omegaverse & asanoya
yo folks
Here follows a (very loosely) academic discussion of the tropes and traditions that I’ve noticed in omegaverse, specially in haikyuu!! fandom and relating to asanoya in particular.
I appreciate that a/b/o aka omegaverse is not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s not really mine either except when it kind of is which I’ll go into under the cut.
But yeah, if you wanna avoid this, blacklist #omegaverse which is how I tag it :) (you may also want to blacklist #mpreg, which I definitely won’t discuss in detail but it’s mentioned)
What’s this about? So.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the #asanoya tag on tumblr and I can’t help but notice there’s a LOT of omegaverse. I haven’t done any calculations but at a glance it seems like a disproportionate amount of asanoya is a/b/o compared to other pairings. Also, I admittedly haven’t looked too closely (because a lot of it seems to involve mpreg and I’m not into pregnancy in any way at all), but I don’t recall ever seeing a set up that wasn’t Asahi = alpha/Noya = omega.*
I’ve talked a lot about omegaverse on my main blog here and here (click that first post if you Don’t Know What A/B/O Is), because I am morbidly fascinated, not only by the concept, but by the generally accepted execution of it.
*[if anyone has seen or written other a/b/o dynamics for asanoya, please do let me know]
Normalising Otherness This topic would make for another (long) post entirely, but from what I’ve seen there’s a huge overriding tendency within omegaverse to play down the queerness or otherness common in fanfiction. I think we can all agree that slash pairings overwhelmingly dominate many fandoms, Haikyuu!! being one of them, and yet omegaverse often enforces traditional gender dynamics over the top of queer pairings.
For example: I just read a long fic which used what I would identify as ‘traditional’ omegaverse dynamics, i.e. all the mentioned pairings were exclusively alpha/omega; typically submissive omegas and dominant alphas; pairs bonded with a ‘bonding bite/mark’; this bond, once created, is irreversible and cannot be superceded by another alpha or omega; also: scenting, knotting, heat/rut, presenting etc.
All of the mentioned pairings were male/male, and all of them displayed this perceived traditional gender balance of the submissive omega (female) and the dominant alpha (male). These pairings were completely socially acceptable, presumably because they form viable breeding pairs (more or less the only excuse I’ve seen used to explain the prevalence of homosexual pairings in omegaverse fiction).
Okay, so what? We already have representation! So, the problem that I have with this is that it erases otherness, and reinforces stereotypes. I will readily admit that you could argue for whether or not this is a good thing; after all, we still technically have the representation, right? We still have homosexual pairings being represented, so why does it matter about the dynamics involved?
It bothers me specifically because of those traditional dynamics. It takes queer pairings and dynamics and it translates them into a heteronormative framework.**
Suddenly we no longer have two young men exploring their attraction to each other in a hostile society, discovering how feelings and relationships and sex work for a non-hetero pairing. Suddenly we have two young men playing the traditional role of man and woman - man (alpha) courts woman (omega); man protects woman from other men; man mounts woman to mate with and impregnate her.
I would argue that this erases, or at least heavily overshadows, the queer narrative. Okay, they’re still guys, but as an Alpha/Omega pairing, they don’t have the same experiences, and they don’t face any kind of discrimination or difficulty because of it.
Again, so what? Am I saying that queer narratives must feature discrimination to be valid? No, of course I’m not. Every lgbtqia+ person who’s read a narrative that represented them, and that didn’t involve their identifiable character being screwed over for who they were, has probably breathed a sigh of relief. I know that I have.
On the other hand, lgbtqia+ people have, historically, faced huge discrimination. This is not in dispute. And, to me, it feels disingenous to erase that history entirely by enforcing stereotypical heteronormative gender roles on characters who may well otherwise never occupy or display them.
**[and okay we could have a long discussion about whether or not a/b/o = heteronormative, but it undoubtedly reinforces traditionally male/female stereotypes which in the short term amounts to the same thing, so I’ll leave it at that for now]
So what does this have to do with Asanoya? Okay.
As I mentioned, I’ve only ever seen this dynamic as alpha!Asahi/omega!Nishinoya. You could, technically, translate this as equal to top!Asahi/bottom!Nishinoya. I’m not saying that either of these dynamics are bad, or wrong. They’re fine. They’re neutral, if anything.
However, I do have a problem with the pervading fandom discourse that assigns top and bottom status to characters and pairings. Let’s get this straight: Nobody has to be The Top. Nobody has to be The Bottom. I have been asked more times than I’d like to remember ‘okay but who tops in your otp?’ My answer: it really doesn’t fucking matter. I may have a preference, and I often do, but that’s irrelevant to anyone but me. I usually like both. I like the switch because I value equality and balance in relationships and, to me, switching in bed is an easy fandom shorthand for that. I like different dynamics in different scenarios. I like to explore different aspects of characters’ personalities and, again, switching in bed can help to explore that in exciting ways.
It’s also valid if you like top!Nishinoya 100% of the time. You don’t have to justify what you like or why; what you shouldn’t do (because it sucks) is tell anyone else that your headcanon is right and theirs is wrong. You may think it. Don’t tell them.
There are two main things going on here:
1) Stereotyping Asahi as a top and Nishinoya as a bottom 2) Conforming to the expectation that top = alpha, bottom = omega, and that only alpha/omega is a valid pairing dynamic.
Aside from normalising otherness, eradicating queer narratives etc, this is also just plain boring.
Othering Omegaverse I actually don’t read a lot of omegaverse. I read summaries, I skim fic, and I read about it, because I am fascinated by the pervasiveness and development of the concept of omegaverse. The reason I don’t read a lot is I hardly ever find what I’m looking for, and that would be something different.
It’s a little like reading fifteen coffee shop AUs for your favourite pairing. Two of them are incredible and you could read them over and over. Six of them are pretty good but the set up and side characters are similar so you can’t always tell them apart in your head. The remaining seven are awful. Those two incredible fics might not be the best written, but the chances are there’s something different about them that made you remember them.
Othering omegaverse is the hill that I will die on. I am a radical, queer, intersectional (I hope) feminist which means that I apply this lens to everything I read or write. I want to queer omegaverse. I want to find stories in it that I can relate to, that represent the struggles I’ve experienced, and that other people I think of as my peers (lgbtqia+ folk) have experienced. There’s no reason for omegaverse to be the straightest part of fandom.
I also have a lot (too many) ideas on how to do this. I’ll share some now, but I guarantee there are a hundred other ways I could never imagine. If you have any, I really encourage you to share them and talk about them.
Omegaverse & Asanoya You can apply these queer omegaverse ideas to pretty much any pairing or fandom you like. These are just some scenarios/dynamics off the top of my head, that I would like to see for this pairing.
1) Omega/Omega. This is my favourite omegaverse dynamic. To me it’s the wlw or lesbian version of omegaverse. It’s rarely talked about, it’s not taken seriously, and participants are often perceived as needing an alpha to be happy/complete. But what about Omegas who don’t like alphas or betas, omegas who don’t like penetration, omegas who have vesitigal penises (if any) so get by with oral sex, hands and toys (my my, just like many real wlw).
example: Asahi is made fun of and ignored by alphas because he’s too tall and strong for an omega. Noya is constantly being prowled by alphas because he’s small and cute, the ideal omega. Neither of them like alphas.
2) Alpha/Alpha. I love this almost as much, because I’ve almost never seen it, and it has such fascinating potential for power dynamics.
example: Nobody takes Nishinoya seriously as an alpha, except Asahi, who knows better than anyone how strong Noya is, and how dominant his personality. Asahi is more than happy to be dominated by Noya, as long as he gets his turn sometimes too. alt: Asahi is just an alpha who wants to get fucked like an omega.
3) Beta/Omega, Beta/Beta, or Beta/Alpha. I find the last of these the most fascinating, but Betas in general just really interest me (not only because pack theory/alpha males were debunked not that long ago). In part it’s because they’re rarely represented in fic, and in part because they occupy such a strange place in omegaverse. What, really, is the point of them? Which leads me to-
4) Beta as a transient or proto state for Alpha. In pack theory (okay it’s debunked but it’s still the basis of omegaverse), wolves compete and the strongest becomes the alpha. It’s not necessarily a congenital quality in the wild, yet it usually is in omegaverse fic.
example: It’s traditional (though frowned upon nowadays) for alpha senpai to fool around with their beta kouhai (no risk of knocking them up). When someone tried this with Nishinoya he fought back and wound up presenting as alpha. No such luck for Asahi, who finds himself at the mercy of an older alpha. Nishinoya finds out and comes to his rescue.
5) (cont from above) Alpha as a transient state. This might be my favourite a/b/o idea that I’ve never seen in practice.
example: Asahi briefly presented as an alpha during his second year but reverted to a Beta after the team’s loss against Datekou (go go let’s go) and his fight with Nishinoya. After the fight, Nishinoya presents as Alpha, emphasising the rift between them. alt: Omega Nishinoya still wants Asahi after he reverts to a Beta but Asahi doesn’t feel he’s strong/worthy enough.
6) Subverted stereotypes i.e. omegas are big and strong (see: any species where the female is considerably larger than the male) while alphas are smaller/weaker.
example: Asahi is a hugely desirable omega because of his height and strength and beautiful mane, but he always rejects everyone’s advances until Nishinoya. alt: Combine with any of the above i.e. they’re both alphas, or omegas, and one fits the stereotype while the other doesn’t. alt: they’re both Beta but frequently mistaken for other designations (combine with any of the above).
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;tldr I think a lot of people are (understandably) turned off by the concept of omegaverse, and many more read it in secret (I’m watching you) as a guilty pleasure.
Actually I think it’s a fascinating topic to unpick, and I’d love to see more people approach it from different angles like this.