Spotlight on Omegas at AO3

Omegas are the glue that holds us all together, providing the essential social lubricant needed for our society to function—and yet they are often maligned and treated as lesser-than. This April, we are changing part of our logo to highlight omegas as part of our commitment to the inclusion and wellbeing of our omega volunteers and users.

We believe that visibility is important. As we post this, we’re home to over 2,900 omega characters and counting. AO3 is one of the only spaces online where omegas are in the limelight, and we are proud to offer this safe space.

Volunteers at the OTW are never required to state their designations, though many choose to do so. Regardless of their decision or subgender, we aim to support our volunteers to the best of our ability; our policies on short breaks and hiatuses are written to help volunteers maintain their privacy and focus on their needs. Here are some words from our volunteers on the subject:

  • “As someone in a leadership position at the OTW I have always felt supported by my fellow volunteers in all matters relating to my designation. Going on break regularly is a non-issue because my alpha chair assistants hold down the nest without taking advantage of my absence, and the only comments I get from my committee are people asking whether I’ve had enough rest when I return.” — Choux, Communications Chair (Ω)
  • “Everyone gets to shine as a volunteer here, because our diverse leadership brings invaluable insight. I’m proud to volunteer for the OTW, this being one of many reasons.” — orphan_account, Support Volunteer (β)
  • “Fandom unites us in a way that transcends bounds. I’m incredibly proud to be a part of an organization that champions its volunteers regardless of subgender, with no tolerance for alpha posturing.” — Tal, Tag Wrangling Supervisor (α)
  • “As an older omega, it is a rare thing to find a volunteer community so consistently supportive. Three years of service, and the whole OTW has always had my back.” — Remi, OTW Tumblr Mod (Ω)

As part of this commitment, our Tag Wrangling Committee recently canonized several tags to better represent experiences had by people of all subgenders! Here are some our omega volunteers have chosen to highlight:

Finally, a word from our Board President:

Dear gentlebeings at AO3, on this serendipitous day of 2026, the Board of Directors are pleased to announce that:

All our volunteers have enjoyed perfect health of body, and tranquillity of mind; we don’t feel the treachery or insecurity of omegas in heat, nor the possessiveness or aggression of alphas in ruts. We have no occasion of bribing, lubricating, or alphasplaining, to procure the favour of any great omega, or of their beta and alpha supporters. We don’t need protection against dishonesty or oppression: there is neither insurance company to destroy our health, nor politician to ruin our equal rights movement; no reporter to watch our words and actions, or forge accusations against us for our designations.

Gracefully yours,

Anh Pham
President of the OTW Board of Directors (Ω)


Happy April Fools! On this day and every other day of the year, AO3 is proud to host all your efforts towards making omegas just that little bit more real! To celebrate, we’ve changed our site header superscript to “omega” instead of the usual “beta”. If you’d like to learn more, you can visit the Fanlore article on the topic.

Spotlight
  1. C commented:

    Okay but can someone work on a site skin that keeps the omega superscript? Please and thank you?

    • Rosie commented:

      I would also love to have an “omega” skin for AO3 (or if it’s omega, should it be AO4? 🤔) anyways! If you do, I’m sure many would like an “alpha” one also!

      • M commented:

        It’s basically the same as the one I made for the omega one, but here’s one for alpha:

        #header .heading sup {
        display: none;
        }

        #header .heading span::after {
        content: “alpha”;
        vertical-align: super;
        line-height: 0;
        font-size: 0.583em;
        font-style: italic;
        }

    • Noelle (Omega trust) commented:

      NO SAME!!

    • M commented:

      This should do it:

      #header .heading sup {
      display: none;
      }

      #header .heading span::after {
      content: “omega”;
      vertical-align: super;
      line-height: 0;
      font-size: 0.583em;
      font-style: italic;
      }

      • Gabriella commented:

        Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to work!

        Sorry! We couldn’t save this skin because:
        content in #header .heading span::after cannot have the value “omega”, sorry!

        • M commented:

          I have no idea why this doesn’t work, but just hit “Submit” anyways, then, now that it’s already submitted, hit edit and manually type –

          content: “omega”;


          on the line after –

          #header .heading span::after {


          Because doing that seems to let it work, for some reason

          • raidark commented:

            Is there a way to have both the omega and the reversi dark skin working at the same time?

          • OTW News Post Moderation commented:

            Hello,

            To get omega to appear in the header, you’ll need to create a script to add it that works with the reversi skin.

            Hope this helps!

            Best,
            Joey
            OTW News Post Moderator

      • M commented:

        genderenaissance’s solution below is actually a better way of implementing this overall, so I’m going to recommend people use their’s over mine

    • genderenaissance commented:

      #header .heading sup {
      visibility: hidden;
      }

      #header .heading sup::before {
      content: “omega”;
      visibility: visible;
      }

      can change omega to any other word- only hurdle is to make sure the ” are straight characters (not 66-99 but 11-11 if that makes sense) when copypasting into skin editor, otherwise the program won’t accept it. taken form @ao3skins on tumblr

    • Otter commented:

      Omg yes pleeeeeeeease!!!!

  2. B commented:

    LMAOAOOAAOAOAOAOOA I’M DEADDDDDD

  3. thisnewjoe commented:

    Loving these shenanigans!!

  4. Em commented:

    ♡♡♡

  5. Sunlight commented:

    This is adorable and so funny. As an omega and a longtime Ao3 fan, thank you all for your hard work and for making a safe space for everyone – omegas or otherwise <3 love you Ao3 mod team sending you all virtual thank u cards

  6. Dianne DeSha commented:

    😂😂😂