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What is Omegaverse?
The Omegaverse is a universe where people have what is called a secondary gender, or dynamic. Those secondary genders are alpha, omega, beta, and sometimes delta. These secondary genders typically result in characters having different reproductive organs based off of their secondary genders.
This document is meant to explain some of the broader strokes of Omegaverse, the common tropes, and structure, as well as common words and their meaning. Omegaverse is less a shared universe and more a base concept that has expanded and grown over the years. As such, this document is by no means completely exhaustive of every omegaverse trope. This is also by no means the only way an omegaverse story could work, and there are hundreds of personal headcanons or subtropes that may directly contradict the information in this document. There is simply no way to include every author’s personal interpretation and this document is not an authority on Omegaverse. This is merely meant to be an introductory guide for people new to the trope, or those who have only seen the NSFW examples.
Please also note that while this doc is extensive, to be considered an Omegaverse story to most people the sections relating to Dynamics (specifically Alpha/Beta/Omega), Mating Cycles, Scents/Pheromones, and Bonds are essential elements. How exactly those elements blend together to create the world, and how said world affects the characters, is up to the author. This can and will vary between fandoms. This doc is an introduction and a general explanation. It may also be beneficial to search Omegaverse stories in your preferred fandom or ask for recommendations from a friend, to see how the information in this doc may translate to a fic.
Fandom Etiquette
In the course of this document, we have chosen to use the phrase “Omegaverse” instead of A/B/O, even though many people may recognize that abbreviation of Alpha/Beta/Omega more readily. This is because in recent years it has been pointed out the A/B/O with and especially, without, the slashes is a slur used against Native Australians. And while that is obviously not what anyone is referring to when discussing Omegaverse AUs, there has been a conscious choice in fandom to switch how we refer to the AU. Not everyone is aware of said change, or the reasons for it.