so, like, i was writing something just now about an alpha character as being a straight white man and almost struck it out as him being queer cuz i was going to put him with an omega male character but nope. no. in that universe? thats straight. because what is "straightness" but the system that which produces offspring and traditional unions? ergo? what is subversive in our world is not subversive in an ABΩ one and in fact creates a step removed from those things that are so touchy in our reality while allowing them to be accessible . in fact: that's a huge part of why i like ABΩ so much. it lets me deal with womens issues, fertility issues, and sexism issues both in my life and that i see all around me from a very very safe distance without triggering myself. plus the thirst element in heat/rut is real too and the idea of scent being intoxicating ala a soulmate trope is just gravy. basically i can fuck with all of the dangerous things while still having fun.
the complaint i always hear(and boy howdy do i hear it a LOT as someone who writes this stuff) is that ABΩ is "full of misogynistic sexist tropes" and "is a consent nightmare". well no shit you hate that. it's a real problem. I acknowledge that. for reasons i cannot fathom an overwhelming number of ABΩ writers are still playing out the same small "man abusive, woman powerless" psychodrama over and over in what feels like and possibly is(i havent done a study) the majority of ABΩs.
aside from being problematic as hell, as noted by the dissenters, ABΩ writers en masse seem to be in is absolutely boring. that is like taking a hammer and just hitting an unbreakable rock over and over again. you're gonna look at that and go "fuck hammers are boring." well when you do that hammers are boring. on the other hand when you use hammers with nails and boards to build buildings or chisels to make sculptures or as weapons to murder people or as metaphors in songs, books and television for for the force of will, lack of intellect and penises suddenly hammers get a lot more fucking interesting, don't they?
basically, all that is to say, i have a big issue with people outright shitting on ABΩ because the problem isn't the trope. the problem is sexism and the gender binary (or spectrum, cuz lets be honest, the whole point of ABΩ is that it creates a glorious almost Le Guin-evoking variety of genders to work with) and how the writer of whatever ABΩ story you happen to be reading views said relationships and then executes them in the narrative they're creating. just like there's nothing wrong with horror as a genre but there is absolutely there' something wrong with slasher movies that have no diversity and punish people for having sex on screen, nes pas?
if you boil it down to "i don't like ABΩ" then what you're saying to me is "I don't like abusive relationships that fuck one side of the partnership of its agency the way women have been for 10,000 years" and fam, neither do I. which is why
I wish more people would actually write ABΩ cuz, like, it's actually kinda reminds me of this whole fandom migration/pfio/fediverse thing where you've got a so a million different ways to work with it but right now? folks are only doing one fucking thing over and over, trying to get tumblr to still work for them. and until some people are bold like suzukiblu and a few others I am too goddamn tired to name (i'll dig through my bookmarks like the Free! fic where the Alpha has to LITERALLY defeat the Omega in hand-to-hand combat to mate and a few other things? we're gonna keep getting the same repetition of the fucking heterosexual binary over and over when theres something completely new to explore.
and yall that makes me fucking sad. so, like, i was writing something just now about an alpha character as being a straight white man and almost struck it out as him being queer cuz i was going to put him with an omega male character but nope. nope in that universe? thats straight. the fact of the matter is part of why i like ABΩ so much is it lets me deal with womens issues, fertility issues, and sexism issues both in my life and that i see all around me from a very very safe distance without triggering myself and still having fun.
the complaint i always here is that ABΩ is "full of misogynistic sexist tropes" and "is a consent nightmare". well no shit. for reasons i cannot fathom everyone is still playing out the same small "man abusive woman powerless" psychodrama story over and over. that absolutely is boring. that is like taking a hammer and just hitting an unbreakable rock over and over again. you're gonna look at that and go "fuck hammers are boring." well when you do that hammers are boring. when you use them with nails and boards to build buildings or chisels to make sculptures or as weapons to murder people or as metaphors for penises suddenly hammers get a lot more fucking interesting dont they?
basically, i have a big issue with people outright shitting on ABΩ because the problem isn't the trope. the problem is sexism and the gender binary (or spectrum, cuz lets be honest, the whole point of ABΩ is that it creates a glorious almost Le Guin-evoking variety of genders to work with) and how the writer of whatever ABΩ story you happen to be reading views said relationships.
if you boil it down to "i don't like ABΩ" then what i hear you saying to me is "I don't like abusive relationships that fuck one side of the partnership out of its agency the way women have been screwed over in various was all over the planet for 10,000 years" and fam, neither do I which is why I wish more people would actually write ABΩ cuz, like, it's actually kinda reminds me of this whole fediverse thing where you've got a source code and a million different ways to work with it but right now? an ugly number of folks are only doing one fucking(haha pun intend) thing over and over. and until some people more are bold like its going to be the same thing over and over.
i've got a crap tone of recs (and they are Steve/Bucky heavy so I think this fits for !
StuckyFanworks cuz that was my main fandom for awhile there ngl and I think fanworks of a prolific fandom tends to put out more things in general) but there are a lot of examples of what can done differently in there. we've got folks like
suzukiblu queen of gender hexary
amazing OW fic don’t, don’t, don’t let’s start (I’ve got a weak heart) that is pretty much the most on point explanation of what I'm trying to talking about seriously or
what a group situation could pan out with or
a couple different permations of female alphas including the Bucky/Darcy(/Steve-ish, a little bit you'd really have to read it trust me) fic basically wrote the book on how to write a compelling and sexy rut as far as I'm concerned and definitely defined female alphas as far as i and everyone i've ever spoken to goes
oh don't you dare look back(seriously i have two things to say to you: truffles&bubble baths). then theres generally sane stories like
honey drip; sweet and easy in hockey rpf where heat is something fun or
take my hand (and my whole life too) in CATW Steve/Bucky thats literally long, plotty get-together fic that take into account how the relationships would work in a universe with ABΩ factors straight up or one taking into account the biological factor like the
amazing The Martian one where Mark literally experiences every dynamic there is because he is the only human on the planet and like the absolutely epic Steve/Bucky story
Ties That Bind that dealt with the role of religion in world like this and reproductive issues and relationships a few others like
coming home to you in the Free! fandom where the alpha has to
literally the omega in combat to mate. and if the toxic heterosexual elements are going to be there, and there's good reason to keep them, like i said, its a safe place to look at things without it getting on us, there then why not explore it in a way that creates is critically analytical like the
Justified series Grace in Thine Eyes does or (if you’ll allow a self pimp) my story !
MagnificentSeven Voluntary Custody which was an excuse for me to play around with what’s missing in not just normalizing but sexualizing consent and in really identifying the difference between feminism that is about an underclass with access to resources vs ann underclass with access to choice and also just a chance to glory in some hedonistic traits typically attributed to the feminine without any shaming from a safe distance. Basically, ABΩ those last two are still in the binary but are examples of how you can be generally more creative in what this sort of relationship could mean for two(or more, i dont know your life) people for good or for ill and how it could look?
instead, most of whats out there isn't what i just recced you. it isn't other weird shit either. authors in ABΩ keep beating the same repetition of the fucking heterosexual coded toxic ugliness over and over when theres something completely new to explore. and that makes me fucking sad because ABΩ should be a chance to challenge and explore - not just map the dregs of the worst of real life onto a new model. this is a genuine new frontier to experiment with how relationship dynamics could function from the safety of word documents so lets make a new model yall!
lets make hundreds of them! because for those of you who don't know? ABΩ has spread to actual published romance novels. go check out the Top 20 Amazon M/M romances. at least five are !
Omegaverse, probably more been awhile since i checked. it just goes to show that the things we build here in this idea laboratory called fandom are contagious. we have a real chance to make and perpetuate concepts that are nurturing and functional instead of dysfunctional and toxic. i plan to anyway.
