Why Do Women Write So Much Gay Fanfiction?
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
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Just as every crustacean inevitably becomes a crab, every gay fanfic is derived from Star Trek
I hate this thank you
I hate this. It doesn’t even make sense. If every fanfic started evolving into Star Trek it would. Or you could say that Star Trek is like the common ancestor for all fanfic. But as is this literally just doesn’t make sense. And I hate everyone who liked it without even spending one second to actually think about it.
@@badatit576 relax my dude. eat a cookie
@@badatit576 I was trying to say all gay fan fictions come from Star Trek which is why I used the word ‘derived’ sorry for the confusion
@@CoffinCorrosionDon’t be sorry, making an occasional bad analogy is fine. I’m more upset about all the people mindlessly supporting it because of a shallow “ OMG carcinization! I know that reference! LIKE!” without taking even a second to think deeper about if it actually makes sense. That surface level engagement is the root of a lot of problems and disgusts me. And most people aren’t even aware they’re doing it. Hence my comment, which MAY help a person or two realize it and be better. Even if it inevitably brings me hate and criticism
Speaking as an Indigenous person, I think a lot of us have hangups about putting people of color into A/B/O situations /because/ of historical contexts surrounding reproductive rights and race. Indigenous women still struggle with being forcibly made sterile. Black people *especially* are still often sexualized and cast into domineering sexual roles, depicted as being "out of control" in their sexuality. This comes with intense, racist masculinization. Even in F/F shipping, BIWOC are often made to be the "butch", even where this is not in-character (I immediately think of Glinda and Elphaba. I've seen multiple pieces of fanart that masculinize Elphaba, despite her being quite femme in the film & being portrayed by a femme bisexual woman). There is a conflation of darker skin with masculinity, with sexuality, and with lack of control all stemming from colonial violence and oppression.
And this isn't just America I'm talking about--Look at the way British people exploited Indigenous Africans. Look into the life of Ssehura Baartman. The way that white Australians have treated Aboriginal Australians. The way that Canadians have treated First Nations people, especially First Nations women. Our sexualization has often been some of the most prominent violence against us.
And so I theorize that we don't see many authors of color or characters of color when it comes to omegaverse dynamics for those reasons. It feels taboo to touch, too polluted to explore. White bodies simply have not experienced this sort of violence in the same sort of institutional and racialized ways.
But that's just my two cents!
I also say all this as someone who now and again enjoys omegaverse! I typically write about my own queer turn of the century OCs who are largely white British people, and tend to leave my characters of color out of it (my Indigenous female characters ESPECIALLY) or make them betas. They simply do no deserve that kind of smoke, hahaha
I’m not Indigenous or a POC, but as a girl, I definitely understand disliking the aspects of ABO that are just too real. I dislike the omegaverse for a similar reason, just because the whole thing with omegas being discriminated against in the same ways as women just remind me of real world issues and make me sad instead of horny. Who wants to be sad and horny?!!
That’s not even mentioning the fact that women irl and omegas in ABO universe being similar really has undertones of that whole stereotype that women are always submissive to their husbands, which is a stereotype that REALLLLLYY grinds my gears. I understand the whole thing of making fictional men suffer the same way women do irl, but why does it have to be specifically the “submissive” men?? Just weird imo and puts me off from the whole thing.
I have to say, it is really interesting to hear your take specifically, because I hadn’t thought of how indigenous or black people would view ABO. I see why it must be off putting for you, and those stereotypes around black women are so gross. When are people gonna realize that gender and skin color don’t automatically make a person a specific certain way?? It’s nonsensical.
as a two-spirit indigenous Canadian, i was essentially forced to undergo sterilization to be eligible for my gender reasignment surgery. there was just no world in which i would be able to keep my ability to have kids, while still getting the medical care i needed to be happy and healthy in my body. either way it ends with another indigenous person under the knife. i am unsure if they have repealed this clause for GRS just yet, but i hope they do. it hurts in a deep and echoing way. seeing much of the same in omegaverse - a lot of it mimicking the acts of GRS being held behind barriers and restricted from access for the most vulnerable and needy - it's different, but very much so the same.
Oooooh man, that’s a really good point. I hadn’t thought about this in detail before but now that I read it in words, yeah that’s exactly how I feel about it. For me, this relates to the conversation around Vampires usually being white while werewolves are usually brown, specifically native. As an afrolatino that enjoys this type of fantasy and horror, I’ve always been inclined towards poc vampire characters while poc werewolves, in this context abo fics, have always rubbed me the wrong way, for the reasons you stated. But poc vampires like Akasha from queen of the damned are regal, old money. At a position we don’t get to see ourselves often in media. And inadvertently pays homage to the richness and deepness of poc cultures. It’s one of the few places where we and our ancestors are portrayed with this sort of ancient greatness, closer to gods than animals. Refreshing from how we’ve historically been dehumanized while the oppressors put themselves on holy pedestals. It’s just nice when the turn tables
Now, I am white and surely illiterate in most of the media you mention as I don't think I've really partaken much in it to notice patterns like that, but I'm glad I got to read your thoughts on omegaverse even if I still don't really understand how any of it is related. My exposure to ABO was always through anime fanfic communities, so I never thought much about the lack of darker skinned characters as anything other than a product of the source material. If I ever stray outside of that bubble, I'll keep in mind to treat non-white characters differently.
the muppet joker wouldn't approve of me watching this
Muppet joker is on a break anyway!
Milton would
muppet joker needs to be added to the tumblr sexy men
Strange is the muppet joker so...
You dare speak on his behalf?
i'm a lesbian who loves yaoi and to be quite honest i have no idea why. shoutouts to my fellow yaoi-addict lesbians
Same here. I have no intention or interest to have sex with men. Even sex scenes in shows gay or not make me a bit queasy as long as there is a man there. But I will read the most ridiculously raunchy and disturbing mlm smut fics specially if it ends with some kind of feels. I tried to read lesbian smut but it’s just not the same somehow.
Another thing I noticed is that almost all the fanfic writers I know are lesbians or ace. The ace ones are those who write the most extreme and explicit scenes and yet have no sexual interest in said scene. This friend of mine said that for her it’s more of a writing exercise. She will do as much research for smut as she does for anything else. Though she is also a horror and gore writers and seems to come up some weirdly disturbing stuff.
@@hajarmdn4883I'm bi and that's fascinating to me. Sometimes I really wish we could just step into other people's skin to better understand them, cause there's just so many experiences and perspectives I feel like I'm completely missing out on by virtue of only being a single person with a limited amount of experience
I think it's because mlm smut is not made with cishet men in mind. Like at all. It's made specifically for queer people, so it doesn't have the same icky cishet man fetish vibes that a lot of wlw content has
It is truly a fun time, speaking as a fellow lesbian who enjoys yaoi.
@@ayianashaw2341 Wait that's so true though...
as a lesbian with absolutely no interest in mlm, thank you so much for looking into this for me.
As a lesbian who’s interested in mlm I’m looking forward to watching this
@@atatah4092so real
As an asexual man, it took me about 5 minutes to realize that mlm was not referring to Multi-level Marketing 😂
As a gay guy who has had mad crackpot theory rambles about this subject, I believe this video will satiate my hunger for knowledge.
@@atatah4092how would you feel if there were gay guys being open about liking lesbian fanfiction?
I really appreciate you tackling the more uncomfortable and problematic sides of the topic without a sort of default reactionary disgust response that a lot of other people do. People are into it and it’s more interesting and productive to earnestly ask why then just automatically hating on it
It's interesting to hear a more nuanced take yet at the same time I also can't exactly blame more progressive spaces and especially LGBT spaces for going on the attack to to speak over stuff like this.
@@12me91 it is mostly progressive and queer people writing a bulk of the omegaverse fanfic from what I've personally seen, so in the refusal to look at it in a nuanced way it actually harms those same creators. It's definitely not only progressives who criticize it either, I have friends who write fanfic that would be considered problematic and a lot of the overt hate they get comes from regressives like terfs or swerfs or the like
If you’re purely reactionary (even if the gut reaction is justified) you won’t be able to deconstruct how or why it happens. I’m glad she goes the extra mile.
@autumnfrost-art yep it's very cool to see. Not that I would blame a member of the LGBT for being just reactionary over this.
@@12me91 yeah I understand why, but it’s important to train our brains to think twice where we can.
strange aeons you can't post this while im procrastinating writing my slowburn yaoi fic 😭
omegaverse videos aren't procrastinating your yaoi fic, they're research FOR your yaoi fic
Are you me? I should be writing right now~
it's a siiiiiiiign.......
My new years resolution ke go kata basadi ba bantši ka mo go kgonegago mola ba lla, ba goeletša, and ba nkgopela gore ke tlogele gobane diteng tša ka di kopanya kudu 👌😂. ,.,.,.
@@MarinaInChains this kind of thinking is why I haven't touched my fic i'm DEFINITELY getting back to I promise in like 6 months. XD
I'm a bi trans man and a long-time a/b/o reader. For me, this genre (especially the "bad" side) lets me safely engage with basically every single one of my gender-based insecurities at once. I'm physically smaller and weaker than most cis men, terrified of pregnancy, terrified of people irl finding out that I'm trans, and feel immense amounts of shame for having sexual desires. For better or worse, in a lot of stories you could swap out the words alpha/omega with cis/trans and not much would change. Thank you for covering this topic and being so respectful!
that was an interesting perspective thanks for talking about your expérience!
dude yes (I'm gay not bi) but I'm trans and I feel the same way. It's kind of a weird way of coping for me but it's worked so far lol
I guess I sort of feel the exact opposite, I'm also a trans guy, and the omega verse gives me an opportunity, a world where I could be interested in more traditionally feminine things and still be seen as a man, bc it's not weird in most a/b/o worlds for an omega, man or woman to be interested in makeup, or girly clothes
also a trans man, but not an a/b/o reader. you're absolutely right and i dunno how to feel about it
Captain, my captain! Yes, sir! That's pretty much the same for me, I think. Something about the endless possibilities allowed by ABO universes allows me to safely be afraid. It also gives me the ability to live power-fantasies like cis men get to in generic media. I get to explore worlds that are worse than ours or ones that are veritable gender utopias. It allows me to play with unchangeable aspects of myself that I feel like I need to run from or hide IRL because they make me even less of a man than the world already thinks I am. Omegaverse can be an abusive, dark romance ex or a loving safe-space to bleed out in for a while. It's cringe, and dumb, but when I was masking as a girl everything I liked or did was vapid or stupid even when it was "for boys" (because, obviously, girls only like Pokemon to make boys like them or something). Nothing's changed, I suppose. At least when I'm writing or reading, I can change it. Just for a minute.
"thank you, father strange." we all say in monotone unison
Thank you father strange :|
I was a little bit out of sync 😭
Thank you Father Strange :|
Thank you Father Strange :|
Thank you Father Strange :|
I would argue Mulder/Scully is be best example of a straight cis couple depicted as mutually competent and engaging in adventures similar to the Spirk archetype
this came to my mind too! this video made it click for me /why/ it is one of the only straight relationships in fiction i've encountered so far (as a lesbian) that didn't make me bored, angry, or nauseous lol
Het couples are abounded when there’s a good one in the canon. The problem is that most of the fandoms lack good written female characters, and the mostly female writers don’t want to pour themselves to a character that the canon already gave up upon.
This is perfectly fine btw, we write fanfic because it’s supposed to be fun and entertaining, both for the writers and the readers. Building up a character comes with so many hang ups, if you put your mannerisms into it than the criticism can wreck you, if you try to generalise than you’re just stereotyping.
This is why fanfic exists even in the first place, we are here because we want to play with somebody else’s toys.
There's also some good examples in Doctor Who, though with a bit more power imbalance than X-Files. There's definitely good examples of having adventures/saving each other/not being stuck in the kitchen though. Again, the sci-fi setting helps. Kind of depressing that an extra-terrestrial or supernatural element seems to be a prerequisite for equal heterosexual relationships to feel plausible.
Buffy with her vampire (Spike or Angel, take you pick), too. It's the whole premise of the show, that this petite girl is equally strong as the monsters. And it's one of the very few MF ships I read.
Percabeth as well, which may explain why it's consistently one of the most popular m/f couples in fan fiction!
one of my favorite things about strange's videos is that she has a genuine passion and fascination with these kinds of topics that's kind of hard to find anywhere else on the platform. there's no cruelty or undeserved criticism, just an actual curiosity for the what's, why's, and how's of fandom-related topics or more "taboo" aspects of queer identity
their passion is what i look for in every video essay
We're here for the genuine
"fanfiction is pure expression" - i love this take. it's pertinent to note that for fanfiction to be 'pure expression' we NEED places like Archive of our Own. no censorship, no algorithm, no monetization. it's obvious that on fiction sites like wattpad you are beholden to the algorithm and what is 'trendy'. i really really enjoy that ao3 has no such algorithm, it makes it much easier to find and read newer/lesser known works.
Okay so I haven’t read the full comment yet but the no monetization thing i don’t agree with. And that’s only because I’ve read stuff where it’s like rape of a child in horrific detail and the author expresses interest in raping a child… I wish I could say i was joking. But um yeah, no. I have actually read fics that is just the authors fantasy and sometimes I’m afraid that they are going to do this…
But I haven’t read the whole comment yet so maybe you’ll change my opinion
@poochy7901 the problem with literary works is that you can never really know the author's actual intentions. hell, even with non-fic works (Lolita is an excellent example of this). some authors (especially in the fanfiction space) write about these things not only as social commentary but also as a way to recover/understand their past trauma. of course there are always going to be bad people out there - but fiction is just that, fiction, and censoring even one thing can quickly begin to snowball into censoring all illicit work altogether.
there's been a debate on this for a very long time when it comes to the archive but they are still staunchly anti-censorship besides what is outlined in their TOS. with some digging you'd probably be able to find a lot of discourse on this topic. the real problem with this avenue of thought that 'some fictional media is too distasteful/harmful/etc that it should not exist' is that it leads to groups like the antishipper community who harrass, doxx, and even outright bully people out of fandom entirely for writing fic that is as tame as being, say, an age gap of over ten years when both of the characters are canonically over 30 years old. (i have seen this firsthand, even!)
at the end of the day, ao3 being anti-censorship beyond explicitly illegal material is important. obviously, it's not always tasteful. real-person fiction isn't my cup of tea and id say that it's unethical to a degree, but it's still just fiction and i don't read or comment on works of that nature. preservation of media and creative expression relies heavily on that media not being censored in any way - and that goes hand in hand with the Archive not being monetized in any way.
hope that explanation makes sense :) obviously i am not condoning anything that people write about, but it really can boil down to the 'don't like/don't read' mindset that's been around since the dawn of slash fiction as a community.
@@ormrkin I agree
@ormrkin It just disgusts me that bad people are allowed to write CP. I know that self expression in art is complex and you can't always understand someone's intentions, but it makes me think of people who love lolis. I don't think something being fiction means it's not wrong in the slightest. Plus people can write things about real people, real children if there's no censorship. That's sickening. I generally like the if you don't like it then you don't need to interact with it. In those cases those things existing is still very wrong to me. I don't think it should be justified or allowed. Think I'll just leave it at that.
I hope it stays that way. AO3 is a treasure vault that provides the ultimate form of harmless escapism, which we desperately need to cope with whatever life throws at us.
Genuinely earth shattering to hear Ursula K. Le Guin name-dropped in this video. My partner helped film a mini-doc about her time teaching at our college. Father Strange I am suing for emotional whiplash.
No literally, I'm reading left hand of darkness completely coincidentally and it really made me blink
I am suing for normal whiplash as I was watching this video while driving and got into a crash .
This is very funny because as soon as we got on the topic of "when we read these things in professional published fiction" I went "like the left hand of darkness" and I was very quickly vindicated.
My new years resolution ke go kata basadi ba bantši ka mo go kgonegago mola ba lla, ba goeletša, and ba nkgopela gore ke tlogele gobane diteng tša ka di kopanya kudu 👌😂. ,.,.,.
Reminds me of a fanfic I read where someone from the novel's setting goes to an omegaverse styled planet. And their reaction is "You people already had one more gender than necessary, now you're adding more???"
As a gay man, I love these stories. In so many, the gay love isn't the underlying problem and so the love gets to be "normal" and the feeling that these gay men being together is normal rubs off and slowly kills the self-alienization of being gay. It's usually "Alpha werewolf strikes out to make his own pack" or "werewolf police who aren't bastards because it's fictional". "Million year old dragon meets his true love" is just so fucking wholesome 🥹
I love this aspect too.
i agree so much, getting to read stories where queer people are the focus and their romances are the focus but there’s no homophobia is such a healing balm to my heart. i’m tired of queer stories where even if they’re happy it’s in spite of the people trying to bring them down, it’s fantasy let me fantasize
wait.. are you talking about Hearts Desire (or the hearts-series) on wattpad?
My new years resolution ke go kata basadi ba bantši ka mo go kgonegago mola ba lla, ba goeletša, and ba nkgopela gore ke tlogele gobane diteng tša ka di kopanya kudu 👌😂. ,.,.,.
@@ThePupSquad I want my fluffy angst to be without hate crimes and slurs ;_;
Not me on the verge of tears at that writing about why women wrote kirk spock fanfic
Me too though, I love fan culture so much
personally as a sapphic who reads mlm stuff it’s because it’s
1. as a fellow gay i can connect more to queer stories
2. i feel like more often mlm stories are less beholden to having the characters be in touch with their emotions. it’s something i struggle with irl, but women are supposed to be the emotionally mature gender so theres a barrier that makes romance stories w women harder for me to relate to.
Yes same! I’m emotionally reserved and that’s a trait a lot more common in fictional men which sucks because it’s not at all a trait exclusive to men
I can very much relate to this!!!
My new years resolution ke go kata basadi ba bantši ka mo go kgonegago mola ba lla, ba goeletša, and ba nkgopela gore ke tlogele gobane diteng tša ka di kopanya kudu 👌😂. ,.,.,.
oh wow haha, you totally opened my eyes for that second point. that's.... very relatable! didn't think about that-
Big agree on the second point. I feel like lesbian stories always focus so much on emotional aspects to romance and sex that I just don't identify with. I want my characters to be horny, confused messes because that's what I am most of the time and I feel like women are just never written like that. It honestly makes me sad because it almost feels like an echo of gender fundamentalism, where women are expected to be affectionate, chaste, and passive.
this is SUCH a good video, and a wonderful follow-up to the omegaverse one. i swear i almost cheered out loud when you brought up the fact that we as humans subject ourselves to terrible things all the time for the sake of pleasure (horror movies, roller coasters, spice). it's completely ok for people to be put off by or even disgusted by certain fanfic tropes - hell, i'm not big on omegaverse myself partly because the concept of pregnancy bothers me so much - but making moral judgments about people based on their preferences within a private fantasy is so detached from reality. i also loved the analysis of gendered fandom culture from the 60s and how it gave way to what is now a very controversial topic - straight people writing "the queer experience". good points throughout the whole video, my respect for you only continues to grow!!
Yeah discovering that you can enjoy, learn, and even grow as a person, from controlled discomfort is probably the quintessential adolescent experience, and I don't get why so many people seem to immediately forget that when they get older.
11:55 “what if i were free” is huge. Not having to think about womanhood when reading romance
so i have my own theory before i watch the vid: i think that a lot of women project themselves onto the men in their gay fics because it levels the playing ground of a sex scene/relationship- as in they get to indulge in a romantic/sexual fantasy without the sexism and objectification of women, but to where they can actually relate to a character.
completely agree! (also haven’t watched the vid yet). i feel a similar way but as a lesbian minus the sexual attraction part of course lol. i like male characters because i like masculinity and it is interesting to see love stories with this specific gender dynamic. gay stories are unfamiliar which make them interesting and they lack the misogynistic aspects present in straight romances. i can relate through the shared experiences of queerness and i feel like gay stories tackle shame and internalized homophobia a lot more than lesbian stories (at least in my experience)
right on the money! congrats
but isnt there still sexism and objectification just directed towards men instead?
@@That-_-Guy "so you hate pancakes" adjacent rhetoric; yes sexism is ingrained into our society which sinks into its people which bleeds into the things they make whether intentional or not, misogyny and misandry are intertwined in this genderstupid world, this is true but only tangentially related to the point that gay romance is a different enough angle from standard heterosexual romance that the usual shit doesn't stink as much and that is a notable factor in the large female mlm fanbase
my pet theory is this plus the way men are usually framed as the default human being. Men are usually written and understood to be whole people with rich inner lives, and women probably relate to that more than the 2d cookie cutters female characters are usually wedged into. Thus why we don't see a lot of women (generally) writing or reading f/f over m/m. There's just a lot more to unpack and reshape and redefine with f/f and that's a lot of work when you want a little escapism
With regards to women most often writing slash, I'll also point out that, historically, most compellingly written characters on TV tend to be men, especially in the sort of genre fiction that tends to attract fanfic writers. Or maybe there might be one (1) compellingly written female character, to be shipped with the male lead. So the math kind of just works out that most fanfiction would end up being either het or slash. Introduce more compelling female characters in a work of visual genre fiction and the dynamic does noticeably change. Eg, Arcane probably dominates the leaderboard for femslash written in recent years. Possibly in general, despite only existing for a few years. A ton of it is Omegaverse too!
Arcane also shows that people are def willing to ship and write stories about a disabled character given Viktors popularity (the quality of writing a disabled character when the author is not disabled isn’t always the best but hey they’re mostly trying) but I agree I literally did an essay on the prominence of mlm ships in fandom (mainly ao3) and while there’s def a lot of just weirdness about lesbians a big factor did tend to be the writing quality of the male characters vs female characters in canon as well as the number of female to male characters. Though race was more a factor when it came to shipping, even with prominent poc well written male characters you often saw them sidelined for a ship including a white male side character *cough cough kylo ren and hux cough cough**
Idk how modern culture looks though I did my essay back in like 2019 I think so the space was a little different back then.
Either way rant aside I do think there’s hope for more lesbian ships to gain popularity we just need for female led shows (where the main female characters aren’t sisters) that like are well written and good. Also straight ships can gain popularity if the characters actually have a really strong chemistry between them happens more in long running tv shows.
Exactly! I see that similar sort of phenomenon with the Wicked fandom too. A vast majority of fics are WLW, center two female characters, and it’s still massively popular. The movie only has helped to boost it imo. And while this kind of thing is definitely an exception and not a rule, I hope we get to see more pieces of media that really draws people in with their well written female characters
seriously. I try so hard to make things yuri, but there are some shows were women literally do not talk to each other, or if they do its for like 5 min, or they're related (not what floats my boat, personally). there are some fandoms were if you want femslash, you either need to make an OC, or genderswap the main couple or ship. arcane is such a blessing in that there's this abundance of well written, interesting, compelling women, WHO ACTUALLY TALK TO EACH OTHER. what a breath of fresh air
@@nadi4210 I don't know, I think especially since you mention Arcane, it kinda debunks the notion considering that the series is fairly centered on female characters and has a central w/w romance, yet people still jump towards m/m. I think there is the big topic of andocentrism and lesbophobia present in fandom itself.
@ I think it’s a bit of a case of writing quality tanking the main female pairing of the show in season 2, I only got into the show with season 2 since a friend had wanted to watch it but what I’d known of the show before that was the lesbians and they were definitely the predominant ship in the fandom from what I’ve seen, had like 10,000 fics to the second most populars like 5000 or less. Season 2 kind of did a bit of a character assassination on Caitlyn and Vi wasn’t as big a focus while the main mlm pairing got a lot more moments that gave shippers content to work with like after the finale the number of fanfics that came out for that pair were insane I think like over 3000 fics in that time maybe more.
another informative and insightful lecture from my favorite muppet joker alt account
This has been a really interesting follow up to watching Contrapoint's Twilight where she talks about the appeal of toxic power dynamics and "ravishment" fantasies
Yesss! I'm late to the party, but I also commented about Contrapoints Twilight video. Both hers and Strange's video are well done and explore similar concepts and causes. I LOVE docuvideos like these!
I was thinking the exact same thing!
Yes yes the video essay of all time
This is actually something I have always wondered about having been in the fanfiction community for 20+ years. This should be interesting.
I do feel like a non-zero portion of why I read gay male fanfic so much growing up was internalized misogyny, which is not something you bring up very much in this video. I think when you grow up consuming media written by men with male lead characters, with any women characters being sidelined as non-interesting sidekicks or love interests, you can see yourself identify with the male characters more. My enjoyment of gay male fanfic was an extension of the fact that I really just read more male centered media and thus felt comfortable reading about gay male romances... despite being a lesbian myself. The male lens is one I'm just accustomed to inhabiting. So I think to some degree it is a space for me to enjoy sexuality without imaging myself or someone with my anatomy in the picture, but ultimately for so long I just didn't care about feminine perspectives in fiction, even erotic fiction, because I understood from my media consumption that women's voices and perspectives are not important. Obviously that's changed now, but I think my younger self's misogyny was what fueled my ingesting gay male fanfic (and also the fact that it's deeply popular and you can't avoid it in fandom).
This is so interesting to me, as a gay man who always found male characters in fiction frankly repellent and identified primarily with female ones. And guess what - I grew up with internalized misandry due to emotional abuse and trauma. I didn't feel comfortable with my gender until my mid to late teens. Even now, though, I prefer female characters, and the few male characters I like are almost invariably the ones written by female authors. Hell, I identify very strongly with the main character of one of the most often made fun of series - Bella Swan from Twilight. I had a similar experience of feeling powerless, passive, depressed, waiting with futile hope for someone to rescue me from my situation, and the fantasy of Twilight - powerful men who value me and want to protect me - was very comforting for teen-me. I got into omegaverse partly because of that, partly because of already being into furry fandom which plays with biological sex in similar ways, and partly because I really identify with omega males - more than I do with any male gender role on Earth.
You're a visionary
13:32 i had to pause to comment because i teared up a little at this passage ngl. i'm a bi woman with a male partner of over 7 years (didn't realize i was bi until after i'd been with him a while, had some trauma to unpack, beside the point) and this just made me appreciate that that's the exact kind of relationship i have with him. i get to live in a time where that kind of relationship is possible and i get to be with someone with the confidence and self respect to admire my competence instead of fearing it like a lot of men still do. idk it just made me have a lot of feelings about all the women who came before me for whom that was nigh impossible and about how lucky i am to have found that in a patriarchal society where that is still not a given for most people
I have a super weird situation too. I started dating a male, realized I'm a lesbian, my partner realized they are a trans woman (they/ them pronouns tho). So we're running around looking straight, but it's not quite that… meanwhile, I have really intense physical dysphoria, and my partner does not.
"the omegaverse hole" please say different words LMAOOO
13:43 "To be loved for strength, not for weakness." Wow.
Yeah, that line scratched in itch. I know that its something that women in my family have actually said before, that they "just know" that being honest about what they can do that could be perceived as strong around men would make them unlovable by them.
Its honestly really cruddy.
So I’m a person who reads and writes noncon stuff, heres why I like it. I’m quite disabled for several reasons and the fantasy someone wanting that from me is really appealing. In a world where the pressures of being a human and an afab are endlessly rising, the idea that someone steals me away from responsibility feels comforting.
Its also that I dont have to be nice. I dont have to hide my pain, disability or anger, and I have a bad guy to pin my frustrations on that will still want me no matter what I do. Unchangingly desired.
I don’t want to be assaulted, controlled, or kidnapped. But I do enjoy writing my silly little stories about it. Anyhoo Lots of people have lots of reasons these are just mine. Incredible video as always!!
@@coolegg8489 It’s interesting hearing someone analyze why it is they like noncon. There is an attitude sometimes that kinks don’t have any ties to our psychology, they’re just things we find hot. I think we should always assume this with people we don’t know, but it’s interesting hearing about individuals’ personal interpretations of its ties to their psyche and personal experience.
At many times in my life I found noncon and abusive behavior is what I wanted to write about when I was in the mood. But after being in the mood, I’d look back and wonder why I would write material that was so extreme and immoral. I still don’t know if I can manage to explain it, or if I should try. But I think in my case, I’ve felt extremely strong emotions all my life (diagnosed bipolar now) and often had no outlet to express them. I often felt extreme anger or despair, but never wanted to use those emotions to inflict pain on others. More often, I would hurt myself and suffer in isolation. Even when I felt euphoric, I had no one to share the emotion with. So I used writing as an outlet and my characters as surrogates for my emotions. It was similar to the way I wrote death scenes when I was younger to process emotions, I was just injecting sex into my writing because I had developed some form of sexuality. What’s more, the characters were never a stand in for other people. I always saw them all as extensions of myself. So it was never about hurting people or getting hurt, it was about processing my own relationship with pain.
Now that I’m taking medication, I find I’m rarely in the mood to write anything sexual. This is probably in some part due to the medicine reducing libido and all that stuff, but I also think without feeling such strong emotions, I don’t feel the need to vent them through writing. But it’s good to look at my old stories as something I needed at the time rather than something I should be ashamed of.
Anyhow, sorry for rambling, your comment just made me think!
Very well said.
100%
I don't like noncon but as a outsider, this seems to be the main reason why fantasies are not always something that someone actually wants in real life
You like the fantasy because it is unchangingly desired. In real life, the reality is not desire but a taking of power, dehumanization, abuse, etc. The fantasy and the reality of the situation are two completely different things that happen for different reasons, so they're not actually analogies of each other
That’s powerful, thank you for sharing your thoughts & experiences
But what you don't know is that his real name is Strange Aeons....
no fucking way
This phrase pops into my mind more often than you’d think lol!
I have an idea.
I think that bringing up the lack of diversity makes sense. Of course we can talk about the fact that most characters in fandom are white. (We can also remember the growing Hamilton fandom focusing on a diverse casting of characters that were originally white historical figures being reimagined as people of color.)
I think, if I want to be charitable to the authors of the Omegaverse genre, I can bring up a possible reason that they may avoid or not feel comfortable exploring A/B/O dynamics with black or brown characters. It’s the fear of stereotyping already marginalized races.
Think if we use the recent popularity of Sam Wilson (Falcon/Captain America)/ Bucky Barnes from the MCU. If an author makes Sam an Alpha, then are they saying he’s a savage brute who can’t control his urges? If they make him an Omega, is he now a submissive, inferior who’s made to serve his white alpha? I think it would be really difficult to write this type of genre, which has these dynamics, and not make it 10x worse when you bring in interracial relationships. Especially if one decides to use Omegaverse with a hetero and interracial couple. Does an Omegaverse author try their best to completely ignore racial dynamics at all in order to write the smut they want to tell? Do they try carefully write it anyway while keeping in the uncomfortable racial dynamic and say something meaningful and transformative? I could see how this may be a daunting task for most writers.
Maybe that's why it's easier to just ship these characters without using A/B/O dynamics at all.
i honestly think this is a core example of why a concept like omegaverse crumbles and becomes deeply emblematic of how the "fantastical disconnect from reality" percieved within fandom spaces is and has never been true. because the "disconnect" happening here is almost always really just dehumanization of poc in some way when at the hands of white writers
I saw this immediately after scrolling past a comment criticizing authors for stereotyping poc in omegaverse so I think this tracks, lol. I don't write much omegaverse to begin with but I will specifically avoid dynamics like this when I'm writing poc characters because it's better in this case for them to just exist as people without worrying about any weird dynamics potentially messing up the way I intend for them to be perceived as characters
This is why I read Omegaverse fics where the race is just isn’t there. I know it’s sidestepping the issue but I read fanfic to be entertained, and although I read some heavy fics, most of the time I want to see my beloved characters in love and happy.
Its also a quantity issue I think. If there existed already an equal proportion of a/b/o stories that have plenty people of color in each of the stereotypical a/b/o roles then its fine - since the roles clearly aren't assigned based on a racial stereotypes.
But because the majority of content is white and asian fanfiction of media that doesn't have the greatest representation of different ethnicities to begin with, that mass of where a/b/o representation is balanced again never gets reached.
I really vibe with this - the bit about "a daunting task for most writers" is exactly how I as an author feel about it. As a white person, that's also why I don't feel confident to write people of color into my stories at all - I've really internalized the lesson that I don't belong in those spaces as a speaker, just a listener.
I'm not LIVING the POC life, and therefore, I have nothing of value to say about it. Like, if I tried to write them as complex characters as protagonists, it would be me 'stealing space' from actual POC authors, and spreading 'baseless fantasies' I made up, since I don't have the actual lived experience. And if I wrote them as background one-off NPCs, that would be WORSE, since that's implying that POC aren't "protagonist material" with complex stories and inner lives. Real catch-22.
Sigh... I should never have binge-read the tumblr blog 'writing with color'... It was just so intensely focused on what various authors are doing WRONG. Made me want to avoid writing POC entirely, since apparently the stakes are so high...
Thank you professor for giving us another lecture
my grandmother was a big trekkie back in the day and she had sooo many trek zines and a few star wars ones. big ole stacks with poetry, fanart, fics, etc of all genres. they were really fascinating to flip through even if i had to see luke/leia fanfic from before the sibling reveal...
Your grandma sounds like she was a very interesting person (I genuinely mean it in a good way.). As a person who has been writing fanfic since I was a preteen (I actually created a male love interest for Eragon from the Inheritance Cycle but I have never put down his and Skylar’s (my name for my OC) story on paper. I mean to but I always chicken out) I wish I had the courage to post my stories to websites like AO3. What was her stance on Skysolo? I’m asking due to Skysolo and Obikin being my original Star Wars OTPs.
What a beautiful start to the new year, thank you for this.
so beautiful
but it's not the new year yet... :(
@ in Australia it is
@@JaeStien got me there, happy new year from the UK!
this video has made me realise that my kinks that line up a lot with being omega as a "dude" are probably ways to safely explore and confront my fear of being controlled because of my childhood trauma and neurodivergence i did NOT need this revelation at 3pm slightly day drunk in new year's eve thank you very much father strange ily
An ad dropping in the middle of the kink list was crazy
On the subject of whiteness of A/B/O: I think there also may be a hesitation to cast animalistic traits onto nonwhite people. Yes it’s fiction, but there’s been a lot of times where white people would conflate other races to animals and to do that in a context where sex and sexuality is prevalent to the world and the story and putting in a character that has a race that has been historically oversexualized and animalized would be iffy at best and deemed outright racist at worst.
gonna give my all my traumas to pregnant jensen ackles now
I keep trying to think of something funny to reply to this but I cannot
The ability to create is a truly powerful thing….
Alpha women are seeing a rise in lesbian Korean webtoons lately, so I'm really hoping it will spread into more omegaverse stories soon!
I personally have an idea of a linked Anthology that explores many different sex and gender stories in omegaverse, but unfortunately I'm not yet a writer, I'm just a thinker^^;
20:22 this honestly reminds me (as a Shakespeare/early modern lit nerd) of the female crossdressing trope of many early modern plays. the trope of "omega disguised as alpha or beta" seems to me, as a reinvention of women crossdressing for freedom in a period where women were much more openly oppressed. by creating a world in which echoes of this oppression are twisted and presented as something similar yet independent, we kind of reach a point where we recreate a hard-hitting trope of centuries past in a new, borderline fantasy way that (like they said) allows us to explore real-world oppression through its more outright reflection, which also allows us to see this world (and our own) through fresh eyes.
IM HAVING A MENTAL BREAKDOWN AND NO ONE LISTENING TO ME AT ALL!! 😭
I've read a fic about an asexual omega, *he was one of the side characters but still important* and it was so cool to see. Instead of getting railed to death, he spent his heats curled up in his nest just reading books and drinking tea. In the end he even found a mate and accepted the courting after a long time of him not wanting to because he felt like he couldn't satisfy the alphas needs. It was so sweet and it really made me think. I also tend to read untraditional abo, like an omega going to military and using scent blockers even if they are not allowed to, o/o, a/a couples. A couple with a beta who feels like they don't fit in. Love it
IM HAVING A MENTAL BREAKDOWN AND NO ONE LISTENING TO ME AT ALL!! 😭
The phrase "a blithe lack of lubrication" will now live rent free in my head for the rest of time. Thanks a lot.
as someone whose main fandom is star trek I always get so excited whenever you talk about spirk like yay my boys made HISTORY
They didn't just make history, they are history
as an aroace enby (but raised as a girl) who's been shipping, reading & writing m/m since like 11 years old, i am SO excited to watch this vid.
Same, are you me lol
*Three spidermans pointing at each other meme* !!
we gathered here today my friends
IM HAVING A MENTAL BREAKDOWN AND NO ONE LISTENING TO ME AT ALL😭
I was actually just reading up on the history of Chinese danmei novels and why it’s gained so much traction and so many women in China like it and write it and their reasonings often really lines up with the stuff here about the origins of mlm slash fiction, with how one of the main appeals of the relationships is that the couple are considered equals, and that neither partner os expected to sacrifice far more for the relationship than the other is.
I also realized, after listening to strange describe the appeal of spirk, that wei wuxian and lan wangji from mdzs are pretty much just a wuxia version of spirk lol
As a wlw, my big issue with the whole idea of “the omegaverse can have lesbians too” is that there’s SUCH a huge emphasis on penetration. It’s typically treated as absolutely essential. And although I completely respect each and every wlw who likes penetration, whether it’s from a strap on or a partner with a penis, I personally REALLY don’t enjoy penetrative sex at all (saying this as a cis woman). I feel like there is SO much pressure in our culture to view penetration as this essential thing for sex to “count” or be “good enough,” and although I’m sure there are great exceptions, omegaverse is typically kind of biologically designed around this idea.
However, I’m also bisexual, and I absolutely love reading about M/M pairings, both due to my attraction to men and the fun of imagining two of them together, and also for all the other reasons discussed in this video, and so I also 100% see and enjoy the merits of omegaverse’s interesting new perspectives on penetration in M/M relationships. It helps me a LOT that in M/M pairings there is typically no (standard cis female) vagina that people are seeing and assuming MUST be penetrated, and so I don’t need to think about the sensations in relation to my own biology. The fact that there is typically a prostate also adds to the positivity, because it makes it a lot easier for me to accept and internalize the fact that there are specific sensations that the character enjoys that I just personally am not capable of. (For the record, I am purely stating this as a matter of personal preference out of a desire to see people with the same preferences recognized more often, but I am NOT saying that my preferences are at all “better” in any way! All preferences in smut are equally valid and respectable, we’re all just here to have a good time, I’m just saying that I wish that there was a bit more rep for people like me)
But when it comes to these things in relation to traditional cis female anatomy, or anatomy that closely resembles it, I just don’t personally enjoy the idea of PIV sex (or things that resemble it like using a strap), I never have, and it’s made it extremely difficult for me to understand my identity as a bisexual woman because I’ve always been deeply unattracted to what is often considered “the only option” available to (cis) M/F couples. So when omegaverse takes lesbianism, and basically just adds natural penetration to it, although again there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and lesbians with penises do exist and are awesome and attractive and valid, and lesbians who absolutely love using straps exist and are awesome and attractive and valid, and they all 100% deserve to have all this representation and more and I’m super glad they have it, it can still be kind of a huge downer at times for me as a penetration-disliking wlw wanting to find representation for my preferences in sexually explicit stories, because it’s once again just more stories that (often, not always) treat penetrative sex as the end-all and be-all, and under-explore all the wonderful options for sex that is NOT penetrative.
This is a pretty expected problem for me as a cis wlw who is deeply unattracted to the idea of “putting my vagina to use”, but it’s also a problem for everyone who just doesn’t like penetrative sex regardless of their body or orientation, as well as for anyone at all who just wants to appreciate the wider range of wonderful, diverse things that sex can be (whether it’s between two women or two men or a man and a woman or there are non binary or intersex people involved, or whether there are more then two people of any kind involved, in any combinations of cis and trans). Sex doesn’t need to be penetrative between ANYONE, but sadly I think pretty much every medium of smut tends to forget about that. This is why I will always be forever grateful to all those beautiful fanfics about Kirk and Spock frotting in the sand. May those writers live long and prosper 🖖
I wonder how much omegaverse there is with either worldbuilding that leaves out the breeding element/ the biological imperative element, or if there are stories where the social pressure of procreation is heightened from our culture? Maybe exploring asexuality in a world like that? These would probably be cool stories to explore since you would have the couple having to deal with the social pressures and/ or biological discinnect with their thought out desires.
@@k80_ I have this vague idea for maybe comedy shorts in a world where most people are alphas and omegas, and the pov character is a beta who is just kind of hanging out but their friends keep starting shenanigans with each others and strangers because of horny.
Like an exaggerated more lighthearted version of that situation where someone is not involved in any romantic escapades directly but gives good advice or has good ideas or is a good listener so everyone keeps telling them and plotting with them anyway.
One thing that I think people get hung up on is that fantasy doesn't necessarily match desire at all. I have zero interest in getting up to some of the activities that go on during my late night goon seshes.
This is very true!!!
ironically my only real omegaverse exposure is that one griddlehark fanfiction where they also work at taco bell, so thank you for bringing up harrow's bone regrowth sex scene, since this really tied the whole video together for me
I am familiar with the Locked Tomb though I've only read the first one and I haven't started watching this youtube video yet. That said, this is THE most "brand new sentence" I've been exposed to in awhile. I absolutely don't require an explanation but thank you for the emotional journey your comment just put me on /gen 😂
But what’s the fic title? 👀
My new years resolution ke go kata basadi ba bantši ka mo go kgonegago mola ba lla, ba goeletša, and ba nkgopela gore ke tlogele gobane diteng tša ka di kopanya kudu 👌😂. ,.,.,.
GRIDDLEHARK TACO BELL FIC MENTION YES!!!
@@SanktaLo If I'm thinking of the same fic, it's called "Double the Meat"
The idea of the appeal of kirk/spock being the equality is very interesting and something I hadn't considered, because a lot of het romance books take me completely out of it because no way would a woman get in that man's car etc.
As a gay guy in my twenties that has been reading/writing gay fanfics since i was 14, it's Because i wanted to live vicariously through fanfics all those experiences that i couldn't have in my real life, also unrealistic romantic expectations
As a straight man idk why this video got suggested to me but I learned there is a lot of variaties of supernatural gay dean/castiel fanfiction.
We found him boys. Eric Kripke’s target audience.
@Zora-b2d haha probably true but the stories clearly resonate with a wide variety of people.
i've found (as an asexual woman) that not only is non-sexual a/b/o fanfic the only type of a/b/o fanfic i can stand to read, but it's also extremely cathartic. seeing these characters exist in this extremely sexual world that they're trying to navigate without having sex just feels so real, in a way.
Have you considered doing a crossover episode with Princess Weekes who talks about the intersection between race, sexuality and gender in fandom a lot? I bet she has an interesting perspective on the Omegaverse.
this is SO MUCH BETTER than the takes i see online of "most fanfic is m/m because fanfic writers have internalized misogyny;" thank you
I think that take itself is pretty misogynistic, because it kinda ignores why cis/straight media can be off putting to many woman….sure there is a conversation to be had regarding the sexualization of gay men but there is also nuance to this and people don’t seem to realize it
that take has always been nothing but pure, unadulterated misogyny. the hypocrisy is insane, esp since M/F writers tend to be the MOST misogynistic of all fanfic/romance writers imo and they barely get called on it. the vast majority of M/F presents a crazy narrow, sexist, & patriarchal view of straight/bi women's sexuality so it's not exactly shocking many women find it to be a massive turn off if not outright repulsive.
it's also wild how no one sees straight guys watching girl-on-girl porn and says "wow they must be misandrists". it's just fucking accepted, and most of these same ppl who have SO much smoke for M/M have NEVER confronted a straight man over their porn habits, despite how many REAL women are harmed by the porn industry 🙄 weird how they have all the time in the world to police women's sexuality online tho!
Hmm! I mean when you’re constantly presented with stories where the relationships with the greatest depth and stakes are between male characters where else are you going to go?
@@foxesofautumn This kinda makes it sound like m/m enjoyers are only settling for that but would actually enjoy f/f if it was more popular
That annoying argument always comes off as just off the mark to me. I think most fanfic is m/m because fanfic writers hate the heterosexual relationship dynamics we see in media and want something *more*
I feel like, sometimes, the dominance of mlm relationships in queer fanon spaces comes from the lack of options of popular media with 2 meaningful, well explored, main cast women. There might also be something about me not having to see myself in the ship as well tbh.
It cracks me up and disappoints me in equal measures that we all agreed that the Kirk/Spock dynamic is Spirk... when Kock is infinitly more funny.
I think one thing that ultimately needs to be remembered, is that fanfiction will always be primarily entertainment based. There will be people who elevate it to something more serious, but it will essentially always be primarily a form of entertainment.
I think that's really the important thing to remember about FICTION, full stop, honestly. 🙂💖
(Being deep-thinking or educational or reflective of real life or sensitive to and considerate of real issues or such is optional, not mandatory. It can certainly be an often happy bonus when it does happen, but it's not actually a vitally required ingredient.)
as someone who loves star trek and supernatural it is INSANITY how much comes back to either too. it's a coin flip half the time. I adore both even though supernatural is bad \aff
Thank you lord for mentioning the intersex thing. I’m so sick of clicking on fics tagged as intersex only for it to not be how intersex works at all. I know it doesn’t come from a place of malice rather just misunderstanding but it’s so frustrating when nothing is properly tagged.
most shows are fine with having two male leads / prominent characters but not two female leads (that have that particular type of dynamics between them) so we don't have a lot to work with in the first place, sadly
bingo
Forget being the leads sometimes they don’t even let them TALK to each other… The Bechdel test is from Dykes to Watch Out For and a depressing amount of works still don’t pass it… as in they don’t have a single conversation between two named women and they’re talking about LITERALLY anything but a man… ONE conversation. ONE. In those fandoms just to have a possibility let alone an interesting one (which is hard when there’s not a single conversation not about a man) you have to genderbend, make OCs or turn to crackships between characters that haven’t had ONE conversation not about a man and often haven’t met so the main characters who are almost always male in these types of works inevitably have more chemistry simply bc they get to TALK about things. It seems inevitable for this type of work of media
well, that’s one justification i suppose
@@That-_-Guy is it incorrect though?
My new years resolution ke go kata basadi ba bantši ka mo go kgonegago mola ba lla, ba goeletša, and ba nkgopela gore ke tlogele gobane diteng tša ka di kopanya kudu 👌😂. ,.,.,.
The "there are just more interesting white male characters, so of course there's more fic about them!" has rung hollow for me for a while now. I make original comics in spaces where people write and draw original comics and novels, and it's this sad fact everyone's aware of that no matter how good a sapphic story you write or draw, it will get about half the readership of a similar mlm one, to the point that it's almost impossible to make a living creating sapphic works, and sapphic creators all just sigh and go "... yeah, that's how it is". Or worse, tell you matter if factly, "Well, you just have to give the market what they want, silly!" It's similarly difficult for creators working with characters who aren't skinny and pale skinned. Even just putting a black character prominently on the cover of a webnovel (if the creator can find an artist approved by the platform who will even draw a black person...aagh) results in less clicks and less money, and that's not the publishers doing that; the readers themselves are just clicking more works with two pale, skinny men on the cover image even when given all the choice in the world.
I feel like it's more the case that people see a white man as like... a blank slate they can project anything onto; he can be as strong or weak as he needs to be, and you can play with the social dynamics affecting him, while a woman is kind of othered; she is what she is and her capabilities personality and the way social pressures affect her are somehow set in stone.
It's honestly a tiresome state of affairs, i wish things were different and I felt like I could create sapphic works that reflect my lesbian experiences and feel like I had a fair chance to earn a living, because that's what I'm really passionate about.
My new years resolution ke go kata basadi ba bantši ka mo go kgonegago mola ba lla, ba goeletša, and ba nkgopela gore ke tlogele gobane diteng tša ka di kopanya kudu 👌😂. ,.,.,.
My wife wrote one of her bachelor's based off of a similar premise (lbtq and women's representation in fanfiction) and it was interesting seeing how the large presence of those groups and related themes in fanmade media is an indicator of how underserved those demographics are in mainstream media.
i think the idea that theres "not enough women in omegaverse stories" is kind of a real problem statistically? but practically the only kind of omegaverse i read is the kind where everyone involved is girls and i feel like i still have a million years of it to read through. so its a real problem in a sociological sense but not on an individual basis imo
i’m so glad you talked about zines!! the history and culture of zine making and trading is one of my favorite things
The history of Japanese BL is also interesting in how its development is both similar to and different from western fandom. The history of BL as a genre written by women for women, developing alongside shojo manga, feels very parallel to (and happened around the same time as!) K/S and Star Trek.
the ad in the middle of the concerning list around 17:00 is SO FUNNY thank you Strange
RIGHT i had to see if it was the same set time for others bc i laughed out loud to it
As a trans dude, I can say ABO fanfics written by queer people (and writing said fics for myself) 100% helped me explore fears and anger towards having a uterus and the social expectations put on you for it as well as wxplore my gender identity. I seriously think that while they weren't the key reason for me to accept my identity, they certainly helped me proccess the truth and understand who I am.
Edit: I just realized that my interest in ABO waned soon after I started truly accepting myself. I still like ABO, but considering I'm not attracted to men and tend to project myself pretty hard on characters, fics where an omega guy is in a relationship with a woman or non ABO fics where a trans guy is with a woman (cis, trans or otherwise) are pretty rare.
I have never read an abo fic, but aren't they more like fetishizing or even belittling to the transmasc experience? A beta male having similar struggles as a transman living in this society but it being expressed like thats right and hot?
That's usually why it made me very uncomfortable
@@SinnersRhapsodyThere are definitely abo fics that come off as insensitive to the trans male experience. But it very much depends on the writer. If the writer is trans like op it's usually the omegaverse with a twist style of writing because they are working through things and venting fears within the writing. Omegaverse from a trans writer can feel more realistic or emotional because the writer is basing it on their experiences
The thought that some day you'll 100% pass as male and have to then share you have a uterus with your romantic partner and the fear your partner might see you as "less of a man" for it is a very real fear for trans people. And the secretly omega trope covers that fear from every possible angle.
Abo fics are not for everyone even if you are trans. It can end up triggering gender dysphoria in some folks. So it really depends on you and if you find comfort in the genre. But a trans person shouldn't feel bad for enjoying ABO or that all omega fics are inherently transphobic by default. It really just depends on the fic
@@SinnersRhapsody most omegaverse isn't written with the trans experience in mind and it is worth noting that there are also plenty of fanfic writers who are trans themselves. Being trans is such a broad spectrum of experiences, some people will connect with some experiences and some will feel uncomfortable with those same experiences, neither are wrong, but it is to tell someone they're experiencing their own identity wrong. Omegaverse by itself didn't do much for me, but bl as a wider genre (and specifically danmei) was a major catalyst in me discovering my own identity too, as they're worlds where men aren't expected to follow the standard western cookie cutter masculine stereotypes
It’s kinda weird to say but honestly I wish there were more fanfics like you mentioned. I feel like there’s a weird stereotype that all trans guys are gay or desire only relationships with other men. I wish there was more variety
Well if you're straight and like men, what's manlier than a man? Two men
It's basically the ShoeonHead joke of why men like find w/w hot. "Wow, two chocolate bars! 🍫 🍫 Two of a thing I like! *Smash chocolate bars together repeatedly*" 😂
That's why I write lesbian slashfics
So you stand by that point when it's men doing it right?
@@ddraven3180 I mean, it's already basically impossible to find porn specifically catered to wlw audiences that isn't made with the male gaze in mind so this ship has sailed *waaaaay* long ago, if you're trying to turn this into a gotcha argument lol.
@roflcopterIII yeah, and that's always chided for being wrong and disgusting to cater to men with wlw, but the other way around is praised, so shut your trap
This is the only channel I subscribe to where I have to pause videos at least every 5-10 minutes for a sanity break. Fantastic job, as always.
My personal theory is two-fold.
1: most things have mostly male characters with most of the character depth/development, so it's mostly male characters that will catch peoples interest.
2: What's hotter than one hot man being sexy? Two hot men being sexy. Lol
Some people in fandom spaces need to accept 'Because I enjoy it and there's nothing deeper than that' as a valid answer to why they read/write something.
I am so ready to hear how this all began with two lowly circus workers, Zalbo the Clown and Ronaldo the Mad (Magician) exchanged starcrossed looks once in the night, or so wrote the ticket booth girl who shipped them.
This is a little off topic from the video but 6:09 is SO REAL. Like, genuinely, if you have periods that are sort of heavy AND any form of bad mental health issues / really bad fatigue while on said periods, you should try to bring it up to a doctor who specializes in this sort of thing. I got diagnosed with PMDD over severe depression and being really sleepy around my period and was put on birth control and it’s insane how much of a difference it makes when most mental health medication has not. It’s also insane how hard stuff like this can be to catch, because it’s ultimate hormone-based and not bleeding-based, so you end up feeling terrible for 3+ weeks put of a month and at that point it just feels like you’re never actually having a break, so it’s way easier to dive at it just being a more “normal” constant form of a disorder when it’s just not. (Also this isn’t to say “you don’t have depression, silly!” because you can totally have both. I just think that knowing that you have PMDD specifically is capable of fixing so many issues, from personal experience lmfao)
IM SO HAPPY, MY TWO SPECIAL INTERESTS, MY BELOVED STRANGE AEONS AND KIRK/SPOCK FANFICTION, HAVE COLLIDED AT LAST!!!!!!!
8:29 my favorite gay couple Kock
Omg💀
As an asexual transmasc who mainly engages with mlm fanfiction (I try to find non-xplicit stuff but it’s hard) I think my problem with reading wlw is that I get crazy dysphoria and straight ships are… well, too straight
Firstly, really wanna recommend "Twilight" by Contrapoints. This video covers a lot of the same points, but I love how Strange Aeons adds her own interesting takes and research.
Personally I wanna add that problematic fantasies always have to take into account two kinds of people;
1 The 'submissive' reader and writer who are okay with the fantasy but never wanna see this happen IRL.
2 A second type of reader who takes this as confirmation that group 1 DOES want to be xxxxx.
There is also group 3 who want to protect group 1 against group 2 by denying group 1 freedom of expression.
Group 3 and group 1 are always going to be in conflict. Teaching people about consent and educating people about all of this is the only way to resolve the conflict between groups 1, 2 and 3.
I personally adore noncon and other problematic fantasies I 100% have but never want to see play out IRL. IRL they are problematic, in a story, you can write the novel in such a way there are no problematic parts. (It can't be r*** when you consent to everything. Even if the other partner doesn't ask for consent.
IRL it is r*** when you don't know the consent. In a story, it's only R when the author says it is. But if no consent is given, well, that isn't R because the author still consented by writing it yk. This is true for fantasy, not for real life!)
Also, I'm a man and do not have the attention span for reading. And I really wish people would also examine not just smut, but also p**n. Because p**n can also have more or less complicated plots on which you can also do all kinds of literary analysis.
P**n probably hasn't been analysed as much because people don't deem it 'worthy' and there is the misogynistic stereotype that men can engage with p**n critically whereas women need people to mansplain to them the nuances of fan fiction.
Again, being a gay sub man, I love myself visual p**n with a short plot/context and noncon! Bad plots are still plots! And they still influence how people view romance! You also have a lot of "alpha men dirty talks" where nothing happens but the man in the chair is still doing worldbuilding. Worldbuilding worth examening!
And again, these video's are very basic and made by amateurs most of the time! The worldbuilding is never as complex as it is in fan fiction, but it's still worth examening!
I seriously used to think the Omegaverse was just the lore of Omega Mart
It is so dismissive to read the account of someone who had a panic attack on encountering omegaverse and then to just say “well it’s just not for everyone teehee”
the spanish title for this is so funny to me
omegaverso2. straight(well gay perhaps) and to the point
Tiene un encanto la verdad
A couple people have mentioned this already, but part of the reason why so much fanfic is m|m is probably because for so long men were the only characters with compelling stories and motivations who had the most emotional chemistry with other men, and not a cardboard cut out of a woman. Which also feeds into that desire of women wanting to consume stories where partners are equal Im sure.
A fine question. I look forward to a Strange answer.
"What if we laid eggs? Do we lay eggs?" somehow gave me major "have you worn wigs? Will you wear wigs?" and I don't know what to do with this
This feels like the second part to Contrapoints' video about Twilight
Aaayyy! I'm a few days late, but I just commented about Contrapoints Twilight video! I hope Strange watches (or has watched) it. It's fantastic and in depth just like this video from Strange. Their exploration of themes and why's for fanfic are great and I think we need more analysis' like these videos. I'm always down for a well researched documentary video
I never thought I would say this, but one of the chapters cited was written by one of my uni professors! Laura Campillo was amazing and her subject was one of my favourites and one of the ones that has shaped my perception of media the most.
Me: reads the title, opens the essay aloud in my empty office
Strange: Omegaverse 😊
Me: scrambling to find a pair of earbuds
I'm listening to this while organizing 2100+ Pokemon cards.
as a marauders fan ive found that the fandom is not only almost completely community made (jkr sucks) but the community has made the decision to include poeple of color and people with disability. james is often desi, remus usual has a chronic illness and regulus is often trans (one of my fic favorite writers talks about how they explored there own transition and experiences and writes it into regulus's charater) while not all author's or artist follow the changes most do. Its a cognitive effort that acknowledges all these people are white, cis, able bodied and focused on men. (the fandom has more the 4 popular wlw ships) theres a active effort for diversity even if it can start infandom fighting its been nice to see a community want to be inclusive (especially when taking it from a bigot)
THIS!!! i honestly love how such a large portion of the hp fanbase has deliberately brought all the kinds of diversity jkr refused to into the fandom and addresses the issues of the source material. i cannot tell you how many drarry fics ive read with an INTENSE political b plot covering the corruption of the ministry, the mistreatment of house elves, the issues of pure blood ideology and discrimination, etc etc, that were blown off or written problematically by jkr all while including either a diverse cast of OCs or simply retconning existing characters to be queer, trans, disabled, or people of color in ways that are significant to the story and reinterpretating canon, or just for the sake of representation. it’s so amazing to see people take such a problematic peice of media that they identified with parts of in their youth, consume it very critically and then literally remold it to accommodate themselves and the many kinds of people who initially found comfort in it.
@@hello_world2767 if you have any fic recs for drarry (or really any ship) that have those super political b plots i would Love to read them! the hp world feels so complex but so unexplored by the canon and i crave what you're talking about hahaha
@@gabitron420
The Liars Department by DorthyAnn
Pop Up Pals by bambimoss
No Harm by Tessa Crowley (tessacrowley)
Cut From the Sky by mallstars
Here's The Pencil, Make It Work by ignatiustrout
Headlights in the Snow by Saras_Girl
The Ordeal of Being Known by louisfake
the first fic (The Liars Department) is the best example of romance with a political b plot, some of the others are more just diving into social issues via conversation/general attitudes expressed in the fic, or having a more diverse cast. most of these are just Harry Has Issues With The Ministry featuring Redeemed!Draco. i wish i had more recs for super political ones but they’re so hard to come by and im so bad at remembering titles off the top of my head!
@@gabitron420
The Liars Department by DorthyAnn
Pop Up Pals by bambimoss
No Harm by Tessa Crowley (tessacrowley)
Cut From the Sky by mallstars
The Ordeal of Being Known
by louisfake
Here's The Pencil, Make It Work by ignatiustrout
Stop and Stare by Saras_Girl
Headlights in the Snow by Saras_Girl
the first fic (the liars department) is the best example of fic with a political b plot, some of the rest of them just have generic social/political commentary about the post war hp verse sprinkled in or just have a more diverse cast. most of these are just Harry Has Issues With The Ministry ft. Redeemed!Draco. i wish i had more off the top of my head but they’re just so hard to come by.
@@hello_world2767 you're an absolute legend, thank you sm!
Thanks for this. I've been in fandom spaces for a long time and ABO has always baffled me. It has always been lowkey triggering for me, so I didn't wanr to look into it or think about it.
ABO never appealed to me for entertainment reading, I think purely because it’s very much about pregnancy or the threat of it and I’ve always viewed pregnancy as just that. A threat, the ultimate violation that I’ve been assured my whole life that I would want in the end. Which is fine in a kink context but unnerving and unpleasant in my day to day. I think that’s what always drew me to slash fiction, the fact that these people could live in love completely free from threat of pregnancy.
I completely understand where you're coming from. I've wanted to get full organ removal "just in case something happened" since I was like 11. Never had an actual trauma event Like That, but still. It was always in the back of my mind growing up.
I got it done last year, at age 30.
It will be tough to get a hysterectomy in the coming years. It will also be worth it.
I sincerely hope - and if I thought it would help, I would pray - that you are able to get one, if that's what you need. Don't let anyone tell you that your safety doesn't matter.
29:00 I was about to comment like “anon, you got the name of this story? 👀” and then you got to the end of the ask and ugh 😣 I hope that writer is doing okay
Thank you for this present. Nothing better than some literaly analysis of Spirk. Happy New Year from our family to yours 🎉
Yea I can’t really speak on any of the queer dynamics of fanfic or omega verse seeing as I avoid it as a cis het guy but as a black man I always found it odd how white shipping culture in fandoms is.
I learned early on that it just comes with the territory.
Fandoms are majority white and black fans like me growing up loving anime we needed to reach for representation. (Ex: Piccolo from DBZ)
I can't speak for everyone, but personally as a white fanfiction writer, I kinda feel like I'm not allowed to write people of color? Very occasionally, I'll get attached to a ship with a character who is non-white or coded as such, and I'll either basically avoid talking about that aspect altogether or try very hard to only add the most non-controversial details about their identity, because the vague liberal fandom space is SO quick to crucify white people who say ANYTHING that's a little politically incorrect, even by accident. I'd gladly read more representative fanfics if I found them more often, but I feel like I'm not allowed to write them, and I think many other white writers feel the same way. Maybe that's a good thing, because otherwise you'd be getting a lot of bad representation, maybe it's a bad thing because even bad representation is better than no representation, I'm not sure
I think omegaverse specifically is really difficult to tackle because it inherently either puts a character in that aggressive out of control alpha role or that submissive and weak omega role, both of which become almost unavoidably problematic when you add race dynamics to the mix. When it comes to normal slash fics that don't have these dynamics the lack of diversity is definitely a problem though, I agree, and it's symptomatic of a broader lack of diversity in pop culture
@@SandstimesI feel you and even with het pairing of minority characters with white ones it can easily turn into weird raceplay territory. It can be the same traditional/problematic dom sub dynamics but the minute artist start to fetishize the contrast in their skin tones im out 😂.
The line between “Couples are beautiful no matter the color” to interracial fetishism really thin at times
@@lanfae9353I can understand that. Might be off topic but I gotta ask. It’s a topic another UA-camr brought up (Princess Weekes) but do you have any idea why some white writers describe some characters in (imo) racially ambiguous terms? It constantly confuses me to hear characters described as olive skin and then hear from fans how that can be both Italian/Native/ or light skin East Asian. I don’t know if this just bad media literacy or just writers not wanting to just say plainly all the characters are white.
@@bomberbcmmaaan, I think this is basically an old romance novel trope that carried over into fanfic and other media. As you mentioned, "olive skinned" is a super ambiguous term and can be interpreted a bunch of different ways. I think in older works, it mostly only was used for basically whites dudes with a tan, often for folks with Spanish or Italian backgrounds. They were sort of exotic but not *too* exotic, basically.
That said, I feel like if I see olive skinned getting mentioned in more modern works, there's a much higher chance it's talking about actual people from non white backgrounds, like Latin Americans or people from the Middle East, so I don't assume it's talking about a white character automatically. That probably would have been a fair bet tho for any works pre 1980s that mentioned this
hearing you quote my professor [francesca coppa] in a video was not on my 2024 bingo card
i appreciate the openness in the discussion here for the fact that lots of people (such as myself) use “icky” stories to cope with their own trauma(s) or societal pressures. that gets left out a lot of the time with personal bias, and while I understand the discomfort, being shamed for something my therapist encouraged me to do feels super weird. our reactions to trauma are messy, so the ways we cope are going to be messy. they’re not above criticism of course, but I think we should approach all things with more understanding and that’s exactly what happened here. this video made me feel oddly seen and understood by some random person on the internet in a way I don’t, normally.
"...Kirk and Spock." *Crowd goes wild*
As a trans man, this made me consider what I like about ABO besides the inherently interesting world building. My body is out of my control in a way I despise, and in a way that feels incongruous with who I am. It's cathartic and interesting to explore. There's also the trauma of being a man and facing the same sexualization as my women peers, and the intersection of being a man and facing misogyny and the intersection of the patriarchy and transphobia. I honestly kinda want to explore the trans experience with ABO. The thing is that it's so hard to find fics that work for me and now I have to write my own. And by god I'm doing it.
4:08 omegaverse hole 🗣️🗣️‼️
My husband and I went to start what we thought was a cute gay husbands anime and when we started i immediately noticed that it wasn’t a normal anime…. but it ended up being an omegaverse
I'm a little surprised to not hear many trans women perspectives on this, so I'll chime in. I've had a struggling relationship with my sexuality until I started transitioning a few years ago, but through kink, including omegaverse stuff, I've been able to express myself in that way I haven't before. When I lived as a guy, I had the social expectations of being the provider, being dominant, those sort of toxic masculine ideals, but ever since I transitioned, I've found comfort and euphoria deviating from those and allowing myself to submit and engage in kinks that further that. I know it makes some people uncomfortable (and that's alright), but breeding, often in overlap with omegaverse stuff, furthers domination through the idea of claiming and possession of one by the other via impregnation and carrying a child. Is this objectively through a sexist, immoral lens? Yes, but in a controlled, consensual environment, it's okay to long for scenarios you wouldn't want to live through irl, of course, as long as you don't think such things irl. The tabooness and how wrong it is often plays into it and makes it as hot as it is, same with noncon or dubcon. And it must be mentioned as well that the breeding aspect provides some wish fulfillment for people like me, who, despite me not wanting kids, feel some sense of sorrow for not being given the choice of if I ever did want to have them or not due to my limited biology. Despite how limiting of a role being an omega would be, the reassurance that despite being assigned male at birth, that if I were in the role of an omega, would be able to still be able to have kids like cis women could feels nice. And leaning into dubcon or noncon with a dom telling me "you're going to have my kids, it's what your body was made for as an omega" is a dark and taboo, yet exciting inversion of my existing personal issue of not being able to control my reproductive autonomy on part of being screwed over by the sex RNG gods. Sorry if this is a mess, I just really wanted to vent my feelings on this whole thing.
That and heat cycles just resemble me when I regularly take my progesterone lmao
I love the jungle in the backgrround with the cat crawling around.