#make a biologically male character that is only attracted to females??

[occasionally-intelligent]

[bluegekk0]

Who else is part of the Alphabet Mafia in Dirtmouth?

Ooooh I like this one, I'll take this as an opportunity to talk about all the characters in Dirtmouth since it's pride month.

I'll ofc start with the Vyrm family before I get to other characters.

(under a read more cause it's looong)

Vyrm - as I mentioned before, I see him as demi-gay. He wasn't even aware that he was gay until he formed a close bond with Grimm, so I think it makes sense. Plus all those experiences of demi people that who describe their attraction as "suddenly clicking" that I read, match how I see Vyrm realizing he has feelings for Grimm. He definitely one day suddenly thought to himself that Grimm is really really hot and he started noticing things about Grimm's body that made him feel things, blushing whenever Grimm made eye contact with him, and in general just finding his mind wander in quite inappropriate directions. That was what put him on the (slow) journey of self-discovery, since he hasn't actually felt that way about anyone else before, even WL, because as it turns out, he just didn't feel that way towards female beings. And as for gender identity, he's cis and uses he/him pronouns. Born male and has never seen himself as anything else, though he's not that rigid in regards to how he presents.

Grimm - bisexual with a male preference, 100%. He had years to experience casual relationships of all kinds, and he definitely found himself attracted more to male partners. He did have a more serious female love interest years back, though it didn't work out. As for gender identity, he does present as male, use male pronouns and so on, though he has no issue acting in a more feminine way and does so quite often. So it's safe to say that he's not as strict with his identity, he's just Grimm. There's also the fact that biologically he's both male and female, as that's how he created his body. I hesitate to use the term intersex for him, as I know it doesn't fit him and I wouldn't want to potentially add to negative stereotypes. The closest thing would be hermaphrodite as it's used in biology (particularly in regard to animals), but I also don't want to use that term because of its negative connotations when used to describe a person, even if it matches what he has going on better. So, in short. He's both, and he chooses to present as male. His pronouns are he/him but he'd have no issue being referred to as she or they, he just doesn't use them himself.

Lewk, the twins - they're too young to even begin comprehending identity and attraction, and consequently I haven't thought about it either. What I can say is that being raised in a household where gender norms practically don't exist would help them be more comfortable with whatever identity they eventually feel fits them best. And as a little side note, I think it would be really cute if Lewk, who was raised very sheltered, didn't realize for the longest time that having two dads wasn't a universal experience. Not that he'd react negatively to opposite-sex relationships, I think he'd just be a bit confused. As for pronouns, they use those associated with their birth sex, so he/him for Lewk and Milo, and she/her for Asta.

Hornet - I definitely see her as a lesbian. A lesbian with no game, so no one even knows since she's not very open about it either (though Grimm can definitely tell hahaha). I definitely think she notices female bugs far more often, but she has no idea how to approach them and maybe even rejects the feeling. Not because she's against having a girlfriend, she just struggles with accepting close relationships in the first place out of fear that she'll lose them. And for gender identity, she is female, though very gender non conforming. She dresses and behaves in a way that makes it ambiguous, but she feels comfortable referring to herself as female. The only term she's uncomfortable with is "princess", but that has more to do with what such title entails rather than it being feminine. She uses she/her pronouns.

Holly - they're aroace to me, they show no interest in relationships despite becoming more open about their emotions. If someone flirted with them, they wouldn't know how to respond, and I think they find the idea of intimacy as something nice, but not for them. They're much more interested in their hobbies and the familiar bond with the rest of the household. As for gender identity, they use they/them pronouns, non-binary or agender would probably be the closest matches. Biologically they're neither, their body is made of void, and void has no distinction between male or female. In regards to how they present, they tend to copy the looks and mannerisms of those around them, so it varies significantly.

Zote - in regards to attraction it's a bit complicated. I feel like he'd talk about female bugs that way because of that whole "a knight and a maiden" idea, so you'd assume he's straight, but I could totally see him slipping up and calling a male bug handsome and showering them with compliments about their appearance. In reality I think he might be a very confused asexual, though a closeted bisexual could also be a possibility. For now I keep him as unlabeled. As for his pronouns, he uses he/him only, and gets quite upset at being called anything else.

---

Ok, now for the side/minor characters.

Brumm - he's gay, he had a male partner and adopted children in the past, and since then he hasn't shown interest in females. He also presents as masculine, and uses he/him pronouns.

Divine - lesbian (which means that the whole Leg Eater scenario didn't happen in the AU, lucky for him), she has a very strong lesbian wine aunt vibe to me. I can see her using she/they pronouns, even if they present as very feminine.

Ogrim - he's straight, he had a brief relationship with Isma back in the day, and hasn't shown interest in any male bugs since then. He presents as masculine and uses he/him pronouns.

Elderbug - straight. I will say, I don't think the dead friend he mentions was a potential love interest, but I do think he's straight. He uses he/him pronouns.

Cornifer and Iselda - they're partners which suggest that they're straight, but I could see one of them (or maybe both?) being bisexual. She/her pronouns for Iselda and he/him fir Cornifer.

Bretta - bisexual, leaning towards women. She was enamored with Zote for a bit before seeing through his lies, and now has a crush on Hornet. As for pronouns, I quite like the idea of her writing under a fictional, male pseudonym, and if that's the case then she would be fine being referred to as either she, he or they.

Jiji - unlabeled, they might be ace or just not interested in having a relationship right now, and that layer of uncertainty matches her. overall mysterious vibe. Uses she/they pronouns.

Jinn - similarly to Jinn, its preferences are unknown. She uses she/her, they/them and it/its pronouns interchangeably.

Mato - he doesn't live in Dirtmouth but I'll mention him here anyway. I think he's bisexual, though he tends to be a bit secretive so it's not very obvious. He/him pronouns, presents as very masculine.

Quirrel - similarly to Mato, he doesn't live here, but he frequently visits the town to give lessons to the children. He's possibly straight or bi, I haven't decided. And he uses he/him pronouns.

---

And while I'm at it, I'll mention other more important characters here, who don't live in Dirtmouth.

The White Lady - bisexual, I feel like she's the type to not really notice gender in regards to attraction. Perhaps pansexual would be more fitting, but I think the two terms can be used interchangeably and I don't want to get into semantics, so I'll stick to bisexual as the umbrella term. In regards to presentation, the Lady part of the title definitely didn't come from nowhere, so they present as overall feminine, though I do quite like the idea of her using both she/her and they/them pronouns. I could see them referring to themselves as "we" whenever she speaks, and I do want to start using they/them pronouns more often when talking about WL, since I think it matches the character.

Lurien - unlabeled, very likely gay, but he chose to not have a partner so it's a very private matter for him. He wears robes and a mask that completely cover his entire body so his identity is quite ambiguous on the surface, and I like the idea of his voice being just as difficult to describe. That said, he does use he/him pronouns, so that's one of the only clues.

Lemm - possibly an old bitter gay man, or perhaps he's straight. I don't think he ever had a partner so it's difficult to say, and he definitely doesn't talk about it. He/him pronouns.

Tiso - he's straight, I thought it would be pretty funny if he had a bit of a crush on Hornet (completely unaware she wouldn't return the feelings even if she didn't hate him), but because he's awful at expressing it, he just ends up acting like a jerk to get her attention. He/him pronouns, nothing to mention here.

---

There are many more characters in the AU that I haven't mentioned, but they're so minor I haven't even thought about them that much. So these are the ones that I treat as more prominent. As you can see, most of them are queer in one way or another. Seems like the infection turned the bugs gay. Many such cases.

[apriciticreveries]

[ do not look at me . ]

——————————————————————————————————

introducing my sona, airin ! ( pronounced I - rin ! nickname is simply, ai, or rin ! ) ( guys guys IM SORRY I COULDNT RESIST ( drops to the ground )

theyre . a bit complicated . i have so many notes for them help me— unlike my other characters i was struggling a lot with their appearance design at first but like . i kind of just copied what i want to look like and how i look like now ? kind of .

but here’s some additional information for them ! :

platoniromantic ( and quoiromantic kind of ) and greyromantic ( also greysexual i think . . ) also experiences alterous attraction . basically arospec in general . - ( i some people probably don’t know what some of these are . . platoniromantic — platoniromantic is a romantic orientation on the aromantic spectrum . it describes the feeling of not being able to distinguish between platonic and romantic feelings, that the two feel as if they must be the same feeling even though they are not . quoiromantic — the feeling of not being able to distinguish romantic from platonic attraction and therefore being unsure if one has experienced it . alterous attraction — the desire to have a special emotional connection or emotional relationship but is neither completely platonic or romantic . ) —————————————————————————————————

doesn’t mind what pronouns others refer to them as . - he, she, they, they dont really care . but they most often use he and they .

im going to jump though, and say that they’re biologically male ! ( they started as female like me but like . i changed my mind )

guardian would be guardian jiji ! he’s similar to both shine and unsha, in a way .

branding would be on the back of the neck !

so far, their only established relationship would be that they’re close friends with august : D ! ( @junebluues sona ) ( i think ) because of their talent, they were both bumped up to the same class . - airin actually clings onto him a lot, at first, at least, but they eventually become more independent . partly because they don’t want to get in their way of making new friends, even if it would hurt for them . - anyone is free to contact me if you’d like to be friends with ai too !

they look so much like aurien, because aurien was also based off me too . and i also kind of stole the hairstyle of zhuli’s redesign but shh . . my hair is a bit longer in real life, ( id like to cut it again but my mom wont let me . . ) but i shortened it to a style id prefer .

id imagine they get a general b or even c grade from anakt in how they do ? - they excel in a lot of their subjects, ( jiji has them keeping their grades up at all times ) but when it comes to performative arts— when youd actually need to practice the skills needed for the competition— airin, in short . . well, isn’t that great . they’ve been ruled insufficient in their results of these kinds of practices almost every time .

they’re nearsighted, but hope to get it fixed in the future with permanent treatment .

they honestly had a lot more likes and dislikes, i just couldn’t include them all . .

so . yea . their profile file was corrupted in a certain way .

ok, that’s all for now ! again, if anyone would like to contact me about friendships or relationships, im open : D !

[egg-emperor]

Eggman is the only character where I'm just too gay about him to ship him with female characters/stand seeing any with him. almost all my other favs about Idc or even kinda like some even if I'm not as immersed or not interested in as many aspects of it because I'm gay, like no ns4w of any of that. but no matter the form I just don't have any interest or enjoyment of it with Eggman

I think in Eggman's case it's because the only people besides myself that I like to ship him with are other characters I also find attractive or can project on lol. it sucks being this picky because he barely has anything but in the rare chances people do ship him or do ns4w it's almost always het because a lot of people assume more masculine/not a twink= het. but it's most often not serious and a joke anyway so oh well

but besides my personal preferences in that regard, I also genuinely just find it hard to picture how Eggman would be with a female character because he has little to no basis in canon for it. he very barely interacts with women and when he does he's never interested in them that way in the slightest

meanwhile I'd genuinely say he has some pretty damn fruity moments and dialogue in the games, those gay ass statues I'll never shut up about, and a lot more interaction of any kind with male characters in general for some kind of basis, he's definitely 100% gay for himself when he calls himself handsome and flirts with hiself in Gens, etc lol

another thing that generally makes me unfavorable towards him being shipped with women is it's pretty much always like super romantic and Eggman is way too nice and devotional and it's OOC. I don't see it embracing his toxicity or narcissism and self-centredness or anything. and it's where most of the "I can fix him" type stuff seems to happen too

especially when people have it end in him getting married and having biological kids. always gave me immense feelings of discomfort and now I love how the Egg Memo has actually backed me up on him not being interested and even looking down on natural procreation lol. there's no way anyone is suddenly gonna make him quit evil to settle down and follow the life script and make a nuclear family

it's just almost always inherently tied to multiple of my squicks and even triggers at times so that's also part of what turns me off from it a lot unlike m/f shipping of most other fav male characters of mine. sure m/m can do it too and I dislike it then too but it's a lot rarer

[artdcnaldson]

All this talk about omegaverse made me realize how much of a logistical NIGHTMARE professional sports would be in such a world. The male/female divide we're familiar with wouldn't work in a society with 6 biological sexes. Not just because there would certainly be cultures that would only recognize the three designations (Alpha, Beta, Omega) instead of gender, but there would also be intense debates about fairness in competition, a.k.a who should compete against whom. Are Beta and Omega women considered physically comparable? What about Alpha and Beta men?

The only feasible solution might be to have athletes compete only against others of the same gender and designation. However, this could lead to another issue: certain sports might become dominated by a particular designation, limiting opportunities for those of other designations who want to participate. At a lower competitive level, this might not be a big deal—say.... a single Omega might easily join a high school baseball team mostly made up of Betas. But at an elite level, would there be enough Omegas to form a competitive baseball team on a national scale? I can imagine there would be only a couple in the entire country, and with such limited participation, the sport might not attract much attention or funding, making it an unsustainable career choice.

All of this just to say that in an a/b/o challengers AU, all of the characters would probably, realistically, be of the same designation, and in my mind, professional tennis seems like it would be popular amongst Alphas, at least in the U.S.. That's not to say any other interpretation isn't valid! The greatest thing about omegaverse is that there are no strict rules, everyone can create their own version. I just really fell in love with the Alpha!Patrick/Alpha!Tashi/Alpha!Art throuple dynamic, and now no one will be able to change my mind about it 😂😂😂

ABO PROFESSOR IN MY INBOX!!!!!!!!!

I’m very interested though like, if you have any alpha throuple ideas pls spill!!!

[alicefromwhichplanet]

So I’ve seen so many times that people speculate sexual orientations of transformers, especially Optimus and Megatron. Their logic is: since Optimus has romantic involvements with Elita-1 in canon, and has suspicious tendencies to develop romantic relationships with several other characters portrayed as male (Megatron, Prowl, etc), he is bisexual. And since Megatron is only shipped with male characters (like Optimus, Starscream), he is gay.

I cannot tell how bizarre I felt the first time I saw judgements like this. Now I understand. It’s the weird compulsion to label things that made me uncomfortable. Not to mention the shifting allegiance to the canon and fanon in this conclusion.

Talking about the allegiance first. I mean, actually in all the “relationships” used as evidence for the said transformers’ sexual orientations, only one is confirmed in canon as an established romance, rather than a ship promoted by the fandom— that is Oplita. So if you’re following the official narrative, Optimus is not bi, or gay, but heterosexual. Because the only relationship he has is with a girlfriend. And if you admit all the fandom ships are true, why do you even care about the canonical heterosexual relationship of Optimus and the canonical “lack of heterosexual relationships” of Megatron?

Actually, I want to stress again that from the logic and worldview of transformers, there should really be no distinction of sex. And therefore the distinction of sexual orientation becomes quite unnecessary. The logic goes like this:

They don’t reproduce sexually —> they don’t have sexual organs/ everyone has the same set of energy transmission system resembling sexual organs (“spike and valve” as we already see in fandom) —> sex (biologically “male” and “female”) doesn’t exist —> sex is not a decisive factor in finding a partner —> there’s actually no such thing as sexual orientation, and it really doesn’t matter .

So analyzing transformers sexual orientation is really meaningless work for me. Why would you constrain your imagination in such a weird way? Why would you presume their sexuality when they don’t really need to be assigned to a binary sex? Why can’t they just be completely flexible in who they date and how they want to express themselves?

It feels like trying to label the sky “blue” because you happen to see sunny days more often. But the sky can also be orange or yellow or pink sometimes. And by the end of the day the sky doesn’t really have any color. The color you see is only how light is reflected into your eyes.

The only reason I can think of for people to insist on labeling these alien robots is because—worst case scenario— they’re trying to ship the said characters with some characters they love, but they don’t care to explain why.

E.g.“Since he’s bisexual, he could be dating my favorite character and another character at the same time!”

But you know, in reality, bisexual people don’t click on with every single person they meet. It’s quite a stigmatizing impression. You fall in love with a certain someone because this person feels special. They attracts you as a whole: their personality, hobbies, the way they looks or talks, etc. So you wanna make your ship real? Tell us something more. You can’t explain love by prescribing the character’s sexuality. Plus, it’s really sick to put labels on everything, sicker to label gender-fluid alien robots.

If you think I’m trying to say “I don’t want Optimus to be bi”or “I don’t want Megatron to be gay”, that’s not even close to what I mean.

[where-the-wind-travels]

meet my mcs ✦ a small introduction

bigger introductions coming soon <3

spoiler alert: i'm immune to cis male, gender conforming, he/him using mcs 😭

spoiler alert: yes i prefer all the pretty female non li side characters to any actually available (either male or female) li. all day any day. live laugh love michelle nguyen, diana, ingrid, and briar daly. also dee dee but she's mc's family so i'll have to make a different character for her, sorry andre.

1. bachelorette party

full name: leanne gahan

age: 30

gender: cis female

pronouns: she/her

sexuality: greysexual, panromantic, ambiamorous

love interests: diana (formerly), ash tanaka (currently)

occupation: lawyer, former model

more: yes, she's a gyaru, and even in professional lawyer mode she'll still at the very least wear light gal makeup. she's been one since the "glam queens" — her, court, di, and aisha — first formed, and she even modeled as one before she took on her current job as a lawyer. she started a fwb (but with actual friendship) type relationship with diana in college that ended once diana established herself as straight and fell for skip, and again on the trip to vegas after her poor friend started to reconsider not only her supposed love for skip but also her sexuality.

2. bloodbound

full name: raida pearce

age: 23 (physically)

gender: cis female

pronouns: she/her

sexuality: bisexual w/ male preference, polyamorous

love interests: jax matsuo, adrian raines

occupation: pa, former club dancer

more: she, jax and adrian are in a polyfidelity relationship, they're all in love with each other and no one else. she's an amateur dancer and has been since age 15. after the world discovered vampires, she's been dressing almost impossibly bright and poppy, partly to defy the stereotype that all vampires are goth and partly in memory of her best friend lily and the contrast she'd have with her. she's the oldest of seven — her mother really wanted a boy but only after the birth of her youngest she got told that, as the bloodkeeper, she's unable to bear biological sons. fortunately one of raida's many siblings came out as a trans boy, to their mother's glee.

3. crimes of passion

full name: ashley rose

age: 28

gender: non binary transmasc

pronouns: they/them

sexuality: nblm, exact sexuality unclear/unlabeled

love interest: m!trystan thorne

occupation: private investigator

more: before realizing one can be attracted to men and assume a masculine role in a relationship, ashley frequently asked themself "do i want to be the prince or be with him?" at one point, they were secretly in love with luke, but since he's straight and ruby also likes him, they kept it a secret from everyone. their mother, carolina varela, is argentine, and ever since they learned that they've felt a desire to connect more with the culture — especially with the food, you'll frequently find them eating a choripan, empanada or milanesa de pollo.

4. getaway girls

full name: mirah thompson

age: 27

gender: trans female

pronouns: she/her

sexuality: bisexual

love interest: m!jordan paudwal

occupation: chef

more: growing up with feminine interests in an almost female-only family with maia, anita and dee dee means mirah has always seen herself as "one of the girls" even before realizing she really is one. her parents try their best to support her but are still quite behind, and so they thought that as a woman, she has to marry a man. she's had to prove multiple times that she likes women and wants to marry (f!)kamali... a woman that ended up cheating on her due to wanting "a real woman" and inadvertently leading her back into the arms of her ex boyfriend from college, the only person she's ever loved that truly loves her for all of her.

5. murder at homecoming

full name: valentine mandy stone

age: 17

gender: trans male / boyflux

pronouns: they/he

sexuality: demisexual biromantic

love interest: tyler woods

occupation: amateur detective

more: despite no longer identifying as female, mandy still likes wearing dresses and full glam, partly to blend in with the crowd and partly in memory of perdita (yes, they frequently steal from her). at least that's what he always says. they're always lamenting that perdita never got to meet their true self, since she went missing before mandy realized they weren't cis, but part of him thinks she must know anyway. they're frequently described as "having the soul of a divorced wine mom" by classmates due to their personality and style, and he likes to disagree with them, but deep down he knows they're all right.

6. high school story (au?, more of an oc than a mc, i only remember i created her alongside an alternate mc from the one i usually play as)

full name: darlene murphy

age: 16

gender: afab demigirl

pronouns: they/she

sexuality: lesbian, questioning aspec

love interest: giselle zhou (au — trans!f!aiden zhou)

occupation: n/a

more: for a girl that looks and dresses like elle woods' daughter, darlene sure has a secret geeky side and is frequently found discussing one piece with myra and the rest of the gamer clique. they've also got a passion for fashion, having helped giselle find her style at the same time koh helped her medically transition and later working on costumes for the theatre club. she, giselle and koh (and cameron, as of spring quarter) might be quite the odd squad at first glance, but the four have grown to be inseparable, and darlene finds herself spending more time with her girlfriend and their "third wheels" than with her classmates.

7. distant shores

name: elias bellamy

age: 25

gender: gnc cis male

pronouns: she/he. it'd be just she/her, but she knows people from the golden age of piracy won't understand the concept of pronouns not equaling gender so she just lets them call her he/him. so far the only person she's tried to explain it to (the pronouns, not the gender non conformity - that's an open secret among the crew) is edward, who still doesn't quite fully understand it yet but tries the hardest he possibly can to support her.

sexuality: questioning if gay or bi

love interest: edward mortemer

occupation: pirate, sailor

more: fortunately for elias, being a relatively experienced actor means she's far less likely to accidentally reveal her time traveling secret. unfortunately for her, having time traveled to a far less progressive era means she's also forced to change the way she dresses and acts. early in her stay at the poseidon's revenge, charlie spotted her rifling in the former's closet to see if there were any dresses and came very close to disciplining her, until elias admitted she prefers men and had no perverted intentions at all... and that's the first time she ever confided in her sexuality and identity to a member of the crew that isn't edward.

8. desire and decorum

full name: pamela harper, née pamela foredale, née née pamela liu

age: 23

gender: cis female

pronouns: she/her

sexuality: it's not something she dwells on or likes to. even before annabelle introduced her to the concept of not being straight, she's known she's what the modern world would label as pan. she feels her heart has no boundaries on things like birth sex or gender identity, she loves everyone and can be w anyone, but she's too in love with luke to think like that about anyone that isn't him.

love interests: briar daly (formerly), luke harper (currently)

occupation: countess of edgewater

more: before traveling to edgewater, pamela wanted to become either a singer like her mother or a baker like briar's mother. she used to have a relationship with briar that one can only describe as "practicing to become wives" in every aspect, with briar of all people being pamela's first time. unfortunately briar really saw it as just practicing, but fortunately they stayed best friends after their failed relationship. her mother gave her the name "劉瑷菡" (liu aihan) but deep down she's always preferred pamela (or pam), even before she knew her father gave her that name.

9. ride or die

full name: maya minobe (美濃部魔夜)

age: 18

gender: trans female

pronouns: she/her

sexuality: lesbian

love interest: ingrid (yes, ingrid. it's technically colt since that's whose romance route i played, but i'd love for her to be a li and so maya dates her in my verse. in between prom and graduation they form a friendship that quickly turns into romantic feelings, but there's definitely been mutual pining and lesbian panic from both sides even before ingrid swallowed her pride and became actual friends with maya)

occupation: n/a

more: she started transitioning at age 15 and originally picked the nickname "kokoro" from a kanji in her deadname (健心), but eventually landed on maya, meaning "magical night". she used to dress in between dark academia and gloomy coquette, but almost as soon as she met the mercy park crew she changed her style to a mix of romanba gyaru and 2000s party girl, dying her hair blonde, learning to do her makeup and acting a lot more bubbly and fun. thanks to her new style, personality and pink ride, she's earned the epithet "racing barbie" by members of the racing scene and rival gangs tracking down the mpc.

[alpaca-clouds]

Why I hate the concept of player-sexual characters

Okay, you know what? Let me talk about this. Because it really irks me. Like, it really irks me. I cannot express how much it irks me, to be honest.

I love BG3. And BG3 is doing a lot of stuff right when it comes to queer representation. Not so much in regards to any other form of representation (How is it that there is only one none-white character among your teammates? Why is there literally no body diversity at all? Why is there no fucking combat wheelchair?), but on terms of queer rep the game is doing very good. I mean, literally, most canonical relationships you interact with are queer. You meet a lot more happy queer couples than happy straight couples. Which is nice. And while I could've done with maybe one canonical trans character, you can at least play your player character as trans, which is fucking nice. So yeah, we are getting there.

But for heaven's sake, I will never, ever see player-sexual characters as bi/pan representation. Because they are not. Their universal sexual attraction serves not to define them as characters in their identity, but just for the player to fulfill their own power fantasy in whatever way the player desires. The fact that the characters do not care about what gender the player character has, is not really tied to the character or their story.

Which is why I like it so much more the way that Bioware did it with Dragon Age: Inquisition and some of the later Mass Effect games (is this true for Starfield as well? I have no idea). Where the characters do have a canon sexuality that influences who you can romance and who you cannot romance.

Like, I am in general not a big fan of the Dragon Age games, with the exception of Inquisition, because boy, I got invested into those characters and part of the reason is this. Like, holy hell, I cannot explain to you how invested I got into Dorian and his entire story. Like, back then I was still in egg-mode and I played the game with a female character - but I then did a second playthrough with a male PC just so I could romance Dorian.

Their sexuality is tied to who they are as people.

And sure, yeah, fine. Basically BG3 goes about sexuality in the way of: "The world does not care about it, so neither should you." Like, there is so many queer couples, some have kids that might be their biological kids, because magic, I guess, and nobody really bats an eye. So, I guess something like with Dorian, where part of his story was dealing with a homophobic dad would not happen here. Still, you know, with their supposed bisexuality not playing any role at all, it feels... hollow.

Because it does really feel like this part of them only exists for the player - not as part of their characterization. And I would feel a lot better about it, if it was.

I think it feels partly so offensive to me, because I am a bisexual trans dude and lived as a bi woman for so long. And as that my bisexuality has often been seen by men as something that they can consume in one way or another to act out their personal fantasies. So, player-sexuality/bisexuality in games being used for the player to act out that kinda fantasy feels... wrong.

How could Larian have done it or do it in future games? Well, pretty simple.

Bring in former relationships of different genders, let the characters comment on finding other characters (both in your party and out of it) attractive, allow the non-romanced characters to hook up together or hook up with other NPCs. Make their sexuality part of their story.

I totally would be fine with the characters all being bisexual. Sure, its a bit boring, but I also totally could buy into "in this world bisexuality/pansexuality is the norm" as part of the worldbuilding. But then show it through their interactions outside of being willing/able to hook up with the player character.

Though admittedly, this is in general one of my biggest issue with the writing on the game: Rather than having the characters talk with each other about stuff (outside of the idle banter in your party), they talk to the player character about how they feel about each other. You know, I have seen a lot of comments about how the ending feels unrewarding because apparently (I am closing in on the ending, but I am not quite there yet) after everything is said and done everybody just goes their own way, not acknowledging each other at all. But I think it is a problem in general.

Like, I get that each scene in which the characters interact more significantly than awkwardly standing in front of each other is a ton of work, because you gotta motion capture it - and also rendering it on the system make the workload on the hardware you are using a lot bigger... But it definitely would help the characterization.

To come back to Dragon Age: Inquisition (look, it is the one game I played that worked a lot with this), I had a general feeling for how the other characters related to each other, like, what their relationships were like. I knew how Cassandra felt about Solas and Varric. Or Sera about Cole. Sure, not all character relations were as well defined, but there was a lot happening there. Which here... I mean, I know how Shadowheart and Lae'zel see each other and how that evolves over time. I know how Karlach and Wyll feel about each other. But for example, there is never a scene where Karlach and Astarion argue with each other, even though they are moral-wise fundamentally opposed and probably would argue. Like, when you learn about the ritual and Astarion goes like "I totally should do it!", none of the other characters has an opinion on him planning that, let alone confronts him about it. Or where Gale gets annoyed with Karlach's approach to solving problems by just beating her axe at the problem. Or, like, Halsin and Janeira hanging out with each other, talking about druid stuff. Because outside of single cutscenes and the idle banter, the characters just do not interact a whole lot.

And I think that is a shame. Because they are already fun, engaging characters. But they totally would be more fun and engaging if they had a life outside of their backstory and their relationship to the player character. (And mind you, if you play an Origin playsthrough this does not change, because whatever character you play, still is the player character.)

Allow them friendships and romances outside of the player character. And be it just by having them awkwardly stand together and talk in front of the same tent at camp from time to time. lol

When you have that, their sexuality also would feel real - and not just like a device to propell the player's power fantasy.

Also, for fucks sake, just give us some aroace characters. Q-Q

[kick-a-long]

spoilers for cockoo and why it is one of the best movies of the last 15 years.

disclaimer: im cis and the main actress hunter is trans, also tw sexual violence definitely/kinda??

this movie is sooo fucking good technically, writing wise, good looking, emotional, ethically complex and both personally and socially meaningful. not a misstep to be found. if you can handle spooky scary movies i definitely recommend it.

I'm not going into great detail, but the thing i like about it the most is that it is a total marriage of feminist anxiety and queer (especially trans) anxiety.

my favorite thing that I haven't seen anyone talk about is that while hunter is a trans woman, the character she plays is (in my mind) kept ambiguously queer. she might be a trans woman, trans man, non-binary, or a cis lesbian. all we know is that she is some form of queer, attracted to woman and is treated like a woman who has failed at womanhood. the setting is the 80s which is brilliant because it side steps all the formal conversations around pronouns and respecting identity, it implies there are no hormone therapies to get or operations or any way that gretchen can earn womanhood or manhood with her outer appearance/gender performance. what's left is the single implication that in some way Gretchen has failed at womanhood. it makes it clear that Gretchen might be any letter of the alphabet but regardless of which one she IS being pushed out of her own home for being the wrong type of woman, not even just for being lgbt. she's in survival mode, in a foreign country, totally isolated and continually attacked for/from finding anyone like her, dealing with grief/the loss of her emotional family, not there by choice, not there because she did anything wrong, and not afraid of being proactive to fix that situation.

the cockoo is the perfect monster for her. It's the type of femininity that looms over her as well as all woman (even her hyper feminine step mom.) it non-consentually impregnates the right type of woman, in a non-sexual procedure. It's heterosexual and performing femininity well, and controls who has children with whom like a male institution but it is a biologically female animal. it implants it's eggs, not sperm, it dresses and looks like a traditional (even antiquated) version of a woman. it's the grandma 1950s pre-feminist femininity that haunts us. so it acts as both a symbol of patriarchy like it's acting in lock step with conservative heterosexual men's values and as the specter of conservative femininity that could be terf or could just be conservative femininity generally. it even covers it's hair (in a non religious way) and wears demure cloths, solely focused on other woman's reproduction, while being ungodly powerful yet controlled by patronizing men. even it's monster power is to repeat time, literally stop people progressing by force, a literal power that conservatives want to go back in time and freeze us all there. It's so fucking smart!!

the resolution is EVEN MORE SMART!

the film points out how fucking weird all this shit is, and then makes an actual active choice to say, "fuck it, solidarity against all this violent and nonsensical philosophical bullshit!" it takes the deeply humanistic option of "i'm a freak that didn't ask to be born this way, you're a freak that didn't ask to be born this way, all these systems and gender roles are fucking you as much as me lets band together and figure out what the fuck we can do to change all this!" they only escape by using each other as shields. the girl born of hyperconservativity who doesn't want to live that life, protects gretchen against conservative patriarchy/violence while gretchen's atypical but humanistic femininity protects alma's typical girlhood femininity against ultra leftist/violent deconstruction of femininity. and then they run off with a hot lesbian who has a car. perfect!

the movie is so wonderful because it is the first film that i've seen which communicates not just the pragmatism of focusing on all woman's (any kind of woman: straight and any type of LGBTQIA+) shared interests so we can all work together to build each other up, protect each other, get each other to some place safe, but also how much more sane that is. put the violence on the horrible ideas and not vengeance against the people who uphold them, because while the ideas seem impossible to defeat, part of defeating them is facing them without becoming overwhelmed and just not listening! because they are fucking weird and self defeating, again brilliant!

there's a million more things to say but you have to see it. it's as close to perfect as any movie I've seen. i love it.

please please see it. even if you don't want to think it's a fucking fun popcorn movie and an incredibly thrilling ride.

[thosearentcrimes]

Read Jane Eyre by Currer BeCharlotte Brontë. It's, uh, interesting. Worth reading, for sure? I'm happy I read it, which I can't always say about the classics. Some of them try my patience, while Jane Eyre was a quick and fun read. Whether you think it is good obviously depends on how you assign aesthetic value, though. I mean I know a lot of people are less preoccupied with politics in art, and for them, go ahead, but I think only some of the political problems are separable from the basic content of the book?

Like ok the racism is almost entirely unnecessary, though obviously predictable given the time period. It really starts ramping up towards the end of the book, too? I say almost, because it's obviously connected with the recurring phrenological theme which in turn relates to the main couple of the story not being very physically attractive. Which, to be clear, is a very nice thing for a novel to include, though perhaps less so when it is related explicitly to phrenology. Whatever.

So the thing about phrenology, and racism too, of course, is that obviously Victorians overwhelmingly understood those to be significant material, biological phenomena, right. And they're super not any of those, except insofar as they have the ability to impose themselves onto the material world, and even then not very much. So when you examine reality, including historical reality, from an enlightened point of view, you can see all of that is nonsense. However, assuming we accept the construct of a fictional world, in the fictional world of Jane Eyre, racism and phrenology are super real and material biological features of persons, rather than a pile of nonsense supported by confirmation bias. It's like if you were reading a comic or watching a TV show and it turned out everyone's personalities were actually determined by their blood ty-

ANYWAY, it's funny how gay Jane Eyre looks from a modern perspective, and I'm not just projecting I swear. Like, half the time Jane meets a woman, she becomes instantly obsessed with her, forms a codependent or dependent attachment to her, starts talking about how insanely perfect and good and beautiful she is and how much her male love interest isn't good enough for her, also one time she's given a description of a pretty lady and she starts drawing the most beautiful woman she can think of to imagine what she looks like. She develops what is barely deniably a gay crush on at least three women over the course of the book. Which is two more women than men. But it's important to recognize that this was a different, substantially more homosocial time, and that the way friendship and romance are expressed has changed significantly since the differentiation of homosexuality as its own identity. Why, even quite recently people wouldn't bat an eye over this kind of female friendship. Like, it feels like every other time my mom sees another woman, she'll start talking about how beautiful and talented and great she is and how her husband isn't good enough for her, and my mom isn-

ANYWAY, one of the real strengths of the book is simply in portraying Jane Eyre thinking and responding emotionally to stuff? It feels like such a basic thing, but it turns out a lot of writing novels is about doing the basics really well. If you make your main character emotionally and intellectually comprehensible to the audience, that'll help establish the stakes and sell the narrative. You feel like you know Jane and you can see why she makes all the stupid decisions she makes, you get a sense of why such an independent and proud woman would nonetheless be instinctively submissive the way Jane is. And the narration of an adult looking back over their childhood experiences is really well done I think. Comparing to Dickens is a bit absurd, because Dickens was quite frankly a slop merchant so you have to apply a different standard, but it is crazy how bad Dickens is at pulling that narrative voice off considering it was his whole deal.

Uh, the main couple is fucked up or whatever. She's a teenager and he could be her father, and is also literally her employer. Comes with the territory, obviously, he's a werewolf or whatever, that's the point. The part where he has his wife locked up in the attic probably a bit more of a problem, though it is hilarious how everyone is worried about the whole bigamy thing, and not about the wife being locked in an attic thing. Also he's like a massive misogynist, crazy (read: normal for Victorians) levels of hating women. I'm pretty sure the reason he gets crippled and blinded in the end is so that it's remotely plausible that he doesn't start beating Jane like six months into the marriage. Given all of this, it's a wonder that Brontë genuinely manages to sell the relationship, even with the added difficulty of me shipping Jane with half the female characters in the book. A testament to her skill and my sentimentality.

Who should read this book? I dunno, I think most of you have probably read it already or something. If you want to know the classics, the literary canon, this is one that is good to read, you'll probably have fun. Be aware that there's Surprise Racism and that the main couple is Problematique. If you want to modernize it, just pretend every time they talk about phrenology they're actually talking about astrological signs.

[nyahuaisang]

Heavenly Delusion Is Queer Regardless of What Anyone Thinks.

Tengoku Daimakyou, or Heavenly Delusion, is getting an anime adaptation and as a long time reader of its manga, it was disappointing to see that some people kind of dismisses certain gender and sexuality themes simply because they don’t see how it’s portrayed as valid. This post will obviously delve into spoiler territories so it’s up to you whether you want to spoil yourself here or read the manga for yourself first.

HEAVENLY DELUSION ANIME ONLY SPOILERS AHEAD

There’s already a massive amount of transphobes who only sees kiruko as being a guy because he had his consciousness transplanted and had that not been the case they would’ve been referring to him as a “female who believes she’s a guy” and I’m so afraid that the lgbt+ community will latch onto that and group the series and kiruko himself with these transphobes and invalidate his queerness in a “oh so you can respect his pronouns but not other trans characters’ pronouns?” way.

My first point is regarding Kiruko being a boy who's consciousness was transplanted into his sister's body.

Regardless of what you personally think kiruko’s gender is, the fact of the matter is that kiruko is a guy in a girl’s body and that inherently makes him trans if not at least queer. In addition, it’s very much implied that kiruko does have some level of feelings towards maru so again even if you don’t see him as trans he is still potentially gay/bi and again, QUEER. And Maru explicitly states that he stills love the person Kiruko/Haruki is now, independant of who "Haruki" or "Kiruko" was before the transplant. It's obvious he's still struggling with his sexuality as he is attracted to this person in front of him but this person turns out to be a boy but the fact is that he's still attracted to him even after learning of this.

Kiruko and almost every other character in this series is queer to some extent and I really really hope people won’t invalidate this story as a queer story simply because it’s not presented to us in a way we’re used to.

My next point is that of the kids in the facility were raised without any concept of gender which inherently makes them all genderless, with about half of them being intersex.

In the original japanese raws, the manga does not explicitly state the facility children as boy or girl, choosing to instead refer to them with their names instead and most if not all of the children uses "Boku", which is the polite masculine pronoun used more often by boys.

Up until chapter 17, we are led to believe Tokio is biologically male as they’re presented more on the masculine side then feminine, as well as being asked by Tarao if they liked Mimihime. The manga shows us a sapphic couple kissing a whiles later, which associates the audience with the idea that same-gender attraction is seen as normal in this facility and thus puts Tokio’s crush on Kona in the light of a homosexual attraction.

Because of this and the fact that we only know Tokio has breasts and a birth canal, which Michika also has, as seen above, it’s very likely that Tokio is also biologically intersex.

In addition, the manga's synopsis refers to Tokio as a "young boy" or "shounen"(the words circled in red)

It is for this reason that I don't like how people immediately switched to referring to Tokio as a girl the second they see they have breasts or hell even back when it was revealed they had a crush on Kona. It's just an incredibly toxic belief that only girls have boobs or only girls crushes on boys or that either of those things immediately makes someone a girl.

I get it. Their situations are not the same as queer people in the real world are, but this is a fictional sci-fi, not everything has to be realistic.

Kiruko and almost every other character in this series is queer to some extent and I really really hope people won’t invalidate this story as a queer story simply because it’s not presented to us in a way we’re used to.

Tengoku is an extremely precious series to me. It's a series that I stumbled upon myself at late hours at night while going through tough times and it's one of those series where I could really feel myself getting sucked into the story and I just really don't want it and its characters to get hate or invalidated simply because it is different from other queer stories.

Let stories be queer while still branching out to genres and themes that isn't strictly limited to romance or about the queerness itself.

Let characters be queer in non-realistic ways, stop strapping queerness down to reality when cishet characters gets to be as fantastical and magical and non-realistic as they want.

This series is queer. Stop saying it isn't.

[manda-kat]

In a random grouping of 16 of my own OCs:

There is a group of 3 from the same world and 3 pairs of two from the same world as well. Which means 9 out of 16 have someone from their homeworld in the group. One pair doesn't know each other and another pair hasn't yet properly spoken

Only 3 of the OCs are fully human. 1 is half human and 1 used to be human. (Edit: 2 used to be human. I forgot an origin)

Only 6 out of 16 are female, however technically there are only 9 who are male. One is an alien species who is definitely a male character, but his species has no biological difference between male and female, so his inclusion on either side is debatable.

5 of them are villains in some capacity. Two are reformed and one won't become a villain until later

10 are adults, but only 6 of them are employed

My vote is 'Smash' for exactly half of these OCs. This just means I need to make the other half more attracted. What's the point if I don't have a crush? (Of course considering certain ages and species some of them can never earn that ranking.)

5 of them have lost both birth parents. 2 of them have one dead parent. 5 of them have one or more living parent, but due to the situation can't or won't have contact with either parent.

2 of them are married (not to each other) 2 and of them are currently dating (yes each other)

[art-of-manliness]

Get Your Son Out of His Bedroom

Everyone has the general sense that people these days get out of the house and do less face-to-face socializing than they used to. The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson recently dove into the data available from the American Time Use Survey to figure out just how large this decline has been. The answer? Very, very large. American men are doing a third less face-to-face socializing than they did twenty years ago. The drop amongst American teenagers is even more staggering: the amount of in-person socializing teens engage in has fallen by almost half since 2003. Think about that for a second: today’s teenagers get together half as much as they did two decades ago.  Today’s teens are not only less likely to leave the house to see friends but to do other things like work, date, or play sports, too. When it comes to the consequences of this trendline for young adults, the discussion typically centers on a rise in loneliness, anxiety, and depression. But there’s another consequence that may be part of this fallout: fewer young men stepping into independent manhood. Since the most primitive age of human history, it’s been observed that males seem to have greater difficulty maturing into adulthood than females. Various theories have been put forth as to why this may be so, from the biological (females receive a more significant signal of maturation in the form of the onset of menstruation) to the psychological (boys must not only differentiate themselves physically, but also in terms of identity, from the female body — the maternal womb — of which they were once a part).  Whatever the cause, boys have typically been given a greater outward nudge towards embracing mature roles and responsibilities. Traditionally, this nudge took the form of rites of passage — a practice common in every age and across every culture in the world.   From time immemorial, boys have felt the tension between two impulses: One, the desire to stay in the safety and comfort of the domestic sphere, taken care of by their mother and free from difficult and dangerous responsibilities; the other, the desire to take risks, to explore, to win honor, to adventure — to take a place in the world of men.  The rite of passage, dictated by their community, compelled young men to overcome the inertia of the first impulse to embrace the second. Today, rites of passage — going to college, traveling the world, participating in a mission trip — are still possible, but the decision to undertake one, rather than being subject to communal forces of shame and honor, is voluntary and individualistic.  This has been the case for a very long time now.  But the ratio between the gravitational pull toward one’s childhood orbit and the attraction to the world beyond its borders has never been more lopsided.  The time teens spend leaving the house and getting together with others really started to dip after 2010, when smartphones began to proliferate. Technology has provided everyone with a simulacrum of the kind of entertainment, conversation, and exploration that formerly could only be accessed by venturing into the outside world. There’s less incentive to leave the house and more enticement to stay at home. When I graduated from high school, I couldn’t wait to go to college and get out on my own. Anecdotally, the young men I know now are less enthusiastic about this transition. And this hesitancy about striking out on their own could have a big impact on their maturation — on their ability to develop the qualities that make for an autonomous, self-reliant, happy adulthood.  In staying within the domestic sphere, the childhood orbit, you’re more protected from the judgments, the risks, the slings and arrows of the wider world — the things that catalyze growth, build strength, and develop character. When you conduct all your communication through a digital device, you can carefully script everything you say instead of engaging in the dangerous dance of improvisation. When your parents are always close by to back you up, you’re never… http://dlvr.it/T3L3jc

[my-throwaway-tbh]

SIMGA MALE GUIDE (read)

The Omegaverse has abstract premises for which it could be considered a fantasy genre according to the conventions established by Todorov, but the high specification of its characteristic elements suggests that it could also be considered a literary genre in itself.[3] Its main peculiarity is that characters have two genders: a main one (male or female), decided by their external sexual organs, and a secondary one, that manifests during puberty, determined by their internal reproductive system.[4][5] It's usually chosen from one of the following, each of which also corresponds to some distinctive character traits:[6][7][8][9]

Alpha (α): socially (and in some interpretations, even biologically) dominant, physically built, short-tempered and a natural leader;

Beta (β): depending on the story, they are regular human beings, or have a mix of Alpha and Omega traits, or their own unique traits;

Omega (Ω): submissive and gentle, calm and a peacemaker.

Reproductive systems in the Omegaverse:

MaleFemale

Male

genitalsUterusMale

genitalsUterus

Alpha

/

[a]

Beta

Omega

/

[b]

Omegaverse fiction typically focuses on wolf or other canid-like behavior in humans, especially as it pertains to sexual intercourse and sexuality, which is described as instinctual, responding to animalistic physiological stimuli.[1][2] This includes rutting and heat cycles, pheromonal attraction between Alphas and Omegas,[12] penises with knots (used to "knot", or tie, the partner to an Alpha during copulation, an action known as "knotting"),[1] scent marking,[13] imprinting,[8] breeding, mating rites, pack structures[14] and potentially permanent psychic bonds with a mate.[6] Between Alphas and Betas, only females can carry on a pregnancy, but male Omegas are often envisaged as being able to become pregnant via a uterus connected to the rectum,[14][15][16] and Alphas can impregnate regardless of their main gender.[17] To make penetration and impregnation easier, male Omegas often have self-lubricating anuses.[9]

Since Omegaverse is a type of folksonomy, some of its aspects are included or excluded at the discretion of the story author.[8] Sometimes Betas are absent, or other intermediate designations such as Deltas and Gammas are added.[17] The genre often features other fantasy elements, such as the presence of werewolves or other fantastical creatures.[1] Some works introduce a rigid caste system, where Alphas are depicted as the upper class elites while Omegas are at the bottom tier and face discrimination and oppression because of their physiology, creating an example of biological determinism.[7][18][19] In darker stories, this results in non-consensual or dubiously consensual intercourses, forced pregnancies, Omegas kidnapping and sexual slavery.[20][21]

Omegaverse works are most frequently focused on male-male couples composed of an Alpha and an Omega,[6] though heterosexual Omegaverse works have been produced,[13] and by 2013, about 10% were labeled male/female.[8] Some subvert the genre tropes, telling stories about illicit relationships between Alphas, Omegas who hide their smell using chemical pheromones so that they are not a victim of biological prejudices,[22] or dominant Omegas and submissive Alphas.[2] Non-traditional couples are often featured in Japanese Omegaverse works.[23]

While the terms "A/B/O" and "Omegaverse" can be used interchangeably, the first one often refers only to the sexual dynamics, while the second one is preferred when the story is set in a new ideological world.[12] Some prefer to avoid use of the term "A/B/O" as its spelling resembles a racial slur towards Aboriginal Australians.

Professor Kristina Busse has described Omegaverse as a "seemingly perfect storm" of tropes that already existed in fandoms.[22] For example, the 1967 episode "Amok Time" of the American television series Star Trek introduces the concept of pon farr, the Vulcan mating cycle wherein Vulcan males must mate or die. Pon farr became a popular plot concept for fan works in the Star Trek fandom, particularly fan fiction focused on the Kirk/Spock pairing. The concept of mating and heat cycles among humans was subsequently adopted by other fandoms, and later became a staple of the Omegaverse subgenre.[24] Ursula K. Le Guin also wrote, in her 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness, about an extraterrestrial androgynous world with hermaphroditic characters and mating cycles named kemmer.[2]

The origin of the Omegaverse is typically attributed to the fandom surrounding the American television series Supernatural, as a fusion between werewolves and the male pregnancy subgenre of erotic fan fiction.[1][25] Another source of inspiration could have been the science fiction drama Dark Angel, where Supernatural actor Jensen Ackles plays a soldier with feline DNA, and female characters go into heat.[25] The first works recognized as A/B/O were published in mid-2010:[6] that year in May, a writing prompt was shared on a LiveJournal community dedicated to Supernatural, mentioning "alpha" males having knots on their penises, and "bitch males" without the knots, inspiring user tehdirtiestsock to write I ain't no lady, but you'd be the tramp, a real person fiction work focused on actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles as an Alpha and an Omega, which was published on July 24.[2][19] Despite not using the term "omega", the story created many of the characteristics later associated with the Omegaverse genre.[2]

Over the next few months, other anonymous authors shared similar stories, until on November 9 a new writing prompt mentioned Alpha, Beta and Omega men for the first time, spurring the creation of three works. By June 2011, the term "Omegaverse" and its dynamics had become commonplace; the following month, the first femslash Omegaverse work was published, and the first use of the tropes outside the Supernatural fandom was recorded.[9]

The genre subsequently expanded in popularity to other fan communities: first to those focused around Sherlock and X-Men: First Class, then it quickly reached other fandoms like those of television series Hannibal, Teen Wolf, Glee, Doctor Who and movie The Avengers.[1][9] A Chinese translation of an A/B/O Sherlock fanfic posted on website Suiyuanju around October 2011 introduced Omegaverse to Chinese slash fan circles, from which it spread to danmei original novels.[26]

In 2012, the notion of "fated mates" was introduced.[27] In 2014 it gained strong traction in Japan,[23] acquiring market value with the publication of the first A/B/O manga in 2015.[28] In 2016 the discrimination and power dynamics between Alphas, Betas and Omegas began to be outlined, and the idea of the mark or bite that chemically and biologically links couples together was created,[29] while in 2018 the concept of the "inner wolf", an animal instinct guiding Alphas and Omegas, arose.[30] Through her work Kanraku Alpha Enigma, manga artist Shinshi Nakai subsequently tried to add the "Enigma", a new type of character who can mutate their secondary gender, but the novelty was resisted by Omegaverse fans and had no impact or continuity.[31]

Omegaverse has become both extremely popular and controversial in fandom circles. Some condemn it as revolting and sick, affirming that it reinforces patriarchal values and a rape culture,[32] objecting to its roots in bestiality fiction and the power imbalances between genders.[6] Conversely, others appreciate how it deconstructs bodies and gender roles, offering subversive social commentary on queer identity and oppression.[32][33]

Academic opinions are equally divided between those who believe Omegaverse shows a new type of gender essentialism combined with homophobic and heteronormative elements, and those who see the space to give it a transgender reading.[6] Delgado Díaz, Ubillus Breña and Cappello do not believe that the Omegaverse is linked to queer theory or transexuality, despite containing allegories to gender identity and the female condition (Omegas, both male and female, could be considered embodiments of the traditional role of women as housewifes and mothers), whose purpose, however, is only that of frameworks to plots ranging from melodrama to horror.[34] According to researcher Milena Popova, "the features of the A/B/O genre allow for the exploration of themes of power, desire, pleasure, intimacy, romance, control, and consent in a variety of ways",[35] and it's used by writers and readers "as a tool to articulate and think through consent issues in unequal relationships".[36] Similarly, Laura Campillo Arnaiz argues that dark Omegaverse works serve to gain control on the feelings of helplessness and humiliation that characterize it, creating a cathartic experience.[37]

Angie Fazekas wrote that "[i]n the omegaverse, fans use traditional tropes of gender and sexuality to imagine a universe where queer sexuality is the norm and normative gender roles are often skewed and upended",[33] but that they fail to offer real progressiveness since, like most of the other fan fictions, their works are predominantly focused on relationships between white men.[38]

The Omegaverse exploded in popularity in 2017, quickly becoming a frequent subject of fan fiction writers.[30] As of July 2018, over 39,000 Omegaverse fan works had been published on the fan fiction website Archive of Our Own,[9] and over 70,000 as of 2020.[1] In addition to these derivative works, Omegaverse has emerged as its own genre of original commercial erotic fiction: roughly 200 Omegaverse novels were published on Amazon from January to June 2020.[1] It has also become a subgenre of both commercial and non-commercial yaoi (manga featuring male-male couples).[23][39][40] Given the positive reception in Japan, South Korea started its own production of Omegaverse manhwas, as well as China, although the censorship applied in this latter country has limited the genre popularity.[41]

Beginning in 2017, the "Dom/Sub Universe" subgenre gained popularity, particularly in yaoi works in Japan; it uses BDSM elements, positing dominant and submissive as secondary genders, and draws inspirations from Omegaverse in its depiction of caste systems.[42] In the Korean "Cakeverse", a small part of the human population is divided into "forks", who have no sense of taste, and "cakes", people with a particular flavor that makes them irresistible to "forks".[43]

[pkmnomegaverse]

Hey, I was wondering how the sexualities in your AU work? (Because I saw some of your old ship memes again and there were same sex couples but it stated they were hetero sometimes so I'm wondering)

It’s because omegaverse stuff is in effect for worldbuilding.  My reasoning is basically that in an omegaverse setting, an alpha/omega couple would be considered a “straight/heterosexual/whatever you wanna call it” relationship. Whether they’re both guys or both girls doesn’t actually matter in terms of labeling the relationship. Likewise, an alpha/alpha or omega/omega relationship would be the “gay/homosexual/etc as per labels go” relationship, even if one was a guy and one was a girl.

So when it comes to the sexuality of characters, I tend to view it where if a character is attracted to whatever “omegaverse genders” would make them “straight” in the above criteria, they would be considered heterosexual. Same reasoning for a character to be considered homosexual or bisexual.  Basically…can this relationship theoretically produce biological children.  Perhaps a flawed way to set up the criteria, but it made the most worldbuilding sense to me when I thought about it.  And lined up with my reasoning for which parent is considered the mother/father when a couple has a child.

There’s an obvious wrench in using this terminology though. The term homosexual implies same sex attraction. But there’s actually three different sex/gender combos one can be attached to and still be considered “homosexual” (an alpha would be gay/homosexual if they’re attracted to male alphas, female alphas, and/or male betas, for example). Same thing could he said for both the terms heterosexual and bisexual. They kind of…don’t work from where the root word comes from if there’s six sex/gender combos (and that’s before one considers how being non-binary in an omegaverse setting would work. Yet again, another term that doesn’t really make sense since we’ve already established that there’s more than two sexes/genders. Although my workaround for that term is the binary part refers to the male/female and alpha/omega/beta aspects of one’s gender. Your sex/gender is a binary in that there’s two parts to it, vs there only being two options. If you reject or are fluid on at least one of the aspects of your gender, doesn’t matter which one, you’re non-binary. But that’s a whole other topic.)

Do I think there might be different terminology in an omegaverse setting to deal with this when it comes to how sexuality/relationships get labeled.  Probably.  Do I have any desire to make up new terms for any of this. No, not in the slightest. We’re just running on vibes here, ain’t got time for fancy omegaverse labels I have to come up with myself.  I'm into omegaverse for the kink nonsense aspects, not for thoughtful worldbuilding!

I suppose you could view it as [Omega Male, Omega Female, Beta Female] as one group vs [Alpha Male, Alpha Female, Beta Male] as the other group, so to speak. So two groups and whether you're attracted to genders within or outside your group determines your sexuality. Sort of can get around the terminology issue that way.

I will say that determining the sexuality of characters as a whole has never been important to me. Probably because, at most, I’m maybe demi??? I don’t typically feel attraction to people in real life, so since my own sexuality isn’t important to me and is something I tend to avoid thinking about, I don’t care that much about it when it comes to fictional characters. Is more fun side trivia I’ll switch around for characters on a whim. But obviously it’s something that is important to some people in how they identify, so I figured it was still a useful thing to think about.   But that’s why I mostly just run on vibes and only include it on the ship memes and profiles since there’s a precedent on that’s how those are typically set up. So see no reason to completely ignore it. But take whatever I label a character as with a grain of salt since I really will change it on a whim.

[spiritpraiseandbeautifulhumanity]

AHEM, just letting myself rant a bit to get it off my chest because I am tired of people misinterpreting us and also just completely ignoring or missing the details right in front of them in the canon. Sister and me are literally the only ones who are correct about ourselves because I mean for one we are literally the actual Shingujis from V3 and not just fans or kins or anything else, but also just because no one can seem to understand us for who we are even when it’s very obviously presented in the game. Anyways, first of all I don’t get constantly misgendered just for people to say “oh he actually *is* a girl” if you headcanon that sort of thing for your own personal comfort that’s fine though, but I’m not interested in seeing a lot of that when I’m actually a trans man. The ones who are awful though are those who treat their headcanon as if it’s canon and act like I am really a girl, like no I didn’t/don’t go through my life being a feminine guy just for people to treat me like that means I must be a girl or identify as one in some way. Also, I partly consider myself agender as well so it can be uncomfortable when people are like “he’s male and/or female” like please don’t bring biological sex into gender, yes I’m afab but I don’t identify as a sex, I’m just a man who happens to be way more feminine than most typical men are and am not a girl in any way. And then on the topic of sexuality so many people seem to think I’m asexual or at least somewhere on that spectrum…and here’s where the game itself comes into play. Like you can literally tell from the game just how false that is because I am shown to be sexual and romantic, just because I’m a loyal romantic partner doesn’t mean I don’t feel attraction in general. Also, it’s heavily implied that I am canonically pansexual with how I view all humanity as beautiful, plus the fact I wouldn’t mind who I’d have as a partner(as proven by the love suite which although isn’t canon in the sense that it doesn’t physically happen, it is canon in that it is an actual fantasy each of the V3 cast has and thus is canon by way of being in character). Even without the game backing it up I am indeed pansexual/panromantic. It’s just weird to me when people see someone who will be openly sexual at times and even going on a rant about their relationship and see that as thinking it means they don’t feel attraction like that or that I’m repulsed by sex and/or romance when I’m literally shown to feel such strong attractions. It’d be like going up to an incredibly loyal husband and being like “oh you must not feel romantic/sexual attraction because you aren’t feeling that way towards anyone else.” Like no? That’s not how it works, they just love their spouse and aren’t a cheater. Same with me even if my circumstances are more strange, even if I do feel those attractions to others I’m not going to actively pursue those feelings without my partner first being 100% okay with it since I am heavily devoted to them as their partner. Also, one last thing is like people treating the false backstory stuff that like would never be possible as if they actually happened, which I don’t blame them for that because it can be confusing especially with the way the ending is so they just treat it as if it was real…but certain obvious things such as being a serial killer or an assassin should obviously make one go “oh yeah that was definitely fake.” But I can understand people treating smaller false details or ones they wouldn’t even think about as not being true such as the idea that I traveled around doing fieldwork. Which I never did because it wouldn’t have been possible in the timeline from when I entered Danganronpa, plus being a minor complicates being able to do so as well. I literally entered as a pale teen who wanted to be there for a specific purpose. I’ll get more into that when I end up posting my whole canon backstory and what truly happened and the parts that were just stuff Team Danganronpa made up, but yeah.