Okay big text post incoming on being disordered in verse and how more writers should explore disability and chronic illnesses and mental illnesses in verse.
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I wanna explore the idea of how allergies carry over with scents, because a lot of stuff (specifically omegaverse) talks about being able to taste people’s scents (usually ones you’re really attracted to like your mates) but like…what about allergies?
Say someone has a mango allergy and they go on a date with someone who ends up having a mango scent, would it cause a reaction?
In my mind they DO carry over but it’s like a milder version of it. I like to think that in verse allergy tests are done by seeing if you’re allergic to a specific scent (for things like food) because it’s a controlled and safer way of discovering an allergy.
But also in my mind I like to think that this lead to legislation being created in the digital age, first making it mandatory for dating apps to have an optional section where you can disclose scent and then making it law to disclose your scent on dating apps when it was discovered that long term and close up exposure to a scent that you are allergic to can cause immune system damage.
But this also makes it something that I’d like to explore in terms of someone having MCAS (like I do), and maybe them having to explain to a partner that they aren’t allergic to their scent it’s a spontaneous reaction (something that happens in MCAS a lot) or having to turn down really nice people because they developed a new allergy to that persons scent.
I think more verse creators should explore disability and chronic illnesses in their writings because it makes it a lot more inclusive and a lot more realistic. I think it’s totally realistic to think that there would be autoimmune conditions specifically relating to one’s secondary sex. I want more people to explore that. The verse is still human beings, even in hybrid settings. It’s unrealistic to decide no one is disabled or chronically ill.
And also how scents react with certain disorders. For example someone with BPD, can people who are really close to them identify a split by their scent? Or someone with DID, does alters taking front change their scent slightly can alters present with differing secondary sex characteristics?
People who have seizures or migraines with auras, do the auras present as scent changes as well? Can people around them identify an attack based on that?
I just think it would be so much better to explore verse whilst thinking about the disabled and disordered. Thinking about how secondary sex would impact / interact with conditions, medications, medical care. Like I want to see myself represented in verse, yes omegaverse is a fictional world but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it feel realistic.