What the feck is Omegaverse?

Kyler B. Warhol October 09, 2020 Books, Gay, Homoerotic, LGBT, Masculinity, Men, Omegaverse, Yaoi

Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard ) in True Blood S6 finale. More of this and more explicit, please.

Hi there, you guys. ^^ I hope you are doing fine. I've reviewed books of a certain genre several times already, but I just realized I haven't talked about that genre. Maybe there are some people out there wondering what the feck Omegaverse is about, so let's talk a bit about it, shall we?

First of all, what is it, in short? Alter (2020) says that omegaverse:

Emerged about a decade ago, when devotees of the CW drama “Supernatural” began writing stories in which its two lead actors are lovers. One would be the dominant alpha male. The other man would be a feminized omega, often with the ability to become impregnated — a trope known as MPreg. Canine, and then lupine, sex stuff got mixed in.
The premise was wildly popular, and tropes were rapidly adopted by writers in other fandoms, including NBC’s “Hannibal” and MTV’s “Teen Wolf.” The sprawling body of work that followed came to be known as the Omegaverse, with its own rules, plot elements and terminology.

According to Busse (2013), this is where the popular Male Pregnancy (or MPreg) trope, was worn, but it's not present in every single story. How do these men get pregnant? It changes depending on the writer. Another common feature is that the characters, or all the inhabitants of the whole universe, are animal shape-shifters, mostly mammals, wolves, foxes and bears being the favorites.

One friend of mine once said on Facebook that Omegaverse is the perfect excuse to write any story with lots of sex just for the sake of it. This is certaily one of the core aspects of these novels, and it's what readers expect form them, but it's not the only one.

While it as born as a porn kind of fanfiction, it also became a publish-able genre. With Caution by J.L. Langley, is noted as the first commercially-published novel in 2007. We're talking about more than then years in the market. I myself have read and reviewed some books on this genre, there is even one in my favorite books so far in 2020. If you want some details, I recommend you read Alexandra Alter's article in the New York Times.

So is it a valid genre? Yep. Is it just porn? More like porn with plot and substance. Can anyone write it? In theory, yeah, you only need a good story, just like for any other fiction book. Will it ever become real? We may never know. While I seriously doubt anyone would try to genetically manipulate humans, like in Colette Davison's Run Free, I'd rather think it won't happen.

Have you read something in this genre? Do you like it? What do you think about it? ^^ Let me know in the comments.

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