Smth I love about A/B/O is the world building/speculative biology you can do with it.
But I also kinda hate it, because not many people actually do anything with the opportunity. (Hate is probably a strong word, disappointment is probably more accurate)
Cause you’ve got a reproductive biological change, and while humans are capable of a bunch of stuff, we are still animals, and basically every animal has courting/mating rituals and when we study animals we consider this behavior specific and it’s own category.
That’s not even getting into how people already act about menses, fertility, and virility.
And I know it’s not the point, the point is we took the phrasing and observed social structure from a bad study on wolf behavior and made it SUPER HORNY.
But sex/reproduction is such a huge part of how society is structured that I can’t just throw the a/b/o filter on and go about my day. I gotta think about the consequences!!!
If ruts/heats are so physically demanding they wouldn’t be monthly occurrences, how periods effect the body is already a comparatively HUGE energy sink to other animals, so I usually like the 3 month cycle or even yearly. And what is a person supposed to do? Hole up in their home and ride it out? Are there places where you can spend your cycle, like a board certified brothel? Imagine the cheap romance sub-genre of falling for that one nurse at the cycle clinic, what about clients that get weirdly attached, people already get weirdly obsessed with sex workers. (That’s not getting into the sort of disruption to daily life being out for a week fucking every month would be) I’ve seen some that treat heats and ruts more like “ovulation horny” and in those I’m more okay with the monthly thing. Cause it’s not debilitating. Distracting? Yes, but you can still go out and about your daily life, just a bit more randy.
Biting/bond marks. Is there an actual biological purpose? Or is it some kind of tradition? I’ve seen both. And the ones where there’s an actual biological need for it, in my head, I ended up finagling a sort of “venom” system that requires a secondary set of teeth, this also means bite guards are a thing. (Nothing really sets the mood like a grind guard induced lisp) it’s not permanent because to me that’s stupid, and it would be a foreign substance entering your body, meaning your body would eventually filter it out.
And in ALL my years perusing the internet, I have only ever seen ONE fic add outlier medical issues. It was basically pre menstrual dysphoric disorder, he was on a stringent birth control schedule because it had in the past turned into violent psychosis. I don’t remember exactly what happens, but I do remember his roommate calling his older brother in a panic, and his brother putting him on a psych hold. And the brother telling the roommate that if he (roommate) pursued his younger brother romantically that any expectations for a “traditional” life better be thrown out the window real quick, because there was no way in hell his brother was going off of birth control. (I think there was a bit where the roommate asked why he didn’t have a hysterectomy? Not sure)
Then when I got diagnosed with PMDD I Understood™️. I legit had a moment at my gyno’s office where that fic flashed to the forefront of my mind. the symptoms I’d been experiencing weren’t extreme in that way, but I did need 20hrs of sleep for bare minimum basic function, and craved salt so bad I knocked back those little fast food salt packets like pixistixs.
CORRECTION TWO fics (I’m typing all this on my phone I’m sorry) the other one had a character exhibit both alpha and omega reproductive traits and while it did start as just something horny, later installments did try to tackle the topic of intersex expressions in the world where sex was such an obvious and major factor in daily life.
Also is the a/b/o a “new” mutation, (new being relative) and/or is it rare? Are Beta’s another expression of the same genes or a complete lack of them? or is it both with the same name being given because the expressions are considered the same?
(Also smth interesting I once saw, was a tweet that talked about how a/b/o fics written by Americans tended to have medical insurance be an issue, not covering birth control/suppressants, but if the writer was from somewhere with nationalized healthcare it wasn’t such a thing)
Sorry this is so long, anytime speculative biology comes up I’m on that like white on rice.
See, you get it!!! So many people treat the realism as an obstacle to the sexy times goal of the omegaverse, but imo it you use it right it really enhances the experience.
Like what ruts and heats mean for people in public, it is rude to go out? How heavy is the influence on others? And we know society loves to blame people for ~being too desirable~ if they get assaulted. And sure, you could think of it as omegas being assaulted - but what about alphas who get assaulted by other alphas in rut? What are the stereotypes and social prejudices surrounding that?
What's normally done during heat/rut generally depends on the horny level of the fic and what it requires sflkhsdg. It has a lot of potential to be a fascinating spectrum - more puritanical cultures expect you to tough it out at home, and other cultures have brothels purpose built for this sort of thing.
It's a shame that people don't explore the nuances more! Honestly I'm not contributing much to the genre either shfglkhfdg but I do love my omega/omega reader/gojo ship and I hope to have fun when I finish writing it! Ironically I will have written more alpha/alpha than omega/omega by the time the Heatwave series is done, lol.
PMDD absolutely sounds like a killer. I've actually really liked the idea of writing male omegas as, effectively, hermaphrodites, and I remember the omega!gojo fic includes some dysphoria from gojo about suddenly having a womb, which the reader, as a woman, empathizes with... it's definitely something I think could use more exploring, but I do think people are afraid of dipping into it bc they worry they'll be accused of like, misrepresenting trans-ness or whatever.
As for specific ideas,,, honestly I'm definitely in the "omegaverse worldbuilding is whatever suits the plot" territory, myself kshlhfsdg. When I write omegaverse though it's generally an AU and something that's always been that way, not some new mutution.
And I do also have a relatively consistent set of takes on biting/mating bonds! They're definitely not the romanticized "for life on person only ever" version that's normally peddled in omegaverse fics, but I have my own pet concepts for it that I feel kinda fit in a realistic sense.
Basically biting and mating bonds are real but it's because 1. saliva contains special hormones (maybe only when in rut/heat) 2. you have to bite a person's scent glands. And this triggers a reaction that creates a dependency/acclimation of a person to the scent of the person who laid the bite. Sort of like an immunization thing, where you're dosing a person's scent glands with your own concentrated scent, so they recognize it as their own?
I'm not big into the details skhfglshdg. But it's a biological reaction, based on hormones and pheromones etc., and as such it's possible for it to wear off, or be overwritten. That can be very difficult, depending on the circumstances, or maybe even so easy that a couple has to work to keep a bite/bond in place.
It also leaves some stuff open like. Is it possible to have multiple mates? Maybe. Is it possible for an omega to bite an alpha? Maybe. Are bites usually mutual? Maybe! What about betas? What about them! Could be anything!
In any case, it's really fun that people still remember,,, my omegaverse roots skhgflshdfg, I hope you enjoy my work! I keep remembering, I still have pieces from the series to get back to... one day!!!
