#(one is going to happen for Alois Flitmouse as well in Underline the Gold)

[not-poignant]

Hi! I've spent this whole week binge-reading all of the Underline the Rainbow series and I'm obsessed. Thank You for creating this incredible world!

Sorry if these are questions you've answered before somewhere but I'm really curious about female Omegas and Alphas, especially in relation to Hillview's sister-site that was mentioned briefly.

Firstly, seeing as knotting and penetration are a big part of how Omegas manage heats, does this mean that female Alphas aren't able to consummate heats effectively? (If so, I imagine this would be a big source of insecurity for female Alphas who are attracted to Omegas!) Are female Alphas still able to create claim bonds?

I was also wondering what the reasoning is between having the different sites be segregated by primary sex in this way. Why was the decision made to have a separate sister-site specifically for female Omegas instead of having Hillview accept all Omegas regardless of primary sex?

Hallooooo!

I'm so so glad you're enjoying the series! :D

So, when it comes to women alphas and alphas who have uteruses, I am actually undecided on if they also have pseudococks or not at this point, but we do know from the worldbuilding that we absolutely don't need knotting or penetration to actually solve a heat.

The thing that matters most is an alpha's pheromones - and this is actually seen literally within Underline the Black, when Gary's closeness, his saliva, his pheromones, are the thing that resolves Efnisien's agonising, corrupted heat. So we've seen 'don't need knotting or penetration to solve a heat' actually play out within the story.

Temsen makes it very clear that if Gary had provided solid closeness, touch, and intervention earlier, Efnisien would never have needed to go through so much pain.

We also see in Underline the Blue that where Nate assumes he'll need a lot more penetration and knotting to get through his heat, Janusz demonstrates that a lot of the time he just needs closeness and pheromones, towards the end getting Nate to scent him, which calms him down better than a knot and actually finishes his heat much faster. So while the knotting in that circumstance absolutely helped, it was the pheromones that soothed and ended the heat the fastest.

In fact Nate will have to unlearn the idea that 'lots of penetrative sex and knotting' is what solves a heat, this is what Christian brainwashed him to believe. Janusz is already demonstrating that closeness, genuine intimacy, trust and safety, and the right pheromones, go a really long way to making heats pass as smoothly as possible. (The semen helps a lot, but that can be ingested, and applies in other ways, and likewise, alpha women secretions can be the same).

I'm certain that when it comes to most f/f pairings etc. the same thing applies regardless of what's going on between their legs (it is common in many omegaverse stories for women alphas to also have cocks or pseudococks and knots / pseudoknots. Since this isn't relevant at all for me in Underline I've never really sat down and kind of made it official either way, but we do know that all alphas can resolve a heat for an omega without knotting/penetration. I'm pretty certain women alphas / alphas with uteruses have zero insecurities re: bonding with omegas, or helping them through their heats. They'd have more insecurity over the fact that it's extremely hard for them to get pregnant.

In fact, if resolving a heat was as easy as knotting/penetration and had nothing to do with pheromones, omegas could resolve their own heats without needing alphas at all, and they could just use sex toys and knotting dildos, and this world doesn't work that way. Though other omegaverse worlds do.)

Are female Alphas still able to create claim bonds?

Women alphas and alphas with uteruses have literally no reason why they couldn't! It has nothing to do with genitalia and everything to do with alpha pheromones, just being alphas means they have the right pheromones to create claim bonds.

I was also wondering what the reasoning is between having the different sites be segregated by primary sex in this way.

In a word: Pregnancy.

Alphas and omegas are hyperfertile with one another. It's pregnancy. The risk is just too high. There are no ORFs on the planet - both the decent ones and the dystopian ones, that allow for mixed sex pairings because the pregnancy risk is just too high. Condoms aren't built to handle like...the semen load / repeated knotting etc. and have an extremely high fail rate and there's no contraception that works reliably for omegas in general (this is actually also why many alpha/omega pairings are same sex in general).

But yeah it's not very professional to send your partner to a rehabilitation facility and then have them get repeatedly pregnant while there, so instead all ORFs deal with the pregnancy risk this way instead, and that way there's absolutely zero risk of this happening. This is also why all the other attending staff at Hillview who are alphas are also male (like Temsen and Dr Gary), to completely erase the risk. (They don't worry about betas because they just...don't, lmao (that's good old beta bigotry)).

I hope that helps :D