#like in mass effect there's no ammo bc the mass driver means they can use grains of sand as ammo

[daswarschonkaputt]

so im pretty excited abt ur abo kp fic which is new to me bc i normally dont care abt abo? this isnt shade or bullshit btw i hope i just wanted to ask how u conceptualize gender and sex in abo? tags on the notfic r 100% right btw more trans abo. im always put off by most abo for the idea that cis male omegas basically?? have a cloacae for an anus but also a dick? it feels too alien for a non paranormal genre. do u think anatomy ought to be addressed more or left to suspension of disbelief?

right straight off the bat we're putting this one behind a readmore, because i don't want to wig anyone out. a/b/o be weird.

essentially, the way i conceptualise a/b/o and how gender and sex work is:

male/female - usually identifiable at birth, with obviously some grey area in there for intersex people.

alpha/beta/omega - surfaces during puberty, at which point the body changes in whichever way the subgender inclines.

i usually write it that it's not really possible to tell how someone's subgender will present until it does, because i think the inherent tension between "this is how i was treated growing up" vs. "this is how people treat me now" gives the most room for social commentary, and character growth, which is one of my favourite parts of a/b/o. so everyone's body has the base potential to go any subgender way.

relatedly, one of my least favourite tropes in a/b/o is the trope where a character unexpectedly discovers they're an omega and they hate it and take drugs to make themselves a beta, and they wish they were a beta/alpha and as a reader i just have to sit there like, and the logical ending to this story ISN'T that they're trans????

in fact, this trope irritated me so much that i fully outlined and started writing an original fic where the main character gets the whoops! all omega! reveal and instead of hating it and hiding it, feels fulfilled and more comfortable in himself, because it enables him to put into words and be accepted for aspects of his gender identity that have existed his entire life.

ahem. omega biology. back on track.

male omegas are one of those fandom tropes that i just... choose not to look at too closely. science brain well and truly turned off. because of how the kinnporsche mpreg fic is structured (porsche not knowing he's pregnant, and not knowing he could become pregnant) -- we're probably looking at assbabies for that one, though i usually prefer to go the male omegas are intersex (and female alphas are, as well) route, just because it makes most sense to me. but -- this is fanfic. things only make sparing amounts of sense 20% of the time.

truthfully, i think the question of anatomy depends on the fic. i do think there is a level of suspension of disbelief that is needed to read a/b/o, but to me that's true of all sci-fi. a lot of genre studies essays on sci-fi talk about this idea of a novum, a point of divergence that makes the sci-fi story different from our world. it can be a thing, an idea, a hypothetical. for example, in mass effect, the novum is the mass drivers. in star trek it's the warp core. in the martian, it's leaving a man behind on mars. and with sci-fi, you're not meant to question the novum. it's the foundational part of the universe. sci-fi is the question, "what if [x] was different?"

so with a/b/o, the novum is, well, it's the a/b/o dynamics. "what if human reproductive biology was on crack?" the bits i'm interested in are the answers that spiral out from that question -- i'm not really focused all that much on the question itself.

but, like i said, it depends on the fic. if the fic's question is, "so, if we do have these a/b/o dynamics, how does the biology actually work?" then obviously it's a bit more relevant. but i've only seen one or two a/b/o fic that approach the matter like that.

hope that makes sense!

#fic: kp mpreg au #guys pls don't get me started on the a/b/o as sci-fi again #kaputt writes stuff #asked and answered #a/b/o cw #omegaverse cw #totally respect not being able to turn off science brain tho #there are some sci fi movies i have to turn off bc i Cannot #things spiralling out from the novum is one of the best parts of sci fi tho #like in mass effect there's no ammo bc the mass driver means they can use grains of sand as ammo #just accelerating them to NYOOM speeds #so they're functionally bullets #genuinely one of my favourite parts of worldbuiling #i rave about it all the time to people who know me