heard the news?

Ok so, I'm gonna warn you straight out the gate that this whole post is about a/b/o and the omegaverse, so if you don't like that scroll on 👍🏻

But basically I got thinking about how the omegaverse might add a whole new layer to queer identities and then I wrote all this! If you have something you'd like to add or comment on then feel free

(This also mentions sex and sexuality so beware I suppose)

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

So I'm reading an a/b/o fic, as one does, and it got me thinking about how the a/b/o dynamic would affect the real world

So in this fic, basically as soon as the main pairing realized that they were an alpha and an omega, they like immediately start fucking. Like I'm not even joking they barely get into a private room and everything

And I was reading it and asking myself how realistic this would be if the omegaverse actually existed

And like, I know, its absolutely pointless to question the realism of a/b/o, because realism is not why it exists in the slightest, but it got me thinking anyway

So I very quickly came to the conclusion that no, obviously if the omegaverse existed not every single compatible omega and alpha would just immediately fuck eachother, just like how not every single compatible man and woman immediately fuck eachother

And then that got me thinking about how omegaverse sexuality works, just like, in general

Because from what I've seen and personally choose to believe, the omegaverse is kinda just an extra gender binary, right? Like it has a biological component, but also there's a larger social one on top of it. So is the omegaverse basically a new layer in the whole gender/sexuality cake? Are there specific labels for which a/b/o gender you're attracted to or identify as? Or is your secondary gender strictly a biological thing that doesn't branch into gender and sexuality?

What about ace people? How are they affected by it? What happens when a sex repulsed ace omega goes into heat? Does it give them a sex drive, or just make them run a high fever and nothing else? And the same things with ace alphas, do they just get a lot of morning wood and nothing else?

How do aro people navigate all this? Personally I like to think that the mating bites aren't inherently romantic or even sexual (and also don't have to be given during heats or ruts) so I imagine there's quite a lot of platonic bonds between people, like how some real aro people get married without any romantic intentions behind it. I imagine it's hard to navigate the world as an allosexual aro person too, seeing as in most cases, mating bites are seen as like, the ultimate goal when spending your heat or rut with someone, so trying to find safe avenues to actually deal with heats and ruts must be extremely difficult.

Rounding back to the whole labels thing, I'm wondering how specific they'd be, y'know? Like say you're a cis man, and also an omega, and you're only attracted to other omega men, how limiting or feasible is that as a concept? How many other omega men are also attracted to omega men, is it looked down upon? Does it even matter in this specific omegaverse society?

What about gender? Are there people who are say, a cis woman but a trans alpha? What about betas, are they the a/b/o equivalent of a nonbinary person? Personally I like to think of betas as basically the a/b/o intersex label (not an idea originally created by me, I'll say here) where they can show traits from both alphas and omegas in varying levels of intensity (which means that they often falsely present as one or the other, and usually that person doesn't know they're a beta till they get a medical examination or something similar)

But if that is the case and betas are just omegaverse intersex, then can there be trans betas? Obviously in real life, intersex is a medical thing not a gender identity and therefore you can't transition to become intersex, but we're working in the lawless land of omegaverse so who knows what's going on.

I think for my personal omegaverse headcanon, betas are intersex people and you can't transition to be a beta

Circling back again, what about the a/b/o equivalent of non binary and gender queer identities? Are there people who just don't identify or fall into the boxes of 'alpha' and 'omega' as gender identities? What would this be like for them? What would transitioning look like?

And again, this is all said in the assumption that the real life gender binary still exists, so could you be a cis person but be basically omegaverse nonbinary too? What would social transition look like? Because all the social hierarchy I've ever seen for a/b/o is based off of being able to smell someone's scent, right? So would a a/b/o nonbinary persons (I'm gonna start calling them gammas so I don't have to type that all out) goal if they decide to medically transition to be to get their scent as neutral as possible?

Would there be any social transition for a gamma person at all? Beyond how someone might be treated for their secondary gender, there's not a whole lot of so called 'gendered' language when it comes to a/b/o. Someone might refer to you by your secondary gender, but there's no pronouns or gendered names and terms related to it. So would you just be occasionally correcting people when they refer to you as an alpha or omega?

Also, what would just a general transition between one secondary gender to another look like? Like say you're an alpha who experiences gender dysphoria related to your secondary gender strong enough that you decide you want to take medical steps to change it. What would change with just hormones, what would need surgery? I imagine that your scent as well as scent glands would all change with hormones, but what about an alphas knot? Would you stop being able to knot once you started hormones, or not?

This also has the problem of an alphas and omegas general anatomy changing based on their biological sex too. Like, would a cis woman who was born an alpha but then later realized she was actually an omega need surgery to remove any alpha parts? (I still haven't decided what exactly a female alpha would have tbh)

How does all of this change if your just a regular trans person too? What would being a trans man who's also a trans omega look like and be like?

So many questions, so little time...

Ok, I think that's enough of pondering the orb for me...

y'all, I'm so high rn, but I think I wanna write something in omegaverse. It would be my own twist on it, of course.

Imma put the thingy cause I got a little ramblelly

Bc I think like the trope itself could be so fun to examine through a world building aspect. Having a secondary sex, (or gender, that's something else I'll get into) is such an amazing thing in and of itself. There would be whole new ways to be transgender and/or queer.

So, would transgender people really be treated differently? When they have to be pretty common, like say statistically 30% of the population, at bare minimum.

But back to the sex thing. Like, assumably, you could still reproduce with your primary sex? So, theoretically, you could be the biological mother or father of your child. That means in a society like this, gender roles about parenthood could be virtually none existent.

And your secondary sex (I'm calling it a sex bc it aids in reproduction) is also sort of an assigned gender. Like, in fic, that I have read (bc sometimes when you got a rare pair, you gotta step outta your comfort zone) omegas are sort of looked down on, and alphas are looked up to. But what if you're born physically an alpha, but you feel like an omega? And is being alpha/omega rare? And aren't they sort of expected to go together? So what would people think of alpha/alpha pairings, or omega/omega? I imagine being beta is like, the equivalent of being cis het here, in terms of commonality.

And then there’s that scent thing. Apparently, it makes you very attractive to your...idk how to explain this gender split stuff rn, bc I'm like, so baked. Like how irl some people still think men/women are opposites, in omegaverse people think alpha/omega are. Attractive to your opposite sex/gender.

But like, if alphas are supposed to be this charismatic idol, then naturally, they make it to the top. But what if that scent thing also works on all people attracted to alphas?

And the omega scent thing is also supposed to be all sex and shit. But also like, protective? Like it gives you this urge to keep them safe or some bullshit? Bc they might be pregers. And it works on all people attracted to omegas.

And like there could be people omegas attracted to other omegas. But they might be able to get away with it if they're male/female bc that's always been the expected thing. (Bc obviously, if betas are in charge, they aren't going to think about the needs of alphas/omegas.)

(Though it could be entirely the other way around, with alpha/omegas being the norm, and betas being looked down on bc they only had one method to breed.)

See? There's so much you can do with it. But usually, all you see is the sex stuff. Which is cool if that's what you're looking for.

But I want a political intrigue type drama where the different genders play against conventional roles. And also there's a lot of smut.

But like the being in heat leaves you coherent enough to say yes or no. Or that their scent starts to smell bad as a self-defense mechanism. Oh, I like that, actually. But anyway, I don’t like dub-con like this. For like, personal reasons.

So there is a lot of smut. That is at least a little queer every once in awhile. But tbh that's just bc this gummy got me horny af. Except I'm also asexual af and the thought of myself in any sort sexual scenario makes me want to have a panic attack irl.

Anyway, you could write it as this gender equality utopia.

Or you could right it as the way it probably would be--humans always find a way to build culture, to make a society. Societies have rules to keep the status que. There will always be those who are by nature against that status que and will be seen as different or other.

Ok, I think I have accidentally done like, some of my world building here. That makes this a sacred post.

Wait shit. Am I actually going to do this? I don't really think I can. Unless I write it on my phone, bc the shitty ass laptop is too far away.

Let us know how the book goes

Lmao, well, I'm on book 2 of a 3 part series, so I'm enjoying it for sure. There are definitely some parts I'm not fond of though.

more below, very mild beginning of the book spoilers included.

The series is Knot Yours Omegaverse by Sinclair Kelly. It's not a bad story or plot for a obviously kink-specific romance book. I specifically did not want one where it was like every guy was lining up to get his turn to touch the girl while determinedly avoiding looking at and touching each other, and luckily, this book is not that. There are some MLM queer romances within the pack, including one on screen sex scene between a bonded alpha/beta pair.

At the same time, it's got a bit of gross heteronormative crap I'm not fond of. Honestly, if I hadn't started the audiobook just before I got on the highway, and couldn't really turn it off, I'm not sure I would have kept going.

The beginning of book 1 is a female omega who runs the equivalent of a tiktok channel about how omegas have the right to choose not to be in a pack, but lighthearted and funny. The pack of guys is a rival channel that's basically entirely the opposite. So the first few chapters is alternating POVs about them reacting to each other, which is a mixture of "omg they're hot but why do they suck so much."

The first POV from the guys is very heavy male gazy stuff. "at least her tits are hot" and "an omega that looks like that blah blah" kind of vibes. However, it's equally turned toward the guys in the book too, talking about their abs and Adonis belts and water dripping down... so I don't know. I didn't like that chapter at all, but it kept playing so I kept listening.

Once they actually meet, I did really enjoy the book. All of that sort of grossness seamed to mostly be a tool for introducing the characters and that they were all hot.

Oh, and the main character's name is Bexley, which is a choice. 🤣🤣

Anyway, now I'm on to book 2, so no spoilers. 😉

I forgot how heteronormative the Fairy Tail fandom was back in 2015-2019, it could have been happening way before, but still.

Whenever I read fanfics religiously, I began reading Fairy Tail fanfiction years ago and it was always one of these books, that I read and it was either betrayal stories (I will not specify, some may already know) or...

Slayer Season stuff, kill me, and when reading these stories, I would see ships... I had no idea even existed but because I was dumb as hell and didn't finish the show, meaning I was walking on eggshells towards spoilers, I didn't but I remember Acnologia being mentioned and it unlocked some shitty memories.

AnnaLogia (Anna Heartfilia x Acnologia)

RogUra (Rogue Cheney x Kagura Mikazuchi

Don't know how this came to be, people see them as the Natsu and Lucy of the past but my interception being that Acnologia is a genocidal type of guy while Anna barely knows of his existence, I don't want their defenders coming after me when I say I ship AnnRene (Anna x Irene) Wait- Milfs together, Irene being with someone who won't leave her, can listen to her, while they stay in the library finding information and sharing with each other in a cottage- GUESS WHO JUST GOT A NEW CRACK SHIP- men didn't work out for Irene, so women would do much better- all in all, I understand what they're going for, but just no. Just no.

RogUra (Rogue Cheney x Kagura Mikazuchi

I don't understand. How in the fu-, I think what they were going for was how Kagura owned Yukino's life for about three days, and in the equivalent of StinYu, they needed RoguRa, They've never had any interaction, Kagura only argued with Sting over Yukino being in Mermaid Heel or SaberTooth, but even with all her interaction with men, she lacks interest in them, hell even Mashima didn't show signs of any guy approaching Kagura, fuck I might have jinxed my girl, although it pissed me off on how she got exposed to a lot of men in her "fight" against Dimaria, when Kagura is with Erza, genuinely she's more romantic with Erza instead of a MALE, Kagura KISSED Erza, KISSED!! Farther than any of the semi-canon ships can come up to, Kagura asked to be little Erza's little sister? Nah, it was avoiding her obvious wlw attraction, Rogue never interacted with her, he acknowledges her abilities, Kagura vs Millianna, he was genuine Kagura would win, I mean ofc she would, he saw her against Yukino, against Lyon and that mf is strong.

#Monet just rants

Go off queen!!

A lot of ships, specially some so-called crackships from the fandom really are rooted in heteronormativity, like with Rogue x Kagura or bickslow x lisanna (which later got more people actually putting in the thought process for their dynamic but i'm convinced it started to get lis out of the way of nalu), i don't know what kind of brain rot the early fandom had to just write "female character is hated on for no reason" or "smut that's this 👌 close to being omegaverse". I started reading ft fics in like 2014 and the first one i read was a just so full of lisanna and loke bashing cause of course they're "keeping Lucy and Natsu from being able to date each other", and today i find it so out of place cause i remember the rest of the plot was perfectly fine.

I feel like annalogia is like EndLu two electric boogaloo, like the pipeline was: nalu->EndLu ->AcnoLu (i remember seeing that being shipped)-> Annalogia

Which is objectively inferior to Annarene, like if you want to ship her with someone who's partially a dragon Irene is right there and asking for her character to do something. I'm a big fan of the possible things you can do with them even if I have never written about them besides them being funky lesbian vodka aunts in a luvia selkie au and i also love when milfs are paired together.

Shipping Kagura with any male character should be considered lesbophobia (/j). Of all possibly canon queer characters, i think she's the one where is the most explicit that she's a into women even before she kissed Erza, and has never shown the interest to men that other female characters have. To ship her with any guy, but ESPECIALLY with rogue who i think she has never had a meaningful conversation with (correct me if i'm wrong) is heteronormativity at it's finest and i have the theory it was made like that because people who shipped sabertooth members with each other were too cowardly to consider sting x yukino x rogue and Minerva was not redeemed yet. Kagura is like peak dyke activity/relatability, even if she did confuse her attraction to Erza, this woman has never non-platonically liked men in her life.

And ok i know some of these ships have shippers that actually see how they could happen or how it would work out in canon. more power to you, that's not my issue. my issue is that it's obvious many of the most accepted "crackships" were straight because the fandom couldn't even fathom lesbianism as a viable option

My Thoughts on A/B/O, let me show you them:

(Dear god that’s an old meme.  Does anyone besides me remember it?)

So here I am, not entirely willingly, writing not one but TWO Omegaverse fics at the moment. (Stupid brain feeding me plots!) And talking with people in the comments of those fics makes me really want to blather about my thoughts on the whole trope.

So, I think it was about two years ago, maaybe three at the outside, when I first encountered A/B/O elements in a fic.  I had no idea what was going on, so I googled and ended up reading a whole explanation of the concept and was pretty much appalled.  I even went to my good friend The Gender Studies Professor and her wife The Fandom Podcaster and explained the thing to them and we all judged it together.  

And then somehow I read a fic or two.  I think it was in my early days in YOI fandom, probably because I was basically reading EVERY YOI fic, especially the E-rated ones.  And...there were still elements I wasn’t sure about, but I couldn’t deny the basic appeal.  And then somehow A/B/O became my guilty pleasure reading.  And now I’m writing it.  (Though I first did that over a year ago in Critrole fandom in a non-traditional way.)

So on a basic level, I look at A/B/O as smut writing set to easy mode.  Have two characters and want them to have lots and lots of sex with as little effort on the writer’s part as possible.  Why are they screwing?  Cause hormones.  Logistics? Not important, biology makes it possible.  And sometimes, as a writer, it’s nice not to have to worry too much about things.  

Course things never really work out like that.  There’s always way more world-building involved than you intend.  Some people take this to extremes, with like 30 chapters of preparation for a heat.  Not me.  No, what I’m in this trope for is the smut, NGL.

So things that really bug me about A/B/O and which, as a result, I try to eliminate or downplay in my fic:

(Cut for Explicit discussion of kinks)

-heteronormativity- on a base level the problem with omegaverse is that it tries so hard to fit queer relationships into a heteronormative shaped mold.  here is your new gender role, it says, complete with assigned sexual role and place in society.  From a sociological standpoint it fascinates me that women looked at same-gender relationships and said “no, too equal, we need to unbalance this shit.”   Which leads to point 2:

-pregnancy and children - look, I get that a lot of people like children and consider having children an important part of their love story.  Including some queer couples.  But I’ve looked on getting pregnant or having kids as a literal horror movie plot my entire life.  (Seriously my mom was a labor and delivery nurse...I heard things as a child no child should hear.)  So the idea of reading about a fictional person being pregnant, regardless of their sex or gender, NO.  So I will only read or write A/B/O without mpreg.  HOWEVER the universe is laughing because both Katsuki Yuuri and especially Wei Wuxian have canonical pregnancy kinks, so...yeah that’s coming up in both stories.  I’m not gonna actually DEPICT pregnancy though.  SHUDDER

-non-consensual sex aka rape - I almost forgot to include this because it’s such a given IMO.  But yeah, there is a lot of omegaverse out there with some pretty egregious content, typically the older stuff, but...yeah.  I will warn for dubious consent if I feel the scenario is equivalent to making a decision “under the influence.”

What appeals to me in A/B/O - 

-marathon sex - umm, yeah, there’s nothing hotter to me than a fantasy of just having sex for hours and hours or days...not practical or all that sexy in the real world usually, but that’s why we made fanfiction

-size kink - I swear I didn’t have a size kink before I started writing my YOI size kink fics, but uh, yeah I do now.  Another thing that is more fun in fiction than reality, especially if you’ve got unlimited magical lube.

-dom/sub tendencies inherent in alpha/omega orientations.  So this is where my tastes contradict my principles, because I think equating gender and sexual role is bullshit and breaking queer characters into tops/bottoms, seme/ukes, etc is offensive.  EXCEPT in life I’m a HUGE natural sub and a big part of what I find hot is tied into that.  So I relate strongly to people with natural preferences for bottoming/topping.  Still, you’ll usually see me fuck with this enough to make it clear this isn’t, like, a RULE.  My A/B/O fics are likely to include at least a little switching.

-exploring gender beyond a male/female binary.  So basically when alpha and omega are just ways to re-binary-ize two men, I object.  When they are more ways to explore and conceptualize middle territory or gender alternatives?  Cool.  You see more of this in Emboite, where basically traditional gender divides are absent in favor of secondary gender divides.  And in a Victorian European setting that says a lot. (I mention it mostly in discussions about ballet.  I made a whole mental ballet backstory, essentially) I don’t expect to explore this too deeply, since it’s really about the smut, but...it’s there.  

So yeah, I do have mixed feelings about omegaverse and believe ultimately it comes down to who is writing it.  Several people have said that they usually avoid A/B/O fics but will read mine, and that’s flattering.  I felt like maybe laying out where I’m coming from with this trope might be helpful for readers or potential readers.  

Hey, ace alpha anon here, thanks for answering my question! I want to ask you guys this: I'm very interested in deviancies from typical a/b/o behavior in the Omegaverse and I want to know what kind of behaviors and personal differences you guys think would occupy the queer space in Omegaverse? Like what's the equivalent of being gay, or trans, or ace? Is there nothing similar to that at all? Are there outside-the-box behaviors/ inclinations that don't have any real world equivalencies?

Gay - Alpha/AlphaTrans - Omega identifying as an AlphaAce - Don’t much care for sex but, their body needs it to live. Otherwise shit gets painful for an Omega. An alpha...most i play are ace unless around an omega in heat.

There are ouside the box behaviors people don’t care for. - Seal

Yuri on Ice, Hallmark Movies, Tropes, Copyright, Etc.

The “news” that Google chooses to highlight for me is a hilarious and sadly accurate snapshot of my life. Like, today it was like “Tom Hardy Reads CBeebies” and “Yuri on Ice Fans Are Angry at the Hallmark Channel.” Apparently the Hallmark Channel is making a movie about a figure skater who falls in love with her coach. Also apparently, the movie was already in production by the time YoI premiered, so it seems basically impossible that it has anything to do with YoI and is just a coincidence. This isn’t surprising: Creativity seems to run in cycles, and similar ideas seem frequently to crop up at the same time. But I am fascinated by this for two reasons: 

(1) I know Hallmark movies. I have watched many a Hallmark movie in my day. I know these tropes. I *write* these tropes. More than even fic, probably the genre I write is “Hallmark movie,” let’s be honest. So, considering I just wrote a whole 2,000 words about how I didn’t get YoI because I didn’t understand the tropes, I am fascinated at having this ability to so directly compare and contrast. I think I can predict that the Hallmark movie will have a more traditionally happy ending and not an ending that I have to read thousands of words of meta on to try to convince myself not to be disappointed over. I don’t actually know what the Hallmark movie will be striving for, but whatever it is, I feel the girl will get it. (Will it be more Olympics-centric? I can’t tell. I literally have read nothing about it other than that article I linked. That seems like a big story for a Hallmark movie to tackle but at the same time, I think American are Olympic-centric when it comes to skating, mostly? Like, when I was telling a friend about YoI, she was like, “Wait, this wasn’t about the Olympics?” I guess if I had to guess I’d assume it would probably be about Nationals.) 

I also feel like I can predict that its secondary characters will not be nearly as well or vividly drawn as in YoI. The Hallmark movie will be focused on its two leads, to the detriment of all the other storylines that YoI developed. I’m not sure there will be an equivalent Yurio character, but if there is one, I feel like he (actually, probably she) will be written in a very, very different way. I feel fairly sure there will be a J.J.-ish character who will have a very J.J. storyline (J.J. was actually one of my favorites, because I thought he was hilarious parody that hit every note correctly). 

I also think there will be much less emphasis on actual skating in the Hallmark movie. YoI was so careful with the skating routines, and the practicing to get ready for skating, and when you think about it, basically the entire show takes place on ice--either practicing or competing. Aside from Episode 10 and a few scattered conversations here and there, the show takes place at competitions. The Hallmark movie will definitely have a lot more off-ice time, because it’s going to have a very different focus than YoI did. (I think. I would have said YoI’s focus was on the skating and not the relationship but then again there was that ending.) 

(2) Because I feel like I can easily predict that these are going to be two very different tellings of a figure skating love story, I also feel like there’s no way it’s copyright infringement, timeline notwithstanding, because nobody owns an idea. You can only own your particular expression of an idea. Fans understand this instinctively. The extraordinary person who wrote the first coffee shop AU doesn’t come after all subsequent coffee shop AUs. Omegaverse is not a thing that belongs to only the fandom who came up with it. Now partly this is because fans just don’t usually think that way. We’re borrowing ourselves, and so we’re generally okay with other people borrowing from us. Creativity is collaborative, and fandom recognizes and celebrates that, and I’ve always loved that about fandom. If I were to write a YoI-Inception crossover, I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t get an outcry about this from YoI fans that I’d copied their show. But the YoI fans *were* upset over the Hallmark Channel thing. So now I want to know, and I have theories, but I’d love to hear from you: 

Why? What makes the Hallmark Channel thing so upsetting, whereas my using YoI to write a new Sherlock fic wouldn’t be? 

One of my theories is the fact that the Hallmark Channel thing is for-profit. I can re-write YoI to be about dreamsharers--or vice versa, I suppose--but I’m not making any money off of it, so that’s okay. Except that the rise of Patreon has made me less clear where the fandom line on profitability is these days. (I don’t Patreon much, but I’d love to hear thoughts on that, too.) So do we still have a profit line, and what is that line? 

One of my other theories is that the line isn’t profitability but “one of us”-ness. Which is something that I think, on first glance, makes me vaguely uncomfortable? I would be writing a YoI crossover as a fan myself, within the context of fannishness, so that’s okay. But the Hallmark Channel isn’t engaging in the cultural conversation, they’re co-opting, so that’s wrong. (To be clear, I don’t think the Hallmark Channel is doing anything wrong, because “love story in figure skating world” is just an idea that no one can own; I’m just theorizing why it got such a reaction from YoI fans.) 

The reason the “one of us” thing becomes uncomfortable for me is because I don’t like line-drawing that’s based on a feeling that someone is “like us” or “not like us.” I’d rather have a definition of that (which was why for-profit seemed so convenient to me, not only because it’s a slightly more objective definition but also because it’s one of the copyright factors so it was rooted in a legal view). 

There is also the fact that the Hallmark Channel seems to be about a straight relationship, which erases the queer representation of YoI, which is ongoing-ly problematic about Hallmark Channel movies. Which makes me curious: If the Hallmark Channel were making this movie about a same-sex figure skating couple, does that make it *more* problematic for YoI fans? Or less? 

Almost all stories are similar on some level of abstraction. The challenge in a copyright infringement case is figuring out how much needs to be similar before it becomes a legal violation. So that’s my question to you. Do you think “love story about figure skating” is similarity enough? Is it “love story about figure skating where central figure skater falls in love with his/her coach”? Is it “love story about struggling figure skater who falls in love with his/her coach”? Or would it have to be “love story about struggling figure skater who falls in love with his/her coach who is also his/her competitor”? Or “love story about struggling figure skater who wants to quit but decides not to when his/her idol shows up to be his/her coach”? Or “love story about bored figure skater who decides to coach for a year for that fascinating figure skater he danced with at that banquet that one time”? What element has to be present--or missing--to make things “different”? 

So I was thinking about what people want in fairy-tales and love stories, as well as queer characters in modern YA fantasy. Relatedly, I was thinking about what appeals to me about stories that include all these elements... and I think I understand the underlying reason why I disagree with or just can't relate to the common Tumblr rhetoric against the representation in The Raven Cycle. Basically... I think I just like casual, implicit queerness, because I always value the broader story first. By contrast, Tumblr fandom aesthetic is basically the opposite.

Like, my main interests in potential stories or adaptations are not about what they'd look like or whether I could identify with them on a Driver's ID level. No matter what, I know I could identify with a well-written character-- no matter their color, gender, or even whether they're human. I tend to *want* characters to be different from me, so I get a bigger rush in growing to love and understand them, which is why you could probably say I ultimately care about John more than Sherlock, or Adam Parrish more than say, Blue or Gansey (I'm like a mix of Blue and Gansey... or maybe just the introverted parts of Gansey). I'm really nothing like John (or Adam), and I'm a lot like Molly Hooper, but Molly's a character I'm not very interested in, in part 'cause we just don't *know* her very well. For me, stories are about exploring rather than seeing myself, if only because I *always* eventually see myself. That's the magic of fiction. The more you see any character, the more you're seeing yourself. So I simply want to get to know them as deeply and honestly as possible. Before I start a story, I'm always interested in asking, what are that character's interests and passions? What are their strengths and what are they afraid of? What's the magic that's most central to their story? What is their goal in life, and how does it intersect with their love interest? Who does that character want to protect the most? What is the adaptation saying about certain aspects of its source or inspiration? That's what interests me. That's what seems most important, most vivid. These things always come first.

The story comes first, unless the story is about the characters' sexuality or social life as modern people-- and like I said, I prefer stories about magic (and secrets, fears, even teenage drama in mild doses). That's why Maggie Stiefvater was on my wavelength when she said she wouldn't break up Adam and Ronan in the sequel 'cause she's interested in other things, or even Mark Gatiss and his now-infamous comments about not wanting to do a love story. Of course, I actually love stories about love, and I'm obsessed with romance (seeing as how I keep reading shippy fanfic), but I still relate. I don't like even my *fanfic* to be about projection or pure fantasizing, although neither do I enjoy overt social realism in fics (unless it's sci-fi/fantasy stuff, like Omegaverse). I'm definitely also interested in other things: to me, that's where the interesting plot and deeper characterization stuff is. I definitely think having more queer characters in fantasy and YA lit is so important and necessary, and I think the old fairy-tales-- like fanfiction-- are made to be remade in our image. Even so, I've never felt the urge to treat YA books like The Raven Cycle (or to even imagine such books) as if they're equivalent in their needs and focus to shippy fanfiction.

This familiarity and focus on shippy fics and headcanons or pure projection fantasies might mess with fandom's expectations or interests a bit, and help explain why there's often a clash. I do realize that The Raven Cycle is not the standard, though it's a somewhat bigger fandom than other YA or fantasy novels with canonically queer characters, which seem to have a much more laid-back fandom. I've admitted that there's a valid complaint that people in fandom have, even if I still disagree in terms of the canon analysis involved. Ironically, in that post I said that BBC Sherlock could and *should* be judged differently 'cause I thought it's 'by and for' queer people. It's just so frustrating and disappointing to realize how little is out there that is authentically 'ours', in our voices. That's a real social issue I do care about rather than an interest I have in reading (as in, I don't seek out stuff to watch or read based *purely* on representation issues 'cause I'm just... a geek with other special interests, essentially). Still, you can't really divorce the social impact and personal meaning from fiction. That's what makes people care, generally (even though... like I said, what makes me care is fun magic stuff, passionate feelings and good characterization). Anyway, this focus on social justice and broad familiarity with fic that's made by shippers, for shippy purposes, really makes it inevitable that many fanon-centric fans and professional authors (or more canon-whorish fans) will talk past each other.

Actually, I also think this might help explain my super-picky taste in fanfic, a bit. A lot of people seem to read based on general ships, kinks or tropes they want to see, and it's not like that's not a nice bonus, 'cause that's how I narrow things *down*. I don't bother if it's not my ship, and I'll certainly always give my favorite fantasy tropes the best chance to further beguile me, but I read almost entirely for characterization. Whenever I read fic *purely* for a ship or trope (and sometimes I try, with guilty pleasures like Omegaverse for example), I'm so easily irritated it's maddening, 'cause narrative logic and plausibility-- as well as good writing-- are priceless. Anyway, definitely different priorities. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯