Omegaverse Lawsuit Part 2: YouTube Harassment Boogalo

[zoaster_toaster]

Click to view

Following her September video about the wild lawsuit over copyright of wolf porn fanfic, YouTuber Lindsay Ellis shares her personal experience of how author Addison Cain went full Barbara Streisand/Chris Pratt effect on Ellis and the ensuing chaos. OP recommends watching the whole video (this time with less cringey fanfic readings) because it's

Comments

[shayme]

How does Omegaverse even work with het fic? I know in gay a/b/o the male Omega has the "female" characteristics like getting wet, having babies, breastfeeding, etc... So, what makes female omegas different than normal women?

[zoaster_toaster]

From what I gathered from the original omegaverse video, apparently when women omegas "go into heat", it's super obvious and extra.

[shayme]

...why

[zoaster_toaster]

[irajaxon]

why did i just picture mandrils in my head, WHY

[joe_pwnz_pete]

In the majority of fics, there's "omega" women and "beta" women. The "betas" in society are either naturally infertile or forced to be that way via chemical/magical means (sometimes they go a different route and say that the betas can only "breed" with each other). The "omegas" are the ones that are designated "breeding stock" for the "alphas" because they are naturally fertile with specific "heat cycles" that can be taken advantage of for breeding purposes.

[zoaster_toaster]

JFC the fuckery of all this.

[joe_pwnz_pete]

Yeah, I had someone in the last post about this accusing me of essentially throwing a misogyny blanket over the whole genre ("but it's written by WOMEN for WOMEN" like ok that doesn't make it feminist or free from criticism or cringe?) so I did a deeper dive on it than I had done before and... well...

It only gets worse from there!

[zoaster_toaster]

Internalized misogyny is a helluva drug.

[joe_pwnz_pete]

Oh and I forgot about the fics where there's only "omega" women so it's just an even more extreme form of reducing people down to their biological parts.

[bluestoplights]

tbh there are a lot of deeply troubling tropes in fanfic communities, esp erotic ones, that always get brushed under the rug because it's "by women for women". the fact that "dubious consent" is a) a term that even exists, dubious consent is rape and b) is so common in fic is...........that's not even looking at the long list of other tropes - including weird a/b/o shit - that are pretty fucked up.

[joe_pwnz_pete]

It's truly wild and a huge reason I got out of fanfiction in general is because of how prevalent this kind of fic became. It used to be in separate communities (I still remember as a teen having to go read HP erotic fanfiction on a different age-restricted site bc ff.net wouldn't host them!) which maybe wasn't the best? But there was more of a divide between it.

Now it feels like a lot more of the fanfic out there is... extremely problematic. That's not to say problematic and fanfiction never went hand-in-hand, but just... it feels like fanfiction is being used as an outlet for... different types of the same feelings now.

[bluestoplights]

i feel like it's almost the same effect of mainstream porn where you have to go more hardcore/taboo in order to get the same level of feedback. except instead of step-sibling porn it's, uh, wolf porn or master/slave dynamics or whatever other weird shit exists out there. i mean it's erotica so it doesn't have the same implications of possible harm and exploitation that mainstream porn does, but popularizing some pretty harmful tropes is still shitty.

there were several fics in fandoms that i grew up in that were really popular and also just deeply fucked up with how they portrayed some m/f relationships and the way they framed consent was ????????? uh. any pushback to this, though, was always met with "stop kinkshaming!" or how about you stop posting misogynistic rape apologism, rebecca!!!! i mean by all means if you want to post kinky shit go for it, just please don't glamorize abuse ffs.

[joe_pwnz_pete]

yes! i hate the idea that women haven't also been hugely affected by mainstream porn because you KNOW we have been. like i'm not one to yuck someone else's yum but there was this same argument when 50 Shades came out like "just let people like what they like" and like no! i refuse to let people think that these are the be-all end-all of erotica when they model super unhealthy and toxic sexual relationships! it doesn't get a pass like all other problematic erotica written for and by women over the decades just because it comes from a place of fandom! we can criticize it all, baby!

demand better from your erotica! stop excusing everything with "it's a fantasy" and "stop infantilizing women for their sexual desires, women know how to draw the line" when it's clear that the vast majority of erotic fanfic has gotten HUGELY problematic and uncomfortable for people who are not wholly involved in the genre to read.

[bluestoplights]

go off!!!!

also we know damn well that fantasies do impact sexual dynamics IRL - look at the impact porn has had on sexual relationships today. the same kind of research doesn't exist for erotica, but i highly doubt the popularization of sex without consent or shitty abusers that are "romantic" exists in a vacuum, even if it is on AO3 instead of pornhub. it doesn't involve sex workers so it doesn't present the same possible scale of harm, but harmful tropes are still harmful. fandom should be able to self-examine and criticize itself.

[schmankerl]

I don't have a lot of experience with fanfiction, I got into it when I was a teenager and mostly read only stuff for one fandom, but in hindsight it makes me feel honestly bad just how prevalent terrible, abusive relationships were. And not just in regards to the quantity of what was being published, but in particular because like 90% of the most popular stories had the main male character be an absolute pos, both in general and in particular in regards to how he treated the woman (who was usually a big Mary Sue, perfect and beautiful and talented, but also constantly trying to help and support the main character (who was portrayed as a terrible person in every way), making all kinds of sacrifices for him while he was constantly abusive towards her