and still having the story flow in a similar way is more or less impossible, though, as we don’t know of many people aggie knew. working on what we know, though, au!aggie lives with her single mom, and many of the adults from norman’s timeline are swapped with adults from aggie’s. (the school principal is judge hopkins, for example.)

there are a lot of different ways to work around with this au and it’s a lot of fun to draw parallels and try and mess with things until they fit. a lot of it is open to interpretation, though, so there’s no set of rules or absolute laws to it! nothing’s set in stone, and there are still loads of things to be worked out. the main tag is “#prenderghastly au”, so feel free to tag your thoughts and ideas for everyone to see! with some help this baby au could be all i want it to grow up to be it’s really cool and u should check it out