General Fandom Stats: Characters Tagged With Alpha/Beta/Omega on AO3

[forestsofpine]

An Army friend of mine sent me this tweet this morning knowing that I like fandom stats. It's a reaction to this TikTok video. I thought it was hilarious that all seven members of BTS are among the characters most often tagged as omega on AO3, and was immediately curious to see what the corresponding alpha list looked like. (Spoiler: all seven members of BTS are ALSO among the characters most often tagged as alpha on AO3. 😂)

Toastystats has done some omegaverse stats in the past, but none very recently, so I decided to see what the current picture looks like. I decided to re-do the same omega tag search as the TikTok OP to make sure I had the latest data, and to check the alpha and beta character tags as well. However, I'm not a statistician or anything, so there's no fancy graphs.

Here's what I found:



Methodology

I used AO3's tag search, and searched canonical Freeform tags for the terms "alpha", "omega", and "beta", then skimmed the list manually and picked out every alpha or omega character tag with more than 500 works tagged, and every beta character tag with more than 100 works tagged. I excluded a few tags such as "Alpha John" that didn't specify which John.

Because I did it manually and was skimming fairly quickly, it's possibly I might have missed a few - if you notice any omissions, let me know in comments!

It has also been my experience that the number of works listed in the tag search results isn't always the same as the number when you visit the actual tag page. I didn't compare the number of works listed on the tag pages, so it's possible that some characters might have been over- or under-counted as a result of this quirk.

A quick note re: Teen Wolf and possibly other werewolf canons: The Alpha Derek and Alpha Stiles tags seem to be synned to Pack Alpha Derek and Pack Alpha Stiles in AO3's system, which makes it basically impossible to tell which are omegaverse fics based on the Alpha Character tags alone, vs which are just standard canon werewolf pack dynamics. However, there are Omegaverse Omega Derek and Omegaverse Omega Stiles tags, which for some strange reason showed up as having 6 and 68 works respectively on the tag search results. I thought this was weird enough to click through on. Sure enough, the actual number when I looked at the tag page was 290 for Derek and 1688 for Stiles. The other Teen Wolf characters with Omegaverse Omega tags also had some suspiciously low numbers in the tag search results. I didn't include Teen Wolf data in the table below since I'm not sure what's going on there.

Data

Characters marked with a single asterick (*) are on two lists. Characters marked with double astericks (**) are on all three.

Data was collected September 29, 2023.

Characters tagged with alpha/beta/omega on AO3

Rank	Alpha Characters	Number of Works	Omega Characters	Number of Works	Beta Characters	Number of Works
1	Alpha Jeon Jungkook**	7476	Omega Park Jimin (BTS)**	5498	Beta Jung Hoseok | J-Hope**	1156
2	Alpha Bakugou Katsuki*	4481	Omega Midoriya Izuku**	4782	Beta Kim Seokjin | Jin**	804
3	Alpha Kim Namjoon | RM**	4113	Omega Kim Taehyung | V**	3621	Beta Kim Taehyung | V**	759
4	Alpha Min Yoongi | Suga**	3906	Omega Jeon Jungkook**	3213	Beta Min Yoongi | Suga**	482
5	Alpha Steve Rogers*	3110	Omega Tony Stark*	2924	Beta Park Jimin (BTS)**	453
6	Alpha Kim Taehyung | V**	2803	Omega Min Yoongi | Suga**	2791	Beta Kim Namjoon | RM**	355
7	Alpha Jung Hoseok | J-Hope**	2258	Omega Kim Seokjin | Jin**	2688	Beta Jeon Jungkook**	332
8	Alpha Bucky Barnes**	2148	Omega Bakugou Katsuki*	2678	Beta Sero Hanta	192
9	Alpha Park Jimin (BTS)**	1999	Omega Jason Todd*	2002	Beta Kim Seungmin (Stray Kids)	190
10	Alpha Kirishima Eijirou*	1738	Omega Dean Winchester*	1774	Beta Midoriya Izuku**	168
11	Alpha Kim Seokjin | Jin**	1637	Omega Will Graham	1585	Beta Uraraka Ochako	162
12	Alpha Midoriya Izuku**	1598	Omega Bucky Barnes**	1574	Beta Kirishima Eijirou*	155
13	Alpha Dean Winchester*	1584	Omega Steve Rogers*	1454	Beta Alfred Pennyworth	150
14	Alpha Hannibal Lecter*	1437	Omega Kim Namjoon | RM**	1286	Beta Kaminari Denki*	139
15	Alpha Todoroki Shouto**	1321	Omega Louis Tomlinson*	1251	Beta Tim Drake*	132
16	Alpha Castiel (Supernatural)*	1291	Omega Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn	1217	Beta Bucky Barnes**	131
17	Alpha Harry Styles*	1241	Omega Harry Potter*	1194	Beta Bruce Banner	129
18	Alpha Tony Stark*	1233	Omega Katsuki Yuuri	1160	Beta Clint Barton	129
19	Alpha Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī	1144	Omega Peter Parker	1120	Beta Hwang Hyunjin	128
20	Alpha Victor Nikiforov	1077	Omega Dick Grayson*	1017	Beta Todoroki Shouto**	118
21	Alpha Bruce Wayne*	1043	Omega Jung Hoseok | J-Hope**	1015	Beta Hunk (Voltron)	117
22	Alpha Dick Grayson*	957	Omega Todoroki Shouto**	998	Beta Han Jisung | Han	116
23	Alpha Sam Winchester*	952	Omega Steve Harrington	903	Beta Ashido Mina	115
24	Alpha Jason Todd*	899	Omega Keith (Voltron)	890	Beta Niall Horan	108
25	Alpha Robin Buckley	788	Omega Tim Drake*	882	Beta Yang Jeongin | I.N	107
26	Alpha Louis Tomlinson*	775	Omega Eren Yeager	841	Beta Sam Wilson	106
27	Alpha Bang Chan (Stray Kids)	718	Omega Kaminari Denki*	791
28	Alpha Shinsou Hitoshi	641	Omega Harry Styles*	776
29	Alpha Gojo Satoru	628	Omega Lee Felix (Stray Kids)	754
30	Alpha Harry Potter* ‎	599	Omega Obi-Wan Kenobi	753
31	Alpha Kuroo Tetsurou	557	Omega Lance (Voltron)	703
32	Alpha Iwaizumi Hajime	551	Omega Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead	678
33	Alpha Seo Changbin	525	Omega Bruce Wayne*	624
34	Alpha Lee Minho | Lee Know	523	Omega Draco Malfoy	624
35	Alpha Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen	520	Omega Nancy Wheeler	609
36	Alpha Ben Solo	519	Omega Jaskier | Dandelion	578
37			Omega Castiel (Supernatural)*	573
38			Omega Itadori Yuuji	568
39			Omega Hinata Shouyou	556
40			Omega Lucerys Velaryon (Son of Rhaenyra)	549
41			Omega Oikawa Tooru	540
42			Omega Rey (Star Wars)	519
43			Omega Sam Winchester*	506
44			Omega Hannibal Lecter*	502

L to R: Jungkook, Jimin, and J-Hope of BTS, the #1 alpha, #1 omega, and #1 beta on AO3, respectively

I thought it was fun to see which characters have fandoms with firm ideas about their omegaverse designations and which ones can't make up their minds.

Multitalented guys that they are, it turned out that all seven members of BTS were not only in the top 21 characters tagged as omegas, but also in the top 11 characters tagged as alphas, plus they made up all seven of the top seven characters tagged as betas.

Okay, I lied. ONE fancy graph:

It's safe to say their prominance in the results is partly just due to the sheer size of the BTS fandom: more than 210,000 works total, and more than 15,000 works tagged as omegaverse on AO3, more than any other fandom.

However, BTS also has a rather high percentage of omegaverse fics relative to the total number of fics in the fandom. About 7.0% of the total number of BTS fics are omegaverse, compared to 3.9% for Boku no Hero Academia (2nd highest total number of omegaverse fics), 2.7% for Supernatural (3rd), and 1.8% for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (4th). I was curious if a high percentage of omegaverse works might be a trend in RPF, but One Direction and Stray Kids, which both also had multiple members in the table above, were at 4.2% and 4.5% omegaverse, respectively. Even Supernatural RPF, where omegaverse originated, was lower than BTS at 5.2%.

I didn't check the percentage for every canon represented in these lists, but I did find at least one with a higher percentage of omegaverse fics than BTS. I was impressed that Aemond and Lucerys from HBO's House of the Dragon made it onto the lists already despite being from a fairly new canon, and found that the HoTD fandom is currently almost 8.4% omegaverse works on AO3.

Besides the tannies, other characters who appeared on all three lists included:

• Bucky Barnes (Marvel)
• Midoriya Izuku (BNHA)
• Todoroki Shouto (BNHA)

Characters who appeared on both alpha and omega lists included:

• Bakugou Katsuki (BNHA)
• Bruce Wayne (DC)
• Castiel (Supernatural)
• Dean Winchester (Supernatural)
• Dick Grayson (DC)
• Hannibal Lecter (Hannibal)
• Harry Potter (Harry Potter)
• Harry Styles (One Direction)
• Jason Todd (DC)
• Louis Tomlinson (One Direction)
• Sam Winchester (Supernatural)
• Steve Rogers (Marvel)
• Tony Stark (Marvel)

Kirishima Eijirou (BHNA) was the only character to appear on both alpha and beta lists, and Kaminari Denki (BHNA) and Tim Drake (DC) were the only characters to appear on both omega and beta lists.

Characters who appeared only on the alpha list included:

• Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen (House of the Dragon)
• Bang Chan (Stray Kids)
• Ben Solo (Star Wars)
• Gojo Satoru (Jujutsu Kaisen)
• Iwaizumi Hajime (Haikyuu!!)
• Kuroo Tetsurou (Haikyuu!!)
• Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī (MDZS) - top ranked character to appear only on the alpha list
• Lee Minho | Lee Know (Stray Kids)
• Robin Buckley (Stranger Things)
• Seo Changbin (Stray Kids)
• Shinsou Hitoshi (BNHA)
• Victor Nikiforov (Yuri on Ice)

Characters who appeared only on the omega list included:

• Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead (BNHA)
• Eren Yeager (Attack on Titan)
• Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter)
• Hinata Shouyou (Haikyuu!!)
• Itadori Yuuji (Jujutsu Kaisen)
• Jaskier | Dandelion (The Witcher)
• Katsuki Yuuri (Yuri on Ice)
• Keith (Voltron)
• Lance (Voltron)
• Lee Felix (Stray Kids)
• Lucerys Velaryon (House of the Dragon)
• Nancy Wheeler (Stranger Things)
• Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars)
• Oikawa Tooru (Haikyuu!!)
• Peter Parker (Marvel)
• Rey (Star Wars)
• Steve Harrington (Stranger Things)
• Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn (MDZS)
• Will Graham (Hannibal) - top ranked character to appear only on the omega list

Characters who appeared only on the beta list included:

• Alfred Pennyworth (DC)
• Ashido Mina (BNHA)
• Bruce Banner (Marvel)
• Clint Barton (Marvel)
• Han Jisung | Han (Stray Kids)
• Hunk (Voltron)
• Hwang Hyunjin (Stray Kids)
• Kim Seungmin (Stray Kids)
• Niall Horan (One Direction)
• Sam Wilson (Marvel)
• Sero Hanta (BNHA) - top ranked character to appear only on the beta list
• Uraraka Ochako (BNHA)
• Yang Jeongin | I.N (Stray Kids)

Were there any surprises for you in the data? Any character whose most popular omegaverse designation you disagree with?

Comments

[shipperslist]

Ahh, interesting stats! I'm very fond of omegaverse and it's one of the first tags I check out in a new fandom right after the canon divergence tag.
(I honestly would've thought Clint/Coulson would be there but nope.)

[forestsofpine]

I'm a little bit picky about omegaverse, but with the right combination of elements, it's very fun (and/or very hot!) and I'm definitely always browsing the tag for more that hit the spot. I realized as I was putting this together that I've read at least one omegaverse fic for almost all the fandoms mentioned in this post, even the ones where I know nothing about the canon. 😂

[adore]

thank you for your service :D this is fascinating stuff. the bts graph didn't exactly surprise me, although jk's alpha bar is hella high. the percentage of omegaverse fic in BTS ficdom made me go 'whoa' and i'm also wondering whether jimin often being written as omega has any relation to jimin often being written as a sex worker. it's interesting to see patterns in the way they're headcannoned in ficdom.

[forestsofpine]

House of the Dragon being so high didn't surprise me, since it's based on a canon where characters are so focused on getting heirs and omegaverse means your favorite slash ship can marry and participate in that, too, but I was surprised by how high the percentage of omegaverse fic was for BTS. I wonder why it's so popular there?

[adore]

but I was surprised by how high the percentage of omegaverse fic was for BTS. I wonder why it's so popular there?

Although omegaverse sprouted in Supernatural fandom EXO fandom popularised omegaverse in non-western fandom after they released 'Wolf'. I suppose it made its way into other k-pop RPF from there, and BTS being the most popular k-pop fandom, one thing led to another?

[forestsofpine]

I didn't know Wolf was the catalyst, that's great. 😆 Reminds me of the big explosion of vampire fic in the Fall Out Boy fandom after the MV for A Little Less Sixteen Candles, a Little More "Touch Me" came out.