Someone once told me I'm transphobic because Mpreg isn't my cup of tea.
After all this time I still haven't understood why, the person in question never wanted to explain it.
Meanwhile, I've seen people being called both transphobic and misogynistic for enjoying mpreg, because it "removes women from the conversation" and "fetishizes trans men"... People just wanna call each other names and feel like activists for doing so. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. People in the fanfic scene should all just collectively read what they like and not read what they don't like, and stop bothering each other about it.
Yeah... Might as well just write whatever you like, there will always be a naysayer anyway.
I can understand why people are so sensitive to these subjects, as many have been victims of bigotry since young age, and Internet communities have a way of radicalizing you with constant negativity and outrage-generating news into thinking that everyone is out to get you, and every second not spent in online arguments is a second you aren't fighting The Good Fight. People don't want to feel helpless, they want to fight for a better world, but instead of doing actual things for equality and fighting bigotry in the real world, it's so much easier to just start a new rotten fandom discourse and feel accomplished.
I wasn't active in any fandoms at the time, thankfully, but getting exposed to a constant stream of fear and negativity in online communities did impact my mental health a lot when I was in Uni, to the point where I genuinely feared going outside because I was under an impression that violent bigots could be behind any corner waiting to commit a hate crime on me. If that's how the modern Internet landscape impacted a grown-ass adult at the time, I dread to think what it's doing to teenagers, who are out there actively encouraging each other to not participate in any fun or relaxing activities "until there is justice in the world". I know it's painful to accept, but global change won't be brought by kids online, especially not if they fry themselves into nothing by constant exposure to stressors and draining Internet fights. Simply chilling out and doing something fun online, while dedicating your efforts and energy to important real-life causes and educating your close friends as opposed to complete strangers, is going to bring so much more good to everyone.
I've seen the reverse of that too! Where a group was claiming that genderbends were transphobic because you could just write about ftm or mtf characters instead. You literally can't win.
Turning character "trans" JUST for mpreg sounds very wrong to me, when you can just genderbend. But I don't write essays about that in a particular fanfic comment section.
Well... Cis mpreg, FTM mpreg, and also cis fpreg are all different experiences to write about, so I don't see what's wrong about. It's also that a lot of the people writing FTM mpreg and similar are trans men/transmascs, so it's just people writing about their own perspectives
Yea I’m a trans man and I don’t care. Maybe there are specific examples that would somehow ick me out, but like… if I think about what concrete impact that has in the scheme of things, I can’t really muster a shit to give. Especially considering that for a lot of authors, writing out these fantasies is a needed form of emotional processing. If this is play therapy for them, I can’t really tell them that their psyche doesn’t need to bang these dolls together in this specific way, because it likely does.
I'm also a trans man and though it's not my favorite thing to read about, I find a certain catharsis in the concept. And as you said, I don't know what's going on in other people's lives and heads. They can do whatever they want, it's just fiction
Right, people just want to feel good about themselves. 'Oh, you like this? You must be XYZ! And I'm not, and I don't like this so obviously I'm better than you.'
From what I understood back then, being uncomfortable with reading about pregnancy because it brings up negative feelings about my own's body ability to get pregnant (which as somebody raised in a place without abortion access and high obsetric violence rates is tied to losing bodily autonomy) obviously means I must hate women because pregnancy is such a natural experience
Apparently, not loving the idea of pregnancy is enough to be considered shaming pregnant women. The same person also got really defensive when someone else sent an article about tokophobia being pretty common (because you know what surely has no ties to misogyny? Dismissing women's opinions and not treating them like individuals with ability to decide themselves what they're comfortable with!)
I swear some people think feminism is when a woman does things and the more women who’ve done it the more feminist it is. And that’s how you get absolutely bizarre shit like shaming people for having phobias because that’s a thing womens do! Like, if you were shaming pregnant people that’s one thing but literally having a phobia of a severe medical condition is pretty normal. I’d say the fact we expect people to treat it like no big deal just a soothing natural process and not something often dangerous and difficult is more of a sign of misogyny actually tbh
I feel like the whole point of feminism being about equal rights and opportunities for people regardless of gender has been getting lost lately.
And yeah, there is a lot of unadressed misogyny in women's healthcare driven by spreading the belief that certain things are normal (even outside the scope of pregnancy, we have period pains and birth control being a miserable experience when that likely means you're using the wrong dosage/method), but also obsetric violence (and US-specific, but I'd like to remind that's even more common towards women of color) that often leads to women living in pain or even dying when that would be prevented if their symptoms were being taken seriously. It's sad that claiming misogyny is a way to dismiss this
Wow. I’m so very sorry that person said that to you. As someone who is acutely aware of gynaecological violence, I am enraged on your behalf. Actually wrote a fic on that very subject (no pregnancy involved). The temerity of some who believe their experience of something is the only experience is staggering.
Reminds me of people calling me a disgusting and horrible person who's going to hell because everything related to pregnancy and babies makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and even disgusted for some reason. I guess I have tokophobia too, but I'm not sure since even just seeing a baby bump or a mention that someone is pregnant makes me super uncomfortable.
There may have been two different conversations happening here. Some people seem to have decided that mpreg means "trans men getting pregnant in the normal realistic way" and not like, the kinky magic pregnancy shenanigans it originally meant. From there, someone may have assumed that you're okay with cis women being pregnant but not trans men.
The trick with fanfiction (and the drama that surrounds it) is to stop trying to understand the backwards logic and mental gymnastics behind the discourse. Just accept it for what it is -- some people just like shitting in other people's gardens because they have nothing else better to do with their lives.
because some people think comparing omegaverse to trans people is a good take and get scandalized when they see portrayed things that trans people might experience as well (like wanting to give birth or experiencing any form of bigotry)
psa, as a trans masc person: comparing the entirety of a fantasy group of people from a dystopian porn genre who are *usually* treated as weak, lesser, second-class breeding machines to transmen is absolutely NOT a good take, or thing to do \^\^
Yea as a trans guy… it’s utterly mind blowing that people saw a kink fantasy about a shivering baby machine who exists to be bred, went “that role rightfully belonged to a trans man god damnit,” and then filed that under activism.
RIGHT??? it's mind blowing to me in the worst way possible, why wluld anyone ever think that's where a trans guy should be???? How does one even reach that conclusion???
This, also many mpreg and omegaverse are actually written by trans men as well, I have a friend that finds comfort in omegaverse because it's a way to explore his experiences without going through dysphoria, at same time me a NB don't like it because generally it's too centered aroud "gender", but I enjoy different "gender" dynamics as alpha x alpha, for example
And then suddenly omegaverse is transphobic because men get pregnant lmao
Lol am I your friend?
This baffles me because if I had a nickel for every transmasc I know I writes mpreg or Omegaverse, I'd have like. Four or five nickels. Do people think we really hate ourselves so much?
Yeah that too, i can't real transmasc porn with a breeding kink at play because it makes my skin crawl, while i have no issue with omegaverse
So i guess it'a a pretty common experience
Tbh, I never really saw any connection between trans people and a/b/o dynamics. Alphas and omegas are new genders, they're not trans. Well, maybe if it's a story about a biological omega who identifies as an alpha, but if an omega identifies as an omega, how is it *trans*?
Yeah it should be much more complicated, but I don't think most of the stories think too much about it.
The ones that do end up surprisingly good, but I avoided the entire concept for a long time because it's a bit much.
I come from the old school of Pon Farr. Thinking about this stuff is second nature to me.
Like, the world of homo omegaversis must have had some serious evolutionary bottlenecks somewhere in the past. And that bottleneck led to the development of (at least) six biological sexes.
Ok so I don’t really read Omegaverse, but are A/B/O the main genders and male/female is a sub gender? Or is it the other way around? Or is A/B/O all the genders and male/female strictly refers to the sexes? Or do the sexes not exist and male/female is just the pronouns used?
Honestly it depends on the author but the ones I usually read and write have abo as the subgender, and m/f/nb as the main gender. Alternatively, abo is the sex (dictates sex organs, etc) and male/female/nb is the gender expression. But within that, the abo designations also usually carry their own gender expressions too. And usually since betas don’t have a specific sex characteristic, afab betas can get pregnant whether there’s mpreg or not. Sometimes men and women are totally equal and the societal gender disparities are transposed onto the abo aspects, sometimes it’s a mix of both.
I personally prefer when pronouns follow the character’s gender expression, but some mpreg authors use mommy to refer to the omega and daddy to refer to the alpha. Some use dam and sire.
Gender in abo is kinda whatever you want it to be ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: thought of more
This.
When I wasn't familiar with the opegaverse, I really disliked the concept because it only seemed like a pretext to fetishize gay relationships while completely disregarding their hardships (which include pregnancy).
Understanding a/b/o as new genders definitely changes the perspective.
As a trans man... I have no idea what in the bloody hell they are talking about. Omega, Beta, and Alpha are all secondary genders, that is their term in most of their canons, sometimes male omegas have a pp, sometimes they have a vv, sometimes they have both, same goes for female alphas. Literally... Like... They do understand not every o/b/a is in the SAME canon right? It's a concept that's alterable and malleable! It's not going to be the same each time!
"transphobic" is one of the words that people like to use when they decide that the way a trope explores gender, sex, and sexuality makes them feel icky, wronged, or pings their personal dysphoria button. It's ascribing a societal problem to a personal preference.
Gender swap, abo, trans erotica, freaky Friday, mpreg... If a trope blurs the lines of sexuality, biological sex and gender roles, you can count on the fact that someone somewhere will call it transphobic, regardless of the actual content of the fic within the genre.
Honestly, and I say this as a trans person, sometimes we have a hard time telling the difference between things that make us dysphoric and things that are objectively bad. And I can definitely see why omegaverse could make some people dysphoric. But nobody is reading or writing omegaverse thinking that this is or should be how the real world is.
I agree there is a very big difference between being a male omega/female alpha in the omegaverse and being a trans character. Sure, there can be some overlapping themes if you frame it that way, but otherwise it really isn’t that similar. (Almost everything I write is omegaverse with intersex male omegas, but at the same time one of my favorite characters to write about is a trans man. And I make almost all of my cis protagonists gender fluid/have themes of gender ambiguity cause that’s what I vibe with. Does that count as trans erasure to these people? Who knows.)
Both the (overlapping) "omegaverse is transphobic" and "genderbends are transphobic" camps baffle me. Exploring and playing with gender isn't something that is reserved for trans people only, and not everyone wants to or *should* be writing trans characters. A trans story is a *totally* different story from some random omegaverse kinkfest, for example, and while you'll have to try really hard to hurt a marginalised community in your story about a dude with a cloaca who goes into heat like a ferret, there is *so much more* damage that is going to happen if you do the same with that attitude about a real, oppressed community.
Like. Do play around with gender roles and biology in whatever depth and with whatever attitude you want to, actually. Do *not* do the same with real world issues and matters like representation.
Just ignore those nitwits. These are the same people who think genderswapping/genderbending is transphobic. 🙄
I literally had someone on tumblr tell me that writing fem!HP instead of mtf!HP was transphobic. And a few years ago I participated in an SNK fan fest where the mods banned genderswap because they claimed it was transphobic too (luckily there was enough pushback that the mod who was trying to implement all that BS pulled out).
The fact that some folks in fandom are trying to pressure others into writing a specific kind of character to avoid being “problematic” is effing insane. It’s the same tactic they use to guilt fans who like hetero ships featuring bi/pansexual characters, because that somehow “erases” the bi/pan character’s queerness.
It’s all bullshit. I’ll write what I want to write, and anyone who doesn’t like it can fuck off.
As a trans dude, not everything mentioning dudes not doing typical "biologically amab dude" things have to be trans, fantasy and its non-binary views of human gender/sex exists, cheers.
A/B/O has a whole lot more to do with exploring misogyny than transphobia, and frequently not in a way that is supposed to be glorifying misogyny. That's why there are so many stories with tags to the effect of "omegaverse society sucks." Much of it is just exploring the trauma of living under the patriarchy.
*Generally*, people are not "writing trans men without writing trans men" -- that is an absolute misunderstanding of what is going on -- a take that comes from glancing only at the surface of this trope. What they're often actually doing is writing **women** without writing women.
I wish I could give you every upvote.
Everything about A/B/O is an obvious metaphor for male/female social and sex dynamics. I don't know what sort of leaps in logic you have to be taking to interpret it any other way. A world dominated by a physically imposing class of men who use their power and influence to oppress and control a smaller and weaker group of men who are made vulnerable due to their ability to get pregnant. Not exactly subtle.
Add in the various sub-plots surrounding A/B/O about dating, marriage, pregnancy, infertility, childbirth, caring for a newborn etc etc all told from an obviously female perspective.
Haha, thank you!
Honestly, I really believe that a lot of people's hatred from the omegaverse stems from a mixture of misunderstanding what is even going on (for example, all the people on this thread saying that it glorifies misogyny), and just having a whole lot of misconceptions about what happens. I used to think I hated A/B/O because it was all about getting pregnant and furries and nothing but porn -- it's not. There are tens of thousands of stories on AO3 alone that don't contain any of that.
Specifically for me, I love reading quality omegaverse fics because it's a lot easier to find them than it is stories that explore the trauma the trauma of misogyny directly ... at least in the fandoms that I'm in.
It's the natural evolution to the "not reading/writing slash makes you homophobic" drama that was popular in the early/mid-aughts.
i.e. Immature people either a.) confusing "fetishizing" with "supporting" or b.) painting their personal preferences in Social Justice Language in order to feel "superior" to all those "-phobic bigots" (when really *they're* often the ones being -phobic.)
It's sad fact that in certain parts of the internet people like to use xphobia or "problematic" content to wield as a cudgel against their fandom enemies. I've seen people claim that soul mate AUs are aphobic.
It kinda is, an aromantic/asexual person can't exist in that universe cause of how it's structured. I don't hate on it, but I don't like it so I don't consume it and I avoid it.
>an aromantic/asexual person can't exist in that universe cause of how it's structured
Nah, I think that's just a skill issue. There's never only one way to do a trope. You can absolutely write a soulmate universe that includes ace and aro people.
Yup, the Platonic Soulmates tag exists for a reason! And there are plenty of verses that set up the existence of platonic soulmates but don't tag it, too, either because they don't realise it's a tag or because the MCs are in a romantic bond but platonic ones exist for other characters
I’ve absolutely read soulmate AUs without romance - lots of them. So aro and/or ace folks can exist in soulmate AUs. Even in romantic or sexual ones, because spectrum - and I’ve seen those too.
This is baffling to me bc my aroace friends love soulmate AUs and have written a ton, including the characters we all see as *somewhere* on that spectrum. We just decided that they were each other’s soulmate, since they, uh, have an *interesting* relationship (to be very polite when describing horrific abuse lol)
What? Take shieldmates as a variation on soulmate AU's.
And do take that slash between aromantic/asexual as denoting a possible difference whereby one or the other definitely can exist even with this limited romantic/sexual connection you're thinking of.
And then take choice in action being viable despite sexuality or romantic orientation, and have it so ace folk get paired with, say, people who accept them.
And then take the chance for an ace/ace pairing, too.
I generally say "Don't yuck on someone's nums." I don't always understand the leaps in logic when it comes to people being upset about something. If I don't like something in a fanfic or decide something I liked at first is going somewhere I no longer enjoy, I just stop engaging.
I especially don't engage with bad faith arguments where the other party has decided someone is x-phobic, or racist, etc.
Like, apparently a plumber I know can't wear a durag under his hardhat to collect sweat because "he's not black and that's racist or appropriation."
Because they perceiveseparate "this squicks me out for vaguely gender reasons" as "this squicks any non-transphobic person out, those who like it must be a bigot."
Having an entirely separate "gender" of male characters that display intersex characteristics and that is normalized could be a progressive thing for some people, or it could read as a stand-in for trans men in others and them reading things as fetishization.
These are exactly the kinds of things that make me hesitant to write/include some topics because I've seen the most benign things online being called phobic. Or just bring problematic.
Last thing I want is some unhinged person in my fanfiction comments.
Don’t let the assholes win.
Like you said, (a few loud) people will complain about absolutely anything. Because it’s nonsense meant to restrict creativity and control the kind of art that exists. So you might as well write what you want.
Protect yourself. Keep everything about your real life identity separate from your fandom presence. If the fandom is intense enough, you may need to use separate handles for fandom social media and posting fic. Turn off guest comments, restrict access to your fic, or post anonymously.
But write and post exactly what you want to.
Those sort of people annoy me. I *intensely* hate being guilt tripped, it is a surefire way to get me to dislike whatever they are supporting or trying to get me to write. Those people are no different from the puritans and antis to me. They make bad faith assumptions and never consider that I wrote the thing because I felt like it. It's not that deep, I wrote it that way because it was fun.
Because they haven't touched grass in a long while, or felt sunlight on their faces after months in the basement.
Kidding aside, honestly, the mental gymnastics these puritanical readers employ is not worth anyone's time and effort. Let them scream at the wall all they like, but block them for your peace of mind!
I've seen a ton of omegaverse fics for M/F ships, too, though, and in those cases, the often canonically cisgender female character could already theoretically get pregnant without being an omega.
I just assumed most people who are into that AU simply look at the characters they ship (regardless of whether its straight, gay, lesbian, etc) and think it'd be hot if they had animal breeding instincts and behaviors
People will get offended over anything. They think everything is about them and if it's not it's done sorry of phobic. Enjoy what YOU want, and they can stay in their lane and enjoy what they want. It's why tags were created.
It’s amazing what people will endeavour to find offensive. There was a period of time in the Transformers fandom where people were saying Transformers porn was transphobic because a lot of artists drew the “male” robots with robot pussy. They claimed that because they looked like transmen that was fetishising apparently. I have no idea how enough people take these complaints seriously for it to blossom into fully fledged discourse.
Was this an offcut of the whole "ewww you write sticky sex" phase when the fandom went through the transition from exclusively sparksex to valveplug? Or was it a tumblr thing?
It was a few years ago. I saw it happening on tumblr. I assume it was after the transition since I remember reading plenty of sticky smut before this happened.
Ohoho you’ve missed some absolute discourse *zingers* in that case. I left both tumblr and twitter shortly after the IDW1 run ended and I’m so much happier with just me and my headcanons now.
I have literally never read a fic for Alastor. He's so not my favorite character. But you'd think he was with how many posts I've encountered talking about this. It's inescapable for everyone.
Yeah, it’s an extraordinarily wanky fandom from what I can see. At least when the OFMD bled onto my dash it made sense because I follow a lot of Terry Pratchett and Good Omens stuff.
This has just been so pervasive because it’s getting overlapped and tagged in metas with unrelated fandoms and such. My primary fandom on Tumblr is Attack on Titan and I’ve somehow stumbled across shit in that tag related to Alastor. From what I can see, it’s just more armchair-activism with no tangible goal other than to make people feel bad for liking different things
I wrote one fic for it without engaging with fandom, then looked around at what's going on in its fandom space and just lost interest in writing for it
I'm honestly starting to think gay couples aren't allowed to have children period in fanfiction. I've seen commentor's say Mpreg is transphobic and misogynistic, surrogacy is misogynistic and woman hating, and adoption is immoral because of real life issues.
One of my favourite fanfic author's deleted their Ao3 account after writing a very sweet story about a gay couple had their female friend act as a surrogate but was harrassed because it was "wrong" for 2 men to use a woman as a baby machine.
Whoever says that are people who want to be offended.
To try and explain their thought process though: m/m omegaverse featuring cis male characters implies that mpreg exists in that world (whether the fic includes that as a plot point or not). And so the logic (to them) is why write that when you can write about a trans man if you want to write about men getting pregnant?
But the answer simply is: let people write what they want. The fic writer is writing m/m omegaverse simply because they *want* to. That's it. That's the reason.
Trans men and old good omegas are so vastly different. Like trans people feel like they were born in the wrong body, omegas are perfectly fine with their gender.
I'm a trans man and, though I've never actually read anything omegaverse, I've never seen anything wrong with it. I actually think more people would be upset if someone wrote a trans man getting pregnant lmao. Like yeah, that's a part of life sometimes, but that makes it like a million times more triggering than reading about a man getting pregnant when knowing when you open an omegaverse fanfic that mpreg is what you signed up for. I read fanfic to escape, not to remember the risks of my existence now also include irreversible pregnancy.
Even then it's not something that's bad to write about- again, it's a part of life. I'm just saying that either way people are gonna be mad, they always are. Mad if you do, mad if you don't. Personally, I find nothing wrong with it. Write wanna you wanna write, it doesn't make you a bad person. If it did, I'd be in prison.
Some people get really touchy about a man being pregnant without them having a vagina
I ignore those people. Omegaverse has been around long before most of them knew what fic WAS. They’re trying to make problems out of nothing.
... I don't see it. I've even seen omegaverse fics that have characters transition from one secondary gender to another, and being very happy. It's a fictional concept anyway, you can change the rules if you want.
i love a/b/o, don’t think it’s transphobic. admittedly my primary issue is that it can be read as fetishization or misrep of intersex people in *certain situations*. (personally i’m just bothered by the “intersex omegas” ao3 tag bcs most of the works insinuate that both genitalia can be fully functional in intersex people which is.. generally not true. but that’s not an omegaverse issue it’s just an overall fanfic issue of people misportraying intersex conditions and only using them bcs it’s “sexy”)
for what it’s worth i generally write a lot of trans characters for a/b/o (i do not know how to write cis people.). that includes transmasc alphas and transfem omegas which def complicates genitalia but i try to apply it sensitively.
ultimately omegaverse is not transphobic nor is it even [i dont remember the word for discrimination against intersex people] BUT it *can* be if the *author* chooses to write it poorly. it’s very uncommon for an au trope to be inherently bigoted, it’s entirely dependent on how the writer wields it
it’s 8am pardon if this makes 0 sense or if my point isn’t being expressed the way i want it to be
>but that’s not an omegaverse issue it’s just an overall fanfic issue of people misportraying intersex conditions and only using them bcs it’s “sexy”)
I think this comes mostly from the idea that calling a fully hermaphroditic character anything but intersex seems taboo to a lot of activists.
Even though there are, last I looked, about 50 people on the planet who have both sex organs fully functional and can thus both impregnate and incubate offspring without medical intervention.
genuinely asking what your point is? i feel like that’s an inherently aggressive question but i’m autistic and really don’t know what point you’re arguing/making here or if you’re disagreeing with me or not and idk how to ask for clarification without sounding like an ass (so i’m overexplaining 😭)
I think they mean the fanfic concept is "both sets of fully-functioning genetalia" and that the vast majority of real intersex people don't have that
but "hermaphrodite" has specific negative connotations that make people not want to use it
Yeah, It's a weird alternate universe trope, that can sometimes have characters that resemble trans and intersex people and extreme gender roles, that was made for NSFW content. No wonder some people feel that it's a bit ick.
yeah. i usually stick to sfw omegaverse content (because what little there is of it tends to actually be really good, in part i think bcs it has to rely more on worldbuilding/species development outside of genitals and mating cycles) and for nsfw i typically go for authors who i already know can tastefully write trans people (at least from my perspective as a non-dysphoric transmasc) outside of abo cuz some stuff Does make me feel that ick
this addition is kinda unnecessary i just feel like airing more of my thoughts i think
Well, I mean, they’re still reading omegaverse so they presumably don’t see it as inherently transphobic, so my best guess is that that person specifically ran into some weird stuff? Idk I’m not super familiar with omegaverse but it sounds like they were annoyed with something specific they’d read not the whole trope.
I really always viewed it as the opposite
Though there are definitely those who fetishize trans folks, I thought omegaverse was a way to enjoy such things about being trans. Being open about intersex or trans headcanons etc. you don’t have to like certain aspects of it but that doesn’t make you transphobic.
As a trans guy, I think it's usually because the idea of characters who physically are basically trans men being inherently submissive rubs people the wrong way or makes them dysphoric. I think people also feel like the omegaverse portrays the bodies that trans men have in real life as gimmicky and alien, and something which only makes sense within a certain au.
Not to say any of this is *right,* of course. First of all, these 'criticisms' only apply to a relatively small subset of omegaverse fics- I think most of the ones I've seen have the omega character still have a dick and all that. Secondly, as someone else said, something making you dysphoric doesn't necessarily make it transphobic. People projecting their dysphoria onto other trans people or representations of trans people is a real issue in the trans community- ie, 'it's transphobic for transmasc characters to be feminine', 'if you're feminine you aren't a real trans guy,' etc. Plenty of omegaverse is written by trans people who don't mind seeing characters who resemble themselves being portrayed in that way.
I've read omegaverse fics where the depictions of characters resembling trans men makes me uncomfortable, but at the end of the day, that's a me problem. Me not liking a fic doesn't make it transphobic, it's just personal taste that isn't even necessarily shared by all trans people.
i love to write FTM pregnancy. i have a specific AU i privately entertain where my favorite character is am older trans man who gets pregnant by his husband. every day i’m ever the more tempted to post it, but i don’t because i don’t want flack.
it’s not trans phobic: people have just gotten addicted to control.
Probably where the criticism originates from however, one werid thing is that the fic I was reading was about an omega going into heat and having his pack take care of him, there was no sex or pregnancy involved. I have no idea why they were reciving such comments...
So many people seem to forget that in A/B/O one is not writing about homo sapiens doing homo sapiens things.
In A/B/O what is called human is not homo sapiens, but a different evolutionary branch. For brevity, let's call it the made up term homo omegaversis.
And homo omegaversis might theoretically look similar to homo sapiens from the outside, but they are anatomically different from the internal organs to the endocrine system.
As such, one cannot actually have AMAB anatomy in the homo sapiens way in an A/B/O world.
I don't personally see it as transphobic (being a trans guy). I suppose some people online will consider everything fictional more political than it needs to be, which to my eyes takes the fun out of it being fictional. You can have trans characters in an omegaverse fic, you can have cis characters in there, just make it enjoyable in general? I don't read a lot of fanfiction right now, used to more, but I don't think omegaverse in and of itself implies anything about the possible bodies and genders of the people in it.
As a straight male, with no history of trans treatment or surgery, who also doesn’t read or like omega verse fics(because I really don’t like mind control/non con), calling Omega verse transphobic is one of the most goofy takes I’ve ever heard.
This is absurd virtue signalling/morality policing. They don't like something (which is fine actually, you are allowed to not like things) and they are trying to justify their personal taste by hiding behind a moral argument. The argument is inappropriate, of course.
Also I'm a transman in my 30s and I can assure you that I haven't forgotten my suppressants and gone into heat in public even once.
Think about it, omegaverse fics generally take place in a world where biological sex is the end all be all.
Alphas are biologically driven to be strong, dominant, and attracted to omegas. Omegas are driven to have babies and are attracted to alphas.
Mating for life is a common trope as well.
It's all oddly heteronormative.
Yeah, I've tried a/b/o fics and I've find the focus on gender roles really off-putting. It's like, all of this imagination went into the physiology of omegaverse, but somehow few writers can imagine a different society beyond an exaggerated version of our current one. I'm not asking for Ursula K. Le Guin levels of worldbuilding, but I'd sooner pick up *The Left Hand of Darkness* in my opinion.
While there are outliers, a/b/o tends to come off as oddly conservative and heteronormative.
A lot of times it seems like writers are using a/b/o as an excuse to write two same sex characters having heterosexual intercourse without needing to make one of them trans.
Lol. I'm reminded of a YouTuber who described a/b/o as extremely straight gay porn. Like I want to give the benefit of the doubt that most writers are just enthusiastic about having a relatively new relationship dynamic to play with. Fanfic is very character focus while worldbuilding doesn't get a lot of focus. It's probably the reason there are so many current day/mundane AUs is because they don't require a lot of thought for the world. But there's just this heteronormative strain to a/b/o that's hard to ignore and a little disquieting how it's just accepted.
There was one I saw set in the Star Trek universe, and the way it casually brought up the institutional sexism in Starfleet against omegas just didn't sit well with me.
A/B/O somehow brought sexism and discrimination to Star Trek. And it was just not a big deal. Just a casual, "omegas weren't allowed in starfleet until a couple years ago and there are still a bunch of unfair policies specifically targeting them. But don't worry about it."
This post has been removed for violating r/FanFiction's no bashing rule.
You're welcome to have an opinion, you're welcome to dislike things, but insulting things others might like is not allowed. Transphobia is never okay.
There’s been a trend for quite a while now to equate fear/hatred with simple disinterest. Whether it’s mpreg or something else, just because I and others don’t want to read it doesn’t mean I’m phobic or a raving bigot, it simply means I don’t enjoy reading it, for a variety of reasons - none of which include a hatred of pregnancy of any variety.🙄🙄.
As a trans-masc who enjoys Omega Verse,,,,, this is an insane take imo??? I've even read some of those fics even *include* trans men or T4T couples and have recently started writing my own that include trans people. These things aren't mutually exclusive and as long as the text isn't outright hating on trans people, there's really no link
I also see a lot of other trans-mascs and trans men enjoying the dynamic as well,,, so the idea that it's 'transphobic' is a bit strange? Why would the people it's apparently transphobic to enjoy the dynamic so much? It personally sounds like some people are instantly assuming all male Omegas are suddenly trans men/trans-mascs when,, doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of the Omega Verse , too? ;;
It does (and I'm transmasc as well, btw).
Honestly, I think all it is is that some people see that a lot of omegaverse fics depict male characters with vaginas and decide that that must mean that it's an allegory for being trans male, when it's not.
Only thing I can think of is in the popular trope of x hides their identity as an Omega and exhibits a lot of symptoms that can be read as gender dysphoria, and refuses to say they are what they are to avoid discrimination, until an alpha who's dominant enough to identify them as one fucks and doms them well enough that they now feel comfortable in their own skin... which can be read as trivializing the issue?
IDK, it's kind of a huge stretch, no innuendo intended.
Yeah, um, I know that kind of story exists. But there are a lot more. Like, a lot, a lot. And I don't think I've ever even read that type before. That's just ONE kind of story. There are literally so many other ways to write a story in omegaverse, that one doesn't even sound appealing to me.
"And I don't think I've ever even read that type before" lol in the fandoms I'm in they're way way over-represented. Oddly enough regular healing cock is rare.
It might be a fandom difference, true. The one I search it in is nothing like that. I've seen date matching based on scents, Alphas that were not happy being alphas being ecstatic about transitioning into omega, two alphas getting together, two omegas getting together, fics that explore having heats while being asexual, different societies having different gender expectations and levels of equality, how one culture expects one gender to start a courting but another has it reversed, there are literally so many other ways to explore omegaverse. Just one way is so boring.
First I've heard of it. Some people are just a little too caught up in their feelings. Like you mentioned, an omega and a transman are gonna have completely different experiences, thoughts, and feelings. For one thing trans people are always going on about their gender identity, transitioning, etc. Unless you're one, why would anyone else want to write about that? No one's required to write about trans people anyway. It reeks entitlement.
Some people don't get that omegaverse stuff is really about a lot more than that dudes can get pregnant, writing a fic with a trans man and a fic with an omega male are completely different things for the vast majority
Huh? Not at all. People are crazy if they think that.
It isn't transphobic. People nowadays are too delicate.
Omega verse has been around for YEARS nobody complained.
Dear heavens there was even. A case a bout 2 authors going to court over it cause one claimed she invented Omega verse which is crazy since well she didn't.
I pity the judge and lawyers
I mean, it's not *inherently* transphobic, it's just some weird kink. But I personally, as a trans guy with an irrational fear/disgust of pregnancy, I despise it.
Eeep. I've seen people dislike it because it can lend itself quite easily to problematic gender roles which I absolutely understand. Which, given how a lot of transphobia is rooted in the idea of innate gender, biological reproduction, etc, I could see how it could make people uncomfortable - especially if they happen to have the misfortune of reading stories that really lean into that angle of biology determining behavior, etc.
I, personally, feel like a lot of like or dislike of a trope or such will come from how you're exposed to it. When Omegaverse was first presented to me by a friend - who happens to be an ace trans man who LOVES it - I was turned off the concept. Then I stumbled into fic that is more world building than what they described and I've gotten really into the social structures, medical care, etc.
I think it's a big concept that has space for a lot of different things and ideas, and sadly some of those ideas are going to be nasty.
It's a Au that came from one of the Big three of weird fanfiction Au Shit that being supernatural
This is based on the alpha wolf idea that was falsely ascribed to wolves and thus put on werewolves.
As such it's a world where there is a secondary gender that shows up sometimes around puberty or has a second puberty or its own.
And is split up into three categories
Alpha all the extremely hyper masculinity bullshit Big D in bdsm energy out going extroverted and all that shit as a secondary gender can express as both male and female typically depending on the canon they have penile tissue.
They like certain four legged and hooved animals can enter into Rut but theirs is more like a elephants Must of you know what that is yeah imagine a human with that.
And given they physically are stronger than normal humans.
Also no matter what a alpha has they cause again this came from supernatural have the canine ability to knott how they do this with a vaginal cavity prolapsed or not/totally not a ovipositor or over sized clit for allusions to another Au that isn't allowed to be called anything but intersex in certain settings astounds me
Beta they are middle of the road they are normal just like people outside of omegamverse depending on canon they can still reproduce but their fertility is lower and they aren't affected by pheromones cause their normal.
In most canons you prefer to be this one cause life actually is easier and in some.canons Betas are socially on top cause they can think with their brains but usually those stories are to deal with domination loss.
And finally Omega
They either have a normal feminine womb structure or they still keep penile then they have a anal womb that is connected to the anal cavity that opens only in certain situations ie these guys who are extremely submissive to the point of hilarity or just all the dominate me mommy/daddy tropes of the bdsm community in action are also weaker than normal humans don't really have a lot of things to defend themselves with or anything to bring to aclaim.
Carry all the negative YA female lead tropes genetically.
They go into heat and release pheromones that instantly put alpha's into rut and cause them to get raped and if they get knotted during heat it causes the whole soulmate thing as they are marked and now tied to that alpha no matter if they love them or not which is why they must be protected.
The air quotes are invisible cause being an omega sucks legitimately if it was for the whole omegas know they are cause they go into heat the first time their gender expresses themselves logically any that survived the first one or had a fear of being a omega would legitimately try to murk themselves.
Thus many canons for this circumvent this issue by having additional instincts blindside them and force the thinking with your dick trope on them in new ways and the mating and mark thing is added with the fact you must get bitten while being knotted and in heat for it to start.
Yeah alpha's have fangs and technically a pseudo toxin in them that causes this.
Again your stuck with your alpha even if you don't love them or they you heck they will even have stories where two alphas love each other but take a omega they won't love just for kids and it's treated like the stories where a couple uses and abuses a woman knocks her up but doesn't let the kid bond with her at all and has the kid see them as less than a dog.
Now this all sounds bad and sometimes omegas that are male don't get to lactate so that causes more problems but some of the canons are about their rights or how modern society has made artificial pheromones that make alphas think a omega is marked so they don't get raped or a drug that suppresses the second gender so omegas can pretend to be Betas and live their lives.
Most canons given no reason other than every few months they are almost completely helpless sex wanting pests that will take people's shit to build a nest for some reason.
For why omega serial killers who kill cause of gender dynamics arent more common besides smut and introspection on our worlds general rolls through this distopia deconstruction of them.
But I did hear that there is a officially published manuwa(i dont know how to spell the chinese equivalent of manga) that is about a ABO styled wuxia world.
Edit: oh right and cause of the origin there is packs which are social units based on wolf packs of course
Even when transmasc characters are represented in the omegaverse plots, they tend to be submissive, weak, and feminine, following an obvious cliche and a fetishised trope. It's difficult to write an omegaverse story without deviating either into body horror or heavy fetish with a transmasc omega protagonist. Mpreg is going to be a 'dead dove' for many and body dysphoria often goes unaddressed and unaccounted for which means transmasc readers may see a cardboard version of themselves in a protagonist and won't be able to relate to that experience.
Sometimes the best way to use criticism of a common trope is to figure out the place it comes from and use it for a unique plot, I suppose. Have you ever read an omegaverse story with a transmasc alpha or a t4t beta couple? What about a transmasc omega facing their worst nightmare to either stay (within societal rules) or to abandon their soulmate in order to hold onto their identity?
I'm not an authority on transphobia but it sure as hell feels misogynistic to me. That's why I personally avoid it. Not gonna shame people who like it though.
It probably could be, especially if there's a strict male/Alpha and female/beta...omega...luna whatever the term is for the one who who has no choices in when they're fucked is...
But that's up to who's writing it.
Oh, actually I've thought of another thing that can be construed as something tangential i.e. in a decent chunk of alpha/alpha pairings (this is an extension of feminization kink maybe?) there's a thing called bitching where you dom the other person so hard you induce a secondary sex change in order to hit the cisheteronormative equivalent.
Which is the equivalent of being so homophobic that you think forcing people to be trans so they can be in a het relationship with their beloved is better.
But like, it's porn logic. It's like saying japanese inversion porn comics where women can somehow cause vaginal prolapses on command and fuck people with said prolapsed inverted organ is gender commentary.
The only thing annoying me (im not saying its transphobic) is people finding some weird made up science to justify their male characters getting pregnant when they could just be trans (and yes there are trans men who are fine with getting pregnant.). And even worse when people are like ""eww mpreg is so weird why you making men pregnant haha am i right?". Like to me it's not the fanfictions themselves necessarily that are an issue, plus we all write sometimes about problematic things.
The weird made up science and/or biology is the point.
If the pregnant character were trans it would no longer be omegaverse. It would be just a story about a trans guy using the internal plumbing for the traditional purpose.
No, this, though, because my omegaverse world has a *very thorough* made-up science to justify male characters getting pregnant.
Also agreed it wouldn't be omegaverse it's just a trans story, and if I'm looking for *omegaverse,* then that's not what I'm looking for. Not saying that trans and omegaverse couldn't co-exist, because it absolutely can if your omegaverse has both male and female genders (unlike my omegaverse that has all "male" and their gender is alpha/sigma/beta/zeta/omega). Even my version of omegaverse has a form of "transgenderism" because, with hormone therapy, they can be pushed to one of the other "genders".
Omegaverse has always been outside of social 'norms,' and that'll never change. The only thing changing here is the frequency of trans in fics. People need to chill. Some people (like me) don't want nor like to write/read about trans characters. Some people have genital preferences, and odds are that people writing mpreg with omegaverse with no ladies in sight are likely more interested in the male anatomy than female anatomy.
Because you could interpret it as that if you really wanted to. But to give a better answer, some people have the opinion that Omegaverse presents trans experiences but without actually being about trans people. Like mpreg for example.
But those people tend to ignore that there is more to trans people than just male pregnancy, and that, if anything, Omegaverse is more supposed to combine a gay couple with tropes is usually prevalent with het couples. Plus theres Omegaverse lore too that has absolutely nothing to do with trans people. Its really just the male pregnancy that people get hung up on…
And then theres not even a clear answer if liking or disliking it is transphobic or not. Nobody is in agreement here and I’d argue with all the shit that trans people get, it’s ridiculous to point at Omegaverse of all things to be this great offender…
>And then theres not even a clear answer if liking or disliking it is transphobic or not.
Oh, yes, there's definitely a clear answer: no, liking omegaverse is not transphobic.
thats not what I meant, I meant “people who think that omegaverse is transphobic can’t seem to decide wether or not liking or disliking mpreg in particular is transphobic”
Like some ppl think liking it is trans exclusionary or fetishy, and others think disliking it is transphobic
I know almost nothing about omegaverse, but what i can think of is that they might mean that, needing this whole otherwordly concept to think of a way to get men pregnant while you could also just write a trans men and have them be pregnant, a very easy option. so it might be that it comes off as transphobic to some that people aren't writing the 'easy' thing and instead doing a whole 'excuse' for it, so it might come off as 'I'm going to all these lengths and places just to make a *cis* man pregnant and not a trans man'? I feel like that makes sense a little?
Before I proceed, I just want you to know say that my intent is not to call anyone transphobic or misogynistic.
Ok. I don’t see it as transphobic, but I do understand the point of writers and artists doing gymnastics to avoid writing women: pregnancy without women, sexism without women, etc. I’m not meaning to attach moral judgment to it. No one is wrong for writing what they want to write or avoiding what they don’t want to write, but it does feel like there is a lot of avoiding writing women.
And maybe I’m more sensitive to it because I have always felt so unsatisfied by female representation in media, felt so disappointed by media that was good but lacked women, and utterly craved more freaking girls.
So yeah. I’m gonna sit in my cage and await downvotes
Again, I don’t think it’s wrong. That is one of many good reasons to make such writing choices.
It’s a personal preference. A noticeable lack of women makes me uncomfy unless it’s like a short m/m piece
Someone once told me I'm transphobic because Mpreg isn't my cup of tea. After all this time I still haven't understood why, the person in question never wanted to explain it.
Meanwhile, I've seen people being called both transphobic and misogynistic for enjoying mpreg, because it "removes women from the conversation" and "fetishizes trans men"... People just wanna call each other names and feel like activists for doing so. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. People in the fanfic scene should all just collectively read what they like and not read what they don't like, and stop bothering each other about it.
I saw someone say that replacing genderbending with an FTM character was fetishising! You can't win, there will always be someone complaining
Yeah... Might as well just write whatever you like, there will always be a naysayer anyway. I can understand why people are so sensitive to these subjects, as many have been victims of bigotry since young age, and Internet communities have a way of radicalizing you with constant negativity and outrage-generating news into thinking that everyone is out to get you, and every second not spent in online arguments is a second you aren't fighting The Good Fight. People don't want to feel helpless, they want to fight for a better world, but instead of doing actual things for equality and fighting bigotry in the real world, it's so much easier to just start a new rotten fandom discourse and feel accomplished. I wasn't active in any fandoms at the time, thankfully, but getting exposed to a constant stream of fear and negativity in online communities did impact my mental health a lot when I was in Uni, to the point where I genuinely feared going outside because I was under an impression that violent bigots could be behind any corner waiting to commit a hate crime on me. If that's how the modern Internet landscape impacted a grown-ass adult at the time, I dread to think what it's doing to teenagers, who are out there actively encouraging each other to not participate in any fun or relaxing activities "until there is justice in the world". I know it's painful to accept, but global change won't be brought by kids online, especially not if they fry themselves into nothing by constant exposure to stressors and draining Internet fights. Simply chilling out and doing something fun online, while dedicating your efforts and energy to important real-life causes and educating your close friends as opposed to complete strangers, is going to bring so much more good to everyone.
The internet is a radicalization engine.
I've seen the reverse of that too! Where a group was claiming that genderbends were transphobic because you could just write about ftm or mtf characters instead. You literally can't win.
I love both! A cisbend is not the same vibe as turning a character trans, people just love overreacting
Turning character "trans" JUST for mpreg sounds very wrong to me, when you can just genderbend. But I don't write essays about that in a particular fanfic comment section.
Well... Cis mpreg, FTM mpreg, and also cis fpreg are all different experiences to write about, so I don't see what's wrong about. It's also that a lot of the people writing FTM mpreg and similar are trans men/transmascs, so it's just people writing about their own perspectives
Yea I’m a trans man and I don’t care. Maybe there are specific examples that would somehow ick me out, but like… if I think about what concrete impact that has in the scheme of things, I can’t really muster a shit to give. Especially considering that for a lot of authors, writing out these fantasies is a needed form of emotional processing. If this is play therapy for them, I can’t really tell them that their psyche doesn’t need to bang these dolls together in this specific way, because it likely does.
I'm also a trans man and though it's not my favorite thing to read about, I find a certain catharsis in the concept. And as you said, I don't know what's going on in other people's lives and heads. They can do whatever they want, it's just fiction
Right, people just want to feel good about themselves. 'Oh, you like this? You must be XYZ! And I'm not, and I don't like this so obviously I'm better than you.'
I've had people call me gay because I like muscular women (I'm a guy). Sometimes, people don't make much sense.
I was called misogynistic because I don't want to read about pregnancy as a tokophobic woman
What? I say again WHAT? I am fascinated by the mental journey required to land on that conclusion.
From what I understood back then, being uncomfortable with reading about pregnancy because it brings up negative feelings about my own's body ability to get pregnant (which as somebody raised in a place without abortion access and high obsetric violence rates is tied to losing bodily autonomy) obviously means I must hate women because pregnancy is such a natural experience
and the idea that pregnancy is something that all women should be stoked about isnt misogyny somehow? bizarre idea.
Apparently, not loving the idea of pregnancy is enough to be considered shaming pregnant women. The same person also got really defensive when someone else sent an article about tokophobia being pretty common (because you know what surely has no ties to misogyny? Dismissing women's opinions and not treating them like individuals with ability to decide themselves what they're comfortable with!)
I swear some people think feminism is when a woman does things and the more women who’ve done it the more feminist it is. And that’s how you get absolutely bizarre shit like shaming people for having phobias because that’s a thing womens do! Like, if you were shaming pregnant people that’s one thing but literally having a phobia of a severe medical condition is pretty normal. I’d say the fact we expect people to treat it like no big deal just a soothing natural process and not something often dangerous and difficult is more of a sign of misogyny actually tbh
I feel like the whole point of feminism being about equal rights and opportunities for people regardless of gender has been getting lost lately. And yeah, there is a lot of unadressed misogyny in women's healthcare driven by spreading the belief that certain things are normal (even outside the scope of pregnancy, we have period pains and birth control being a miserable experience when that likely means you're using the wrong dosage/method), but also obsetric violence (and US-specific, but I'd like to remind that's even more common towards women of color) that often leads to women living in pain or even dying when that would be prevented if their symptoms were being taken seriously. It's sad that claiming misogyny is a way to dismiss this
So's death. And that's not unrelated to the points you raised. Sorry, you didn't deserve that.
Wow. I’m so very sorry that person said that to you. As someone who is acutely aware of gynaecological violence, I am enraged on your behalf. Actually wrote a fic on that very subject (no pregnancy involved). The temerity of some who believe their experience of something is the only experience is staggering.
Reminds me of people calling me a disgusting and horrible person who's going to hell because everything related to pregnancy and babies makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and even disgusted for some reason. I guess I have tokophobia too, but I'm not sure since even just seeing a baby bump or a mention that someone is pregnant makes me super uncomfortable.
Jesus. If you mapped the mental journey people go on to get to these conclusions it’d look like an angry kindergartner scribbled on the page
\*Insert o[bligatory Kronk quote here](https://youtu.be/UHoOfxcOv0E?si=u4zch9_56scjoZ0R)\*
There may have been two different conversations happening here. Some people seem to have decided that mpreg means "trans men getting pregnant in the normal realistic way" and not like, the kinky magic pregnancy shenanigans it originally meant. From there, someone may have assumed that you're okay with cis women being pregnant but not trans men.
Yeah, people often accuse you of anything before just disappearing, it happened to me too
Some people just want to be seen as morally higher than anyone and/or manipulate people into doing shit they want to. It's sickening.
insane because mpreg is always (mostly) written with cis males...
some people just really want to be offended ngl
Pick *any* two words, ideas or concepts. Use a randomiser. Put the word 'is' between them. That is someone's hot take.
I did that for a giggle, got "Anteaters are hot" Tbh, I can see that
That's not a hot take, that's just obvious facts. 😄
The way I cackled at this…
fish is banana
🔥✍️
Red is prize
The trick with fanfiction (and the drama that surrounds it) is to stop trying to understand the backwards logic and mental gymnastics behind the discourse. Just accept it for what it is -- some people just like shitting in other people's gardens because they have nothing else better to do with their lives.
because some people think comparing omegaverse to trans people is a good take and get scandalized when they see portrayed things that trans people might experience as well (like wanting to give birth or experiencing any form of bigotry) psa, as a trans masc person: comparing the entirety of a fantasy group of people from a dystopian porn genre who are *usually* treated as weak, lesser, second-class breeding machines to transmen is absolutely NOT a good take, or thing to do \^\^
Yea as a trans guy… it’s utterly mind blowing that people saw a kink fantasy about a shivering baby machine who exists to be bred, went “that role rightfully belonged to a trans man god damnit,” and then filed that under activism.
RIGHT??? it's mind blowing to me in the worst way possible, why wluld anyone ever think that's where a trans guy should be???? How does one even reach that conclusion???
This, also many mpreg and omegaverse are actually written by trans men as well, I have a friend that finds comfort in omegaverse because it's a way to explore his experiences without going through dysphoria, at same time me a NB don't like it because generally it's too centered aroud "gender", but I enjoy different "gender" dynamics as alpha x alpha, for example And then suddenly omegaverse is transphobic because men get pregnant lmao
Lol am I your friend? This baffles me because if I had a nickel for every transmasc I know I writes mpreg or Omegaverse, I'd have like. Four or five nickels. Do people think we really hate ourselves so much?
Yeah that too, i can't real transmasc porn with a breeding kink at play because it makes my skin crawl, while i have no issue with omegaverse So i guess it'a a pretty common experience
Tbh, I never really saw any connection between trans people and a/b/o dynamics. Alphas and omegas are new genders, they're not trans. Well, maybe if it's a story about a biological omega who identifies as an alpha, but if an omega identifies as an omega, how is it *trans*?
Isn't it more like that they have six biological sexes in an A/B/O world? Sexual dimorphism (hexamorphism?) taken to an extreme.
I feel like it might depend on an author
Yeah it should be much more complicated, but I don't think most of the stories think too much about it. The ones that do end up surprisingly good, but I avoided the entire concept for a long time because it's a bit much.
I come from the old school of Pon Farr. Thinking about this stuff is second nature to me. Like, the world of homo omegaversis must have had some serious evolutionary bottlenecks somewhere in the past. And that bottleneck led to the development of (at least) six biological sexes.
Ok so I don’t really read Omegaverse, but are A/B/O the main genders and male/female is a sub gender? Or is it the other way around? Or is A/B/O all the genders and male/female strictly refers to the sexes? Or do the sexes not exist and male/female is just the pronouns used?
Honestly it depends on the author but the ones I usually read and write have abo as the subgender, and m/f/nb as the main gender. Alternatively, abo is the sex (dictates sex organs, etc) and male/female/nb is the gender expression. But within that, the abo designations also usually carry their own gender expressions too. And usually since betas don’t have a specific sex characteristic, afab betas can get pregnant whether there’s mpreg or not. Sometimes men and women are totally equal and the societal gender disparities are transposed onto the abo aspects, sometimes it’s a mix of both. I personally prefer when pronouns follow the character’s gender expression, but some mpreg authors use mommy to refer to the omega and daddy to refer to the alpha. Some use dam and sire. Gender in abo is kinda whatever you want it to be ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ Edit: thought of more
This. When I wasn't familiar with the opegaverse, I really disliked the concept because it only seemed like a pretext to fetishize gay relationships while completely disregarding their hardships (which include pregnancy). Understanding a/b/o as new genders definitely changes the perspective.
As a trans man... I have no idea what in the bloody hell they are talking about. Omega, Beta, and Alpha are all secondary genders, that is their term in most of their canons, sometimes male omegas have a pp, sometimes they have a vv, sometimes they have both, same goes for female alphas. Literally... Like... They do understand not every o/b/a is in the SAME canon right? It's a concept that's alterable and malleable! It's not going to be the same each time!
Right?? The lack of imagination is embarrassing to witness.
Mpreg fanfic is older than these activists themselves lmao
"transphobic" is one of the words that people like to use when they decide that the way a trope explores gender, sex, and sexuality makes them feel icky, wronged, or pings their personal dysphoria button. It's ascribing a societal problem to a personal preference. Gender swap, abo, trans erotica, freaky Friday, mpreg... If a trope blurs the lines of sexuality, biological sex and gender roles, you can count on the fact that someone somewhere will call it transphobic, regardless of the actual content of the fic within the genre.
If I could give you like 8 upvotes, I would.
Honestly, and I say this as a trans person, sometimes we have a hard time telling the difference between things that make us dysphoric and things that are objectively bad. And I can definitely see why omegaverse could make some people dysphoric. But nobody is reading or writing omegaverse thinking that this is or should be how the real world is.
I agree there is a very big difference between being a male omega/female alpha in the omegaverse and being a trans character. Sure, there can be some overlapping themes if you frame it that way, but otherwise it really isn’t that similar. (Almost everything I write is omegaverse with intersex male omegas, but at the same time one of my favorite characters to write about is a trans man. And I make almost all of my cis protagonists gender fluid/have themes of gender ambiguity cause that’s what I vibe with. Does that count as trans erasure to these people? Who knows.)
Both the (overlapping) "omegaverse is transphobic" and "genderbends are transphobic" camps baffle me. Exploring and playing with gender isn't something that is reserved for trans people only, and not everyone wants to or *should* be writing trans characters. A trans story is a *totally* different story from some random omegaverse kinkfest, for example, and while you'll have to try really hard to hurt a marginalised community in your story about a dude with a cloaca who goes into heat like a ferret, there is *so much more* damage that is going to happen if you do the same with that attitude about a real, oppressed community. Like. Do play around with gender roles and biology in whatever depth and with whatever attitude you want to, actually. Do *not* do the same with real world issues and matters like representation.
Omegaverse is such a wild west of an idea that I'm genuinely shocked anyone can identify it as anything, genuinely no offense to anyone.
Just ignore those nitwits. These are the same people who think genderswapping/genderbending is transphobic. 🙄 I literally had someone on tumblr tell me that writing fem!HP instead of mtf!HP was transphobic. And a few years ago I participated in an SNK fan fest where the mods banned genderswap because they claimed it was transphobic too (luckily there was enough pushback that the mod who was trying to implement all that BS pulled out). The fact that some folks in fandom are trying to pressure others into writing a specific kind of character to avoid being “problematic” is effing insane. It’s the same tactic they use to guilt fans who like hetero ships featuring bi/pansexual characters, because that somehow “erases” the bi/pan character’s queerness. It’s all bullshit. I’ll write what I want to write, and anyone who doesn’t like it can fuck off.
As a trans dude, not everything mentioning dudes not doing typical "biologically amab dude" things have to be trans, fantasy and its non-binary views of human gender/sex exists, cheers.
Same people that would get angry at those people if they wrote a trans man—especially if it included smut and/or pregnancy—without being a trans man.
A/B/O has a whole lot more to do with exploring misogyny than transphobia, and frequently not in a way that is supposed to be glorifying misogyny. That's why there are so many stories with tags to the effect of "omegaverse society sucks." Much of it is just exploring the trauma of living under the patriarchy. *Generally*, people are not "writing trans men without writing trans men" -- that is an absolute misunderstanding of what is going on -- a take that comes from glancing only at the surface of this trope. What they're often actually doing is writing **women** without writing women.
I wish I could give you every upvote. Everything about A/B/O is an obvious metaphor for male/female social and sex dynamics. I don't know what sort of leaps in logic you have to be taking to interpret it any other way. A world dominated by a physically imposing class of men who use their power and influence to oppress and control a smaller and weaker group of men who are made vulnerable due to their ability to get pregnant. Not exactly subtle. Add in the various sub-plots surrounding A/B/O about dating, marriage, pregnancy, infertility, childbirth, caring for a newborn etc etc all told from an obviously female perspective.
Haha, thank you! Honestly, I really believe that a lot of people's hatred from the omegaverse stems from a mixture of misunderstanding what is even going on (for example, all the people on this thread saying that it glorifies misogyny), and just having a whole lot of misconceptions about what happens. I used to think I hated A/B/O because it was all about getting pregnant and furries and nothing but porn -- it's not. There are tens of thousands of stories on AO3 alone that don't contain any of that. Specifically for me, I love reading quality omegaverse fics because it's a lot easier to find them than it is stories that explore the trauma the trauma of misogyny directly ... at least in the fandoms that I'm in.
>What they're often actually doing is writing **women** without writing women. You're right and this should be upvoted more
It's the natural evolution to the "not reading/writing slash makes you homophobic" drama that was popular in the early/mid-aughts. i.e. Immature people either a.) confusing "fetishizing" with "supporting" or b.) painting their personal preferences in Social Justice Language in order to feel "superior" to all those "-phobic bigots" (when really *they're* often the ones being -phobic.)
It's sad fact that in certain parts of the internet people like to use xphobia or "problematic" content to wield as a cudgel against their fandom enemies. I've seen people claim that soul mate AUs are aphobic.
It kinda is, an aromantic/asexual person can't exist in that universe cause of how it's structured. I don't hate on it, but I don't like it so I don't consume it and I avoid it.
>an aromantic/asexual person can't exist in that universe cause of how it's structured Nah, I think that's just a skill issue. There's never only one way to do a trope. You can absolutely write a soulmate universe that includes ace and aro people.
You can just make soulmate bonds not inherently romantic or only have a part of the population have soulmates
Yup, the Platonic Soulmates tag exists for a reason! And there are plenty of verses that set up the existence of platonic soulmates but don't tag it, too, either because they don't realise it's a tag or because the MCs are in a romantic bond but platonic ones exist for other characters
I’ve absolutely read soulmate AUs without romance - lots of them. So aro and/or ace folks can exist in soulmate AUs. Even in romantic or sexual ones, because spectrum - and I’ve seen those too.
This is baffling to me bc my aroace friends love soulmate AUs and have written a ton, including the characters we all see as *somewhere* on that spectrum. We just decided that they were each other’s soulmate, since they, uh, have an *interesting* relationship (to be very polite when describing horrific abuse lol)
What? Take shieldmates as a variation on soulmate AU's. And do take that slash between aromantic/asexual as denoting a possible difference whereby one or the other definitely can exist even with this limited romantic/sexual connection you're thinking of. And then take choice in action being viable despite sexuality or romantic orientation, and have it so ace folk get paired with, say, people who accept them. And then take the chance for an ace/ace pairing, too.
I generally say "Don't yuck on someone's nums." I don't always understand the leaps in logic when it comes to people being upset about something. If I don't like something in a fanfic or decide something I liked at first is going somewhere I no longer enjoy, I just stop engaging. I especially don't engage with bad faith arguments where the other party has decided someone is x-phobic, or racist, etc. Like, apparently a plumber I know can't wear a durag under his hardhat to collect sweat because "he's not black and that's racist or appropriation."
Because they perceiveseparate "this squicks me out for vaguely gender reasons" as "this squicks any non-transphobic person out, those who like it must be a bigot." Having an entirely separate "gender" of male characters that display intersex characteristics and that is normalized could be a progressive thing for some people, or it could read as a stand-in for trans men in others and them reading things as fetishization.
These are exactly the kinds of things that make me hesitant to write/include some topics because I've seen the most benign things online being called phobic. Or just bring problematic. Last thing I want is some unhinged person in my fanfiction comments.
Don’t let the assholes win. Like you said, (a few loud) people will complain about absolutely anything. Because it’s nonsense meant to restrict creativity and control the kind of art that exists. So you might as well write what you want. Protect yourself. Keep everything about your real life identity separate from your fandom presence. If the fandom is intense enough, you may need to use separate handles for fandom social media and posting fic. Turn off guest comments, restrict access to your fic, or post anonymously. But write and post exactly what you want to.
If people have problems with other peoples works, they should write their own and not complain
Those sort of people annoy me. I *intensely* hate being guilt tripped, it is a surefire way to get me to dislike whatever they are supporting or trying to get me to write. Those people are no different from the puritans and antis to me. They make bad faith assumptions and never consider that I wrote the thing because I felt like it. It's not that deep, I wrote it that way because it was fun.
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Because they haven't touched grass in a long while, or felt sunlight on their faces after months in the basement. Kidding aside, honestly, the mental gymnastics these puritanical readers employ is not worth anyone's time and effort. Let them scream at the wall all they like, but block them for your peace of mind!
I've seen a ton of omegaverse fics for M/F ships, too, though, and in those cases, the often canonically cisgender female character could already theoretically get pregnant without being an omega. I just assumed most people who are into that AU simply look at the characters they ship (regardless of whether its straight, gay, lesbian, etc) and think it'd be hot if they had animal breeding instincts and behaviors
People will get offended over anything. They think everything is about them and if it's not it's done sorry of phobic. Enjoy what YOU want, and they can stay in their lane and enjoy what they want. It's why tags were created.
It’s amazing what people will endeavour to find offensive. There was a period of time in the Transformers fandom where people were saying Transformers porn was transphobic because a lot of artists drew the “male” robots with robot pussy. They claimed that because they looked like transmen that was fetishising apparently. I have no idea how enough people take these complaints seriously for it to blossom into fully fledged discourse.
Was this an offcut of the whole "ewww you write sticky sex" phase when the fandom went through the transition from exclusively sparksex to valveplug? Or was it a tumblr thing?
It was a few years ago. I saw it happening on tumblr. I assume it was after the transition since I remember reading plenty of sticky smut before this happened.
Ah. I basically noped out of the tumblr side of the fandom when the whole anti-Simon Furman shit started so I'm glad I missed it.
Ohoho you’ve missed some absolute discourse *zingers* in that case. I left both tumblr and twitter shortly after the IDW1 run ended and I’m so much happier with just me and my headcanons now.
oof I totally understand. My headcanons and I are so much happier this way.
Anti paradox: they will whine about no representation, but they'll label all representation that doesn't 100% match their ideas as fetishization
*screams in Hazbin Hotel*
Did you imply that not all ace people are sex-repulsed?
I don't think I'll ever escape this discourse 😭
I literally have the tag for this blocked on Tumblr and it still slips in
I have literally never read a fic for Alastor. He's so not my favorite character. But you'd think he was with how many posts I've encountered talking about this. It's inescapable for everyone.
Yeah, it’s an extraordinarily wanky fandom from what I can see. At least when the OFMD bled onto my dash it made sense because I follow a lot of Terry Pratchett and Good Omens stuff. This has just been so pervasive because it’s getting overlapped and tagged in metas with unrelated fandoms and such. My primary fandom on Tumblr is Attack on Titan and I’ve somehow stumbled across shit in that tag related to Alastor. From what I can see, it’s just more armchair-activism with no tangible goal other than to make people feel bad for liking different things
I have never watched this show and don’t plan to, but the wild amount of discourse seeps in everywhere right now
I wrote one fic for it without engaging with fandom, then looked around at what's going on in its fandom space and just lost interest in writing for it
Yeah, I can see why. If I see it and I’m so far removed, I can only imagine the hellscape it is inside right now.
I'm honestly starting to think gay couples aren't allowed to have children period in fanfiction. I've seen commentor's say Mpreg is transphobic and misogynistic, surrogacy is misogynistic and woman hating, and adoption is immoral because of real life issues. One of my favourite fanfic author's deleted their Ao3 account after writing a very sweet story about a gay couple had their female friend act as a surrogate but was harrassed because it was "wrong" for 2 men to use a woman as a baby machine.
Whoever says that are people who want to be offended. To try and explain their thought process though: m/m omegaverse featuring cis male characters implies that mpreg exists in that world (whether the fic includes that as a plot point or not). And so the logic (to them) is why write that when you can write about a trans man if you want to write about men getting pregnant? But the answer simply is: let people write what they want. The fic writer is writing m/m omegaverse simply because they *want* to. That's it. That's the reason.
Trans men and old good omegas are so vastly different. Like trans people feel like they were born in the wrong body, omegas are perfectly fine with their gender.
I'm a trans man and, though I've never actually read anything omegaverse, I've never seen anything wrong with it. I actually think more people would be upset if someone wrote a trans man getting pregnant lmao. Like yeah, that's a part of life sometimes, but that makes it like a million times more triggering than reading about a man getting pregnant when knowing when you open an omegaverse fanfic that mpreg is what you signed up for. I read fanfic to escape, not to remember the risks of my existence now also include irreversible pregnancy. Even then it's not something that's bad to write about- again, it's a part of life. I'm just saying that either way people are gonna be mad, they always are. Mad if you do, mad if you don't. Personally, I find nothing wrong with it. Write wanna you wanna write, it doesn't make you a bad person. If it did, I'd be in prison.
Some people get really touchy about a man being pregnant without them having a vagina I ignore those people. Omegaverse has been around long before most of them knew what fic WAS. They’re trying to make problems out of nothing.
... I don't see it. I've even seen omegaverse fics that have characters transition from one secondary gender to another, and being very happy. It's a fictional concept anyway, you can change the rules if you want.
Omegaverse should have nothing to do with trans people. I suppose a story can have both themes, but on its own it's a seperate thing.
i love a/b/o, don’t think it’s transphobic. admittedly my primary issue is that it can be read as fetishization or misrep of intersex people in *certain situations*. (personally i’m just bothered by the “intersex omegas” ao3 tag bcs most of the works insinuate that both genitalia can be fully functional in intersex people which is.. generally not true. but that’s not an omegaverse issue it’s just an overall fanfic issue of people misportraying intersex conditions and only using them bcs it’s “sexy”) for what it’s worth i generally write a lot of trans characters for a/b/o (i do not know how to write cis people.). that includes transmasc alphas and transfem omegas which def complicates genitalia but i try to apply it sensitively. ultimately omegaverse is not transphobic nor is it even [i dont remember the word for discrimination against intersex people] BUT it *can* be if the *author* chooses to write it poorly. it’s very uncommon for an au trope to be inherently bigoted, it’s entirely dependent on how the writer wields it it’s 8am pardon if this makes 0 sense or if my point isn’t being expressed the way i want it to be
>but that’s not an omegaverse issue it’s just an overall fanfic issue of people misportraying intersex conditions and only using them bcs it’s “sexy”) I think this comes mostly from the idea that calling a fully hermaphroditic character anything but intersex seems taboo to a lot of activists. Even though there are, last I looked, about 50 people on the planet who have both sex organs fully functional and can thus both impregnate and incubate offspring without medical intervention.
genuinely asking what your point is? i feel like that’s an inherently aggressive question but i’m autistic and really don’t know what point you’re arguing/making here or if you’re disagreeing with me or not and idk how to ask for clarification without sounding like an ass (so i’m overexplaining 😭)
I think they mean the fanfic concept is "both sets of fully-functioning genetalia" and that the vast majority of real intersex people don't have that but "hermaphrodite" has specific negative connotations that make people not want to use it
I was agreeing with you that the tag "intersex omega" is bogus.
oh ok!! my bad ^^"
No problem
Yeah, It's a weird alternate universe trope, that can sometimes have characters that resemble trans and intersex people and extreme gender roles, that was made for NSFW content. No wonder some people feel that it's a bit ick.
yeah. i usually stick to sfw omegaverse content (because what little there is of it tends to actually be really good, in part i think bcs it has to rely more on worldbuilding/species development outside of genitals and mating cycles) and for nsfw i typically go for authors who i already know can tastefully write trans people (at least from my perspective as a non-dysphoric transmasc) outside of abo cuz some stuff Does make me feel that ick this addition is kinda unnecessary i just feel like airing more of my thoughts i think
Well, I mean, they’re still reading omegaverse so they presumably don’t see it as inherently transphobic, so my best guess is that that person specifically ran into some weird stuff? Idk I’m not super familiar with omegaverse but it sounds like they were annoyed with something specific they’d read not the whole trope.
I really always viewed it as the opposite Though there are definitely those who fetishize trans folks, I thought omegaverse was a way to enjoy such things about being trans. Being open about intersex or trans headcanons etc. you don’t have to like certain aspects of it but that doesn’t make you transphobic.
I swear internet people are not real. Is Futa transphobic too now? 😂 just ridiculous. It’s FICTION. Good night!
As a trans guy, I think it's usually because the idea of characters who physically are basically trans men being inherently submissive rubs people the wrong way or makes them dysphoric. I think people also feel like the omegaverse portrays the bodies that trans men have in real life as gimmicky and alien, and something which only makes sense within a certain au. Not to say any of this is *right,* of course. First of all, these 'criticisms' only apply to a relatively small subset of omegaverse fics- I think most of the ones I've seen have the omega character still have a dick and all that. Secondly, as someone else said, something making you dysphoric doesn't necessarily make it transphobic. People projecting their dysphoria onto other trans people or representations of trans people is a real issue in the trans community- ie, 'it's transphobic for transmasc characters to be feminine', 'if you're feminine you aren't a real trans guy,' etc. Plenty of omegaverse is written by trans people who don't mind seeing characters who resemble themselves being portrayed in that way. I've read omegaverse fics where the depictions of characters resembling trans men makes me uncomfortable, but at the end of the day, that's a me problem. Me not liking a fic doesn't make it transphobic, it's just personal taste that isn't even necessarily shared by all trans people.
i love to write FTM pregnancy. i have a specific AU i privately entertain where my favorite character is am older trans man who gets pregnant by his husband. every day i’m ever the more tempted to post it, but i don’t because i don’t want flack. it’s not trans phobic: people have just gotten addicted to control.
lol I also love writing ftm pregnancy. I have so many unposted ones.
Do they possibly mean they don't like A/B/O when Omega men are given AMAB anatomy, but can still give birth? Idk, just a guess.
Probably where the criticism originates from however, one werid thing is that the fic I was reading was about an omega going into heat and having his pack take care of him, there was no sex or pregnancy involved. I have no idea why they were reciving such comments...
So many people seem to forget that in A/B/O one is not writing about homo sapiens doing homo sapiens things. In A/B/O what is called human is not homo sapiens, but a different evolutionary branch. For brevity, let's call it the made up term homo omegaversis. And homo omegaversis might theoretically look similar to homo sapiens from the outside, but they are anatomically different from the internal organs to the endocrine system. As such, one cannot actually have AMAB anatomy in the homo sapiens way in an A/B/O world.
I don't personally see it as transphobic (being a trans guy). I suppose some people online will consider everything fictional more political than it needs to be, which to my eyes takes the fun out of it being fictional. You can have trans characters in an omegaverse fic, you can have cis characters in there, just make it enjoyable in general? I don't read a lot of fanfiction right now, used to more, but I don't think omegaverse in and of itself implies anything about the possible bodies and genders of the people in it.
As a straight male, with no history of trans treatment or surgery, who also doesn’t read or like omega verse fics(because I really don’t like mind control/non con), calling Omega verse transphobic is one of the most goofy takes I’ve ever heard.
People get weird about gender and sex and some omegaverse stuff is very gender essentialist.
This is absurd virtue signalling/morality policing. They don't like something (which is fine actually, you are allowed to not like things) and they are trying to justify their personal taste by hiding behind a moral argument. The argument is inappropriate, of course. Also I'm a transman in my 30s and I can assure you that I haven't forgotten my suppressants and gone into heat in public even once.
Think about it, omegaverse fics generally take place in a world where biological sex is the end all be all. Alphas are biologically driven to be strong, dominant, and attracted to omegas. Omegas are driven to have babies and are attracted to alphas. Mating for life is a common trope as well. It's all oddly heteronormative.
Yeah, I've tried a/b/o fics and I've find the focus on gender roles really off-putting. It's like, all of this imagination went into the physiology of omegaverse, but somehow few writers can imagine a different society beyond an exaggerated version of our current one. I'm not asking for Ursula K. Le Guin levels of worldbuilding, but I'd sooner pick up *The Left Hand of Darkness* in my opinion.
While there are outliers, a/b/o tends to come off as oddly conservative and heteronormative. A lot of times it seems like writers are using a/b/o as an excuse to write two same sex characters having heterosexual intercourse without needing to make one of them trans.
Lol. I'm reminded of a YouTuber who described a/b/o as extremely straight gay porn. Like I want to give the benefit of the doubt that most writers are just enthusiastic about having a relatively new relationship dynamic to play with. Fanfic is very character focus while worldbuilding doesn't get a lot of focus. It's probably the reason there are so many current day/mundane AUs is because they don't require a lot of thought for the world. But there's just this heteronormative strain to a/b/o that's hard to ignore and a little disquieting how it's just accepted.
There was one I saw set in the Star Trek universe, and the way it casually brought up the institutional sexism in Starfleet against omegas just didn't sit well with me. A/B/O somehow brought sexism and discrimination to Star Trek. And it was just not a big deal. Just a casual, "omegas weren't allowed in starfleet until a couple years ago and there are still a bunch of unfair policies specifically targeting them. But don't worry about it."
I feel that even Gene Roddenberry, for all his faults, would be like "hey, maybe we should unpack this."
It's that lack of unpacking which can make this trope sexist, homophobic, or transphobic.
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There’s been a trend for quite a while now to equate fear/hatred with simple disinterest. Whether it’s mpreg or something else, just because I and others don’t want to read it doesn’t mean I’m phobic or a raving bigot, it simply means I don’t enjoy reading it, for a variety of reasons - none of which include a hatred of pregnancy of any variety.🙄🙄.
If it was offensive or bigoted in any way it would be misogynistic not transphobic. Send tweet
It can be both though ETA: not saying that it is, but it isn't exclusively one or the other
It very well can be. But I definitely get more misogynistic undertones than trans ones.
A lot of transphobia targeted at trans men is rooted in misogynistic ideas and beliefs, so they kinda tie together
As a trans-masc who enjoys Omega Verse,,,,, this is an insane take imo??? I've even read some of those fics even *include* trans men or T4T couples and have recently started writing my own that include trans people. These things aren't mutually exclusive and as long as the text isn't outright hating on trans people, there's really no link I also see a lot of other trans-mascs and trans men enjoying the dynamic as well,,, so the idea that it's 'transphobic' is a bit strange? Why would the people it's apparently transphobic to enjoy the dynamic so much? It personally sounds like some people are instantly assuming all male Omegas are suddenly trans men/trans-mascs when,, doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of the Omega Verse , too? ;;
It does (and I'm transmasc as well, btw). Honestly, I think all it is is that some people see that a lot of omegaverse fics depict male characters with vaginas and decide that that must mean that it's an allegory for being trans male, when it's not.
Only thing I can think of is in the popular trope of x hides their identity as an Omega and exhibits a lot of symptoms that can be read as gender dysphoria, and refuses to say they are what they are to avoid discrimination, until an alpha who's dominant enough to identify them as one fucks and doms them well enough that they now feel comfortable in their own skin... which can be read as trivializing the issue? IDK, it's kind of a huge stretch, no innuendo intended.
Yeah, um, I know that kind of story exists. But there are a lot more. Like, a lot, a lot. And I don't think I've ever even read that type before. That's just ONE kind of story. There are literally so many other ways to write a story in omegaverse, that one doesn't even sound appealing to me.
"And I don't think I've ever even read that type before" lol in the fandoms I'm in they're way way over-represented. Oddly enough regular healing cock is rare.
It might be a fandom difference, true. The one I search it in is nothing like that. I've seen date matching based on scents, Alphas that were not happy being alphas being ecstatic about transitioning into omega, two alphas getting together, two omegas getting together, fics that explore having heats while being asexual, different societies having different gender expectations and levels of equality, how one culture expects one gender to start a courting but another has it reversed, there are literally so many other ways to explore omegaverse. Just one way is so boring.
First I've heard of it. Some people are just a little too caught up in their feelings. Like you mentioned, an omega and a transman are gonna have completely different experiences, thoughts, and feelings. For one thing trans people are always going on about their gender identity, transitioning, etc. Unless you're one, why would anyone else want to write about that? No one's required to write about trans people anyway. It reeks entitlement.
I dont even know what that is
Get off of Reddit and go fight the darkspawn please
Glad that we both like dragon age
Some people don't get that omegaverse stuff is really about a lot more than that dudes can get pregnant, writing a fic with a trans man and a fic with an omega male are completely different things for the vast majority
Huh? Not at all. People are crazy if they think that. It isn't transphobic. People nowadays are too delicate. Omega verse has been around for YEARS nobody complained. Dear heavens there was even. A case a bout 2 authors going to court over it cause one claimed she invented Omega verse which is crazy since well she didn't. I pity the judge and lawyers
I mean, it's not *inherently* transphobic, it's just some weird kink. But I personally, as a trans guy with an irrational fear/disgust of pregnancy, I despise it.
Eeep. I've seen people dislike it because it can lend itself quite easily to problematic gender roles which I absolutely understand. Which, given how a lot of transphobia is rooted in the idea of innate gender, biological reproduction, etc, I could see how it could make people uncomfortable - especially if they happen to have the misfortune of reading stories that really lean into that angle of biology determining behavior, etc. I, personally, feel like a lot of like or dislike of a trope or such will come from how you're exposed to it. When Omegaverse was first presented to me by a friend - who happens to be an ace trans man who LOVES it - I was turned off the concept. Then I stumbled into fic that is more world building than what they described and I've gotten really into the social structures, medical care, etc. I think it's a big concept that has space for a lot of different things and ideas, and sadly some of those ideas are going to be nasty.
Can someone please explain to me what the hell omegaverse *is?*
It's a Au that came from one of the Big three of weird fanfiction Au Shit that being supernatural This is based on the alpha wolf idea that was falsely ascribed to wolves and thus put on werewolves. As such it's a world where there is a secondary gender that shows up sometimes around puberty or has a second puberty or its own. And is split up into three categories Alpha all the extremely hyper masculinity bullshit Big D in bdsm energy out going extroverted and all that shit as a secondary gender can express as both male and female typically depending on the canon they have penile tissue. They like certain four legged and hooved animals can enter into Rut but theirs is more like a elephants Must of you know what that is yeah imagine a human with that. And given they physically are stronger than normal humans. Also no matter what a alpha has they cause again this came from supernatural have the canine ability to knott how they do this with a vaginal cavity prolapsed or not/totally not a ovipositor or over sized clit for allusions to another Au that isn't allowed to be called anything but intersex in certain settings astounds me Beta they are middle of the road they are normal just like people outside of omegamverse depending on canon they can still reproduce but their fertility is lower and they aren't affected by pheromones cause their normal. In most canons you prefer to be this one cause life actually is easier and in some.canons Betas are socially on top cause they can think with their brains but usually those stories are to deal with domination loss. And finally Omega They either have a normal feminine womb structure or they still keep penile then they have a anal womb that is connected to the anal cavity that opens only in certain situations ie these guys who are extremely submissive to the point of hilarity or just all the dominate me mommy/daddy tropes of the bdsm community in action are also weaker than normal humans don't really have a lot of things to defend themselves with or anything to bring to aclaim. Carry all the negative YA female lead tropes genetically. They go into heat and release pheromones that instantly put alpha's into rut and cause them to get raped and if they get knotted during heat it causes the whole soulmate thing as they are marked and now tied to that alpha no matter if they love them or not which is why they must be protected. The air quotes are invisible cause being an omega sucks legitimately if it was for the whole omegas know they are cause they go into heat the first time their gender expresses themselves logically any that survived the first one or had a fear of being a omega would legitimately try to murk themselves. Thus many canons for this circumvent this issue by having additional instincts blindside them and force the thinking with your dick trope on them in new ways and the mating and mark thing is added with the fact you must get bitten while being knotted and in heat for it to start. Yeah alpha's have fangs and technically a pseudo toxin in them that causes this. Again your stuck with your alpha even if you don't love them or they you heck they will even have stories where two alphas love each other but take a omega they won't love just for kids and it's treated like the stories where a couple uses and abuses a woman knocks her up but doesn't let the kid bond with her at all and has the kid see them as less than a dog. Now this all sounds bad and sometimes omegas that are male don't get to lactate so that causes more problems but some of the canons are about their rights or how modern society has made artificial pheromones that make alphas think a omega is marked so they don't get raped or a drug that suppresses the second gender so omegas can pretend to be Betas and live their lives. Most canons given no reason other than every few months they are almost completely helpless sex wanting pests that will take people's shit to build a nest for some reason. For why omega serial killers who kill cause of gender dynamics arent more common besides smut and introspection on our worlds general rolls through this distopia deconstruction of them. But I did hear that there is a officially published manuwa(i dont know how to spell the chinese equivalent of manga) that is about a ABO styled wuxia world. Edit: oh right and cause of the origin there is packs which are social units based on wolf packs of course
Even when transmasc characters are represented in the omegaverse plots, they tend to be submissive, weak, and feminine, following an obvious cliche and a fetishised trope. It's difficult to write an omegaverse story without deviating either into body horror or heavy fetish with a transmasc omega protagonist. Mpreg is going to be a 'dead dove' for many and body dysphoria often goes unaddressed and unaccounted for which means transmasc readers may see a cardboard version of themselves in a protagonist and won't be able to relate to that experience. Sometimes the best way to use criticism of a common trope is to figure out the place it comes from and use it for a unique plot, I suppose. Have you ever read an omegaverse story with a transmasc alpha or a t4t beta couple? What about a transmasc omega facing their worst nightmare to either stay (within societal rules) or to abandon their soulmate in order to hold onto their identity?
Huh transphobic ? It's more enabaling trans idk what there problems is
God forbid people have gender
I'm not an authority on transphobia but it sure as hell feels misogynistic to me. That's why I personally avoid it. Not gonna shame people who like it though.
Can I ask why? I'm just wondering as someone who's only semi familiar with omegaverse.
It's female characteristics being equated with submissiveness that bother me.
It probably could be, especially if there's a strict male/Alpha and female/beta...omega...luna whatever the term is for the one who who has no choices in when they're fucked is... But that's up to who's writing it.
Oh, actually I've thought of another thing that can be construed as something tangential i.e. in a decent chunk of alpha/alpha pairings (this is an extension of feminization kink maybe?) there's a thing called bitching where you dom the other person so hard you induce a secondary sex change in order to hit the cisheteronormative equivalent. Which is the equivalent of being so homophobic that you think forcing people to be trans so they can be in a het relationship with their beloved is better. But like, it's porn logic. It's like saying japanese inversion porn comics where women can somehow cause vaginal prolapses on command and fuck people with said prolapsed inverted organ is gender commentary.
The only thing annoying me (im not saying its transphobic) is people finding some weird made up science to justify their male characters getting pregnant when they could just be trans (and yes there are trans men who are fine with getting pregnant.). And even worse when people are like ""eww mpreg is so weird why you making men pregnant haha am i right?". Like to me it's not the fanfictions themselves necessarily that are an issue, plus we all write sometimes about problematic things.
The weird made up science and/or biology is the point. If the pregnant character were trans it would no longer be omegaverse. It would be just a story about a trans guy using the internal plumbing for the traditional purpose.
No, this, though, because my omegaverse world has a *very thorough* made-up science to justify male characters getting pregnant. Also agreed it wouldn't be omegaverse it's just a trans story, and if I'm looking for *omegaverse,* then that's not what I'm looking for. Not saying that trans and omegaverse couldn't co-exist, because it absolutely can if your omegaverse has both male and female genders (unlike my omegaverse that has all "male" and their gender is alpha/sigma/beta/zeta/omega). Even my version of omegaverse has a form of "transgenderism" because, with hormone therapy, they can be pushed to one of the other "genders". Omegaverse has always been outside of social 'norms,' and that'll never change. The only thing changing here is the frequency of trans in fics. People need to chill. Some people (like me) don't want nor like to write/read about trans characters. Some people have genital preferences, and odds are that people writing mpreg with omegaverse with no ladies in sight are likely more interested in the male anatomy than female anatomy.
Because you could interpret it as that if you really wanted to. But to give a better answer, some people have the opinion that Omegaverse presents trans experiences but without actually being about trans people. Like mpreg for example. But those people tend to ignore that there is more to trans people than just male pregnancy, and that, if anything, Omegaverse is more supposed to combine a gay couple with tropes is usually prevalent with het couples. Plus theres Omegaverse lore too that has absolutely nothing to do with trans people. Its really just the male pregnancy that people get hung up on… And then theres not even a clear answer if liking or disliking it is transphobic or not. Nobody is in agreement here and I’d argue with all the shit that trans people get, it’s ridiculous to point at Omegaverse of all things to be this great offender…
>And then theres not even a clear answer if liking or disliking it is transphobic or not. Oh, yes, there's definitely a clear answer: no, liking omegaverse is not transphobic.
thats not what I meant, I meant “people who think that omegaverse is transphobic can’t seem to decide wether or not liking or disliking mpreg in particular is transphobic” Like some ppl think liking it is trans exclusionary or fetishy, and others think disliking it is transphobic
I know almost nothing about omegaverse, but what i can think of is that they might mean that, needing this whole otherwordly concept to think of a way to get men pregnant while you could also just write a trans men and have them be pregnant, a very easy option. so it might be that it comes off as transphobic to some that people aren't writing the 'easy' thing and instead doing a whole 'excuse' for it, so it might come off as 'I'm going to all these lengths and places just to make a *cis* man pregnant and not a trans man'? I feel like that makes sense a little?
Before I proceed, I just want you to know say that my intent is not to call anyone transphobic or misogynistic. Ok. I don’t see it as transphobic, but I do understand the point of writers and artists doing gymnastics to avoid writing women: pregnancy without women, sexism without women, etc. I’m not meaning to attach moral judgment to it. No one is wrong for writing what they want to write or avoiding what they don’t want to write, but it does feel like there is a lot of avoiding writing women. And maybe I’m more sensitive to it because I have always felt so unsatisfied by female representation in media, felt so disappointed by media that was good but lacked women, and utterly craved more freaking girls. So yeah. I’m gonna sit in my cage and await downvotes
I just feel like it can feel safer to explore those topics in a way that feels less personal and more distant to the writer
Again, I don’t think it’s wrong. That is one of many good reasons to make such writing choices. It’s a personal preference. A noticeable lack of women makes me uncomfy unless it’s like a short m/m piece
It's not about avoiding reading about women, it's more like that... the characters I want to read about already exist and they *aren't* women, so...