#I love tumblr I couldnt post this goofy shit anywhere else

[anddreadful]

Some self-indulgent barely-coherent OC A/B/O AU thoughts from 1:30am last night, yes sorry I am nominally into this horny garbage, if you don’t know what A/B/O is don’t google it on a work computer:

Storm kings: I got attached to the idea of Theseus as an alpha who for some reason was incapable of going into rut (and lacked “normal” instinctual alpha aggression) long before we found out what his canon deal was, and the way that tracks with him being not a true alpha but an imperfect clone of one fuckin hits. (Theseus is perpetually SUPER relieved he doesn't turn meathead when he's angry or horny like some alphas tend to.) I always loved the idea of Theseus helping Marin (and eventually an extremely peeved Rekhein) through their breakthrough heats not sexually, but just by being a soothing presence— in my A/B/O lore I really like the idea that the scent/ close attention/ nonsexual physical touch of an alpha helps with a heat as much as sex with one. Rekhien would find cuddling with Theseus while miserably horny almost more mortifying than just fucking him, but Marin insists it isn’t weird, and none of them have boundaries with each other anymore anyway, and it DOES help, so whatever. The stormchasers give off huge polycule energy despite none of them sleeping together (canon).

Speaking of Rekhien, he’s an omega who disguises his scent and passes for Beta for most of the campaign, because male omegas sometimes get dunked on/ disrespected for it. It’s Marin who ferrets him out and eventually convinces him not to hide it anymore— and she’s correct that they’re powerful enough by that point for it not to matter. Marin is an omega who magically becomes an alpha when she becomes Voc Rocsha— designations work a little differently for the people of the purple rocks, given that they’re not bound by the same biological rules as most species; I sort of imagine that the current Voc Rocsha is the only alpha of her tribe at any point. (I don’t ascribe to reproductive organs/ designation correlation, FWIW/ this is a non-mpreg-focused set of worldbuilding choices, sorry. But we do have mating/ claiming bites because those are hot.)

She’s worried Kitro (alpha) won’t be as interested in her now that she’s not an omega, but he doesn’t care what she is and doesn’t understand why she thinks he would. Drow, it turns out, tend to be very designation-pairing agnostic compared to some surface cultures that lionize alpha/omega couplings.

And Phyn is a beta. The most beta beta to ever normie alongside his hormone-riddled friends.

COS: if your strahd is an omega, you are so correct and valid, but in our game, strahd is an extremely typical alpha, and as I would write a full AU, Barovia has what could be considered some regressive collective beliefs about designations. (Tatyana as an omega and her choosing beta Sergei over alpha Strahd would have made him sooooooooo mad, it's too juicy not to do.) I have always loved the idea of Ismark (omega! which is obviously one of the reasons people don’t respect him) pulling teddy aside in the manor like, ‘hey, just so you know, I know what we are isn’t a big deal where you come from, but here you need to be careful. It’s good that you’re traveling with two alphas so people won't mess with you.’

Hot take! One of those alphas is Nim. Nim has a strong presence and a huge streak of stoic self-sufficiency that screams alpha to me. more importantly, it makes her abandoning her human family that much more fucked up, and is another layer to the maternal abandonment baggage that Borakov takes SUPER personally, as he buys in hard to the alpha-as-protector cultural messaging (which is probably a Barovian thing much more than an elf thing, to be fair to Nim)

Rahadin is a beta, but has some very weird and yikes ideas about designation and social hierarchy— as far as he’s concerned, part of Strahd’s absolute right to rule is simply that he’s The Strongest Alpha. Rahadin isn’t sexuaally interested in omegas because they “need” alphas, which he’s very matter of fact about not being, and Betas are fine, but what he really gets off on is putting “undeserving” alphas in their place. Hence his initial thing for being mean in a horny way to Nim, world’s least trad alpha. And if he's developing bigger feelings, well, maybe Rahadin can have a little unresolved cognitive dissonance about nim's alpha qualities (better than initially assessed, possibly leadership material) vs how much he likes domming her, as a treat.

Teddy and Borakov are, regrettably, the most obvious m/f alpha/omega trad-gender-shit-on-steroids heterosexual nonsense pairing ever committed to fiction. Just extremely classic territorial scenting protective horny bullshit. Sorry to everyone in Barovia.

Teddy goes into heat halfway through the campaign, in vallaki (she’s about four months out from her last dose of military-grade suppressants and hasn’t had a heat since she presented as a teenager, so it’s not pretty). Ismark kicks Borakov out of the entire building when it becomes obvious what’s happening. Strahd can’t get to her for some contrived reason but is sending her dreams telling her to leave the inn where she’s holed up to come find her alpha— unfortunately for Strahd, as far as her addled little brain is concerned, Borakov is her alpha. She sneaks out and finds Bork at the burgomaster’s manor and moves the Bork/ teddy sexual timeline up significantly. Everyone else is baffled that heat!teddy managed to secretly engineer her way out of the upper floor window of the inn while barely able to stand upright, but getting laid is a powerful motivator. For convoluted emotional reasons, Borakov refuses to claiming-bite her ~for her own good, which teddy takes very personally and becomes one of the reasons she later agrees to marry strahd, who is clear that he DEFINITELY wants to bite her for MULTIPLE reasons (and does).

Denethor is a beta. The consorts are a random assortment of designations. Doru is an omega and Miranda is a beta. Ez is a beta, Ireena an alpha, Kasimir an alpha but In An Elf Way. Van richten is drenched in suppressants and scent blockers, so good luck figuring that one out. The soulless inhabitants of Barovia don’t have designations— not even beta. They have no scents at all, which is unnerving.

Inspired by a Six of Crows ABO fic with really great worldbuilding, I was at one point brainstorming world-specific terms for "alpha" and "omega"-- I had loosely settled on "Volk" and "Ovechka" which translate to wolf and lamb in "old barovian". who doesn't love a hunting/ consumption motif for relationships in vampireland!

World torn: safiya is an alpha. Bo is a beta. Faraday is an omega and on some very strong magical suppressants. I go back and forth on tailor but I think I’d go with beta (but attracts so many omegas to his orbit you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise). Chess is an omega and slutty about it but extremely proficient in designation-fuckery magic— ever wanted to try being an alpha? They have something for that behind the bar at Cerise.

Brin is an omega. Most of the jacks officers are alphas. Nera Thorn was a beta who wore the most ghastly fake alpha scent you can imagine. Designations can affect how you get treated in some planes— fae tend to favor omegas and are more prone to tricking alphas, for example.

Unearthed remnants: Sev is a robot, so he does not have a designation. Clay is a beta (though depending on how his deal shakes out, I might make him an alpha who's disguising himself as a beta to support his 'bland' persona. I am not entirely convinced 'clay' is even his real name in actual canon) Aster is an omega and thinks the whole thing is stupid. Eon is a beta and Trollack is an alpha.

the end, if you read all this, wow, I am really impressed and sorry

#ABO #I love tumblr I couldnt post this goofy shit anywhere else

[swampgallows]

well, so, tumblr ate my post on my phone, but the gist of what i wanted to say was that it was, of course, amazing, but i feel like... and this is kind of cheesy and embarrassing but, it wasn’t really until this year, between wonder woman and this film—the shape of water—that i felt like anything was “for me”. 

i cannot remember the last time my heart swelled like that during a film, let alone in general. in fact, i’m not sure it ever has. not in that way. this film made me understand why people care for romance films or romance itself, the appeal of it. i cried a lot. and i cried a lot during wonder woman too, but for a different sort of reason. wonder woman helped me realize i was starving to see a strong, whole woman; i had thought to myself “no wonder people love superheroes so much”. i thought they were fun, of course, but it wasn’t until wonder woman that i truly felt that kind of power, that feeling of being uplifted. it was like... hope, and protection. even growing up i never had a “hero”, as it were, not until chris metzen, and that wasn’t until i was well in my teens. i have felt like the outcast for so long that i couldnt even feel like an underdog, let alone a hero. 

it’s foolish to say what i found in the shape of water was “representation”, but... it was like a validity. it felt verified. it felt.... real. it wasn’t goofy. it wasn’t a joke. it wasn’t supernatural or one-sided. it felt very real. i did not even realize there were tears in my eyes until one fell down my face. it felt so very real to me. of course, i love all of guillermo del toro’s movies, particularly in that he engages with fairy tales—parables, too, as he had mentioned in the interview following the credits—with a reverence, an authenticity. with respect. when you accept these creatures and themes as real, they become real. but if you maintain the whole time that it’s “just CGI”, “just movie magic”; proving his whole point, when you “Other” these creatures, you turn them into things. you make them objects instead of real, believable, sentient things. and his point was that we do this to people too. “There is no us VS them. There is only us.”

and, really, on the heels of seeing Bright, the contrast between the films is stark. Bright achieved almost the exact opposite of taking these fantasy races—which are to be respected as fellow people in an urban fantasy setting—and immediately Othering them, as well as making the entire film about their Otherness. additionally, the “message” of the film is lost when jakoby is the exception to the rule, the “One Good Orc” instead of “orcs are people” (despite literally having the line “orcs are people too”, this is never put into practice). and he is even further robbed of that by ward being a bright all along instead of jakoby, or even BOTH of them. ALL the formulaic evidence points to jakoby being a bright. “brights are elves, rarely humans, NEVER orcs”; jakoby is unblooded, round-toothed, clan-less, seen as a dissenter to his entire race; inexplicably wanted to be a cop ever since he was a little kid even though there have never been orc cops and most are sent off to war; demonstrably more sensitive and inquisitive than most orcs; even the very last moment up until ward’s bright reveal, jakoby gives an entire relay of the myth of jirak the humble orc farmer, who was unblooded, who turned out to be a man of prophecy, and begs ward to go back and help tikka. “I think we’re in a prophecy!” yet ward is the bright and jakoby isn’t. fucking L. ZERO payoff. ward is a racist asshole to jakoby the entire fucking film, treats him like shit, then finds out HE gets to hold a magic wand? fuck off.

yet even bright, in all of its horribleness, still feels like it was “for me”. so, it’s strange, but, i feel like mainstream stories are... finally becoming accessible to me? it’s hard to explain. Like, there’s a reason i’m rooted in my Very Insular Interests and all that bullshit. i dont feel welcome anywhere else. of course i stick with what’s familiar, and i dont think i will ever “move on” from these core aspects of my life and personality, but... it feels like there are stories coming out that i can actually relate to, things where my interests are the focus instead of being a side character or an extra in the background, or it’s the core plot to a film instead of being a parody or, worse, from a documentary angle. “how strange this is! why are people like this! can you BELIEVE there are people who relate better to MONSTERS than PEOPLE? god, there are people who actually think this is COOL but it’s so lame and stupid and for total nerds!!! UGH, can you BELIEVE those crybaby SJWs are BEGGING for a FEMALE SUPERHERO for WOKE FEMINIST POINTS?”

wonder woman stood atop the tower, alone, triumphant, and had saved the village. and everyone looked up at her, in awe of her, full of gratitude. that shot made me think “this is why little boys want to be superman.” there was a little girl in me that thought “i wish i could be wonder woman.” something like gender shouldn’t make a difference, but what a difference it makes. i mean, there’s a reason i havent felt that feeling before. and it’s not because i have any particular affinity for superheroes or diana herself; i truthfully have very little interest in either. but that is the first time i have ever seen a solitary, non-sexual, powerful woman. even in trying to tell my mom about the shot after i saw the film, i burst into tears. 

bright was handled like shit, but the fact that the movie even got made is astounding to me, particularly because it didn’t have the “excuse” of being rooted in preexisting media. so even though the story was shit, that it was an original screenplay is HUGE to me. Hellboy II was sick as hell, one of my favorite films, and pulled off the ‘urban fantasy’ much better than bright could ever hope to, but it had the veil of being a “comic book film”, so people knew they were going in under a pretense that it would be pulp and campy. essentially, not serious. not real. already written off as “this isn’t real so it can’t affect me. i’m just turning my brain off for a while.”

i guess it’s just that... these monsters are so real to me and i relate to them so deeply that it’s almost like seeing myself, in a sense. i feel such a personal attachment to them that seeing a creature as obscure as an orc on film or outside the same realms of media (lotr, warcraft, d&d) is cause for celebration. it’s like seeing something that even vaguely references a rave; i feel acknowledged because that’s me, that’s my community, those are my people. and OTHER PEOPLE recognize that that’s me too. i remember in high school one of my classmates told me to watch the entirety of disney’s chicken little (not recommended) because it made him think of me. why? there was a split second where one of the characters (the ugly duckling, thanks asshole) holds a glowstick. that is literally it. there wasn’t even techno playing. it was wannabe by the spice girls. but even then i was still like (POINTS) ME

and i think that’s something guillermo understands, because he relates so deeply to monsters as well. and interviewers and other media outlets might take it as a novelty—oh that kooky del toro, what will he think of next! isn’t that bizarre! what a strange man he is haha oh but we love it! wow, totally trippy settings! where does he come up with this stuff???—but del toro makes sure his films convey respect and severity. He doesn’t play up these films as pulp or tongue in cheek or with any sort of bashfulness of “i know this is silly, but...” He doesn’t feel a need to excuse himself for his interests. he portrays them fully and seriously, and that gives me great courage. as someone who is constantly apologizing for my interests being too silly or “too insular” (I will never get over that haha sorry!) or too obscure or too abrasive, always being too loud or too much or too ugly, seeing my interests portrayed with genuine respect and depth always feels worthy of celebration to a degree i cant put into words. it gives me strength to exist, unabashedly, and as my full self.

i’m excited for the blockbuster bubble to burst. maybe, finally, all of us at the edges will finally get to surface. i am already seeing the little trickles.

#bright spoilers / #the shape of water spoilers / #blathering