Omegaverse, also known as A/B/O (an abbreviation for "alpha/beta/omega"), is a subgenre of speculative erotic fiction, and originally a subgenre of erotic slash fan fiction. Its premise is that a dominance hierarchy exists in humans, which are divided into dominant "alphas", neutral "betas", and submissive "omegas". [1] This hierarchy determines how people interact with one another in romantic, erotic and sexual contexts. [2]
The Omegaverse has abstract premises for which it could be considered a fantasy genre according to the conventions established by Todorov, but the high specification of its characteristic elements suggests that it could also be considered a literary genre in itself. [3] Its main peculiarity is that characters have two sexes: a main one (male or female), decided by their external sexual organs, and a secondary one, that manifests during puberty, determined by their internal reproductive system. [4] [5] It's usually chosen from one of the following, each of which also corresponds to some distinctive character traits: [6] [7] [8] [9]
Omegaverse fiction typically focuses on wolf or other canid-like behavior in humans, especially as it pertains to sexual intercourse and sexuality, which is described as instinctual, responding to animalistic physiological stimuli. [1] [2] This includes rutting and heat cycles, pheromonal attraction between Alphas and Omegas, [10] penises with knots (used to "knot", or tie, the partner to an Alpha during copulation, an action known as "knotting"), [1] scent marking, [11] imprinting, [8] breeding, mating rites, pack structures [12] and potentially permanent psychic bonds with a mate. [6] Between Alphas and Betas, only females can carry on a pregnancy, but male Omegas are often envisaged as being able to become pregnant via a uterus connected to the rectum, [12] [13] [14] and Alphas can impregnate regardless of their main gender. [15] To make penetration and impregnation easier, male Omegas often have self-lubricating anuses. [9]
Since Omegaverse is a type of folksonomy, some of its aspects are included or excluded at the discretion of the story author. [8] Sometimes Betas are absent, or other intermediate designations such as Deltas and Gammas are added. [15] The genre often features other fantasy elements, such as the presence of werewolves or other fantastical creatures. [1] Some works introduce a rigid caste system, where Alphas are depicted as the upper class elites while Omegas are at the bottom tier and face discrimination and oppression because of their physiology, creating an example of biological determinism. [7] [16] [17] In darker stories, this results in non-consensual or dubiously consensual intercourses, forced pregnancies, Omegas kidnapping and sexual slavery. [18] [19]
Omegaverse works are most frequently focused on male-male couples composed of an Alpha and an Omega, [6] though heterosexual Omegaverse works have been produced, [11] and by 2013, about 10% on Archive of Our Own were labeled male/female. [8] Some subvert the genre tropes, telling stories about illicit relationships between Alphas, Omegas who hide their smell using chemical pheromones so that they are not a victim of biological prejudices, [20] or dominant Omegas and submissive Alphas. [2] Non-traditional couples are often featured in Japanese Omegaverse works. [21]
While the terms "A/B/O" and "Omegaverse" can be used interchangeably, the first one often refers only to the sexual dynamics, while the second one is preferred when the story is set in a new ideological world. [10] Some prefer to avoid use of the term "A/B/O" as its spelling resembles a racial slur towards Aboriginal Australians. [9]
The tropes commonly associated with the genre are not exclusive to it: they can be found across fandoms of various media, but came together in the Omegaverse in what Professor Kristina Busse has described as "a seemingly perfect storm". [20] The concept of mating and heat cycles among humans was popularized by the 1967 episode "Amok Time" of the American television series Star Trek , which introduces the concept of pon farr , the Vulcan mating cycle wherein Vulcan males must mate or die, which became a popular plot concept for fan works in the Star Trek fandom, particularly fan fiction focused on the Kirk/Spock pairing. [22] Ursula K. Le Guin also wrote, in her 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness , about an extraterrestrial androgynous world with hermaphroditic characters and mating cycles named kemmer. [2] Animal transformations like werewolves are included in Buffy the Vampire Slayer , Twilight , Teen Wolf and Harry Potter , with the latter's fandom popularizing bestiality kinks. [23]
The origin of the Omegaverse is typically attributed to the fandom surrounding the American television series Supernatural , as a fusion between werewolves and the male pregnancy subgenre of erotic fan fiction. [1] [23] [24] Another source of inspiration could have been the science fiction drama Dark Angel , where Supernatural actor Jensen Ackles plays a soldier with feline DNA, and female characters go into heat. [23] The first works recognized as A/B/O were published in mid-2010: [6] that year in May, a writing prompt was shared on a LiveJournal community dedicated to Supernatural, mentioning "alpha" males having knots on their penises, and "bitch males" without the knots, inspiring user tehdirtiestsock to write I ain't no lady, but you'd be the tramp, a real person fiction work focused on actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles as an Alpha and an Omega, which was published on July 24. [2] [17] Despite not using the term "omega", the story created many of the characteristics later associated with the Omegaverse genre. [2]
Over the next few months, other anonymous authors shared similar stories, until on November 9 a new writing prompt mentioned Alpha, Beta and Omega men for the first time, spurring the creation of three works. By June 2011, the term "Omegaverse" and its dynamics had become commonplace; the following month, the first femslash Omegaverse work was published, and the first use of the tropes outside the Supernatural fandom was recorded. [9]
The genre subsequently expanded in popularity to other fan communities: first to those focused around Sherlock and X-Men: First Class , then it quickly reached other fandoms like those of television series Hannibal , Teen Wolf , Glee , Doctor Who and movie The Avengers . [1] [9] A Chinese translation of an A/B/O Sherlock fanfic posted on website Suiyuanju around October 2011 introduced Omegaverse to Chinese slash fan circles, from which it spread to danmei original novels. [25]
In 2012, the notion of "fated mates" was introduced. [26] In 2014 Omegaverse gained strong traction in Japan, [21] acquiring market value with the publication of the first A/B/O manga in 2015. [27] In 2016 the discrimination and power dynamics between Alphas, Betas and Omegas began to be outlined, and the idea of the mark or bite that chemically and biologically links couples together was created, [28] while in 2018 the concept of the "inner wolf", an animal instinct guiding Alphas and Omegas, arose. [29] Through her work Kanraku Alpha Enigma, manga artist Shinshi Nakai subsequently tried to add the "Enigma", a new type of character who can mutate their secondary gender, but the novelty was resisted by Omegaverse fans and had no impact or continuity. [30]
Omegaverse has become both extremely popular and controversial in fandom circles. Some condemn it as revolting and sick, affirming that it reinforces patriarchal values and a rape culture, [31] objecting to its roots in bestiality fiction and the power imbalances between genders. [6] Conversely, others appreciate how it deconstructs bodies and gender roles, offering subversive social commentary on queer identity and oppression. [31] [32]
Academic opinions are equally divided between those who believe Omegaverse shows a new type of gender essentialism combined with homophobic and heteronormative elements, and those who see the space to give it a transgender reading. [6] Delgado Díaz, Ubillus Breña and Cappello do not believe that the Omegaverse is linked to queer theory or transidentity, despite containing allegories to gender identity and the female condition (Omegas, both male and female, could be considered embodiments of the traditional role of women as housewives and mothers), whose purpose, however, is only that of frameworks to plots ranging from melodrama to horror. [33]
According to researcher Milena Popova, "the features of the A/B/O genre allow for the exploration of themes of power, desire, pleasure, intimacy, romance, control, and consent in a variety of ways", [34] and it is used by writers and readers "as a tool to articulate and think through consent issues in unequal relationships". [35] Similarly, Laura Campillo Arnaiz argues that dark Omegaverse works serve to gain control on the feelings of helplessness and humiliation that characterize it, creating a cathartic experience. [36]
According to Paige Hartenburg, the Omegaverse is connected to LGBTQ+ trauma and corrective narratives, hence it "writes queerness through the impact it leaves on the body, with its violence and heteronormic tendencies responding to larger structures that attempt to confine narrative authority to a single group" and "in all its intricacies, both problematic in its highly patriarchal troupes[ sic ] and emblematic of considerable community trauma, [the Omegaverse] is a genre representative of the dissolving relationship between queer fandom spaces and mainstream creatives". [37]
Angie Fazekas wrote that "[i]n the omegaverse, fans use traditional tropes of gender and sexuality to imagine a universe where queer sexuality is the norm and normative gender roles are often skewed and upended", [32] but that they fail to offer real progressiveness since, like most of the other fan fictions, their works are predominantly focused on relationships between white men. [38]
The Omegaverse exploded in popularity in 2017, quickly becoming a frequent subject of fan fiction writers. [29] As of July 2018 [update] , over 39,000 Omegaverse fan works had been published on the fan fiction website Archive of Our Own, [9] and over 165,000 as of 2023. [39] In addition to these derivative works, Omegaverse has emerged as its own genre of original commercial erotic fiction: roughly 200 Omegaverse novels were published on Amazon from January to June 2020. [1] It has also become a subgenre of both commercial and non-commercial yaoi (manga featuring male-male couples). [21] [40] [41] Given the positive reception in Japan, South Korea started its own production of Omegaverse manhwas, as well as China, although the censorship applied in this latter country has limited the genre popularity. [42]
Beginning in 2017, the "Dom/Sub Universe" subgenre gained popularity, particularly in yaoi works in Japan; it uses BDSM elements, positing dominant and submissive as secondary genders, and draws inspirations from Omegaverse in its depiction of caste systems. [43] In the "Cakeverse", a small part of the human population is divided into "forks", who have no sense of taste, and "cakes", people with a particular flavor that makes them irresistible to "forks". [44]
A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant portion of their time and energy involved with their interest, often as a part of a social network with particular practices, differentiating fandom-affiliated people from those with only a casual interest.
Yaoi, also known as boys' love and its abbreviation BL, is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that features homoerotic relationships between male characters. It is typically created by women for women and is thus distinct from bara, a genre of homoerotic media marketed to gay men, though yaoi does also attract a male audience and can be produced by male creators. Yaoi spans a wide range of media, including manga, anime, drama CDs, novels, video games, television series, films, and fan works. While "yaoi" is commonly used in the west as an umbrella term for Japanese-influenced media with male-male relationships, "boys' love" and "BL" are the generic terms for this kind of media in Japan and much of Asia.
Slash fiction is a genre of fan fiction that focuses on romantic or sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex. While the term "slash" originally referred only to stories in which male characters are involved in an explicit sexual relationship as a primary plot element, it is now also used to refer to any fan story containing a romantic pairing between same-sex characters. Many fans distinguish slash with female characters as a separate genre, commonly referred to as femslash.
Femslash is a genre which focuses on romantic and/or sexual relationships between female fictional characters.
LGBT themes in speculative fiction include lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) themes in science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction and related genres. Such elements may include an LGBT character as the protagonist or a major character, or explorations of sexuality or gender that deviate from the heteronormative.
Shipping is the desire by followers of a fandom for two or more people, either real-life people or fictional characters, to be in a romantic or sexual relationship. Shipping often takes the form of unofficial creative works, including fanfiction and fan art.
The yaoi fandom consists of the readers of yaoi, a genre of male homosexual narratives. Individuals in the yaoi fandom may attend conventions, maintain/post to fansites, create fanfiction/fanart, etc. In the mid-1990s, estimates of the size of the Japanese yaoi fandom were at 100,000–500,000 people. Despite increased knowledge of the genre among the general public, readership remained limited in 2008. English-language fan translations of From Eroica with Love circulated through the slash fiction community in the 1980s, forging a link between slash fiction fandom and yaoi fandom.
A Mary Sue is a character archetype in fiction, usually a young woman, who is often portrayed as inexplicably competent across all domains, gifted with unique talents or powers, liked or respected by most other characters, unrealistically free of weaknesses, extremely attractive, innately virtuous, and generally lacking meaningful character flaws. Usually female and almost always the main character, a Mary Sue is often an author's idealized self-insertion, and may serve as a form of wish fulfillment. Mary Sue stories are often written by adolescent authors.
Fan fiction or fanfiction is fictional writing written in an amateur capacity by fans, unauthorized by, but based on an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual properties from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing. Fan fiction ranges from a couple of sentences to an entire novel, and fans can retain the creator's characters and settings, add their own, or both. It is a form of fan labor. Fan fiction can be based on any fictional subject. Common bases for fan fiction include novels, movies, comics, television shows, musical groups, cartoons, anime, manga, and video games.
Bara is a colloquialism for a genre of Japanese art and media known within Japan as gay manga (ゲイ漫画) or gei komi. The genre focuses on male same-sex love, as created primarily by gay men for a gay male audience. Bara can vary in visual style and plot, but typically features masculine men with varying degrees of muscle, body fat, and body hair, akin to bear or bodybuilding culture. While bara is typically pornographic, the genre has also depicted romantic and autobiographical subject material, as it acknowledges the varied reactions to homosexuality in modern Japan.
The role of women in speculative fiction has changed a great deal since the early to mid-20th century. There are several aspects to women's roles, including their participation as authors of speculative fiction and their role in science fiction fandom. Regarding authorship, in 1948, 10–15% of science fiction writers were female. Women's role in speculative fiction has grown since then, and in 1999, women comprised 36% of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's professional members. Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley has been called the first science fiction novel, although women wrote utopian novels even before that, with Margaret Cavendish publishing the first in the seventeenth century. Early published fantasy was written by and for any gender. However, speculative fiction, with science fiction in particular, has traditionally been viewed as a male-oriented genre.
Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre is a 2010 anthology about Boys Love (BL) and the Boys Love fandom edited by Antonia Levi, Mark McHarry and Dru Pagliassotti.
Archive of Our Own is a nonprofit open source repository for fanfiction and other fanworks contributed by users. The site was created in 2008 by the Organization for Transformative Works and went into open beta in 2009. As of 1 March 2024, Archive of Our Own hosts 12,600,000 works in over 63,880 fandoms. The site has received positive reception for its curation, organization, and design, mostly done by readers and writers of fanfiction.
Alpha male and beta male are pseudoscientific terms for men derived from the designations of alpha and beta animals in ethology. They may also be used with other genders, such as women, or additionally use other letters of the Greek alphabet. The popularization of these terms to describe humans has been widely criticized by scientists.
Danmei is a Chinese genre of literature and other fictional media that features romantic relationships between male characters. Danmei is typically created by and targeted towards a heterosexual female audience. While danmei works and their adaptations have achieved widespread popularity in China and globally, their legal status remains unclear due to Chinese censorship policies. The female same-gender counterpart to danmei is known as bǎihé, which is an orthographic reborrowing of the Japanese word yuri, but it is not as well known or popular as danmei.
Karen L. Hellekson is an American author and scholar who researches science fiction and fan studies. In the field of science fiction, she is known for her research on the alternate history genre, the topic of her 2001 book, The Alternate History: Refiguring Historical Time, and has also published on the author Cordwainer Smith. In fan studies, she is known for her work on fan fiction and the culture of the fan community. She has co-edited two essay collections on fan fiction with Kristina Busse, and in 2008, co-founded the academic journal, Transformative Works and Cultures, also with Busse.
Francesca Coppa is an American scholar whose research has encompassed British drama, performance studies and fan studies. In English literature, she is known for her work on the British writer Joe Orton; she edited several of his early novels and plays for their first publication in 1998–99, more than thirty years after his murder, and compiled an essay collection, Joe Orton: A Casebook (2003). She has also published on Oscar Wilde. In the fan-studies field, Coppa is known for documenting the history of media fandom and, in particular, of fanvids, a type of fan-made video. She co-founded the Organization for Transformative Works in 2007, originated the idea of interpreting fan fiction as performance, and in 2017, published the first collection of fan fiction designed for teaching purposes. As of 2021, Coppa is a professor of English at Muhlenberg College, Pennsylvania.
Fan studies is an academic discipline that analyses fans, fandoms, fan cultures and fan activities, including fanworks. It is an interdisciplinary field located at the intersection of the humanities and social sciences, which emerged in the early 1990s as a separate discipline, and draws particularly on audience studies and cultural studies.
Love Is an Illusion! is a Korean boys' love manhwa written and illustrated by Fargo. The series has an omegaverse setting and follows Hye-sung, an Omega who thought he was an Alpha until recently, and Dojin, an Alpha who can't stand Omegas. The series was serialized online via Lezhin Comics between January, 2018, and March, 2021. On February 12, 2022, a sequel, Love is an Illusion! - The Queen, began serialization.
Beginning in the mid-2010s, significant discourse emerged within fan spaces such as Tumblr and Archive of Our Own (AO3) regarding the ethical implications of portraying taboo and abusive sexual content within shipping fanfiction. Shipping, romantic or sexual pairing of fictional characters by fans of their source material, has long been a staple within fanfiction. The lack of censorship emerging from spaces such as AO3 allowed for the portrayal of disturbing or taboo dynamics within fan works, including incest, abuse, rape, and pedophilia. Fandom discourse divided between "anti-ship" and "pro-ship" camps, hinging primarily on the extent to which fictional works depicting such content affect real-world behavior and attitudes. Anti-shippers take the view that fictional portrayals normalize harmful dynamics and behaviors, and pose a particular threat to children. Fanfiction depicting underage characters in sexual contexts is characterized as child pornography. Pro-shippers oppose antis on a variety of stances, including opposition to censorship and the rejection of notions of fictional abuse affecting reality. Both anti- and pro-shippers draw from primarily LGBT fan communities and share similar demographics, although antis are generally younger, with the largest contingent in their early-to-mid teens.