#me: but what if you're not compatible romatically and the world says you're supposed to be?

[tumblweeds-omegaverse]

so I can't find the post now (I'll reblog it if it pops up again) but somebody in the omegaverse tag was like "what if someone made a setting with, like, all the tropes?" combining ov, soulmates, werewolves, and a lot of other things.

and I thought "wait i don't know some of these that well" and also "okay but what if it's a different fantasy creature than werewolves?"

which has lead me to:

what if omegaverse, but cats instead of wolves?

(i have actually never read warrior cats? how this is possible, as someone who read watership down until the covers fell off, i do not know. so i don't have any social structure inspo yet. but i had this image of head rubs / head butting to scent people, and now i have tabs on tabs of cat behavior. but if they're shifters, would they be carnivores solely in cat form, or also in human form? also no I haven't looked at reproductive stuff yet, too busy with "where are all the cat creatures in myth? why is google trash now?")

what if omegaverse, but mermaids who function like whales?

(this started while looking into animals that tend to offspring that aren't theirs / that invest a lot of time and energy into their offspring. because that's a big element of omegaverse, in my view, despite not being a core trope? like, once you dig into the worldbuilding, a lot of our human concerns and vulnerabilities start coming up, so a species that would share some traits is handy)

really, though, the biggest challenge in attempting the "all the tropes" idea is that soulmate au was included, and I struggle with that one...

like...ignoring all the logistic issues, what kinda world does it become, if the default assumption is that you're in an incomplete or unfulfilled state, until or unless you meet your soulmate? doesn't matter if platonic soulmates are seen as just as meaningful and socially valuable as romantic ones. (tho if you know of things that do that, please give me the name, I wanna read/watch it!) what does it do to a person to spend their entire life waiting for someone to fill the hole in their very selves, not knowing if they'll ever show up? what does that expectation cause?

yeah yeah, i know, true mates shouldn't be more of a stretch than feline werewolves or undersea omegaverse society, but somehow it is??

anyway - omegaverse but not canines! honestly I kinda wonder how far it can go, like could amphibians work? lizards? solitary hunters? birds?