Because I've been thinking a lot about it and I like to put my personal thoughts into text, especially now that I'm getting into writing fanfiction
Okay so this will be a long post, I like to ramble, but this beginning back story is totally necessary for this☝️(and this is not an anti-omegaverse post please have patience with me).
When I started reading fics years ago, I remember coming across omegaverse stuff and not liking it at all. Even when I was younger, I could recognize how fetishist it felt. As someone born female (I'm non-binary now but yeah, I don't mind sharing that) It felt super weird, and I had a couple of problems with it:
To me, the whole heat thing felt clearly like an over exaggeration of periods. There were clear male and female roles, even if both characters were males, and it felt wrong and uncomfortable to me. I was very aware of gender stuff even If I wasn't the best at expressing it, so it was easy to identify that.
I also hated the animalistic aspect of it, the whole nesting thing felt weird, I hated when they referenced having children as having "pups".
And also I've never been a lot into pregnancy stuff, even if done in the most normal and cute way possible, I've always felt uncomfortable with pregnancy in fics, probably due to my own gender and the way I've felt about it.
And now you would say "motherfucker why are you thinking about omegaverse if you didn't like anything of it???" And you would be totally reasonable in thinking that. But the thing is, with the years and my continuous reading of fics, my opinion in the genre kinda changed a bit? Let me explain:
When I started reading fics, I had no idea what even filtering or curating what you read was, and I was reading on Wattpad, so yeah not the best thing as a younger person. But I was exploring the internet, and I was not aware of anything farther than the shitty fics I was finding. And yeah, I saw a lot of shitty omegaverse stuff, very rapey and all that, that made me very uncomfortable and for the longest time I avoided the genre like the plague. If a fic had the omegaverse tag, I avoided it, even in ao3 (because I still didn't know about filtering or curating what I was reading). But I always felt curious about it, the concept was fascinating in a way, yeah?
When I was a bit older and I started learning a lot about everything, I also learned to be better with what I read, and some years ago (not sure when exactly) I decided to give it a try again. Not sure why, but sometimes curiosity took a hold of me and it was like, yeah why not? And for the first time in years, I actually started finding interest in it? I actually KNEW HOW TO FILTER so I could take out all the tags I didn't want to see. Was there still stuff that was just unequivocally horny? Yeah of course, most of it, I was very interested in that still, but now all the fics didn't need to be this overly rapey and cruel stuff and I could see the way people explored the concept differently and it was very eye opening!
It was a slow process, not so much searching for it but more like exploring a ship tag and finding one random stuff tagged like omegaverse and being like "mmm, yeah I could read it🤔" There were a lot of fics that were just the author being horny (totally valid) and other where the author was also horny BUUT they thought about the social ramifications of it too, including it in some way in their story (I love fics where there is a plot, it's very cool seeing how people introduce these kind of genres into their world building).
I ended learning how it was not that super bad horrible genre I thought it was, and it opened my eyes to the fact that, at the end of the day, the way the topic is used is very dependant on the writer, even if it still carries those gender-related ramifications at its base, the author was the one giving it a true shape. And with the years it became kind of like, my guilty pleasure when it came to fanfiction.
This genre has been discussed to hell and back, and from what I remember, there is an interest divide. For some people, especially referring to the lgtb+ community, it's a cool way to explore certain topics, exaggerate things and deal with certain real-life stuff. For others, it's fetishistic, it's weird and can even feel transphobic (and just straight up be, depending on how people do it). This is a very short description of it, but I think it's easy to see why it is right? An unfortunate problem with the basis of the topic is that, some authors are just very weird with it, and it would be stupid and ignorant of me if I were to try and say "nooo it's a perfectly fine thing and that's not true at all". The topic is already weird by nature, and uses unrealistic anatomy for a lot of stuff. Even if we ignore how the real life ramifications of misogyny are used with omegas and all that, there is the undeniable truth that some people just get very weird with it. I think this quote in the fanlore page about the genre describes perfectly what I want to say (very good read, I recommend):
It is a very dividing topic, and rightfully so. Me personally, I've always identified myself more with the second group, the one described at first in the second paragraph. But just because I feel that way I won't negate how other people can feel different. Because there is something really important about this kind of stuff: not only it depends a lot on how the writer writes it (just because some people are transphobic and very fetishistic of trans and intersex identities doesn't mean every Omegaverse writer does) but it depends a lot of the person itself reading it. It doesn't matter how good the fic is, if someone doesn't like the genre they are in their right to do so, since the topic itself can be very personal, as stated in the pic. And I went into this little ranting about gender identity because again, in a way I've been in both sides. Although AFAB, I've been exploring a lot of what I am since I was younger and the way I've explored it is very different, I've hated this genre for years because of how it felt in reference to my own identity, and at the same time with time I've come to accept it also because of that same identity and how I've changed as a person. It gives me a different perspective on it, but it also gives me insight into why it can be so controversial, why people feel uncomfortable with it and why some people use it so badly.
Now that I am writing stuff, I have the power to write what I want and how I want, and the magic of genres like this is that, as I said before, it depends a lot on the author. I can make them act however I want, and take away everything I don't like or feel uncomfortable without really breaking the basics of the genre, or even adding to it if I want. I love when people break the stereotypes of the genre to do differently, like society being similar to us, without that many bodily differences, but exploring how it would work there!! Or omegas and alphas being able to be different without their bodies being forced into one specific way just because of their secondary genre (like omegas being able to be of all sizes and not little, dainty and fragile, and the same for alphas), or something as simply as the character not becoming insane with sex just because they are in heat/rut (I know some people may find that to be the main interests, but I like when people break that and focus more in other stuff) and I could go in a rant about little differences that people do, but yeah I think my point came across. There are so many variations you could have, I think it's something I like about it. The other day I read a dbd fic (dbd jumpscare, sorry) where Trapper, the big killer Trapper, was an omega!!! And he was not super crazy and fragile and actually a victim or anything, he was still dominating and dangerous and imposing and I love that. One fic that helped me appreciate the omegaverse a lot more was an Overwatch fic I read years ago (overwatch jumpscare, sorry LMAO) where Hanzo was alpha and Cassidy a beta, and the way they made their society and the secondary genders work there changed my brain chemistry, even if there was stuff I didn't like (but that's a topic for another day)
What I want to say with this is that, with the years I kinda grew to appreciate what people could and can do with it, more than the basic stereotypes everyone knows about it. I think it does help that I've always been a creator, I draw and I write a bit and I've always liked to see more of what you can do with it instead of just staying with the preconceived idea of it. And I 've always been a big defender of letting people choose what they read and what they don't, and not forcing people into liking or disliking something. I won't ever act as if this is a perfectly fine and free of flaws genre, it will ever be as it depends on the people writing it, but I personally also appreciate the people that use it and make cool stuff with it.
I would love to go on another rant talking about how I like to represent the Omegaverse (I haven't written any fics about it yet but I want to, and I like to think about this stuff even if it doesn't appear in the fic) but this is a topic for another day, I may write a post with my persona likings another day.
So yeah, tldr; this is a personal post where I talk about how the Omegaverse is an interesting genre with a great divide on opinions, fairly so, but I personally as a person like it and it has in a way helped me to curate my experience better and also understand better writing and the possibilities within the genre.
This was fun to write, and again very about myself mostly, but if anyone actually read all of it and wants to talk about it don't be afraid of doing so!
Why is my tumblr "fyp" trying to gaslight me into seeing star wars stuff, help??? I'm even avoiding liking anything just so my Tumblr fyp doesn't instantly transform but for some reason it keeps showing me stuff every two posts. This thing has never been this consistent lol
