#it won't be mentioned all that much outside of Liz's history when I get to developing her

[girlyliondragon]

On the topic of supernatural debates since you're this into them, what's your stance on the one with werewolves? Namely the Alpha/Beta/Omega thing?

I'm gonna throw my own hot take on this that absolutely nobody's gonna like if they're a stickler for realism in fantasy. But I do NOT mind the Alpha/Beta/Omega thing. I've talked about it in the tags for one post before but I will go on about it full swing here. And to clarify, I am obviously not gonna be talking about the dirty version of the trope, just the ranking system version of it.

Yes, it doesn't apply to rl wild wolves, we know the story and I don't want anyone explaining it again, but these are NOT real wolves these are werewolves. This is fantasy. The rules of real life and nature do NOT apply to fantasy and never ever should unless the person in charge of the thing wants them to. Nobody is spreading misinfo by still using the ranking system in 2021 either and the fact that I feel I have to disclaimer just because I'm fine with this trope is sad. To vaguely shit on people who still wanna use the rank dynamic that seems to have existed for so long in fiction just because you're a stickler for realistic wolves is not only restrictive, it's not fun and makes you look like an ass. (And yes before anyone tries the manipulative "nobody does this" thing I can confirm have actually seen it. :U)

Werewolf packs from what I've seen in popular media seem to always consist of strangers or at least unrelated folks getting into packs. So the "Werewolf packs should be family packs/blood family" thing by itself doesn't even work unless the pack you're creating is already a nuclear family to begin with, which wouldn't be hard if you're going by the "Lycanthropy is genetic" thing but not everyone does actual blood families with these guys. And not everyone is gonna be all "I bite you now I adopt and so you are my child". Not everyone's gonna be like that? Telling people "Werewolves do not work like that! They should be family packs! Because WOLVES IRL DO NOT USE THE SYSTEM!" Is NOT the gotcha people who say this seem to think it is! These are NOT real wolves Karen these are (usually) anthro wolf beasts who's blueprint is off of HUMANS and are more than likely gonna be complete strangers to each other and are only ever gonna be "family" in declaration only outside a few close-knit instances. If there is any blood family, assuming the genetic thing isn't being used for the whole family as is, it'll likely be just the pups that come out of anyone coupling within the pack and that seems to be how it is with a lot of things that do werewolves so that seems to be as far as blood goes there. And it's not done a lot if at all considering people like using teenage boys in Werewolf media as well. ����

Plus what if there IS a pack that works off those dynamics? What are people gonna do then? It's not hurting anyone to use it in that one instance is it? I've used it for my non-earthly species before and had a lot of fun working around it. With Werewolves I just remove all the patriarchy shit (Especially since the Werewolf I do develop in my AU is a woman so patriarchy my ass :P) and everything else and just try and rewrite things to be a little more tolerable, and then it'd be fine with me. No Twilight Werewolves here, or anything from mainstream media and live action really because I hate the popular werewolf media and how they use this system. But nobody actually tries to deconstruct it or make it less eck.

So the jist is use the trope if you want, you're not "spreading misinfo" for using it just for funsies and frankly I'm sick of people trying to gotcha others that use it. Just have fun, its your story and your world. If there are actual problems in it then yeah, make the changes you need to. But the Alpha/Beta/Omega thing in of itself has stopped being a problem every since people learned it wasn't real and it never was an actual problem again after that outside of media trying to be showy, because we have internet now unlike before to teach our kids. You do you.

And now I'm gonna go shield myself with a table before the hounds come.