Problem is, I'd have to research the specific physiological effects of certain hormones.

[magibrain]

...I find myself vaguely wanting to write A/B/O fic, except less with sex and more with navigating tricky power dynamics and slews of body dysphoria, and with a heavily tweaked version of the whole A/B/O premise.

(Basically, the idea in my brain is that Alpha, Beta and Omega are just psychophysical modes people operate in, and while people tend to have "baseline" modes that they operate in for long stretches – sometimes even their entire lives – people can switch from mode to mode in response to various physical or psychological stimuli. Like, a baseline beta might find themselves going omega or alpha after a major trauma, for example. And there would be drugs and such which could affect what mode people operated in. Plus, while the modes would have specific physiological effects – people operating in alpha mode might have overactive adrenal glands and produce more testosterone, while people operating in omega mode would experience heat and all its attendant fun – it would only affect personality in as much as, say, gayness does. In that there would be a ton of stereotypes and there would be established cultures which people might or might not do any social commerce with, and aside from that, it's not really something you could tell by looking at someone.)

(...though you could probably tell it by scent. Because that seems to be a thing?)

(Also, people would be able to resist physical urges, with varying degrees of difficulty from "I am having this strong craving right now!" to "I am experiencing this with the intensity of an addiction." And there would probably be a lot of discussion on medical and political stages about that.)

I don't know. I've read a grand total of two A/B/O fics in my life – feels like the start of something and The toppiest girl in the school, and ironically neither of them is for a fandom I'm actually in – and I feel like this may just be a continuation of my picking at the assumed conventions of tropes I don't actually write or read (see also), which always makes me feel a little weird. But I feel like, given some of the discussion in the prompt thread for feels like the start of something, it might be a weird little space to explore which other people are also interested in seeing explored. And it does seem like there's a healthy movement in A/B/O writing areas to dissect the heck out of the trope, from what I've read.

Of course, it also doesn't help that I already have way too many other projects clamoring for my attention. Including the one where Neal is stuck on a magical Greyhound for five years.




This is one of the ways you can tell I'm ace. I find tropes that are deeply rooted in kinky sex and then expend considerable time and energy carefully plucking out the sexybits so I can nest in the kinky power dynamics. <_< One of these days I'll write and post my WC OT3 fic and it will be 80,000 words of neither sex nor romance, continuing my trend of OT3 fic which is neither sex nor romance, and everyone will be able to tell me that I'm doing it wrong. AND I WILL LAUGH FROM ATOP MY ASEXY THRONE, I SHALL EAT THE CAKE THAT IS MY BIRTHRIGHT, AND KNOW THAT I AM THE OVERMIND, THE ETERNAL WILL OF THE ACE COMMU – no, wait, that got away from me, sorry.

Comments

[squeemu]

I... haven't read the A/B/O link you provided, so I probably shouldn't be commenting at all, but this reminds me a lot of the spaceship idea you had, where you need to be in a certain mindset to operate different parts of the spaceship? Or... something like that. And you could take hormones to put you in that mindset.

It does look like a really fascinating thing to play with, though. Power dynamicsssss

AND YOU HAVE BEEN CREATED TO SERVE ME CAKE

[magibrain]

Hah. Well, the spaceship thing specifically wasn't mindset, it was identity; that entire braintic came about as a way of trying to contrive a universe where if Word of God said someone was asexual, you couldn't make them not asexual without explicitly going against canon in a major way. ...I mean, if we're thinking about the same spaceship idea. (If not, I have no idea what you're referencing. :P Has it been lost to wherever forgotten braintics go?)

A/B/O is... weird, but interesting, and I would probably be more of an expert on it if it wasn't traditionally a smut trope. It's based in the incorrect (but popularly-known) wolf ethology that says packs are broken up into alphas, betas, and omegas, with alphas at the top and dominating the rest of the pack, while omegas are at the bottom of the heap and more submissive. The genre is basically "humans do that in an explicit and biological way!", which pings on some interesting xenofictive buttons, plus my love of power dynamics. But... again, it's something that I don't read a lot of, because the venerable trope of A/B/O is "omega goes into heat; alphas literally cannot resist mating with an omega in heat; smut and/or drama ensues." Which, this kink is not my kink.

Which is also kinda where approaching it from the point of view that alpha, beta, and omega are modes people operate in comes from, because I find it a lot more interesting than "this person is an alpha; this person is inherently submissive and physiologically more fuckable" and such. (Apparently the first fic of the genre wrote self-lubricating omega anuses into the fanon. Which, y'know, okay, though after some thought I concluded that this was also the sort of thing that could be glandularly controlled – nothing says that you can't just stick that into everyone, and have lubrication controlled by, say, the heat process – and also concluded that this was the kind of detail I would be unlikely ever to need to write out.) (I also kinda twitch at the casual association of lubrication, fuckability, and submissiveness, but considering that almost all I know about a/b/o is from fandom osmosis and not reading actual works in the genre, I don't know how it's actually handled. I could just be skimming the surface conceits and getting all twitchy about them. So rather than rail too much about things I don't fully know about, I'm just going to take the things that interest me and run off to play with them.)



FOR I AM THE QU– well, no, I am not the Queen of Blades, but I'm probably at least a scion of asexual-tinted fanfiction by now. Anyway, chop chop, THE SWARM REQUIRES ITS ACE FICTION, and such.

[squeemu]

I... am not sure if that is the same idea? It definitely involved spaceships choosing the people they worked with, who had to have a certain way of being. I guess. I had thought it was malleable, but maybe I'm getting my ideas mixed up, here. XD Or maybe it really did get lost to time. I do think that it was related to sexual identity, perhaps -- I feel like certain ships responded different to lesbians, pansexuals, asexuals, etc? But I could see it working a similar way with A/B/O -- to be a ship captain, you need to have an A-type personality, and that's how you get the ship to listen to you. (Maybe all ships are programmed to respond as B-type?)

I am... really weirded out at the idea of "omega goes into heat; alphas are overcome in a frenzy of sexual desire!" just because I don't think that's how it works with wolves but WHATEVER. (Also because that kink is also not my kink.)

self-lubricating omega anuses

I don't. I don't even know what to say about this, I just needed to quote it, because there's some kind of response happening. What is it I don't know. It is not good, though.

Although. I'm not sure why omega anuses would need to be lubricated unless the anus was a viable pathway towards reproduction. I mean, conceivably that's the entire purpose of being in heat; announcing to the world that you're ready to have a baby now and YOU'D BETTER DO IT SOON OR YOU'LL MISS YOUR CHANCE AND WE REALLY DON'T WANT TO DIE OUT AS A SPECIES, DO WE FELLAS? Although, you know, I guess you could say the lubricant helped to spread the pheromones that let everyone else know that that particular omega was in heat. Maybe the pheromone glands are at the rectum. /too much thinking about self-lubricating (LUBRICATING, fingers, not replicating, dear lord anuses that self-replicate would be terrifying and impractical) omega anuses

I... honestly thought I had more to say here. Now I regret having spent an entire paragraph talking about anus lubrication. :\

[magibrain]

[just because I don't think that's how it works with wolves but WHATEVER]

Well, to be fair, neither is the alpha/beta/omega ethology, unless you're looking at wolves in nonnatural situations.


[Although. I'm not sure why omega anuses would need to be lubricated unless the anus was a viable pathway towards reproduction.]

Squeem, Squeem, Squeem. This is fandom. I'm honestly surprised you think there's a problem here.

To quote from the Fanlore A/B/O page:

Omegas are generally lowest on the hierarchy (although in some fanworks Omegas are rare and prized). Male Omegas are self-lubricating and have the ability to become pregnant, sometimes referred to as being bred or mated. Lovers may form pair-bonds with a special connection with telepathic or empathetic qualities. Paired Alphas may be jealous and possessive of their mate, while the Omega may become submissive. Omegas and Alphas may go into heat and need to have sex; this may be the only time Omegas are fertile.

...and, you know, I could imagine an evolutionary advantage for anal lubrication (...I cannot believe I just typed those words) for penetrative sex, because sex in several mammal species (including humans) isn't exclusively reproductive. Maybe it just comes out of the bonobo school of social bonding through sexual activity. Granted, that is also not heat's function in mammals, but, uh... no, I think I'm done devil's-advocating. I don't need to come up with something to follow that "but".

I was going to track down the original author post discussing whether or not to warn for self-lubricating anuses, which included some very tangential references to biological function, but now I can't find it. I think the comm it was posted in locked the prompts post down. Oh, well.


[I feel like certain ships responded different to lesbians, pansexuals, asexuals, etc?]

I had a braintic where certain people had to meet certain criteria in order to perform certain functions on these alien ships – like, the navigator had to be asexual, the captain had to be poly-leaning because they had to be able to form a number of intimate bonds with people in various positions, etc.?