#its also a written rule. not anything inherent to their magic or biology. which. the rules are a whole ass thing.

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

So Max is old. Downright ancient even. He's one of the only Fae from the war era (Fae vs Emerald Knights) that's still alive. And he kinda predates a lot of rules. And frankly, the current court system as a whole.

So Max isn't sealed.

And he kinda accidentally skipped out on a lot of rules because he wasn't sealed. (A lot of rules don't apply to younglings aka the unsealed and the assumption is that all mature Fae are sealed. So Max is allowed to do a lot of stuff that other Fae can't, like exist in human spaces, touch iron, cross salt lines and running water, ect)

As for emotions, Max has base level Fae emotions which means he is emotionally constipated at all times. But also he was tricked into a deal (a deal I won't get into right now for spoiler reasons) that curses him with the ability to love as a human would. So he's very closed off. Walls all the way up. Because emotions make you weak and sad.

(^ good fucking luck with that one old man LMAO)

BRO. @ftl-faster-than-life this is beautiful. I love it so much.

I was literally nailing down the timeline for this au and I think it's pretty solid and then yOU HIT ME WITH THIS?! THIS IS SPECTACULAR. WHAT THE FUCK.

Oh my god their ears are so perfect. Wally's little baby ears are literally so cute. And the matching hats 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

I'm going insane I love this so much

[thedeadflag]

so this is something I've been mulling over for a while now - do you reckon it'd be possible to make a version of a/b/o that isn't fundamentally transphobic, or would it reach the point of "this is so different that you might as well not call it a/b/o" before that? off the top of my head you'd have to take out all elements of g!p, mpreg, and biological essentialism, and it'd probably be possible to write a version of a/b/o with that framework, but I don't know if I'm missing anything.

a/b/o is a reactionary trope that relies on cissexism-derived biological essentialism to function. Like, that’s the engine that powers the bdsm/power dynamics, cisheteronormative breeding/family building, “dub/non-con”, etc. elements that draw people to it, and led people to create it in the first place. 

Like, my best attempt at describing a non-transphobic, non-shitty typical a/b/o adjacent fic would include:

Werewolves (let’s face it, werewolves can be really cool if written well, and there’s a lot of really good ways to write them, a lot of ways to subvert tired subtropes within the trope)

Found Family-focused family/pack building (because wolves often adopt wolves from other packs into their own, blood lineage isn’t really a thing; much like vampires being created, newly turned werewolves of any age can be considered their sire’s child; if it needs to have a pregnancy arc between two men or two women, there’s IVF/IUI, or magically/spiritually-induced pregnancies, and of course writing a fully fledged complex trans character with their own non-pregnancy arc and virtues/flaws/goals/etc. and getting relevant trans beta writers who aren't your friends to keep it on track if you’re a cis writer)

A flexible, non-binary gendered society (rather than the rigidly structured biology-is-destiny a/b/o society) that’s trans inclusive either explicitly, or implicitly if it’s a new social universe with different rules. 

If mating seasons have to exist, they’re cultural more than biological, and no biological processes that could impede or trouble a person’s ability to properly consent. 

No inherent, glorified or reified power dynamics, certainly none rooted in or fostered through biology. 

That doesn’t seem very much at all like a/b/o to me. It’s a werewolf AU, which is the reason why a/b/o was created in the first place. It wasn’t enough. It needed something more than just a supernatural bent

I’ll continue on below for a bit on some simplified functions of a/b/o, but it’s mostly just some ramblings.

-

Like, to quote the originators of the genre/trope:

I'd like to see Alpha male Jared, and Bitch male Jensen. Jensen is a snotty prude (think Lady from lady and the tramp) he may be a bitch male but he's not just going to let anybody take a go at his sweet little ass...until he meets Jared...then prudey little Jensen turns cock slut for Jared. Bonus points for J2 being OTP, Jensen was a virgin before Jared, and now that they met each other, it's for life.

...

There are three types of men, alpha males, beta males, and omega males. Alpha males are like any ordinary guy with the exception of their cocks, they work just like canines (the knot, tons of cum, strong breeders, etc) The beta male, is an ordinary guy without the special cock. Omega males are capable of child bearing and often called bitch males.

Like, I want you to look at that real close and see what’s going on in there.

This was created to be a trope where there’s a world where women, as we explicitly know them, don’t exist, but where a subgroup of men take up the functional role of the woman in the heteronormative social structure of the world. It’s also not surprising that (assumedly cis) women created and initiated the spread of this trope.

Look at the language used. This is heavily, explicitly gendered for a reason. If you’ve read much of anything about how the male gaze impacts female sexuality, you’ll know a common response is for women to position themselves out of the proverbial frame entirely, so that no part of them can explicitly exist as an object, where they can take on the role of a subject. There’s no women whose experiences will directly link to her own and her own perceptions, comfort/discomfort/etc.

However, many of these women also have been heavily affected by the male gaze and heteronormativity, and that combined with not knowing what a real gay male relationship is like, what it looks like, what experiences might be unique to it...they fill in the blanks with their own conditioning. 

And maybe seeing a lot of that toxic masculinity in media content was unsettling because of how women get treated in that content, and how they in turn might feel in those shoes. But if a MAN, even if it’s a heavily female-coded man, were to undergo that...well, it’d be easier to appreciate those tropes and dynamics they’ve been force-fed to believe were arousing, hot, desirable. Especially if they can have two hot men in it. They can enjoy that self-created taboo, bypass their own discomfort and insecurity, and project it onto a type of person different enough to suspend their disbelief and maintain that difference, even if they’re pumping that guy full of all the typical misogynistic tropes and experiences they’re not comfortable having directed towards them and other women.

In short, it’s a way to get off on heteronormative norms/tropes, using another as a vehicle in order to keep up their cognitive dissonance.

Of course, this eventually spilled out into the Het fandom (makes perfect sense, since many of the a/b/o originators and proponents were het women), and then worked its way into Femslash fandom by piggybacking on g!p in order to meet the necessary criteria for PiV sex. 

Just, in this case, you necessarily shift some of the puzzle pieces around. Trans women take the place of the “alpha”, acting as an acceptable vehicle for a toxic masculine cis man, since lesbians aren’t into men. Even if the trans woman is generally written, in nearly every way aside from part of her body, as a toxic cis man. The original a/b/o’s “Bitch Male”/Omega Male is swapped out for the  Omega Female, usually a spunkier, more in your face version outside of romantic/sexual contexts in the media content, but let’s be real here, she’s still by and large submissive when it comes down to it. 

In a world where more wlw grew up feeling predatory for their attraction to other women, for feeling sinful, for being rejected from female intimacy het women enjoyed with each other after coming out, etc., it’s pretty common for a lot of lesbians to lack initiative, not be able to read or communicate romantic/sexual cues between each other...to essentially be “useless lesbians’ as the joke goes,and to feel isolated and undesirable. 

So writing a F/F fic where some hot woman modeled in the image of some hot cis woman pursues you? Takes the initiative sexually/romantically? Doesn’t beat around the bush, but is blatant? Who can’t control her lust around you? Who can give you the perfect nuclear family you’ve been conditioned to want in order to feel value in our heteronormative world, but were told you weren’t worthy of or could never feasibly attain? Who gives you a sexual encounter you have some education in and some emotional stake in due to common conditioning of PiV sex > all else? Who can give you plausible deniability for a number of contexts due to a lack of ability to explicitly consent? etc. etc.

Like, yeah, that’s going to feel comfortable for a lot out there. That’s going to seem pretty hot/arousing. It’s a way to get off on the norms and expectations thrown on women in society, but in a way that lets them distance themselves ever so slightly from men by shifting it from text to subtext, explicit to implicit.

Don’t just take my word for it, though. Here’s a few snippets from one of the most popular g!p/omegaverse femslash writers (if not the most popular) that help illustrate how/why this trope has found an audience

Why Do I Write G!P?The elephant in the room. It arouses me, but it’s also a form of self-comfort. I grew up in a very fundamentalist home. Women being with women was at first unspoken, and then derided, both by my church and at home. I felt insanely guilty for my attractions, so I developed ‘cheat codes’ to deal with it.

It was okay if the woman I had sex with in my dreams had a penis, for example. It was okay if she forced me to have sex with her. It was okay if we basically simulated heterosexual sex.

Because of my childhood (which included conversion therapy), I found myself falling into heterosexual roleplay patterns, at least sexually. It was a lingering thing from my childhood.

It’s still there, and I know I’ll never be rid of it.

...

I associate penetration with power. You know, being steeped in sexism from an early age turned some problematic thoughts into kinky lemonade. And since I’m a femme sub, taking power away from the top by ‘penetrating’ them can ruin the mood for me. I mean, I can write power bottom scenes with the best of them, and I enjoy them, but… *shrug* if I’m going to write omegaverse or g!p, someone’s getting fucked, and it’s not the top.

There are rules to a/b/o. There are specific reasons it’s sought out, read, and created, and that’s why it’s hard to imagine a version of it without those harmful elements, because the trope requires them for the audience to be satisfied.

It’s why all gay male a/b/o fits a pretty specific pattern. it’s why femslash a/b/o fits a very specific pattern. There’s nearly no deviation as a rule, because there are so many parts that have to be in play and functioning in a specific way in order to get the desired result. 

I could go on for hours about this, and the above is all a pretty damn simplified take of what’s going on in a/b/o for it to exist in the way it does and meet the needs of the audience, and I’ve already written a lot about this in the past, so I’ll try to cut it short here.

[thisdiscontentedwinter]

questions about my fics

Thanks to the anon who sent me the following questions to answer from ibuzoo.tumblr.com/post/145298642692

I said I’d post them on the weekend…but clearly I did not do that. But here are my answers now!

favorite AU to write?

I like a/b/o AUs. I think they’re a really interesting dynamic to explore.  A lot of a/b/o works you read, both the alpha and omega are slaves to their biological urges, and the omega has no choice about who they’re going to bond with, but it all works out okay because the alpha (underneath all that growliness) turns out to be a sweet marshmallow.

I love those sort of a/b/o fics, but that’s not the kind of a/b/o I write. Because of course my brain has to take the lack of agency inherent in the a/b/o dynamicto its logical conclusion: if the omega has no choice who they bond with, what happens when the alpha is a monster? That’s pretty much how More than Biology came about. There is no redeemable alpha in that story. (Heed the warnings!)

I played around with that lack of agency idea again in The Rule of Three, which is a Stetopher. This one has a much happier conclusion, but I again focused a lot on the fact that omegas have no real agency. It’s a fascinating subject to me, and I like to use it to draw a lot of parallels between omegas and women in the real world. It’s no coincidence that prejudice in the a/b/o verse is often displayed by reducing omegas to breeders, right? Where have we seen that before? 

I don’t think I’ve been able to write a fluffy a/b/o yet, to be honest, but I do love reading them. Wait! No! I wrote Bad Omega! That’s as fluffy as it gets for me. 

I actually love reading coffee shop AUs, but I’ve never written one because although I once briefly worked in a coffee shop, I hated it. Coffee shops in AUs are always so warm and welcoming. The coffee shop I worked in was awful.

favorite scene you’ve ever written?

Oh, that’s incredibly hard to answer! There’s a flashback scene in Promise You’ll Look After Him where the Sheriff is woken up by little Stiles to play Lego, that for some reason I just really love. Just a tiny little slice of John’s life. This is it here:

“Daddy?”

A pair of chubby fingers are, yep, they’re attempting to lever your eyelids open. You pull your head back before he blinds you, and grab his wrist gently. “Whoa there, kiddo.”

“You’re awake!” Stiles beams.

“Yes.” You blink blearily at the clock. It’s one p.m. You finished work at eight a.m. Damn graveyard shifts. “I’m awake, Stiles. Where’s your mom?”

“She’s talking to Mrs. Daniels on the phone.”

“Uh huh.” You stretch. “And where does she think you are?”

“Eating my lunch.” He shoves his other hand in your face. It’s full of a peanut butter sandwich. “Want some?”

You open your mouth to refuse, which is apparently a tactical error, because he’s jamming the sandwich in.

“Can we play now?”

You need at least another few hours sleep, and as soon as you finish choking on this sandwich, that’s what you’re going to tell him. Except that’s when you catch the expression on his face: his big dark eyes are wide with desperate hope, and you can’t actually remember the last time you just spend a few hours playing with your five-year-old son.

“Lego?” you clarify, and his whole face lights up.

“Yeah! Yeah, Daddy! We’re gonna play Lego!”

His triumphant crowing brings Claudia running.

“Mommy! Me and Daddy are gonna play Lego!” He barrels down the hallway toward his bedroom, and his toy box.

“Oh, John, I’m so sorry!”

You haul yourself upright, and brush sandwich crumbs off your shirt. “It’s okay. I’ll get a few hours in later.” You smile up at her. “Want to play Lego with us?”

Claudia pretends to consider it for a moment. “Can I be Batman?”

“Could be a deal breaker,” you warn her, and raise your voice. “Stiles, your mom wants to be Batman. Is that okay?”

There’s silence from the end of the hall, and you and Claudia try not to laugh.

This is serious fucking business.

“Okay,” Stiles calls back at last. “But just this once!”

“I’m Batman,” Claudia tells you, reaching down to pull you to your feet, then lowers her voice to a growl. “I’m Batman.”

“This is where he gets it,” you tell her, letting her drag you down toward Stiles’s room. “All the craziness.”

“All the awesomeness,” she counters.

“Yeah.” You poke her in the ribs until she squeals. “That too.”

 favorite line you’ve ever written?

This is another really hard one to answer. Sometimes, like in The Light in the Woods, I’m trying for a more lyrical or poetic quality. But interesting lines can turn up in any story. I actually got a few comments on this line from Little Wild Animal, where Derek starts off wondering if he and John will ever find common ground, before he realizes they already have it:

It’s enough to build on. It’s more than enough. Stiles is the most important thing in Derek’s life, and he’s the most important thing in John’s as well. Derek and John might be from different worlds, but they’re both circling the same sun.

Sooner or later, they’ll fall into alignment.

Or possibly “Meow, motherfucker” from Little Shit Kitty.

story you’re most proud of?

Am I a horrible person if I say There Are No Wolves in California? Because that makes everyone cry!

Actually, I think I might be most proud of I Know Where Babies Come From, Derek. I wrote that because a friend wanted a Sterek + Magically Appearing Baby story without the baby vanishing again at the end. OF course my solution to that also makes pretty much every cry but… I’d been writing a few Sterek fics, but IKWBCFD was probably the first big one? I still wasn’t on Tumblr then and I have no idea where and how it picked up traction, but all of a sudden it was getting so many hits.

These days it’s neck and neck with Little Wild Animal.

share the synopsis of a story you work on that you haven’t published yet

Ha! I don’t work with synopses. I start with an inciting incident, have a vague idea of how things are going to end up, and just pants my way through the entire thing. I think my next story will be Steter though. Peter kidnaps emissary Stiles. Shenanigans ensue! And I have no idea about anything beyond that.