You know what sucks is that I have to be subjected to reading these types of stories because it’s literally the only thing that they have on the websites I can afford to read them on.
@@PhysicallyAwake I'm pretty sure that you can find literally every genre of literature on Archive of our Own. I remember when I came there looking for Supernatural fanfics and I found everything from A/b/o romances and BDSM smut to psychological thrillers and sci-fi space operas.
same, Ive read a few fanfics like it (they just gave males the ability or rather allowed for people in same sex relationships to conceive naturally)...they were pretty good but idk why this was in my recommended
A reminder that in ABO there are also Alpha Women. Anybody ( male, female or others) can fit in alpha, beta or omega, it doesn't depend on gender. And an answer to a common question in a male omega-female alpha relationship, the omega will be the one getting pregnant.
@@bloodsknight You would have to be mad to mistake those to as related OR miss the crazy sexual overtones. They knew what their fans wanted and they gave it to them.
"I was completely and utterly taken aback by just how ridiculously wholesome this novella was." this poor man just needs some good fluff in his life and forget about fifty shades. Good luck, Dom.
@@Jacky.c.v right, I don't know why. But there is something satisfying about knowing for sure that your partner is 100% dedicated to you and will do everything in their power to be there for you and visversa. And add a baby into the mix and its just wholesome fluff with a bit of rough kinky smut in between all the sweetness.
I’m not going to lie, the idea of there being books based around omega verse never even crossed my mind. I only knew of it from fanfiction and I don’t know how to feel about there being published works based on the concept
This series: archiveofourown.org/series/695802 Purely original series, some of the early ones are/were being publish. I'm down as long as it's original fiction.
Loads of people make a living writing it, have for years. I was there when it kicked off big-time in self-publishing in 2015 and I know authors making 5 figures a month writing those stories. It's a well-loved genre for loads of people. A genre full of men who love babies and kids and are caring and you also get some smut (at least, this is what most Omegaverse stories I've read are like), it's a perfect combo.
@@IvoirePunk That was bout hetero Omegaverse and has nothing to do with mpreg. It's a whole different take on the idea and loads of mpreg readers would not be that comfortable with what's being published as Omegaverse in MF romance.
"I'm just kinda burnt out on books where someone always gets assaulted in some capacity" as a fan of fantasy and sifi romance novels very much same. i want the playfully cute banter and clear, excited, consent . please and thank you.
I'm so glad that I have a friend with a very small publishing company that always makes sure that consent is given on all stories or she just won't publish it. Has been such a game changer for me to only read erotic stuff from her and one similar publisher. Only available in German though but suits me just fine.
@@DieAlteistwiederda lucky I have to dredge though the trash to find the good trash XD. It's gotten to the point where I have a ton of half finished ones I started then tossed the moment consent was violated.
@@DieAlteistwiederda hey! I'm from Germany as well and am looking for romance/smut novels that are consensual! What 2 publishing companies are you talking about? I'd love to look into them😊
Kind of like whenever you used to see a movie that included gay characters. One, both, or all of them would be dead by the end. I got burnt out on that too.
@@bluethewitch6443 This series pretty much goes through ever pairing you can think of. Also connected universe like cameos and the like. Also Historical. archiveofourown.org/series/695802
ABO is older than a lot of people seem to realise (and mpreg predates it because I remember having to avoid it when I was very first in fandom). As in livejournal kinkmeme old. It predated the first episode of teen wolf by more than a year, and the teen wolf shipping community didn't really get big until the second season. (Although I'm enough of a fandom-old that I'm honestly surprised it's only 10 years old, some of the older kinkmemes had some legitimately wild stuff on them, although for some reason 'male character is secretly a kind of humanoid frog who must lay spawn-like eggs' didn't catch on like ABO did. Can't image why...)
Just in case there is any confusion, the running shoes and fresh air to cure depression comment was in reference to a famous tweet by Katie Hopkins. Toby does not have depression in this book, I was just using it as a example of how mental health is treated in general.
@@davidlejeune9626 I suppose it isn't an illness in the sense that it cant be cured. But it is a deficiency caused by a chemical imbalance and is clasified as mental disorder.
I could imagine that the idea of dropping ADD medication might be the result of this particular diagnosis being overused a bit. For example, Autism of the Spectrum kind is often misdiagnosed as either ADD or ADHD. At best it treats a symptom in such cases, at worst... well, side-effects are a thing. If that is an experience one of the writers has gone through or has seem somebody go through, that might explain this part of the story. On the other hand, they also might simply have forgotten to pick up that thread?
For those nerdy enough to read it: someone wrote a whole thesis on the Omegaverse. It's really good, and superinteresting, and focuses on the way these fics often tackle real world issues of sexism, homophobia and oppression: "What is an omega? Rewriting sex and gender in omegaverse fanfiction." By Marianne Gunderson.
Greetings from a fellow Philosophy student :D I sadly don't have the time to read it at the moment, but I saved it and am going to, as it sounds very interesting. I'm commenting now before reading so I wont forget to thank you for introducing a philosophical paper about these underlieing issues. Also, I'm not quite sure if I have the guts to recommend it to someone else. How kinky does the specific matter you discuss get? or in other words: Will I be able to look my professor in the eyes if I show it to her? I know the real world issues are a topic she's interested in, but Omegaverse I doubt she knows.
@@kiram.3619 Also the paper “Slight dub-con but they both wanted it hardcore”: Erotic fanfiction as a form of cultural activism around sexual consent" by Milena Popova. It has some really thoughtful insights into the handling of consent in omegaverse as well as rpf fanfic.
Just want to leave this here for whoever comes across this comment and wants to find the essay www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/60216/Omegaverse-MarianneGunderson.pdf?sequence=5
@@sunflare1492 It's so interesting how easily I can tell that the person behind the essay is from the perspective of someone in fanfiction rather than an "outsider" looking in, I suppose. So there's something to be said about how people perceive this genre depending on how they stumble upon it: through fanfiction or not. Lol. But this is really interesting. Thanks for sharing it!
Just to clarify a bit here: Omegaverse/ABO does have women. There two genders (female and male) and three subgenders or status (alpha, beta, and omega). Women and men can be any of the three: like woman-alpha, woman-beta, woman-omega and male-alpha, male-beta, and male-omega. The dynamics in society is based on your "status" rather than your gender. So if you're a male-alpha you have the same rights and privileges as a woman-alpha. I think this is one (of many) reasons why people are drawn to the ABO verse...
It puts a disconnect between gender and status in an interesting way. I know a trans man who loves these stories - or at least the ones with more substance than porn. I also enjoy the ones that use the setup to exaggerate and lambast sexist themes. There are quite a few where an Omega fakes being an Alpha in public to avoid sexism and get a certain job or break traditions (or vice versa.)
Ive always had a question that no one seems to be able to answer. In a male omega female beta relationship, can the omega get the women pregnant? Is he even able to be in a relationship with her, or been an omegga necessary means hes atracted to dudes only
@@trispigeonbaneodair7961 I've read fics with a female beta getting pregnant from a male omega, yes. Some fics don't allow male omegas to get another male/female omegas or female betas to get pregnant because their penises are underdeveloped and their semen is basically water, while other fics allow it. So basically, the "science" it's up to the writer's stupidity or good skills.
Yup. Same. I watched both of her vids on the subject about how positively deranged Ms Addison Cain is and was looking for some sort of comment here. Not disappointed. And I still geek out about how truly, awesomely fucked up that whole het omegaverse is. It's rape, but it's ok cos he's good at it!!!??? WTAF!!??
I don't know what worried me more: that fact that I was already way too familiar with the omegaverse, solely due to going on archive of our own, or that i wasn't surprised to hear that it started with sam/dean slash fanfiction.....
The first omegaverse fic I ever read was on fanfiction.net over 10 years ago. It was a very long, well thought out fic, even though it got harder to get through as time went on due to my growing tokophobia.
Damn, imagine a straight white guy actually willingly reading this stuff, NOT just to laugh at gay/teen girl fantasies, but actually to learn more about them. Where did you come from and can the LGBT community use you as an example of a good ally forever
@@queenmoreau2098 That may be true in book form. These same exact stories that don't get self published are often written and consumed by teen girls. You bring up a good point, though! That it's not necessarily just things teen girls like, but often all women, along with LGBT people.
@@LunatheMoonDragon As an older straight woman that reads similar stuff online (though has not yet dipped a toe into this particular universe) we start as teenage girls and just keep going. Though in my days it involved BBSs, dial up modems, 5 1/2 floppies & frantically printing them out on the schools dot matrix printer & hoping the teacher didn't ask any questions.
Me: *Walks in very cautiously expecting this genre to be teared to pieces Dominic: *Asks his watchers to restrain the kink-shaming Dominic: *Addresses the parallels between Omegaverse and everyday women's reality Dominic: *Addresses the parallels between Omegaverse and real life Gay prejudices (that had somehow eluded me for some reason. Probably because I was more focused on the previous parallel) Dominic: *Doesn't dwell on the male pregnancy for too long and grasps the variety in which the genre appeals to people Dominic: *Keeps a genuinely un-biased and respectful open mind on the subject and does a reasonable amount of research Me: *Clutching my heart with a single tear running down my face- Wholesome... We don't deserve you.
I expected the same, but I really ought to know better by now! He's always respectful of these things. Personally, I don't read A/B/O fic for those exact reasons you listed. I'm on Ao3 to escape those realities, not read parallels of them ^^;;
@@Kagomai15 I felt bad for expecting it afterwards because I know he is always open minded. It is just such an easy genre to rip to pieces and I had no clue what samples he would stumble over. As he said, if the writter is decent so will the piece be and while I have not read any published works, but there are a ton of unhealthy and disturbing fanfiction in this genre. It is not my favorite genre, but if I search for a ship or team building and it is among the results with an interesting description I might read it. Sometimes it has interesting worldbuilding, dynamics and there's of course a lot of wholesome tooth-rotting fluff happening. Also the smut if you are in the mood for that.
Being respectful and nonjudgemental towards women and the lgbt community is the most attractive trait a man can have. I didn’t have a crush on Dom when I first started watching him but seeing how genuine he is about social issues and mental health... *chefs kiss*
Conveniently Shaped Lamp I found Dom through his fifty shades videos and I think halfway through the second vid I realized I had the biggest crush ever on him because he was getting as angry as I did about the consent issues etc. in the first book. Definitely raised the bar for men in my real life
@@Lodatzor Women: "I love how this man acknowledges consent issues present in a lot of fiction!" Some regressive neckbeard on a keyboard rant: "YoU wAnT mEn tO bE sErViLe FeMiNiSm BaD"
Lodatz dude. FUCK. OFF. Your argument makes no sense because this genre has the exact same thing but with women exhibiting doglike traits; it isn’t written by women to feel superior or by men to appease women. Its a fetish. Also men aren’t servile to women, either in this video or in this book, because newsflash: THERE ARE NO WOMEN PRESENT IN EITHER. You having an issue with men being treated like women- even by other men- just proves women are treated worse.
‘It’s like being hit in the face with a rather concentrated ray of sunshine and vomiting pure sugar’ yeah...yeah it sounds like it might be fluff...yeah you’re just reading fluff...
Fun fact, For the final presentation in our senior year, my teacher allowed us to do a multimedia presentation about any topic that we wanted, so my friend and I being huge fanfics addicts back them and in my case still am, we chose to talk about the Omegaverse. So for 20 minutes, our whole classroom had to listen to us talk in length about this universe, the rules the hierarchy of alpha-beta and Omega, the classism, the parallels between Omega and women, toxic masculinity present in the alpha, the biology, history classic tropes found in this fanfiction the whole nine yards, all with the pictures and Vivid detail. My friend I had a lot of fun working on that but I have to admit the best part of it was the look on our teacher and classmates' faces. you could drop a pin in that room. Edit: forgot to mention, we got an A on this.
Reminds me of the time one of my classmates made a film about masturbation for a final project. Which the teacher specifically said not to make porn about when he said we could do whatever we wanted besides that if it had a story.
@@GirlGamer190 It wasn't informative at all. It was a comedy where the guy's tissue caused flowers to grow. My teacher seemed to be fine with it though, he was disappointed the audio was off sync because of the computer.
I once read somewhere that straight women often enjoy gay love stories because it's just about two people working through their feelings and whatever problems life throws at them, WITHOUT the expectations caused by gender roles. It's like refreshing, or something. Which I can totally understand.
It's important to note Mpreg pre-dates ABO pretty significantly (as 12yo me accidentally found out when first delving into HP fanfiction 😳). Omegaverse has definitely expanded to include all genders, from heterosexual relationships that allow writers to play with elements of beastiality without actually having beastiality, to examining complex polyamorous relationships. It also examines the idea of gender roles in society by replacing the idea of "male" and "female" with alpha, beta, and omega. Honestly, ABO is one of the most fascinating subgenres I've found, and you're absolutely right that it trends towards wholesome, if kinky.
Mpreg is at least as old as original-recipe Star Trek (I say as someone who pre-dates HP, but does not pre-date Trek Classic). Mpreg isn’t for me, but I like a lot of fic that definitely isn’t for others.
Yeah, first there was Mpreg, then there was the Veela (or creature in general) verse to explain the whole mpreg thing (not so nicely also called "ass babies") and then the Omegaverse developed out of it, I think due to a fusion or inspiration by the Sentinel Fandom with its Sentinel/Guide concept.
@@nanusantos1696 statistics show pretty much that women (at least nowadays) are pretty much not into men with an equal or lower status. Omegas not only lack status, they lack the personality, the dominance, the money, and probably the dick. But, yeah, I guess I have to consider that omegas as handsome men too, so they have attractiveness on their side, which is a huge factor in attraction for females. Mind you, I'm talking about attraction, not holding relationships.
@@gregorythestallion2984 Y’know what they say about statistics, Dude - there’s lies, damned lies, and statistics. In other words, just because you find a lot of examples of this thing, doesn’t mean it’s the absolute truth, and there’s plenty of disproving examples.
The way Dom approaches every community he reads about with so much empathy and kindness is what I love about this channel. You can get snide remarks anywhere but he actually checks his privilege regularly, makes sure to address important issues when they come up, and is really nice about all the fanbases he addresses. I'm so grateful that this channel exists and it's really reassuring to see in a world where it seems live everyone is just trying to tear each other down.
I mean the whole point of literature is to understand and evaluate differing ideas and concepts. Take Kate Chopin’s The Awakening for example: a woman in New Orleans abandons her loveless marriage, children and previous sheltered social structure to free herself from a made world around her. Now some people read the book and think the protagonist is an idiot who married the wrong person and then abandoned her children while others might identify with her limited choice and support her. Both interpretations are valid but the important thing is that people read it, understood it and *then* passed judgement. The important thing is that people were able to expand their understandings while reserving their own views or opinions. Thank you for coming to my TED talk
I couldn't agree more. I've found it utterly refreshing to hear a reviewer speak with total acceptance even when he/she/they are not personally interested in the subject matter.
Hmm. I wonder if the published books that you've been recommended ever bring up the concept of Suppressants. Like birth control, its a pill Alphas and Omegas can opt into taking that 'suppresses' their need, lust, or scent and keeps them level headed in their day-to-day norms. Something about you saying "How can consent play in this universe if 2 or more of the party cannot control themselves" brought this bit of info dump from me. Great review! You were so professional with this topic.
I love the many times I've seen Omegaverse fics use the Integrity Crisis setup. Basically, one party has lost their inhibitions, and the other party must fight off their own desires to honor their friend's right of consent. In Omegaverse, it works as: Bob goes into heat, Jim valiantly fends off Bob's advances and finds a way to keep Bob safe until the heat wears off, or else finds a way to help Bob get through the heat with minimal amount of nonconsensual damage done. I've seen a character stuff limes up his nose to cut down on his reaction to the pheromones. I've seen a doctor advise a mask and a noseful of Vic's VapoRub until the (quite sheltered) Alpha is able to calm down and control his unfamiliar reaction (and then the doc berates him *and* an omega friend for having this outdated idea that Alpha instincts are completely uncontrollable -- just because they're strong doesn't mean you can't figure out how to manage them, at least in that fic). I've seen characters tie people up to keep them from doing something they'll regret, and I've seen a character try every possible means of talking his way out until the effect wore off enough to be manageable (that one wasn't Omegaverse, but had similar mechanics due to a drug). It's fascinating how authors choose to deal with consent issues once there's such a mechanic in play -- and it gives the lie to these people who in real life try to claim that their behavior was absolutely out of their control.
Wait, you mean to tell me that Omegaverse is actually popular among actual gay men? ...and here I thought they were predominantly written by women, for some reason.
Referring to polling on the yaoi subreddit, male or men readers are the consistent majority. Many that read yaoi are also AOB fans. If anyone noticed any inaccuracies, please tell me.
Fujoshi is a thing Woman who are interested in BL (boy love). I really enjoy male/male romance (I'm a cis female) but prefer not to fetishize it. I simply enjoy the emotional aspect of relationships regardless of gender and sometimes its nice to see things that aren't hetero.
I never really knew gay men were the big audience for this either. Personally some good ABO stories appeal to me as a cis woman bc of the sometimes displayed microagressions against those with wombs, for lack of a better way to put it. Some stories touch on how omegas (with their monthly heats) are hormonal and untrustworthy, that things they say abt their bodies cant be taken seriously. Or their anger or feelings are written off as part of their hormones. And then to see stories where these omegas stand up for themselves is nice from a period-having persons perspective. I hope I'm making sense. It's just nice to be able to watch characters I already love (in fanfic) go thru some of the things I've experienced in my life and see them stand up for themselves in a society that sometimes mirrors our own very closely.
@@brookecorcuera1995 I'm not an omegaverse fan, but I've read a couple that do it wonderfully. They actually tackle the sexism against omegas head-on and examine what it would be like to not only be viewed as a "lesser sex" and treated like a sex toy by society, but also what it would be like to have no control over your body during a "heat cycle." I do view the genre as inherently sexist, though (keep in mind my exposure is entirely through manga, so I don't know what it's like in the fanfic community). I've seen far too many stories where the omegaverse setting is there only to justify rape and it scares me to compare omega men and afabs from the real world. To me, there are three types of omegaverse manga: the kind that delve into the setting in a thought-provoking way, the kind that use it as an excuse for non-consensual smut, and the kind that celebrates mpreg as a pure fluff fairytale.
"This started out as Supernatural fanfiction." Me: unfortunately, I am aware. 16-year-old me was...not expecting this dynamic when I saw it for the first time
As someone who has been reading fanfiction a long time, the concept of mpreg isn't new to me, though it's never something I've personally been into. I wish I'd had a good informative video to watch about it then instead of stumbling across it in fanfic when I was unprepared lol. Really interesting video! As always it's wonderful how respectful you are about things like this. Hope you're doing well!
Yeah, same here...I am kind of surprised that this is actually something which made it into real books. I always saw it more as some fantasy mostly female writers like to explore for some strange reason (I suspect partly because they think that a good marriage should have biological children, partly because they actually only write slash because they pair interesting characters with each other and not necessarily for the slash aspect of it), not something someone would seriously put into a book...but then, Twilight is a thing, right.
I must say I really do love a good mpreg story. Harry Potter getting pregnant after a stupid one night thing with Draco Malfoy. That is a very good saturday night read 😄
I write MCU fanfics with Loki being my fave. And I admit I've made him pregnant quite a few times. To my defense, in Norse mythology Loki gives birth to a freaking _horse_. So it feels at least plausible. Otherwise I can be... torn about mpreg and I do avoid omegaverse stuff. Then again, I don't like bondage or BDSM either so... Honestly, the one type of story I will always despise are those who try to make spanking of children sound cutesy. Like, making that the centre of the plot and stuff like that. It sickens me. Grown adults who are in agreement, fine. Children? Nope.
Dominic: "I'd rather not read stories were raep pops up every other chapter." >Doesn't walk away from Romance genre. Godspeed in your search for something non-raepy.
Lack of capability to consent is way more intrinsic to the abo genre than the romance genre though, and i say that as someone who has read a ton of both. Tons of biological determinism too that in romance youd only see in the most conservative novels
9:55 I'm kinda new to your videos, and that part just made me realize how utterly precious human being you are. I don't think I've ever seen a straight cis male being as kind, empathetic and respectful towards LGBTQ+ community before. It lowkey makes me wanna cry with joy.
honestly as a trans guy the whole male pregnancy fetish has always been hilarious for me. i can't possibly kink shame those adventurous lads when they give me so much joy
I'm sorry, but you referring to the consumers of this subgenre as "adventurous lads" has tickled me. Bless you sir for your weirdly wholesome contribution to this comment section.
I find normal pregnancy disturbing so um males is even worse like it just like aahhhhhhhg I really dislike it all the why like I couldn't be around my sister when she was in her late stage of pregnancy it just idk i ahah hate it
*Speculating on how a male omega gives birth* Dom: " ... it would be like watching footage of a snake eating a football ... in reverse." *blinks in quiet horror* Me: *dies laughing*
Okay, woman talking here and I probably have no idea how terrifying it is to endanger your balls or to upchuck a baby; but dear lord, has the thought crossed your mind that they might simply cut the baby out? Cesarian births exist and it's always my go-to assumption in every single mpreg story I stumble into when magic/crazy body biology/'it happens' isn't involved.
Madalena Barata most omegaverse i’ve read had the births occur naturally (obviously through the same route conception took place, lol) I mean they are practically a different breed of people, surely they have mechanism of giving birth that way. While cesarean is always a possibility, it’s hard to image they’ve been medically and mentally equipped to do it since the beginning of the time.
@@madalenabarata5845 In a lot of male alpha/omega stories, the omega is essentially a hermaphrodite - they have a vaginal opening as well as male genitalia.
It's really really weird to see a topic like this on a non fanfic/shipping dedicated channel and (even though I've always found it odd and not really my cup of tea) still approaching it and just explaining it calmly and with kindness is super refreshing
I've been a fanfiction writer/reader for more than a decade so, needless to say, I was already familiar with the concept of ABO... But I had *absolutely no idea* it was actually something that managed to take off and become a niche of original works, and it kinda blew my mind lol Not much to add, just... Very nice job. The fact that you've taken onto the topic with no prejudice and, not only that, but actively asked people NOT to be assholes about it it's pretty damn amazing. You're good egg.
Omegaverse also touches Male/Female & Female/Female relationships not just Males. My personal recommendation: archiveofourown.org/series/695802 Pretty much every pairing you can think of.
@@RenaDeles I know, I thought put both in their. My personal recommend this series: archiveofourown.org/series/695802 Historically fiction+Every pairing you can think of.
For anyone wanting a recommendation, a prolific fanfiction writer of A/B/O for female to female pairings is Rae D Magdon. She tends to write in gameing worlds like Dragon quest or Mass effect etc, but she's a good storyteller. Her published books are ok too they are based on alternative fairy tales.
I adore those rare stories! It's so cool to see alphas overcome their "biological imperative" to fight for an omega and instead enter a loving and committed relationship, and I love seeing omegas fight against everything society taught them to be with each other.
Daniele I also like the genre subversions where Omegas are the fiercer (usually in defense of their young) or higher-ranking dynamic, but I’ve seen like two of those so far.
@@whiskeredwolf4861 Huh... it just occured to me that the way alpha/alpha and omega/omega relationships are treated in-universe kinda reflects the way gay and lesbian relationships are treated in our world... i.e. two omegas want to be together, and are condemned for it because they can't get pregnant that way and "their bodies are supposed to be for baby-making"... like, does that sound familiar? 0_O
@@Eris_Norregard I’ve also seen the comparison where omegas shouldn’t be together because it would be too “tempting” for the alphas, and irl some lesbians are told... yeah.
@@whiskeredwolf4861 So the authors somehow manage to sneak homophobia into universe where everyone is homosexual... Human creativity just never ceases to amaze me.
I think it's a missed opportunity to not talk about females in A/B/O. There are some excellent stories out there, and female alphas are a really interesting part of it as well as the alpha/alpha or omega/omega stories. One of the most memorable stories I've ever read was a male alpha/female alpha story where a male omega friend acted as their beard.
@@Claire18Hi A beard like when women act like "beards" to gay men a.k.a. as a fake girlfriend to make them pass as straight when it's not safe for some reason to be "out".
A lot of the omega verse fanfics I’ve read actually do go into the issues with consent during heats. Most often, the omega main character is a victim of sexual assault or an attempted sexual assault coming from one or more times they were heat and were taken advantage of by an alpha. It usually leads to being either unsure of alphas, or a straight up hatred or fear. I’m not sure if non fanfic literature goes into that, but it’s definitely addressed.
It’s kind of sad because most of the ones I see that address it end up putting the omega into the same situation again except the alpha actually truly “loves” him, which makes it fine. Some don’t though and those ones are heaven sent I swear
That was my favorite thing about some of the first ABO fics I read, was how seriously they handled consent. Some didn't have any sexual assault at all and still explored consent in relation to their biology and that was really satisfying to read about.
Yeah, that's always super uncomfortable. I prefer when they scrap the tragic victim angle and make it more an investigation of social norms. The A/B/O stories I've enjoyed in the past generally treat heats as really annoying but ultimately manageable without a mate (it just sucks being feverish and horny you know?) and treat alphas who claim they can't help themselves with the same disdain decent people have for real life men who claim a woman's clothes mean she's "asking for it." In other words, the narrative does include the more skeevy aspects of A/B/O stories, but makes it clear they don't reflect reality so much as they are a culturally accepted fiction, and our beloved romance protagonists are smart enough to figure out what society told them was hogwash. I really like this aspect a lot, perhaps because it lets the ideas of social narratives vs. reality be explored without the discomfort of being reminded of social narratives that actually affect me personally as a woman.
This was exactly my feeling after binging Dom videos and then seeing this. lol I'm glad I finally watched it. A few inaccuracies/oversimplifications, but it was otherwise a really chill wholesome video on the issue.
You forgot the rarer cases where male omegas (and when the dynamic includes both sexes, female alphas) are intersex, cutting the confusion of where the baby comes from
Right, thats what im most used to seeing in fics: intersex alpha women and omega men. I get the sense that original ABO fiction has its own trends haha
I personally prefer intersex male omegas because that just makes more anatomical sense for childbirth. Female alphas though, I’m not sure where I stand
Dom: I was surprised to find omegaverse had female fans. A rather sheltered person who's seen some anime: Wait, it wasn't a primarily yaoi/slash fangirl thing?!
Is it bad I thought omega verse was only an anime yaoi thing XD (I don’t really enjoy reading them since they’re usually way too dark and convoluted for me)
I remember seeing mpreg and passing by it years back when searching for NaruHina/SasuSaku fanfiction, next thing I know, this thing called "omegaverse/a/b/o" started popping up. I totally that it was a Fujoshi thing, but it likely started that way. I was never sure how much of the LGBTQ+ community had a hand in slash fiction until the recent years, having initially understood it as a bit of a fetishizing obsession from female fans. My first interactions were with more rabid fans, and it turned me away from slash fiction for several years.
As a bi trans dude, both make me uncomfortable. Probably because of the fact that most of them are written by straight women and often have a super heteronormative relationship. One man being super masculine and one being super feminine. Not saying those relationships don’t exist, but it’s often what we see.
I feel like the 'Daddy PUNCH!' should be a shonen parody attack. The DaddyPUNCH! Combo! MOVE OUT! GET A JOB! FOR GOD'S SAKE GROW UP! Wait, wasn't that in Mob Psycho 100?
You know, I can actually really appreciate a romance story that's actually *about* a romantic relationship instead of "will they won't they". I wanna read about characters in a relationship and how that relationship develops and flows, not about whether or not the characters can even get to the starting line and then that's treated as the climax, which is how romantic relationships are used in a LOT of literature.
Generally, the whole point of Mpreg is that it’s a cis man who has somehow gotten pregnant. And I’ve met trans guys who find the Omegaverse very validating. Be that as it may, some Mpreg fans do fetishize trans guys, and that is pretty awful.
@@VampiricVik as a trans man i agree that for me its dysphoria triggering (havent watched the vid yet and im nervous to hah) edit: just watched it, the vid is okay hahaha since it wasnt described in depth : )
+Mikhail Edelstein Yep, it all depends on the person. And me, as a cis guy- it’s obviously not on me to decide what trans people should or shouldn’t find harmful.
@@nerdywolverine8640 Admittedly I've been exposed to a small sample, but that sample (so much "couldn't help himself," so little consent) was enough to make me nope away from the genre altogether.
@@Nehelenia3000 looks like only Teen wolf made it popular, but yeah, it looks like it started with supernatural fan fiction. I used to think it was a fujioshi thing since my first encounter with it was in BL manga years ago. I didn't even know it had it's start as a setting for western tv show fanfiction.
Supernatural has a lot to answer for, I guess (like, so much wing kink. Just so much). That being said, my favourite ABO story is actually a SPN fanfic -A Hole In The World, highly recommend. Very long read, extremely well written characters, hugely interesting storyline that revolves around civil rights. Also includes female alphas. So... not really sorry about where it started. That being said, I haven’t found any other ABO stories of the same quality as the one I mentioned. Rare as hens teeth apparently- maybe because it’s a kink/fetish thing in most fics? And that’s just not for me- I want plotty novels.
Damn it, where was this video when I was doing my undergrad creative writing dissertation! I did that on pregnancy/birth in the transgender community and how society's changing attitudes to men and pregnancy/birth are reflected in the fiction it creates. Started with Frankenstein - arguably a birth story, since it's about the creation of life and pivotal to showing how the notion of a man creating life was viewed as heretical and unnatural - and went on from there right up to Mpreg fanfiction. I'd love to have cited this video as part of my research.
ikr? the aggressive guys leave you alone, if you want a man you can get yourself a beta and theres plenty of omega/alpha drama around you to keep you entertained. sounds great
Nah. Not all the time. Yes, I might bore you here. Most of the times it is easy. And outing myself here. Read a lot of A/B/O mangas over the years. There are a few with this problematic mentions. Sometimes they have to fight for the alpha/beta male's affections. And then come off as a needy person. Or they could come off as the bitchy ex-girlfriend which loves or loved the A/B/O Male. Or the supportive character which watches the love of her life or who she claims A/B/O is the love of her life goes towards the alpha male. Yes, the alpha pairs up with alphas too. Bitchy too as she stopped either one to become the other's life partner. Or they are the aggressor when comes to protect the alpha/beta/omega male from other women. Again only reading from the mangas so they might be too overdramatic.
@sinclaire Thomas In some verses females exist in all „groups“ though Alpha women also have some sort of penis and can’t get pregnant. You can make your own rules in these dynamics. ABO is What you want it to be.
A lot of the ABOs I read have an underlying civil rights theme (and sometimes not so underlying). There are connections through metaphor to women’s rights, queer rights, and black civil rights.
I appreciate this genre of fanfic because it frequently has absolutely fascinating takes on feminism, sexuality, masculinity, and society in general. Even the very way an author sets up their story’s world is a thought experiment involving all of these things. That said, the consent issues prevalent in the genre are easily it’s biggest drawback for me.
you find a lot more wholesome and well written romance in ff then in published media. also, realistic romance. the messed up stuff too of cause , but you will find more of that in conservative media proportionaly, then the healthy well thought out stuff that is frightingly rare outside of fanfictions
I read a story that explored the consent issues - the main omega had been assaulted as a teen and was disturbed by their heats and the effect it had. The main alpha befriends him, helps him with his heats (making sure he eats and sleeps and distracts the omega from the omega's arousal).
I’ve read a couple of those. It really goes out of its way to show that just because an Omega is in heat, doesn’t mean any Aloha immediately loses control. It might require a bit of will, but there’s just no excuse for ignoring consent. I like those ones.
As an experienced reader of fanfiction, I can absolutely draw parallels between popular fannish tropes and a/b/o literature! Fake marriage or marriage of convenience is very popular, as is Fluff, or schmoop, another fannish genre which the first book described falls straight into. I'm not surprised that there's overlap, as I'm sure many writers of a/b/o published fiction will be active in fandom. Given that a lot of fanfiction is written by women, I think the popularity of a/b/o is partly the way it allows women to write about issues and experiences like being accidentally pregnant, while using their favourite M/M ship. There's been a trend of a/b/o fanfiction that treats omegas as a societal class that's being discriminated against, with protests for 'omegas issues' and reproductive rights surrounding heat pills, and even some fics surrounding queerness in an a/b/o world, such as alpha/alpha relationships! A/b/o may have started as a kink genre, and that element is staying strong, but it's branched out to cover a lot more, which I for one find really interesting.
@@TheSpearkan Depends on the writher. Sometimes they're more masculine in terms of behavior, sometimes they're like hyenas, sometimes they're infertile. They aren't hyper feminine though, or at least I've never seen it
Hey, Dom! As a fanfic author who loves A/B/O and writes it frequently (and actually knows someone who was in fact THERE on the Supernatural kink meme when omegaverse was invented, so can confirm the "started as a Wincest request on a forum" story, and I'd actually make a guess that the requester was a woman, because fandom is very women-heavy!) I wanted to thank you for your treatment of the trope/genre. There's a lot of nonsense in fandom around it, and it can get treated as weird or gross or a shitty joke, but you were really cool and reasonable about it. ...And yeah, it varies wildly on the fluff-to-kink scale, and on the stakes, and pretty much everything else. A lot of fandom work, for instance, definitely includes women on the A/B/O scale, and we're having all sorts of discussions around the consent issues, the role of gender and sexuality, what it might mean to be transgender in that kind of universe...it's a good time. Most of the time. Anyway, thank you so much for a nuanced, chill treatment of a genre that gets a LOT of garbage thrown at it, and I'm glad you mostly enjoyed the two novels you read!
Hans Hanzo From what I’ve gathered, this all started towards the beginning of the series before Cas was around, when Wincest was basically the only thing people were shipping. And yeah, I’m not really into that, but it’s kind of interesting to know the history of it and how it came about
@Hans Hanzo As Hannah L said, Castiel wasn't even a character when A/B/O was first developed. I had a long written out explanation of "Why Wincest," and then my page refreshed and I lost it, but the short version is "in the early seasons, the show basically revolved around Dean and Sam's relationship with each other, so it's...actually pretty obvious that Shipping Happened." I was never big into Supernatural (only watched the first five seasons and got bored partway through season 6 and dropped it) but I'm familiar enoguh with fandom trends and know enough people who WERE into it to see how that happened.
May I also add on the Trans issues, there are stories with trans characters in omegaverse. One was a romance between F/F Omega/Alpha where the Alpha was Trans, and assigned at presentation as Beta. Another story is a F/F story Alpha/Omega, where the omega is a transwoman. There is the question of sexuality, but tbh most fics I've read treated it based on where A/Os are mainstream, if so then A/A and O/O and B/B(where m/m & f/f) are stigmatized, else anything besides bm/bf are stigmatized.
Honestly I can totally get behind a cutesy sweet book that does not deal with too much conflict and just has like banter and a nice wholesome love story. I just kinda don't want to always reed sad, gritty or dark stuff. Its like when you just watch cartoons or shows like H2o, because you're under a lot of stress, it's nice to sometimes just forget the drama!
Great, now I've not only heard it but gotten the immage backt though your comment. Come and suffer the same fate again! Be summoned by my answer and relive your thoughts! Suffer reading your own comment, Muhahahaha!!
You know: the idea of the omegaverse is based on a long outdated and debunked research study. But its not as biologically unfounded as you might think. See, while canines certainly don't do this, birds do. For instance, the common ruff has: a large, territorial & aggressive male variant (~84%, with a dark neck crest), a smaller "satellite" male, (~16% with lighter ruffs), who sneak past and mate under the watch of the territorial males (permitted because they also attract females into the territory), and the occasional "faeder" male (
it's not unheard of, though. I mean, it doesn't work male/male, but female seahorses deposit their unfertilized eggs into the male, which becomes pregnant and actually carries the brood to term.
Dominic: And we have to deduce that the baby exits from the *rsehole because. . .otherwise the alternative is. . . Me: Allow me introduce you to the anatomy of the female hyena, sir.
I got curious and did a quick google search on hyena genitalia and now...I'm a changed person, let's go with that. Man, nature is weird...fascinating, but weird sometimes
Dude I just went down a 40 minute rabbit hole and there is so much weird f*ckery that I am Now Aware Of Also thank you for the hyena info, that is the strangest thing I've learned all year and I will never be the same
my 17 or so years of experience on the internet as a part-time slash enthusiast (and occasional writer) tells me that a substantial amount of gay romance/erotica is written by women, for women. interestingly, it's the same with yaoi manga/anime as far as i've been able to tell. i'm not a huge reader of ABO specifically, but i've been aware of it since its early beginnings, and i can definitely pick out what i personally find appealing about it. just like epic fantasy can be a way to discuss things like, for instance, good and bad sides of religion, the experiences of slaves, imaginative gender roles, etc., in a way that is both reminiscent of the real world but still removed from it, an ABO fic can allow women to toy with gender roles and power dynamics they've probably ended up grappling with in real life, at a safe distance. women don't usually feature prominently in these works (unless you're reading the lesbian counterparts of course), which makes it more hypothetical, and less likely to feel too close to home for female readers. for instance, i've experienced my fair share of emotional abuse and sexual harassment, and find those topics intensely uncomfortable when portrayed highly realistically (or thoughtlessly) in fiction, but i do still crave to explore the issues themselves. it's a lot easier for me to stomach when the setting and characters are removed from my own reality, even allowing it to be cathartic and fun in a way that a depressingly realistic, nitty-gritty take on the same topic couldn't be. there's also the (i hope obvious) distinction between what one likes to fantasize about versus what works in reality. power dynamics that would look horrifying in real life can be a lot of fun in play with a partner who's on the same page as you. a lot of what makes BDSM interesting to me personally is (pun 100% intended) tied up in power dynamics and little else. and what is ABO if not a way to emphasize and explore power dynamics? i'm not going to lie, the mpreg aspect of ABO isn't really my thing, but again it makes a lot of sense to me when imagining a female audience. the power dynamics often discussed in these stories are inherently entangled in pressures, anxieties, hopes and fears about having children. it's about sexuality, but it's also about starting a family, building a home, and living out your life in a meaningful and fulfilling way. these things will always be a balance, perhaps especially to most cis women who fancy men, not only because of societal factors, but also because just the act of being sexually active means you are risking pregnancy to some degree. i can definitely see why some might find it interesting to put a character who wouldn't normally share these anxieties (in this case a cis gay man) in a position where they would understand them, and have to tackle them themselves.
Especially when there are clear roles for the two men that map onto stereotypical male and female relationship roles, it's probably written by and for women.
@@leigy100 @TRiG (Ireland) there's truth to both of these statements, please don't assume i'm trying to deny it, but... i'd urge anyone reading this not to generalize. female author does not equal toxic garbage, nor does it somehow guarantee that certain tropes will be used. i hope we all agree that, just like with anything else, writing has to be judged on a case by case basis. as far as i'm concerned these kinds of issues (bigotry/poor representation, issues with consent, poorly handled gender roles, abuse represented as normal, etc., etc.,) are prevalent in romance/erotica of any subgenre. authors of any background or identity can, and do, make asshats out of themselves from time to time. but, in my experience, there is also a lot of happy surprises and hidden gems out there as well.
@@fivesilvercoins Oh, this is true, certainly. On a less toxic and more amusing note, I once read a gay romance (real world) which was clearly written by an adolescent girl who'd never seen a naked man. Got some good giggles out of that.
@@qwertyTRiG i'm not sure i ever read anything quite that bad, but i do recognize that problem, lol. i have vivid memories of being sixteen or so, and sitting in a group chat with some fanfic writers (we were beta-reading each other's stuff i believe), and having to explain to them that prostates exist.
I always feel heavily uncomfortable when “normal” people find fanfic stuff. 😭 I guess maybe I should be more uncomfortable that someone is exposing us by putting this in the light to “regular” people
I would like to believe that people from different alternate universes have different cells and DNA reading so one man can have babies with their sisters from different world and not worry about incest diseases because they are not related. Will you kink shame me?
I've read my fair share of ABO fanfics and I was surprised to find how heavy the political and social commentary is. Honestly, at first I liked them because men were expected to give up career, get pregnant and stay home, how society was not devided by women/men but alphas, betas and omegas, especially when female alphas (who could get female omegas pregnant) were just as powerful as male alphas. But OMG it's so layered! Omegas' social status varies, they can be both rare, treasured things only the richest alphas can have, down to breeding slaves or second class citizens (many of those stories have literal battles for freedom). Any woman who at times felt being somehow less of a person because of their gender can relate. And of course it's ways of handeling LGBT subjects is great, but I'm not an expert on that.
This is why I loved writing it. I've told people before, but if something happens to a woman, people don't blink, but make those same social injustices happen to a man? OMG, beware, people will get all up in arms about how *wrong* it is people are treated in such a way and how wrong people are for treating a man in that way. The same situations that happen every day to women all over the world. For me, this was even more enforced when I started writing an Omegaverse story that had a female Omega as the main character. She shares many of the same characteristics as one of my previous male Omegas, but she's actually stronger and more independent than he ever was, and she gets all the shit. She gets hate for not standing up for herself more and that she's just not thinking enough, even she's actually much more independent than the other male Omega character, who people were fighting for, calling out the system, calling out how he was mistreated. I'm queer, my stories are full of queer characters and I love putting queer content in my books, but it was so sad to see that for my female Omega, people were telling her to grow up more and be stronger and fight the system for herself when for my male Omega people were telling him that the system was cruel and that the system was wrong and that they wanted to fight the system for him. And their stories are very similar in setup (one is an MMM story and one a Reverse Harem story), but readers treat the two so differently, because one is a guy and the other a gal.
This was everything I could've hoped for in terms of fairness to a genre like this. Then again, you always are, but even so, it was such a relief and such a joy. One thing I personally about Omegaverse like is the ability to explore how a hierarchy like that effects a character, both in terms of big stuff like job opportunities, control over own choices etc but also in terms of the small stuff, like how they'd internalise a prejudice towards their own grouping, take something for granted, exploit the priviledges of their grouping, or make assumptions about another grouping.
I'm sure that there are gay men that are into this too, but you are severely underestimating the amount of female involvment with this genre. Fanfic, written porn as opposed to visual, focus on relationships(aka more emotional than regular porn), and yes even m/m romance are primarily made and consumed by women. Seeing this verse as coming more from female sexuality as opposed to gay men may some things clearer. Think of how in yaoi the uke is often used as a tool to explore ideas of male aggression and gender roles without there having to be a woman involved. The obvious next step is a way to have this gender role exploration without women on a societal level, and that is where the omega comes in. Obviously there are a whole lot of kinks and other elements mixed in with omegaverse that the author can choose whether or not to incorporate, but that's just one thing to consider.
You really just glossed over the fact that ABO started as an incestuous thing between the Winchester brothers. Not saying it's bad on your part just it even took me a second to go "wait that's not destiel"
Castiel didn't show up for 4 seasons. What where people supposed to do, not ship anyone? (I joke, but I'm like 90% sure that's why wincest got to be so huge for what would normally be a really niche ahip. There's like 4 recurring characters in the early seasons and only two of them are handsome young men, so people made do!)
As a trans man this genre is one that has always made me feel super comfortable and seeing someone take a respectful look at it is so nice, so thank you :)
I'm going to be honest, having seen A/B/O all over the fanfic scene, it had never once occurred to me that gay MEN would actually be reading/writing any of it. Outside the odd well written fic I always saw the niche as just being a way for female writers to force traditional male/female gender roles into gay relationships, writing slash fic with the hot actors they like but structuring the relationship like a standard het romance, with the gender roles and society expectations thereof turned up to 11. The A/B/O roles only seem to exist in these stories to answer the question of 'who's the woman in the relationship' by showing a physical difference, making the omega submissive and homemaker-y by instinct and including the mpreg, so you can have your nuclear family happily-ever-after. Rather than experiencing homophobia in these stories, they experience regular sexism where omegas are seen as inferior property of their alphas. To me these aren't gay stories, they're straight stories where the people involved are from different sexes, those sexes are just alpha and omega rather than traditional male and female. The other thing that bothers me is the mpreg, not necessarily it's existence, but the implication that these 'gay' relationships are only real and valid because one of the men involved can produce children, and that the omega should want to have children and raise a family. It's the same conservative 'woman's bodies are for babymaking' mentality put onto a male character instead of a female one. And again, because A/B/O contains extra physical sexes, the ones who are getting pregnant are more often than not just the extra 'women' of the universe, treated as such rather than men who just happen to be able to get pregnant. If all the men could get pregnant equally, as is usually the case in magical mpreg fic, then it would be different. So it's interesting to see, from someone who now avoids fic that mention A/B/O in the summary, that it has moved into full printed original fiction. The two Dom seems to have read just sound like straight feel-good romances, with A/B/O tacked on, which given the vast majority of fic I've read (even just the summaries of most) seem like severe outliers in theme and content. And given that the Dom seems to have specifically looked for books without the sexism and violence, I can see why. I don't blame him for not wanting to read about those topics anymore but you can write a feel-good version of anything. I feel like the books chosen misrepresents what most of what I've seen this genre being used for, which is to allow female writers to have their cake and eat it to, by having their slash fiction and their characters living under social gender roles stories at the same time. I didn't mean to write this much honestly but the tropes of the genre have been bothering me for quite a while now and given the Dom seems to be trying analyse it, well, here's my two cents. Take it with all the grains of salt that it is worth.
I completely agree. It seems more like a female fantasy of two men having sex, similar to that of lesbian porn for straight men. Its almost always unrealistic to a laughable degree. Things like this can actually be harmful to the LGBT community sometimes. As long as readers are separating fiction from reality thats all I ask.
@@zaolus2507 When women write two gay characters in a fetishising way and people take it as the norm it can be harmful. This happens with lesbians and gay men with yuri and yaoi and has shown to affect the LGBT community in Japan after yaoi became popular as people take yaoi as fact. I'll tell you i'm not dramatising the situation i've seen it first hand. People just need to separate fiction from reality and sadly many people don't.
@@Trospur Okay, I see where you're going with it. And yeah that is a tragic subject. But people who have it in them to do this shit, no matter the excuse, will find one to do it. Some (I'd like to bet most) of us aren't like that, and it sucks that we have to suffer and be seen as 'dangerous' because of these people who just take it WAY too far, and would with anything. We mean no harm with our interest.
I like how he didn’t assume that theses stories are being written and read by straight woman over sexualising gay men. Nor did you demonise the straight woman that do (read gay fanfic, not the over sexualising gay men). I mean most LGBT+ fanfic and writing is being written by members of the company, looking for representation in a place that is severely lacking. I met this woman (over the internet) who was a lesbian but only wrote MxM fanfic because she lives in Asia and the only LGBT+ works have two duds and don’t really acknowledge that lesbians are a thing. She wasn’t overly mad about it (representation is representation. Even when not direct) but still wanted more lesbian characters in media. This was way longer then it was meant to be. Anyway, we need more LGBT+ works in this world and if I have to do it then by god I will do it.
Oh dear god, this is giving me flashbacks to how i first reacted to a/b/o dynamics. I was really horrible and assumed the writer was sexualizing gay men,,, and i wrote a comment critiscising her for this and her story,,,,,, this hurts me to remember,,,, hhhhhh Yuubooty, if you are reading this. I'm sorry, i fucked up bad.
Slash and all its sub genres, including a/b/o, helped me come to terms with the fact I wasn’t straight and interested in a vanilla relationship. The level of acceptance that I have for myself is way higher than if these didn’t exist.
Lesbians have influences too in Asia but people tend to attack Gay men rather than gay women for example like in some part of China and Singpore etc lesbian relationship is allowed but not gay men and lesbian relationship is heavily sexualized in straight nsfw industry which I think is a turn off for many pontential readers while gay relationship is considered taboo and when guys fell for each other it feels like it is the world against them kind of scenerio which creates more tension to drama and plots etc etc I guess,for example if you watch/read like an 18+ show/comic/novels if there is a bisexual women sex scene involves it is very normalized at this point cause it is so abundant while if you came across a male bisexual sex scene it is rare and intruinging and even have a tendecy to trigger homophobic people as well I think thats why lesbian or GL books have hard time gaining audiences opposed to BL
As a person who didn’t realize they were a lesbian for a long while after learning about and accepting lgbt, I can understand you learning to relate to gay men and thinking “my god that must be tiring”
Eh... Think it started after I got through with my fanfiction stage. Only reason I knew it was a thing was that I stumbled across several published works set in some version of the Omegaverse. Apparently the genre's more widespread and popular than I realized.
im not such an avid fanfic reader anymore, but occasionally do check the Omegaverse Tag! next to the BTS abo, there is ALWAYS a winchester brother alpha omega bang session ! supernatural will never die apparently
"Helpful and supportive daddy doms might help you put together your Grammy winning rockstar lifestyle but only likes and subscribes can help alleviate the UA-cam subscription algorithm" how's that?
All of the a/b/o stories my friend rec'd me when she was trying to get me into it were very much of the "it's not actually rape if the omega's in heat" variety, so I'm really glad to find out that the whole genre isn't just a dumpster fire of rapeyness.
Yeah I can’t really continue reading that shit. Sometimes in stories I read there is a character who tries to assault someone and they use that reasoning but are obviously the bad guy that is part of the oppressive system.
@@m1sh474 I should know. But I still like reading them because of the chatacters' defiance against their obviously sexist system. It is relatable, so.. 😶
The weird thing about Omegaverse is that it's both incredibly subversive and rigidly defined by a heteronormative view of relationships. The concept of men being able to be together without a hint of prejudice in the world is fundamentally subversive, but it's kind of sad to see that the most common way we see this manifesting is transplanting of heteronormative ideals onto homosexual relationships. I really like fanfiction that explores the various ways ABO societies are built to enforce omega submission; as a woman, it feels like a safe way to explore these themes without really being triggered. However, after spending a lot of time reading fic after a fic about societies that place "biological imperative" over human rights it does get a bit grating. The sad thing about Omegaverse compared to the real world is that while in our reality the "biological" argument for patriarchy is complete bunk, in this fiction omegas a proven to be biologically "inferior" justifying the hierarchy the premise is built on.
In my experience, whenever the biological imperative is true in universe it's kink. Just because a the genre is used to explore gender roles in a more palatable way doesn't mean it isn't also riddled with gratuitous sex.
I dont like either that, in the translation of a gay relationships into an heteronormative one, the male who dominates and impregnates is called "alpha" and the male who submit and gets pregnant is called "omega". I can only describe that as some kind of weird misogyny.
Dom, in the wake of recent discussion of this cropping up again I rewatched your video and...I want to cry with how validated and heard you've made me feel in the aftermath. Your respectful approach and firm request to shut down kinkshaming made both me and many people very important to me feel legitimate in both recent hurt and someone outside understanding what it's like to be less vanilla than others and how we can feel to be judged and the butt of joke. When quarantine ends I could hug you if I ever see you.
"Interesting fact: The fanbase of this content wasn't as exclusively gay male as I was expecting."
You sweet summer child.
🤣
I swear Lesbians write the most excruciatingly detailed m/m smut I've ever laid eyes on and I have no clue why the fuck that is
You know what sucks is that I have to be subjected to reading these types of stories because it’s literally the only thing that they have on the websites I can afford to read them on.
@@JustNatax3 I need sauce, please
@@PhysicallyAwake I'm pretty sure that you can find literally every genre of literature on Archive of our Own. I remember when I came there looking for Supernatural fanfics and I found everything from A/b/o romances and BDSM smut to psychological thrillers and sci-fi space operas.
FINE, UA-cam. I WILL WATCH THIS ANALYSIS OF MALE PREGNANCY NOVELS.
I am not alone... SIGH
Lol this literally did pop-up randomly for me on my recommend to watch...... Several times tbh.
I'm not the only one 😔
same, Ive read a few fanfics like it (they just gave males the ability or rather allowed for people in same sex relationships to conceive naturally)...they were pretty good but idk why this was in my recommended
That's the spirit!!!!😁😁😁😁✌
"Why is it whenever there's a weird new type of BDSM fanfiction, its always because of you three?"
*Camera pan over to Sam, Dean and Castiel*
"no not them
those 3"
Camera pan over to a semi-truck, fighter jet
and tank.
I HATE that I understand both references.
If supernatural didn't start it star trek did
Castiel: Believe me, I've been asking myself the same question for 18 years.
Star Trek fandom: YAY IT WASN'T US THIS TIME
Oh God, seeing this somewhere that’s not Tumblr, ao3, or a niche fan site make me feel some type of way
Mood Im extremely into omegaverse and im on 2 levels like "HOLY SHIT" and on another level "yaaaas"
@@bouddicathesleepinglioness3148 you forgot one: "ouchh"
I feel scared yet called out.
Discomfort
it's all over amazon now though I can only find straight a/b/o stuff >.
I think Fifty shades scarred Dominic more than we thought
That book is a Lament Configuration in literary form.
I want to like your comment but the likes are at 911 and that's just too perfect
Time to scar him more by reading more of EL James’s works
We need to keep the hetero omegaverse stories far, far, FAR away from him. The poor man has suffered enough
@@Siberianchan And 365 Days.
A reminder that in ABO there are also Alpha Women. Anybody ( male, female or others) can fit in alpha, beta or omega, it doesn't depend on gender.
And an answer to a common question in a male omega-female alpha relationship, the omega will be the one getting pregnant.
It's actually really neat how gender fluid that society works
Dom: this began as Supernatural fanfiction.
Me: yeah that seems about right.
Sadly so.
There's a lot of stuff to filter out in the m/m section of Archive Of Our Own
Especially cause it was Wincest...
@@bloodsknight You would have to be mad to mistake those to as related OR miss the crazy sexual overtones.
They knew what their fans wanted and they gave it to them.
@@tarod3 I really never saw anything sexual between the two, I still dont.
"I was completely and utterly taken aback by just how ridiculously wholesome this novella was." this poor man just needs some good fluff in his life and forget about fifty shades. Good luck, Dom.
I've found very wholesome stories in otherwise very extreme kink stories.
Im not going to lie... Ive been reading A/B/Os for years. They are usually the most wholesome kinky shit ive ever read
@@BlazeDupree1525 same
Aingeal Jackson
Same. I’m here for the story, less the kink
@@Jacky.c.v right, I don't know why. But there is something satisfying about knowing for sure that your partner is 100% dedicated to you and will do everything in their power to be there for you and visversa. And add a baby into the mix and its just wholesome fluff with a bit of rough kinky smut in between all the sweetness.
If I ever get a sugar daddy I want them to yell “daddy punch” when punching bad guys.
XD Oh the brilliance of that line!
I never had any interest in a sugar daddy until reading this comment...yelling daddy punch and having someone bring the heat down would be really fun
😂
tops, you don't have to be a sugar daddy to yell this, just yellit for fun
I’m not going to lie, the idea of there being books based around omega verse never even crossed my mind. I only knew of it from fanfiction and I don’t know how to feel about there being published works based on the concept
This series:
archiveofourown.org/series/695802
Purely original series, some of the early ones are/were being publish.
I'm down as long as it's original fiction.
I didn't think of books either, but there's toooooooooooooooons of original manga set in omegaverse
@@mekinot
Soooo mannnnny.
@@mekinot where could I find somma that? 😅
I never realized published books could be a/b/o
Confirmed: Those guys on the Internet calling me “beta” were just tsundere.
I mean-
@@zealouszombie5658 Should we tell him?
They were probably Jessie Lee Peterson fans.
@@duowest642 Amazin.
Those kinky bitches
I can’t believe this legit exists outside of Wattpad and fanfiction sites
So does 50 shades of gray
Loads of people make a living writing it, have for years. I was there when it kicked off big-time in self-publishing in 2015 and I know authors making 5 figures a month writing those stories. It's a well-loved genre for loads of people. A genre full of men who love babies and kids and are caring and you also get some smut (at least, this is what most Omegaverse stories I've read are like), it's a perfect combo.
There was literally a court case over it 🙃 Lindsay Ellis posted a long video about it last week.
@@IvoirePunk That was bout hetero Omegaverse and has nothing to do with mpreg. It's a whole different take on the idea and loads of mpreg readers would not be that comfortable with what's being published as Omegaverse in MF romance.
@@EasilyDistractedPlanner I was referring to the omegaverse and not mpreg specifically, got this comment mixed with another when I replied
"I'm just kinda burnt out on books where someone always gets assaulted in some capacity" as a fan of fantasy and sifi romance novels very much same. i want the playfully cute banter and clear, excited, consent . please and thank you.
I'm so glad that I have a friend with a very small publishing company that always makes sure that consent is given on all stories or she just won't publish it.
Has been such a game changer for me to only read erotic stuff from her and one similar publisher. Only available in German though but suits me just fine.
@@DieAlteistwiederda lucky I have to dredge though the trash to find the good trash XD. It's gotten to the point where I have a ton of half finished ones I started then tossed the moment consent was violated.
Defy the stars has some of the good ol consent and respect if you need any recommendations
@@DieAlteistwiederda hey! I'm from Germany as well and am looking for romance/smut novels that are consensual! What 2 publishing companies are you talking about? I'd love to look into them😊
Kind of like whenever you used to see a movie that included gay characters. One, both, or all of them would be dead by the end. I got burnt out on that too.
There's also stories where women can be A/B/O
I have a new favorite Genre now thanks XD
@@bluethewitch6443
This series pretty much goes through ever pairing you can think of. Also connected universe like cameos and the like.
Also Historical.
archiveofourown.org/series/695802
I forgot what this was about and thought this was some kink based on blood type. And then I got Homestuck flashbacks.
@@merrittanimation7721 lol
Merritt Animation Those combination of words should be illegal
Huh, all this time I've been blaming the Teen Wolf fandom for this stuff. Should have known it was Supernatural.
It's ALWAYS supernatural😼
dito
Rules of fanfiction its always supernatural and if its not its harry potter.
we can probably blame teen wolf for the rush of content after the initial fanfic
everyone had wolves on the brain
ABO is older than a lot of people seem to realise (and mpreg predates it because I remember having to avoid it when I was very first in fandom). As in livejournal kinkmeme old. It predated the first episode of teen wolf by more than a year, and the teen wolf shipping community didn't really get big until the second season. (Although I'm enough of a fandom-old that I'm honestly surprised it's only 10 years old, some of the older kinkmemes had some legitimately wild stuff on them, although for some reason 'male character is secretly a kind of humanoid frog who must lay spawn-like eggs' didn't catch on like ABO did. Can't image why...)
Just in case there is any confusion, the running shoes and fresh air to cure depression comment was in reference to a famous tweet by Katie Hopkins.
Toby does not have depression in this book, I was just using it as a example of how mental health is treated in general.
You're awesome! ❤️💜💙
I don't think you should call ADD an illness. Nice video, though.
David Lejeune it’s literally a disorder though?
@@davidlejeune9626 I suppose it isn't an illness in the sense that it cant be cured. But it is a deficiency caused by a chemical imbalance and is clasified as mental disorder.
I could imagine that the idea of dropping ADD medication might be the result of this particular diagnosis being overused a bit. For example, Autism of the Spectrum kind is often misdiagnosed as either ADD or ADHD. At best it treats a symptom in such cases, at worst... well, side-effects are a thing. If that is an experience one of the writers has gone through or has seem somebody go through, that might explain this part of the story. On the other hand, they also might simply have forgotten to pick up that thread?
Seahorses have a creepy fetish genre called F-preg.
Because of course that's a thing
I believe you
Thanks for reminding me XD
that the sea gets stranger the deeper you get.
Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak anglerfish stronger!
I just find out that clownfishes can naturally chage genres if the leader female of the group dies.
For those nerdy enough to read it: someone wrote a whole thesis on the Omegaverse. It's really good, and superinteresting, and focuses on the way these fics often tackle real world issues of sexism, homophobia and oppression: "What is an omega? Rewriting sex and gender in omegaverse fanfiction." By Marianne Gunderson.
thank you! this is very interesting!
Greetings from a fellow Philosophy student :D I sadly don't have the time to read it at the moment, but I saved it and am going to, as it sounds very interesting. I'm commenting now before reading so I wont forget to thank you for introducing a philosophical paper about these underlieing issues. Also, I'm not quite sure if I have the guts to recommend it to someone else. How kinky does the specific matter you discuss get? or in other words: Will I be able to look my professor in the eyes if I show it to her? I know the real world issues are a topic she's interested in, but Omegaverse I doubt she knows.
@@kiram.3619 Also the paper “Slight dub-con but they both wanted it hardcore”: Erotic fanfiction as a form of cultural activism around sexual consent" by Milena Popova. It has some really thoughtful insights into the handling of consent in omegaverse as well as rpf fanfic.
Just want to leave this here for whoever comes across this comment and wants to find the essay
www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/60216/Omegaverse-MarianneGunderson.pdf?sequence=5
@@sunflare1492 It's so interesting how easily I can tell that the person behind the essay is from the perspective of someone in fanfiction rather than an "outsider" looking in, I suppose. So there's something to be said about how people perceive this genre depending on how they stumble upon it: through fanfiction or not. Lol.
But this is really interesting. Thanks for sharing it!
"More canine inspired genitalia"
I do knot have any idea what you're talking about
You’re wrong for that
Look up female hyenas
Y’ever think we’re gonna be judged for our sins
@@therobotfromirobot we're too far gone for that.
I casually passed this comment and then it turned around and slapped me in the face.
Just to clarify a bit here:
Omegaverse/ABO does have women. There two genders (female and male) and three subgenders or status (alpha, beta, and omega). Women and men can be any of the three: like woman-alpha, woman-beta, woman-omega and male-alpha, male-beta, and male-omega.
The dynamics in society is based on your "status" rather than your gender. So if you're a male-alpha you have the same rights and privileges as a woman-alpha.
I think this is one (of many) reasons why people are drawn to the ABO verse...
because it's sexist?
It puts a disconnect between gender and status in an interesting way. I know a trans man who loves these stories - or at least the ones with more substance than porn. I also enjoy the ones that use the setup to exaggerate and lambast sexist themes. There are quite a few where an Omega fakes being an Alpha in public to avoid sexism and get a certain job or break traditions (or vice versa.)
not all of them have this dynamic. It happens most of the time in manga with omegaverse rather than books in my experience
Ive always had a question that no one seems to be able to answer. In a male omega female beta relationship, can the omega get the women pregnant? Is he even able to be in a relationship with her, or been an omegga necessary means hes atracted to dudes only
@@trispigeonbaneodair7961 I've read fics with a female beta getting pregnant from a male omega, yes. Some fics don't allow male omegas to get another male/female omegas or female betas to get pregnant because their penises are underdeveloped and their semen is basically water, while other fics allow it.
So basically, the "science" it's up to the writer's stupidity or good skills.
Lindsey Ellis' Omegaverse lawsuit video and morbid curiosity brought me here.
Same😆
Same
Oh, I watch that and this popped up in my recommended! Wack!
I tried to watch this before I knew what was AO3 was. I just saw Lindsay's 2nd video, and.. WOW.
And of course.. #SPN.😂
Yup. Same. I watched both of her vids on the subject about how positively deranged Ms Addison Cain is and was looking for some sort of comment here.
Not disappointed.
And I still geek out about how truly, awesomely fucked up that whole het omegaverse is.
It's rape, but it's ok cos he's good at it!!!???
WTAF!!??
I don't know what worried me more: that fact that I was already way too familiar with the omegaverse, solely due to going on archive of our own, or that i wasn't surprised to hear that it started with sam/dean slash fanfiction.....
im crying so hard
The first omegaverse fic I ever read was on fanfiction.net over 10 years ago. It was a very long, well thought out fic, even though it got harder to get through as time went on due to my growing tokophobia.
@@MidnightSonnet honestly, the weirdest thing about omegaverse is how well written some of it is
I think it's older than that. Wasn't it started in the 90s?
Same, those poor brothers. Haven't they been through enough?
dominic: omegaverse
me: **war flashbacks**
I could go to war any day if I had to🤷♀️
STELLAR! "Anyone, who truly wants to go to war, has truly never been there before" -Larry Reeve
Артём а Симеон we are still talking about fanfictions..aren’t we?
STELLAR! Reference
Артём а Симеон ??? You want my fanfic references?? (If so lmao)
Damn, imagine a straight white guy actually willingly reading this stuff, NOT just to laugh at gay/teen girl fantasies, but actually to learn more about them. Where did you come from and can the LGBT community use you as an example of a good ally forever
Lol, the main ones reading and writing these stories are straight older women (think women in their 30s and 40s). Not teen girls.
@@queenmoreau2098 That may be true in book form. These same exact stories that don't get self published are often written and consumed by teen girls. You bring up a good point, though! That it's not necessarily just things teen girls like, but often all women, along with LGBT people.
@@LunatheMoonDragon As an older straight woman that reads similar stuff online (though has not yet dipped a toe into this particular universe) we start as teenage girls and just keep going. Though in my days it involved BBSs, dial up modems, 5 1/2 floppies & frantically printing them out on the schools dot matrix printer & hoping the teacher didn't ask any questions.
@@wwaxwork Y'all were troopers 😳💀
Stalin just a Fellow russian comrade - spoken like a white man
Me: *Walks in very cautiously expecting this genre to be teared to pieces
Dominic: *Asks his watchers to restrain the kink-shaming
Dominic: *Addresses the parallels between Omegaverse and everyday women's reality
Dominic: *Addresses the parallels between Omegaverse and real life Gay prejudices (that had somehow eluded me for some reason. Probably because I was more focused on the previous parallel)
Dominic: *Doesn't dwell on the male pregnancy for too long and grasps the variety in which the genre appeals to people
Dominic: *Keeps a genuinely un-biased and respectful open mind on the subject and does a reasonable amount of research
Me: *Clutching my heart with a single tear running down my face- Wholesome... We don't deserve you.
Vernon Roche patroooooonn this was probably released last year
@Vernon Roche XD It was released for early access on Patreaon, yes.
RIGHT! this was so amazing.
I expected the same, but I really ought to know better by now! He's always respectful of these things.
Personally, I don't read A/B/O fic for those exact reasons you listed. I'm on Ao3 to escape those realities, not read parallels of them ^^;;
@@Kagomai15 I felt bad for expecting it afterwards because I know he is always open minded. It is just such an easy genre to rip to pieces and I had no clue what samples he would stumble over.
As he said, if the writter is decent so will the piece be and while I have not read any published works, but there are a ton of unhealthy and disturbing fanfiction in this genre.
It is not my favorite genre, but if I search for a ship or team building and it is among the results with an interesting description I might read it. Sometimes it has interesting worldbuilding, dynamics and there's of course a lot of wholesome tooth-rotting fluff happening.
Also the smut if you are in the mood for that.
Being respectful and nonjudgemental towards women and the lgbt community is the most attractive trait a man can have. I didn’t have a crush on Dom when I first started watching him but seeing how genuine he is about social issues and mental health... *chefs kiss*
Conveniently Shaped Lamp I found Dom through his fifty shades videos and I think halfway through the second vid I realized I had the biggest crush ever on him because he was getting as angry as I did about the consent issues etc. in the first book. Definitely raised the bar for men in my real life
Conveniently Shaped Lamp 👏🏻
@@Lodatzor Women: "I love how this man acknowledges consent issues present in a lot of fiction!"
Some regressive neckbeard on a keyboard rant: "YoU wAnT mEn tO bE sErViLe FeMiNiSm BaD"
Lodatz the whole point is that it isn’t real. It’s a fiction that isn’t making statements about the real world.
Lodatz dude. FUCK. OFF. Your argument makes no sense because this genre has the exact same thing but with women exhibiting doglike traits; it isn’t written by women to feel superior or by men to appease women. Its a fetish. Also men aren’t servile to women, either in this video or in this book, because newsflash: THERE ARE NO WOMEN PRESENT IN EITHER. You having an issue with men being treated like women- even by other men- just proves women are treated worse.
‘It’s like being hit in the face with a rather concentrated ray of sunshine and vomiting pure sugar’
yeah...yeah it sounds like it might be fluff...yeah you’re just reading fluff...
art of the void oh my gods you’re right 😂
or possibly even full on schmoop
*laughs in fluff writer*
Fluff is fucking amazing and addictive.
I love Fluff
You know what's really wholesome and sunshine-slapping-in-the-face? The comment section. Largely respectful, interesting, insightful and well written.
I hope you have a beautiful day :)
This is so true! I am amazed! The Dom really has the most beautiful watchers!
“UA-cam comment section” and “well-written” cannot exist in the same statement. They resist each others presence like the opposite sides of a magnet.
@@flankerwagen8595 sometimes there are exceptions in the universe that resist all of nature's chaos. Dom's channel is one of them.
We are polite here, unless you wrote 50 shades of gray, then we hate you
Fun fact,
For the final presentation in our senior year, my teacher allowed us to do a multimedia presentation about any topic that we wanted, so my friend and I being huge fanfics addicts back them and in my case still am, we chose to talk about the Omegaverse.
So for 20 minutes, our whole classroom had to listen to us talk in length about this universe, the rules the hierarchy of alpha-beta and Omega, the classism, the parallels between Omega and women, toxic masculinity present in the alpha, the biology, history classic tropes found in this fanfiction the whole nine yards, all with the pictures and Vivid detail.
My friend I had a lot of fun working on that but I have to admit the best part of it was the look on our teacher and classmates' faces.
you could drop a pin in that room.
Edit:
forgot to mention, we got an A on this.
Reminds me of the time one of my classmates made a film about masturbation for a final project. Which the teacher specifically said not to make porn about when he said we could do whatever we wanted besides that if it had a story.
@@merrittanimation7721
At least informative?
What grade did they get?
@@GirlGamer190 It wasn't informative at all. It was a comedy where the guy's tissue caused flowers to grow. My teacher seemed to be fine with it though, he was disappointed the audio was off sync because of the computer.
@@merrittanimation7721 oh my God 😆
This comment is my favorite today! And congrats on the A!
I once read somewhere that straight women often enjoy gay love stories because it's just about two people working through their feelings and whatever problems life throws at them, WITHOUT the expectations caused by gender roles. It's like refreshing, or something. Which I can totally understand.
It's important to note Mpreg pre-dates ABO pretty significantly (as 12yo me accidentally found out when first delving into HP fanfiction 😳).
Omegaverse has definitely expanded to include all genders, from heterosexual relationships that allow writers to play with elements of beastiality without actually having beastiality, to examining complex polyamorous relationships. It also examines the idea of gender roles in society by replacing the idea of "male" and "female" with alpha, beta, and omega.
Honestly, ABO is one of the most fascinating subgenres I've found, and you're absolutely right that it trends towards wholesome, if kinky.
My personal fav writer is JD Riley on AO3. I recommend their Victorian Verse, like it's good and it touches on those gender roles as well.
Mpreg is at least as old as original-recipe Star Trek (I say as someone who pre-dates HP, but does not pre-date Trek Classic). Mpreg isn’t for me, but I like a lot of fic that definitely isn’t for others.
Yeah, first there was Mpreg, then there was the Veela (or creature in general) verse to explain the whole mpreg thing (not so nicely also called "ass babies") and then the Omegaverse developed out of it, I think due to a fusion or inspiration by the Sentinel Fandom with its Sentinel/Guide concept.
I completely agree with you
Yup. Was reading mpreg over 20 years ago, the first abo I’ve ever seen was in Teen Wolf fandom, maybe 5-6 years ago?
i love how dom tried SO HARD to avoid the issue of knotting. like honey,,, we all know what "unusual genitalia" means
Knotting?
@@kylpyvene 😂
RIGHT?? NBDJHDVHG
Haha that’s my thought too lol
Kylpyvene uh...look up doggy dongs if you’re curious
The weirdest part about this whole thing is that women can't be attracted to Omegas. Let them have their twinks if they want to!
Nahuel Santos well, most stories I read about this topic included women alphas, some of them even being with male omegas, so that’s pretty neat
pretty accured to real life
@@gregorythestallion2984 I don't know, man. I feel like *many* women would disagree with that statement
@@nanusantos1696 statistics show pretty much that women (at least nowadays) are pretty much not into men with an equal or lower status.
Omegas not only lack status, they lack the personality, the dominance, the money, and probably the dick.
But, yeah, I guess I have to consider that omegas as handsome men too, so they have attractiveness on their side, which is a huge factor in attraction for females.
Mind you, I'm talking about attraction, not holding relationships.
@@gregorythestallion2984 Y’know what they say about statistics, Dude - there’s lies, damned lies, and statistics.
In other words, just because you find a lot of examples of this thing, doesn’t mean it’s the absolute truth, and there’s plenty of disproving examples.
The continuation of the 'Everything is Better Than 50 Shades' series.
The way Dom approaches every community he reads about with so much empathy and kindness is what I love about this channel. You can get snide remarks anywhere but he actually checks his privilege regularly, makes sure to address important issues when they come up, and is really nice about all the fanbases he addresses. I'm so grateful that this channel exists and it's really reassuring to see in a world where it seems live everyone is just trying to tear each other down.
I mean the whole point of literature is to understand and evaluate differing ideas and concepts. Take Kate Chopin’s The Awakening for example: a woman in New Orleans abandons her loveless marriage, children and previous sheltered social structure to free herself from a made world around her. Now some people read the book and think the protagonist is an idiot who married the wrong person and then abandoned her children while others might identify with her limited choice and support her. Both interpretations are valid but the important thing is that people read it, understood it and *then* passed judgement. The important thing is that people were able to expand their understandings while reserving their own views or opinions. Thank you for coming to my TED talk
I couldn't agree more. I've found it utterly refreshing to hear a reviewer speak with total acceptance even when he/she/they are not personally interested in the subject matter.
Priviledge only exists in rich VS poor. nothing else
@@alexk7880 Ok, boomer
@@rainyday840 that's pathetically old your beating a dead horse. It's why I find my generation of millenials cringe
Hmm. I wonder if the published books that you've been recommended ever bring up the concept of Suppressants. Like birth control, its a pill Alphas and Omegas can opt into taking that 'suppresses' their need, lust, or scent and keeps them level headed in their day-to-day norms. Something about you saying "How can consent play in this universe if 2 or more of the party cannot control themselves" brought this bit of info dump from me. Great review! You were so professional with this topic.
I love the many times I've seen Omegaverse fics use the Integrity Crisis setup. Basically, one party has lost their inhibitions, and the other party must fight off their own desires to honor their friend's right of consent. In Omegaverse, it works as: Bob goes into heat, Jim valiantly fends off Bob's advances and finds a way to keep Bob safe until the heat wears off, or else finds a way to help Bob get through the heat with minimal amount of nonconsensual damage done.
I've seen a character stuff limes up his nose to cut down on his reaction to the pheromones. I've seen a doctor advise a mask and a noseful of Vic's VapoRub until the (quite sheltered) Alpha is able to calm down and control his unfamiliar reaction (and then the doc berates him *and* an omega friend for having this outdated idea that Alpha instincts are completely uncontrollable -- just because they're strong doesn't mean you can't figure out how to manage them, at least in that fic). I've seen characters tie people up to keep them from doing something they'll regret, and I've seen a character try every possible means of talking his way out until the effect wore off enough to be manageable (that one wasn't Omegaverse, but had similar mechanics due to a drug).
It's fascinating how authors choose to deal with consent issues once there's such a mechanic in play -- and it gives the lie to these people who in real life try to claim that their behavior was absolutely out of their control.
Me, a fanfiction writer:
Dominic: mpreg, omegaverse
Me: *sweats*
Me except I am the reader than the writer. 😳
yohtan same here
I've never empathized with a comment more XD
me 🤣
MinRin Kim 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Wait, you mean to tell me that Omegaverse is actually popular among actual gay men? ...and here I thought they were predominantly written by women, for some reason.
Referring to polling on the yaoi subreddit, male or men readers are the consistent majority. Many that read yaoi are also AOB fans.
If anyone noticed any inaccuracies, please tell me.
YAOI GIRLS
I understand that train of thought...
Fujoshi is a thing
Woman who are interested in BL (boy love). I really enjoy male/male romance (I'm a cis female) but prefer not to fetishize it. I simply enjoy the emotional aspect of relationships regardless of gender and sometimes its nice to see things that aren't hetero.
I never really knew gay men were the big audience for this either. Personally some good ABO stories appeal to me as a cis woman bc of the sometimes displayed microagressions against those with wombs, for lack of a better way to put it. Some stories touch on how omegas (with their monthly heats) are hormonal and untrustworthy, that things they say abt their bodies cant be taken seriously. Or their anger or feelings are written off as part of their hormones. And then to see stories where these omegas stand up for themselves is nice from a period-having persons perspective. I hope I'm making sense. It's just nice to be able to watch characters I already love (in fanfic) go thru some of the things I've experienced in my life and see them stand up for themselves in a society that sometimes mirrors our own very closely.
@@brookecorcuera1995 I'm not an omegaverse fan, but I've read a couple that do it wonderfully. They actually tackle the sexism against omegas head-on and examine what it would be like to not only be viewed as a "lesser sex" and treated like a sex toy by society, but also what it would be like to have no control over your body during a "heat cycle."
I do view the genre as inherently sexist, though (keep in mind my exposure is entirely through manga, so I don't know what it's like in the fanfic community). I've seen far too many stories where the omegaverse setting is there only to justify rape and it scares me to compare omega men and afabs from the real world. To me, there are three types of omegaverse manga: the kind that delve into the setting in a thought-provoking way, the kind that use it as an excuse for non-consensual smut, and the kind that celebrates mpreg as a pure fluff fairytale.
"This started out as Supernatural fanfiction." Me: unfortunately, I am aware. 16-year-old me was...not expecting this dynamic when I saw it for the first time
Omg hi! I also read that first story and experienced the cosequent boom in the wincest fandom... the internet is weird.
As someone who has been reading fanfiction a long time, the concept of mpreg isn't new to me, though it's never something I've personally been into. I wish I'd had a good informative video to watch about it then instead of stumbling across it in fanfic when I was unprepared lol. Really interesting video! As always it's wonderful how respectful you are about things like this.
Hope you're doing well!
Yeah, same here...I am kind of surprised that this is actually something which made it into real books. I always saw it more as some fantasy mostly female writers like to explore for some strange reason (I suspect partly because they think that a good marriage should have biological children, partly because they actually only write slash because they pair interesting characters with each other and not necessarily for the slash aspect of it), not something someone would seriously put into a book...but then, Twilight is a thing, right.
There's an mpreg arc in Journey To The West. So the concept is at least that old.
I must say I really do love a good mpreg story. Harry Potter getting pregnant after a stupid one night thing with Draco Malfoy. That is a very good saturday night read 😄
Same! I realy, realy don't like mpreg stories (because they make no goddamned sense!), but if others like it, that's ok.
I write MCU fanfics with Loki being my fave. And I admit I've made him pregnant quite a few times. To my defense, in Norse mythology Loki gives birth to a freaking _horse_. So it feels at least plausible. Otherwise I can be... torn about mpreg and I do avoid omegaverse stuff. Then again, I don't like bondage or BDSM either so...
Honestly, the one type of story I will always despise are those who try to make spanking of children sound cutesy. Like, making that the centre of the plot and stuff like that. It sickens me. Grown adults who are in agreement, fine. Children? Nope.
Dominic: "I'd rather not read stories were raep pops up every other chapter."
>Doesn't walk away from Romance genre.
Godspeed in your search for something non-raepy.
did you misspell that on purpose?
@@dracu9833 I honestly do appreciate it.
Lack of capability to consent is way more intrinsic to the abo genre than the romance genre though, and i say that as someone who has read a ton of both. Tons of biological determinism too that in romance youd only see in the most conservative novels
Just a heads-up, if you spell "rape" that way people with word filters won't be able to filter it out!
@@verybarebonesMy go to in this is- Outlander. On Starz. Just... Outlander.
9:55 I'm kinda new to your videos, and that part just made me realize how utterly precious human being you are. I don't think I've ever seen a straight cis male being as kind, empathetic and respectful towards LGBTQ+ community before. It lowkey makes me wanna cry with joy.
honestly as a trans guy the whole male pregnancy fetish has always been hilarious for me. i can't possibly kink shame those adventurous lads when they give me so much joy
I'm sorry, but you referring to the consumers of this subgenre as "adventurous lads" has tickled me.
Bless you sir for your weirdly wholesome contribution to this comment section.
I find normal pregnancy disturbing so um males is even worse like it just like aahhhhhhhg I really dislike it all the why like I couldn't be around my sister when she was in her late stage of pregnancy it just idk i ahah hate it
@@parisheidi3119 Tokophobia squad
*Speculating on how a male omega gives birth*
Dom: " ... it would be like watching footage of a snake eating a football ... in reverse." *blinks in quiet horror*
Me: *dies laughing*
Oh my sweet lord
@Xyre154 Thus why I and many other males get horrified whenever male pregnancy in fiction comes up.
Okay, woman talking here and I probably have no idea how terrifying it is to endanger your balls or to upchuck a baby; but dear lord, has the thought crossed your mind that they might simply cut the baby out? Cesarian births exist and it's always my go-to assumption in every single mpreg story I stumble into when magic/crazy body biology/'it happens' isn't involved.
Madalena Barata most omegaverse i’ve read had the births occur naturally (obviously through the same route conception took place, lol) I mean they are practically a different breed of people, surely they have mechanism of giving birth that way. While cesarean is always a possibility, it’s hard to image they’ve been medically and mentally equipped to do it since the beginning of the time.
@@madalenabarata5845 In a lot of male alpha/omega stories, the omega is essentially a hermaphrodite - they have a vaginal opening as well as male genitalia.
It's really really weird to see a topic like this on a non fanfic/shipping dedicated channel and (even though I've always found it odd and not really my cup of tea) still approaching it and just explaining it calmly and with kindness is super refreshing
I've been a fanfiction writer/reader for more than a decade so, needless to say, I was already familiar with the concept of ABO... But I had *absolutely no idea* it was actually something that managed to take off and become a niche of original works, and it kinda blew my mind lol
Not much to add, just... Very nice job. The fact that you've taken onto the topic with no prejudice and, not only that, but actively asked people NOT to be assholes about it it's pretty damn amazing. You're good egg.
Noha Ijiachi 👏🏻
@@salenebrom6476 : DDDD
I was shook the first time I saw an original web comic set in omega verse.
Omegaverse also touches Male/Female & Female/Female relationships not just Males.
My personal recommendation:
archiveofourown.org/series/695802
Pretty much every pairing you can think of.
And female/female, but that's in the far far minority
@@RenaDeles I know, I thought put both in their.
My personal recommend this series:
archiveofourown.org/series/695802
Historically fiction+Every pairing you can think of.
I actually only knew Male/Female stories and didn't know that these stories originated from the mpreg genre.
For anyone wanting a recommendation, a prolific fanfiction writer of A/B/O for female to female pairings is Rae D Magdon. She tends to write in gameing worlds like Dragon quest or Mass effect etc, but she's a good storyteller. Her published books are ok too they are based on alternative fairy tales.
Extremely rarely though
One type of abo fanfics that i really like, that is even rarer than a triple rainbow, is the omega/omega or alpha/alpha relationahips
I adore those rare stories! It's so cool to see alphas overcome their "biological imperative" to fight for an omega and instead enter a loving and committed relationship, and I love seeing omegas fight against everything society taught them to be with each other.
Daniele I also like the genre subversions where Omegas are the fiercer (usually in defense of their young) or higher-ranking dynamic, but I’ve seen like two of those so far.
@@whiskeredwolf4861 Huh... it just occured to me that the way alpha/alpha and omega/omega relationships are treated in-universe kinda reflects the way gay and lesbian relationships are treated in our world... i.e. two omegas want to be together, and are condemned for it because they can't get pregnant that way and "their bodies are supposed to be for baby-making"... like, does that sound familiar? 0_O
@@Eris_Norregard I’ve also seen the comparison where omegas shouldn’t be together because it would be too “tempting” for the alphas, and irl some lesbians are told... yeah.
@@whiskeredwolf4861 So the authors somehow manage to sneak homophobia into universe where everyone is homosexual... Human creativity just never ceases to amaze me.
I think it's a missed opportunity to not talk about females in A/B/O. There are some excellent stories out there, and female alphas are a really interesting part of it as well as the alpha/alpha or omega/omega stories. One of the most memorable stories I've ever read was a male alpha/female alpha story where a male omega friend acted as their beard.
Yup, my personal fav writer is JD Riley on AO3, crosses all genders(M/M, M/F, F/F).
BEARD??
@@Claire18Hi A beard like when women act like "beards" to gay men a.k.a. as a fake girlfriend to make them pass as straight when it's not safe for some reason to be "out".
There are some for A!M/A!M with the O!M beard as well.
Could I have the other author/fic names mentioned in here too? Sounds really fascinating
A lot of the omega verse fanfics I’ve read actually do go into the issues with consent during heats. Most often, the omega main character is a victim of sexual assault or an attempted sexual assault coming from one or more times they were heat and were taken advantage of by an alpha. It usually leads to being either unsure of alphas, or a straight up hatred or fear. I’m not sure if non fanfic literature goes into that, but it’s definitely addressed.
It’s kind of sad because most of the ones I see that address it end up putting the omega into the same situation again except the alpha actually truly “loves” him, which makes it fine. Some don’t though and those ones are heaven sent I swear
@@DanSmith-ew9ul
Yep. This is a problem.
That was my favorite thing about some of the first ABO fics I read, was how seriously they handled consent. Some didn't have any sexual assault at all and still explored consent in relation to their biology and that was really satisfying to read about.
Dani Smith yeah I have read a looooooooooot of that... it kinda ruined the whole genre for me since it happened a quite disturbing amount...
Yeah, that's always super uncomfortable.
I prefer when they scrap the tragic victim angle and make it more an investigation of social norms.
The A/B/O stories I've enjoyed in the past generally treat heats as really annoying but ultimately manageable without a mate (it just sucks being feverish and horny you know?) and treat alphas who claim they can't help themselves with the same disdain decent people have for real life men who claim a woman's clothes mean she's "asking for it."
In other words, the narrative does include the more skeevy aspects of A/B/O stories, but makes it clear they don't reflect reality so much as they are a culturally accepted fiction, and our beloved romance protagonists are smart enough to figure out what society told them was hogwash.
I really like this aspect a lot, perhaps because it lets the ideas of social narratives vs. reality be explored without the discomfort of being reminded of social narratives that actually affect me personally as a woman.
The amount of distraught and fear I felt seeing this in my UA-cam reccomended is indescribable
Why?lol
Yes.
Like "you, very disturbed person, here. Take a very nice video analysis of the ✨omegaverse✨"
This was exactly my feeling after binging Dom videos and then seeing this. lol I'm glad I finally watched it. A few inaccuracies/oversimplifications, but it was otherwise a really chill wholesome video on the issue.
You forgot the rarer cases where male omegas (and when the dynamic includes both sexes, female alphas) are intersex, cutting the confusion of where the baby comes from
Right, thats what im most used to seeing in fics: intersex alpha women and omega men. I get the sense that original ABO fiction has its own trends haha
I personally prefer intersex male omegas because that just makes more anatomical sense for childbirth. Female alphas though, I’m not sure where I stand
"it would be like watching footage of a snake eating a football....in reverse"
Nobody tell Dominic about spotted hyena births oh my g o d
I HAD THAT SAME THOUGHT!
"it would be like watching footage of a snake eating a footbal...in reverse."
me: Like hyenas!
Oh god I forgot about the pseudo penis...
LoserKatsu 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
YAY IM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS ABOUT THIS...
Oh god, I'm not the only one who knows about this.
The bloody tearing and the slow way it happens almost always causes the first cub to be stillborn.
Funfacts!
“It’s almost more wholesome than the amish romance novel I reviewed” is a great sentence out of context and an even better one in context
Dom: I was surprised to find omegaverse had female fans.
A rather sheltered person who's seen some anime: Wait, it wasn't a primarily yaoi/slash fangirl thing?!
I feel so CALLED OUT
I mean im into omegaverse and im not a girl granted i am gay.
Is it bad I thought omega verse was only an anime yaoi thing XD (I don’t really enjoy reading them since they’re usually way too dark and convoluted for me)
I remember seeing mpreg and passing by it years back when searching for NaruHina/SasuSaku fanfiction, next thing I know, this thing called "omegaverse/a/b/o" started popping up. I totally that it was a Fujoshi thing, but it likely started that way. I was never sure how much of the LGBTQ+ community had a hand in slash fiction until the recent years, having initially understood it as a bit of a fetishizing obsession from female fans. My first interactions were with more rabid fans, and it turned me away from slash fiction for several years.
As a bi trans dude, both make me uncomfortable. Probably because of the fact that most of them are written by straight women and often have a super heteronormative relationship. One man being super masculine and one being super feminine. Not saying those relationships don’t exist, but it’s often what we see.
I feel like the 'Daddy PUNCH!' should be a shonen parody attack.
The DaddyPUNCH! Combo!
MOVE OUT!
GET A JOB!
FOR GOD'S SAKE GROW UP!
Wait, wasn't that in Mob Psycho 100?
Something along those lines? But it happened to his boss, not Mob.
Sounds Like something Regan or Saitama would say.....in fact I think they did?
*inelegant chortling*
Yes, yes it was
You know, I can actually really appreciate a romance story that's actually *about* a romantic relationship instead of "will they won't they". I wanna read about characters in a relationship and how that relationship develops and flows, not about whether or not the characters can even get to the starting line and then that's treated as the climax, which is how romantic relationships are used in a LOT of literature.
Mpreg fans: "It would be so hot if men could get pregnant."
Trans men: nervous sweating
Generally, the whole point of Mpreg is that it’s a cis man who has somehow gotten pregnant. And I’ve met trans guys who find the Omegaverse very validating.
Be that as it may, some Mpreg fans do fetishize trans guys, and that is pretty awful.
@@Dreigonix and there's trans men who are tired of mpreg because it's very dysphoria triggering
@@VampiricVik as a trans man i agree that for me its dysphoria triggering (havent watched the vid yet and im nervous to hah)
edit: just watched it, the vid is okay hahaha since it wasnt described in depth : )
+Mikhail Edelstein
Yep, it all depends on the person. And me, as a cis guy- it’s obviously not on me to decide what trans people should or shouldn’t find harmful.
@@blagw2677
Same. I feel completely discussed on every level but I can't look away and this is coming from a deadwingdork fan.
“Oh, so it’s not always necessarily just about romanticising and/or fetishising sexual assault.” She said, casually throwing away a large rock.
Yeah most fics I've read have taken consent really seriously
Nerdy Wolverine really? Where? I haven’t even heard of any that take it remotely serious before this video
@@alexemy2463 in the HP fandom. Plus a few other fics I found on Ao3 from other fandoms
Granted there are still some shitty ones but I havent come across that many
@@nerdywolverine8640 Admittedly I've been exposed to a small sample, but that sample (so much "couldn't help himself," so little consent) was enough to make me nope away from the genre altogether.
It's a well known fact that all kinks started as Wincest fanfic requests.
Or old slash of Spock and Captain Kirk.
and to the lesser degree Harry Potter and Naruto
Who here has also learned about the omegaverse from fanfiction
*raises hand*
I learned about it through this video.
I heard it from a video about fanfiction.
*raises hand*
OH yeah.
AO3 is a magical place.
THIS STARTED OUT AS SUPERNATURAL FANFICTION????
And the continued joke of “Daddy Punch!” 🤣
I always blamed Teen Wolf.
@@Nehelenia3000 yeah I assumed that it had something to do with werewolf fiction
@@Nehelenia3000 looks like only Teen wolf made it popular, but yeah, it looks like it started with supernatural fan fiction.
I used to think it was a fujioshi thing since my first encounter with it was in BL manga years ago. I didn't even know it had it's start as a setting for western tv show fanfiction.
I know it was popular in the Star Trek TNG community for some reason. But Supernatural is where it took off I guess
Supernatural has a lot to answer for, I guess (like, so much wing kink. Just so much). That being said, my favourite ABO story is actually a SPN fanfic -A Hole In The World, highly recommend. Very long read, extremely well written characters, hugely interesting storyline that revolves around civil rights. Also includes female alphas. So... not really sorry about where it started. That being said, I haven’t found any other ABO stories of the same quality as the one I mentioned. Rare as hens teeth apparently- maybe because it’s a kink/fetish thing in most fics? And that’s just not for me- I want plotty novels.
Damn it, where was this video when I was doing my undergrad creative writing dissertation! I did that on pregnancy/birth in the transgender community and how society's changing attitudes to men and pregnancy/birth are reflected in the fiction it creates. Started with Frankenstein - arguably a birth story, since it's about the creation of life and pivotal to showing how the notion of a man creating life was viewed as heretical and unnatural - and went on from there right up to Mpreg fanfiction. I'd love to have cited this video as part of my research.
by that standart, would not god be the first one in his creation of adam?
It sounds like it would be very relaxing to be a woman in this universe.
ikr? the aggressive guys leave you alone, if you want a man you can get yourself a beta and theres plenty of omega/alpha drama around you to keep you entertained. sounds great
Nah. Not all the time. Yes, I might bore you here.
Most of the times it is easy. And outing myself here. Read a lot of A/B/O mangas over the years. There are a few with this problematic mentions. Sometimes they have to fight for the alpha/beta male's affections. And then come off as a needy person. Or they could come off as the bitchy ex-girlfriend which loves or loved the A/B/O Male. Or the supportive character which watches the love of her life or who she claims A/B/O is the love of her life goes towards the alpha male. Yes, the alpha pairs up with alphas too.
Bitchy too as she stopped either one to become the other's life partner. Or they are the aggressor when comes to protect the alpha/beta/omega male from other women. Again only reading from the mangas so they might be too overdramatic.
Unless you are an Omega female. 🤣
Praise polyamoroury?
@sinclaire Thomas
In some verses females exist in all „groups“ though Alpha women also have some sort of penis and can’t get pregnant.
You can make your own rules in these dynamics. ABO is What you want it to be.
The thought of people romanticizing basic acceptance in the world makes me so sad. We need to do better.
A lot of the ABOs I read have an underlying civil rights theme (and sometimes not so underlying). There are connections through metaphor to women’s rights, queer rights, and black civil rights.
I appreciate this genre of fanfic because it frequently has absolutely fascinating takes on feminism, sexuality, masculinity, and society in general. Even the very way an author sets up their story’s world is a thought experiment involving all of these things.
That said, the consent issues prevalent in the genre are easily it’s biggest drawback for me.
you find a lot more wholesome and well written romance in ff then in published media. also, realistic romance. the messed up stuff too of cause , but you will find more of that in conservative media proportionaly, then the healthy well thought out stuff that is frightingly rare outside of fanfictions
I read a story that explored the consent issues - the main omega had been assaulted as a teen and was disturbed by their heats and the effect it had. The main alpha befriends him, helps him with his heats (making sure he eats and sleeps and distracts the omega from the omega's arousal).
That's... actually pretty sweet.
I’ve read a couple of those. It really goes out of its way to show that just because an Omega is in heat, doesn’t mean any Aloha immediately loses control. It might require a bit of will, but there’s just no excuse for ignoring consent.
I like those ones.
Rape is a 100% turn off for me so finding those is like a needle in a haystack sometimes but HO BOI do I appreciate that GOLDEN needle!
As an experienced reader of fanfiction, I can absolutely draw parallels between popular fannish tropes and a/b/o literature! Fake marriage or marriage of convenience is very popular, as is Fluff, or schmoop, another fannish genre which the first book described falls straight into. I'm not surprised that there's overlap, as I'm sure many writers of a/b/o published fiction will be active in fandom.
Given that a lot of fanfiction is written by women, I think the popularity of a/b/o is partly the way it allows women to write about issues and experiences like being accidentally pregnant, while using their favourite M/M ship. There's been a trend of a/b/o fanfiction that treats omegas as a societal class that's being discriminated against, with protests for 'omegas issues' and reproductive rights surrounding heat pills, and even some fics surrounding queerness in an a/b/o world, such as alpha/alpha relationships! A/b/o may have started as a kink genre, and that element is staying strong, but it's branched out to cover a lot more, which I for one find really interesting.
Oh man, I see you haven’t seen the stories with female alphas. Though granted, they are rare
I was wondering that for a while, are Alpha women just hyper-hot or are they.... Hyenas?
@@TheSpearkan Depends on the writher. Sometimes they're more masculine in terms of behavior, sometimes they're like hyenas, sometimes they're infertile. They aren't hyper feminine though, or at least I've never seen it
Now *THAT* is what I want to see.
Oh a new video is up
"sees pregnant dom"
okay then
Hey, Dom! As a fanfic author who loves A/B/O and writes it frequently (and actually knows someone who was in fact THERE on the Supernatural kink meme when omegaverse was invented, so can confirm the "started as a Wincest request on a forum" story, and I'd actually make a guess that the requester was a woman, because fandom is very women-heavy!) I wanted to thank you for your treatment of the trope/genre. There's a lot of nonsense in fandom around it, and it can get treated as weird or gross or a shitty joke, but you were really cool and reasonable about it. ...And yeah, it varies wildly on the fluff-to-kink scale, and on the stakes, and pretty much everything else. A lot of fandom work, for instance, definitely includes women on the A/B/O scale, and we're having all sorts of discussions around the consent issues, the role of gender and sexuality, what it might mean to be transgender in that kind of universe...it's a good time. Most of the time.
Anyway, thank you so much for a nuanced, chill treatment of a genre that gets a LOT of garbage thrown at it, and I'm glad you mostly enjoyed the two novels you read!
Hans Hanzo From what I’ve gathered, this all started towards the beginning of the series before Cas was around, when Wincest was basically the only thing people were shipping. And yeah, I’m not really into that, but it’s kind of interesting to know the history of it and how it came about
Hans Hanzo I read this a while back and it’s where I got all of my info from:
archiveofourown.org/works/1022303/chapters/2033841
@Hans Hanzo As Hannah L said, Castiel wasn't even a character when A/B/O was first developed. I had a long written out explanation of "Why Wincest," and then my page refreshed and I lost it, but the short version is "in the early seasons, the show basically revolved around Dean and Sam's relationship with each other, so it's...actually pretty obvious that Shipping Happened." I was never big into Supernatural (only watched the first five seasons and got bored partway through season 6 and dropped it) but I'm familiar enoguh with fandom trends and know enough people who WERE into it to see how that happened.
May I also add on the Trans issues, there are stories with trans characters in omegaverse.
One was a romance between F/F Omega/Alpha where the Alpha was Trans, and assigned at presentation as Beta.
Another story is a F/F story Alpha/Omega, where the omega is a transwoman.
There is the question of sexuality, but tbh most fics I've read treated it based on where A/Os are mainstream, if so then A/A and O/O and B/B(where m/m & f/f) are stigmatized, else anything besides bm/bf are stigmatized.
Zarsla Yes!! That’s what I was thinking of! I haven’t read a lot of it myself, nor have I written it, but I know it’s out there and it’s AWESOME.
Honestly I can totally get behind a cutesy sweet book that does not deal with too much conflict and just has like banter and a nice wholesome love story.
I just kinda don't want to always reed sad, gritty or dark stuff.
Its like when you just watch cartoons or shows like H2o, because you're under a lot of stress, it's nice to sometimes just forget the drama!
"Snake eating a football in reverse..." I will never be able to get this out of my brain....why have you done this?
Great, now I've not only heard it but gotten the immage backt though your comment. Come and suffer the same fate again! Be summoned by my answer and relive your thoughts! Suffer reading your own comment, Muhahahaha!!
When he said that I legit burst out laughing. When I imagined it, along with seeing Dom's expression, I laughed even harder.
Like hyenas giving birth, in other words.
"you and me against the world" is a pretty common theme in lgbt media and on social media
You know: the idea of the omegaverse is based on a long outdated and debunked research study. But its not as biologically unfounded as you might think. See, while canines certainly don't do this, birds do. For instance, the common ruff has: a large, territorial & aggressive male variant (~84%, with a dark neck crest), a smaller "satellite" male, (~16% with lighter ruffs), who sneak past and mate under the watch of the territorial males (permitted because they also attract females into the territory), and the occasional "faeder" male (
That's super interesting, thank you!
And here the ✨birdomegaverse✨ is born
Why did you have to give them ideas?
@@kenjako i hate you sm 💀
it's not unheard of, though. I mean, it doesn't work male/male, but female seahorses deposit their unfertilized eggs into the male, which becomes pregnant and actually carries the brood to term.
Dominic: And we have to deduce that the baby exits from the *rsehole because. . .otherwise the alternative is. . .
Me: Allow me introduce you to the anatomy of the female hyena, sir.
I got curious and did a quick google search on hyena genitalia and now...I'm a changed person, let's go with that.
Man, nature is weird...fascinating, but weird sometimes
Fucking Christ I was not prepared to see that
Dude I just went down a 40 minute rabbit hole and there is so much weird f*ckery that I am Now Aware Of
Also thank you for the hyena info, that is the strangest thing I've learned all year and I will never be the same
I guess it would be essentially like a monotrem animal (like platypus) works.
You bastard, I have no choice but to google this now
my 17 or so years of experience on the internet as a part-time slash enthusiast (and occasional writer) tells me that a substantial amount of gay romance/erotica is written by women, for women. interestingly, it's the same with yaoi manga/anime as far as i've been able to tell. i'm not a huge reader of ABO specifically, but i've been aware of it since its early beginnings, and i can definitely pick out what i personally find appealing about it.
just like epic fantasy can be a way to discuss things like, for instance, good and bad sides of religion, the experiences of slaves, imaginative gender roles, etc., in a way that is both reminiscent of the real world but still removed from it, an ABO fic can allow women to toy with gender roles and power dynamics they've probably ended up grappling with in real life, at a safe distance. women don't usually feature prominently in these works (unless you're reading the lesbian counterparts of course), which makes it more hypothetical, and less likely to feel too close to home for female readers. for instance, i've experienced my fair share of emotional abuse and sexual harassment, and find those topics intensely uncomfortable when portrayed highly realistically (or thoughtlessly) in fiction, but i do still crave to explore the issues themselves. it's a lot easier for me to stomach when the setting and characters are removed from my own reality, even allowing it to be cathartic and fun in a way that a depressingly realistic, nitty-gritty take on the same topic couldn't be.
there's also the (i hope obvious) distinction between what one likes to fantasize about versus what works in reality. power dynamics that would look horrifying in real life can be a lot of fun in play with a partner who's on the same page as you. a lot of what makes BDSM interesting to me personally is (pun 100% intended) tied up in power dynamics and little else. and what is ABO if not a way to emphasize and explore power dynamics?
i'm not going to lie, the mpreg aspect of ABO isn't really my thing, but again it makes a lot of sense to me when imagining a female audience. the power dynamics often discussed in these stories are inherently entangled in pressures, anxieties, hopes and fears about having children. it's about sexuality, but it's also about starting a family, building a home, and living out your life in a meaningful and fulfilling way. these things will always be a balance, perhaps especially to most cis women who fancy men, not only because of societal factors, but also because just the act of being sexually active means you are risking pregnancy to some degree. i can definitely see why some might find it interesting to put a character who wouldn't normally share these anxieties (in this case a cis gay man) in a position where they would understand them, and have to tackle them themselves.
Especially when there are clear roles for the two men that map onto stereotypical male and female relationship roles, it's probably written by and for women.
@@qwertyTRiG yep, and a lot of these stories, especially bls and Yaoi, are incredibly homophobic and disturbing.
@@leigy100 @TRiG (Ireland) there's truth to both of these statements, please don't assume i'm trying to deny it, but... i'd urge anyone reading this not to generalize. female author does not equal toxic garbage, nor does it somehow guarantee that certain tropes will be used. i hope we all agree that, just like with anything else, writing has to be judged on a case by case basis. as far as i'm concerned these kinds of issues (bigotry/poor representation, issues with consent, poorly handled gender roles, abuse represented as normal, etc., etc.,) are prevalent in romance/erotica of any subgenre. authors of any background or identity can, and do, make asshats out of themselves from time to time. but, in my experience, there is also a lot of happy surprises and hidden gems out there as well.
@@fivesilvercoins Oh, this is true, certainly.
On a less toxic and more amusing note, I once read a gay romance (real world) which was clearly written by an adolescent girl who'd never seen a naked man. Got some good giggles out of that.
@@qwertyTRiG i'm not sure i ever read anything quite that bad, but i do recognize that problem, lol. i have vivid memories of being sixteen or so, and sitting in a group chat with some fanfic writers (we were beta-reading each other's stuff i believe), and having to explain to them that prostates exist.
I always feel heavily uncomfortable when “normal” people find fanfic stuff. 😭 I guess maybe I should be more uncomfortable that someone is exposing us by putting this in the light to “regular” people
it is a culture shock, if one is in the scene one gets desensitised to so much messed up stuff and when normies start talking about it . . . .
"This genre started out in fan-fiction."
*SKOCKER!*
This definitely isn't my thing but we love not kink shaming people for harmless things.
I would like to believe that people from different alternate universes have different cells and DNA reading so one man can have babies with their sisters from different world and not worry about incest diseases because they are not related.
Will you kink shame me?
@@saito1001 I don't think it should happen IRL, but if you wanna read/write stuff like that, you do you boo
I'm hysterical with laughter. I need more straight guy reviewing kinky fandom tropes.
I've read my fair share of ABO fanfics and I was surprised to find how heavy the political and social commentary is. Honestly, at first I liked them because men were expected to give up career, get pregnant and stay home, how society was not devided by women/men but alphas, betas and omegas, especially when female alphas (who could get female omegas pregnant) were just as powerful as male alphas. But OMG it's so layered! Omegas' social status varies, they can be both rare, treasured things only the richest alphas can have, down to breeding slaves or second class citizens (many of those stories have literal battles for freedom). Any woman who at times felt being somehow less of a person because of their gender can relate. And of course it's ways of handeling LGBT subjects is great, but I'm not an expert on that.
This is why I loved writing it. I've told people before, but if something happens to a woman, people don't blink, but make those same social injustices happen to a man? OMG, beware, people will get all up in arms about how *wrong* it is people are treated in such a way and how wrong people are for treating a man in that way. The same situations that happen every day to women all over the world. For me, this was even more enforced when I started writing an Omegaverse story that had a female Omega as the main character. She shares many of the same characteristics as one of my previous male Omegas, but she's actually stronger and more independent than he ever was, and she gets all the shit. She gets hate for not standing up for herself more and that she's just not thinking enough, even she's actually much more independent than the other male Omega character, who people were fighting for, calling out the system, calling out how he was mistreated. I'm queer, my stories are full of queer characters and I love putting queer content in my books, but it was so sad to see that for my female Omega, people were telling her to grow up more and be stronger and fight the system for herself when for my male Omega people were telling him that the system was cruel and that the system was wrong and that they wanted to fight the system for him. And their stories are very similar in setup (one is an MMM story and one a Reverse Harem story), but readers treat the two so differently, because one is a guy and the other a gal.
This was everything I could've hoped for in terms of fairness to a genre like this. Then again, you always are, but even so, it was such a relief and such a joy.
One thing I personally about Omegaverse like is the ability to explore how a hierarchy like that effects a character, both in terms of big stuff like job opportunities, control over own choices etc but also in terms of the small stuff, like how they'd internalise a prejudice towards their own grouping, take something for granted, exploit the priviledges of their grouping, or make assumptions about another grouping.
I'm sure that there are gay men that are into this too, but you are severely underestimating the amount of female involvment with this genre. Fanfic, written porn as opposed to visual, focus on relationships(aka more emotional than regular porn), and yes even m/m romance are primarily made and consumed by women. Seeing this verse as coming more from female sexuality as opposed to gay men may some things clearer. Think of how in yaoi the uke is often used as a tool to explore ideas of male aggression and gender roles without there having to be a woman involved. The obvious next step is a way to have this gender role exploration without women on a societal level, and that is where the omega comes in. Obviously there are a whole lot of kinks and other elements mixed in with omegaverse that the author can choose whether or not to incorporate, but that's just one thing to consider.
You really just glossed over the fact that ABO started as an incestuous thing between the Winchester brothers. Not saying it's bad on your part just it even took me a second to go "wait that's not destiel"
Castiel didn't show up for 4 seasons. What where people supposed to do, not ship anyone? (I joke, but I'm like 90% sure that's why wincest got to be so huge for what would normally be a really niche ahip. There's like 4 recurring characters in the early seasons and only two of them are handsome young men, so people made do!)
You made me laugh for a good few mins, thank you
@@Sapphykins Hey, Bobby is a stud, people not shipping Dean or Sam with him are just cowards
@@Wuffskers holy shit, no. That would kill me. Lol.
@@Wuffskers I mean I agree with you, but he's also kind of their surrogate dad. Not much better than the brother ship.
As a trans man this genre is one that has always made me feel super comfortable and seeing someone take a respectful look at it is so nice, so thank you :)
7:05 Of course this started with Wincest, how else would this start?
You’re welcome! Hahaha
It is? Oh damn.. XD
Wait, that's where the term "wincest" comes from?
@@Ryukuro Wincest is the term for fanfiction of the show supernatural in which the brothers Sam and Dean Winchester are in a romantic relationship.
I'm going to be honest, having seen A/B/O all over the fanfic scene, it had never once occurred to me that gay MEN would actually be reading/writing any of it.
Outside the odd well written fic I always saw the niche as just being a way for female writers to force traditional male/female gender roles into gay relationships, writing slash fic with the hot actors they like but structuring the relationship like a standard het romance, with the gender roles and society expectations thereof turned up to 11. The A/B/O roles only seem to exist in these stories to answer the question of 'who's the woman in the relationship' by showing a physical difference, making the omega submissive and homemaker-y by instinct and including the mpreg, so you can have your nuclear family happily-ever-after. Rather than experiencing homophobia in these stories, they experience regular sexism where omegas are seen as inferior property of their alphas. To me these aren't gay stories, they're straight stories where the people involved are from different sexes, those sexes are just alpha and omega rather than traditional male and female.
The other thing that bothers me is the mpreg, not necessarily it's existence, but the implication that these 'gay' relationships are only real and valid because one of the men involved can produce children, and that the omega should want to have children and raise a family. It's the same conservative 'woman's bodies are for babymaking' mentality put onto a male character instead of a female one. And again, because A/B/O contains extra physical sexes, the ones who are getting pregnant are more often than not just the extra 'women' of the universe, treated as such rather than men who just happen to be able to get pregnant. If all the men could get pregnant equally, as is usually the case in magical mpreg fic, then it would be different.
So it's interesting to see, from someone who now avoids fic that mention A/B/O in the summary, that it has moved into full printed original fiction. The two Dom seems to have read just sound like straight feel-good romances, with A/B/O tacked on, which given the vast majority of fic I've read (even just the summaries of most) seem like severe outliers in theme and content. And given that the Dom seems to have specifically looked for books without the sexism and violence, I can see why. I don't blame him for not wanting to read about those topics anymore but you can write a feel-good version of anything. I feel like the books chosen misrepresents what most of what I've seen this genre being used for, which is to allow female writers to have their cake and eat it to, by having their slash fiction and their characters living under social gender roles stories at the same time.
I didn't mean to write this much honestly but the tropes of the genre have been bothering me for quite a while now and given the Dom seems to be trying analyse it, well, here's my two cents. Take it with all the grains of salt that it is worth.
I completely agree. It seems more like a female fantasy of two men having sex, similar to that of lesbian porn for straight men. Its almost always unrealistic to a laughable degree. Things like this can actually be harmful to the LGBT community sometimes. As long as readers are separating fiction from reality thats all I ask.
I’m a gay man and I love it.
@@Trospur How is it harming the LGBT community? It's so out of this world that it can only be fiction. Don't be dramatic.
@@zaolus2507 When women write two gay characters in a fetishising way and people take it as the norm it can be harmful. This happens with lesbians and gay men with yuri and yaoi and has shown to affect the LGBT community in Japan after yaoi became popular as people take yaoi as fact. I'll tell you i'm not dramatising the situation i've seen it first hand. People just need to separate fiction from reality and sadly many people don't.
@@Trospur Okay, I see where you're going with it. And yeah that is a tragic subject. But people who have it in them to do this shit, no matter the excuse, will find one to do it. Some (I'd like to bet most) of us aren't like that, and it sucks that we have to suffer and be seen as 'dangerous' because of these people who just take it WAY too far, and would with anything. We mean no harm with our interest.
I like how he didn’t assume that theses stories are being written and read by straight woman over sexualising gay men. Nor did you demonise the straight woman that do (read gay fanfic, not the over sexualising gay men). I mean most LGBT+ fanfic and writing is being written by members of the company, looking for representation in a place that is severely lacking. I met this woman (over the internet) who was a lesbian but only wrote MxM fanfic because she lives in Asia and the only LGBT+ works have two duds and don’t really acknowledge that lesbians are a thing. She wasn’t overly mad about it (representation is representation. Even when not direct) but still wanted more lesbian characters in media. This was way longer then it was meant to be. Anyway, we need more LGBT+ works in this world and if I have to do it then by god I will do it.
Oh dear god, this is giving me flashbacks to how i first reacted to a/b/o dynamics. I was really horrible and assumed the writer was sexualizing gay men,,, and i wrote a comment critiscising her for this and her story,,,,,, this hurts me to remember,,,, hhhhhh
Yuubooty, if you are reading this. I'm sorry, i fucked up bad.
"If I have to do it then by god I'll do it" is my exact mantra for everything I write.
Slash and all its sub genres, including a/b/o, helped me come to terms with the fact I wasn’t straight and interested in a vanilla relationship. The level of acceptance that I have for myself is way higher than if these didn’t exist.
Lesbians have influences too in Asia but people tend to attack Gay men rather than gay women for example like in some part of China and Singpore etc lesbian relationship is allowed but not gay men and lesbian relationship is heavily sexualized in straight nsfw industry which I think is a turn off for many pontential readers while gay relationship is considered taboo and when guys fell for each other it feels like it is the world against them kind of scenerio which creates more tension to drama and plots etc etc I guess,for example if you watch/read like an 18+ show/comic/novels if there is a bisexual women sex scene involves it is very normalized at this point cause it is so abundant while if you came across a male bisexual sex scene it is rare and intruinging and even have a tendecy to trigger homophobic people as well I think thats why lesbian or GL books have hard time gaining audiences opposed to BL
Vydta
That was very insightful, thank you.
*At the end of the day we somehow always end up with Supernatural*
Can i just appreciate the fact that you approach it respectfully and not shit on fangirls?
As a person who didn’t realize they were a lesbian for a long while after learning about and accepting lgbt, I can understand you learning to relate to gay men and thinking “my god that must be tiring”
The first book sounds so nice for a change. I loved your description of the saccharine nature of the book 😆
anyone who ever had a fanfiction phase knows what this is. Somehow I'm not surprised to find out it sprang from the Supernatural fandom....
Eh... Think it started after I got through with my fanfiction stage. Only reason I knew it was a thing was that I stumbled across several published works set in some version of the Omegaverse. Apparently the genre's more widespread and popular than I realized.
im not such an avid fanfic reader anymore, but occasionally do check the Omegaverse Tag!
next to the BTS abo, there is ALWAYS a winchester brother alpha omega bang session !
supernatural will never die apparently
Ahh, science fiction, where "It works because the writer says it does" is taken at face value.
The writer in me loves it. The scientist in me weeps.
I low key love watching peoples mind break trying to make sense of omegaverse its almost adorable.
"Helpful and supportive daddy doms might help you put together your Grammy winning rockstar lifestyle but only likes and subscribes can help alleviate the UA-cam subscription algorithm" how's that?
All of the a/b/o stories my friend rec'd me when she was trying to get me into it were very much of the "it's not actually rape if the omega's in heat" variety, so I'm really glad to find out that the whole genre isn't just a dumpster fire of rapeyness.
That’s like saying “it’s not rape if she’s drunk!”
@@stellar783 because a lot of abo fanfic is sexist and misogynistic as fuck.
Yeah I can’t really continue reading that shit. Sometimes in stories I read there is a character who tries to assault someone and they use that reasoning but are obviously the bad guy that is part of the oppressive system.
@@m1sh474 wot
@@m1sh474 I should know.
But I still like reading them because of the chatacters' defiance against their obviously sexist system. It is relatable, so.. 😶
The weird thing about Omegaverse is that it's both incredibly subversive and rigidly defined by a heteronormative view of relationships. The concept of men being able to be together without a hint of prejudice in the world is fundamentally subversive, but it's kind of sad to see that the most common way we see this manifesting is transplanting of heteronormative ideals onto homosexual relationships.
I really like fanfiction that explores the various ways ABO societies are built to enforce omega submission; as a woman, it feels like a safe way to explore these themes without really being triggered. However, after spending a lot of time reading fic after a fic about societies that place "biological imperative" over human rights it does get a bit grating.
The sad thing about Omegaverse compared to the real world is that while in our reality the "biological" argument for patriarchy is complete bunk, in this fiction omegas a proven to be biologically "inferior" justifying the hierarchy the premise is built on.
In my experience, whenever the biological imperative is true in universe it's kink. Just because a the genre is used to explore gender roles in a more palatable way doesn't mean it isn't also riddled with gratuitous sex.
I don't think it's heteronormative? I think it's literally just an extreme version of domination/submission kinks...
I dont like either that, in the translation of a gay relationships into an heteronormative one, the male who dominates and impregnates is called "alpha" and the male who submit and gets pregnant is called "omega". I can only describe that as some kind of weird misogyny.
@@Jay-rc5ix you sound young.
Totally agree with you. Most fanfics are so misogynistic that I don't understand what's going on in the mind of the person who wrote it.
Dom, in the wake of recent discussion of this cropping up again I rewatched your video and...I want to cry with how validated and heard you've made me feel in the aftermath. Your respectful approach and firm request to shut down kinkshaming made both me and many people very important to me feel legitimate in both recent hurt and someone outside understanding what it's like to be less vanilla than others and how we can feel to be judged and the butt of joke. When quarantine ends I could hug you if I ever see you.
Never thought I'll see the day ABO gets reviewed respectfully.
It's refreshing, honestly.