#but they're rarely induced by fake claiming

[cccat-in-a-meat-sack]

NPD + DID culture is actively hoping we get posted to r/syscringe or r/fdc because tHE AMOUNT OF SUPPLY THAT WOULD BRING OH MY GOD

[anonymous-dee]

LiuShen Omegaverse Scenario

Okay, a Scum Villain AU has been brewing in my head and I need to share it with the class.

So basically Shen Qingqiu is an Omega who has to disguise himself as an Alpha in order to fit in with the rest of the peak lords. In order to be eligible to become a peak lord, you have to be an Alpha, and thus all of the other peak lords are Alphas. When Shen Qingqiu transmigrated, he realized that the original goods had been hiding his status as an Omega the entire time, and just continued doing it for the sake of his image (and to avoid political drama of course)

So of course, this means that whenever Shen Qingqiu goes into heat, he secludes himself inside the Bamboo House to suffer through them on his own. Even though this is detrimental for his health, he would rather die (again) than out himself, and he would rather die TWICE than to leave the mountain and find an Alpha who would be willing to help him. Yeah. NO.

So basically, one time while Shen Qingqiu is going through his heat, Liu Qingge shows up unexpectedly for one reason or another. He senses something is off with Shen Qingqiu, but it doesn't click for him what's going on at first. That's when Shen Qingqiu realizes that Liu Qingge is not an Alpha.

He's a Beta.

As a Beta, Liu Qingge gets the faintest whiff of Shen Qingqiu's pheromones; because the scent is so light, it takes him a hot minute to realize that they're coming from SQQ. Shen Qingqiu is surprised to learn that Liu Qingge is also hiding his identity and pretending to front as an Alpha, but this also spawns a reluctant thought in his Heat-induced brain.

Maybe Liu Qingge could...help?

He dismisses it at first and is actively trying to get Liu Qingge to LEAVE, but the more adamant he acts, the more Liu Qingge gets suspicious/worried for his health. So finally, Shen Qingqiu makes the impulsive decision to awkwardly ask Liu Qingge for help.

It should be fine, since he's a Beta and not an Alpha. Shen Qingqiu would never ask an Alpha for help. Betas are more gentle and they have better control over their instincts. Liu Qingge is freaking out a little, of course, because he's never done anything intimate before, but also still wants to help Shen Qingqiu through his heat.

So he does, but of course things don't go as planned. In the deepest throes of their passionate love making, Liu Qingge accidentally marks Shen Qingqiu. Now, the mark of a Beta isn't as powerful as the mark of an Alpha, BUT STILL.

Shen Qingqiu is FUCKED. He's freaking out, because "Holy shit, you fucking marked me! This is what I was trying to avoid! Everyone is going to find out that I'm an Omega!" And Liu Qingge is freaking out because "Holy shit, I marked him. I fucked up. I fucked up really bad."

So their solution? They clumsily form the idea to fake a bonding ceremony and pretend to be fated mates. Two Alphas being fated mates is relatively rare, so the two of them can use this as an excuse for why it took so long for them to "notice the spark." One Beta and one Omega pretending to be two Alphas in a functioning relationship and totally not a marriage of convenience.

While all of this is happening, Luo Binghe is in the Endless Abyss, and his timeline is similar to that of the canon universe. Luo Binghe is an Alpha, and still has his heavenly demon heritage. Anyways, he comes back from the Endless Abyss to lay claim on his shizun, only to find out:

His shizun smells different. Luo Binghe has his shizun's scent memorized, and he would immediately be able to tell if another Alpha marked him

He realizes that not only does his shizun smell different, he's actually marked! Taken!

What do you think Luo Binghe will do when he not only realizes that his shizun is an Omega, but that his shizun was marked by a BETA? AND the two of them faked their bonding ceremony?

Oh, he's pissed. He's LIVID.

But Liu Qingge And Shen Qingqiu gradually start to acclimate to the other, and soon their feelings for each other become genuine amidst the broiling political turmoil they will soon be entrenched in.

That's as far as this idea reaches. But I'm having a lot of fun with it. Maybe I'll write something!

Let me know what you think!

[catboybiologist]

Hey I feel like I remember someone using crispr (or other gene editing method) to successfully edit her own genome and since I saw the article on tumblr and I think I remember her doing it for trans reasons it feels like something you'd know about. Google isn't helping, do you know who im talking about?

Yup I remember that.

Tl;Dr: I don't buy this instance of it, but there's some nuggets of theory that she built upon that are reasonable.

I'm gonna try to keep this brief and simple.

Here was the basic theory, extremely oversimplified: normal cell development follows a kind of "tree". A stem cell can become a couple different kinds of other stem cells that are more specific, and onwards, until they become "fully differentiated" cell types. These are the cells we know and love: nerve, skin, muscle, etc.

Stem cell research is so valuable because of this- "replacement" tissue can be generated for any other kind of cell with stem cells.

But in extremely rare cases, a process called transdifferentiation can occur. Essentially, a fully differentiated cell type becomes a different cell type without reverting to a stem cell state at all. Imagine a bit of heart tissue becoming an intestine.

It's an extremely poorly understood process. Like, EXTREMELY poorly understood, and the basic dynamics of how it works are a subject of active research. However, it's generally understood that in some organisms, under some extreme external circumstances, in certain cell types, it can be induced by adding in or blocking the right signal.

Based on one study that did a trial on natal male mice, there is a gene that, when knocked down, MIGHT cause transdifferentiation of testes cells into ovarian tissue, which would then secrete estrogens.

CRISPR is used to target a small segment of DNA and cleanly "cut" it out of the genome.

Now. What did this woman actually do?

Well, we don't have much to go on. It was a single thread, less than a paragraph in total, from a "bio hackers" forum. The only data provided was a text document of estrogen levels, one time point before and one time point after, and a diagram of the insert vector that would target the gene mentioned before. What she's claiming she did is inject this vector into her testes, and that the resulting estrogen level afterwards is from her being off HRT, and therefore is a result of ovarian tissue producing it.

But there's SO many confounding factors here, and SO little to go on. Self-professed "bio hackers" are kinda notorious for not having great ideas of what they're doing- not in a dangerous way, more in a "wasting time and money on things that don't work" way. And even for them, there's almost nothing to go on here.

Am I saying the entire thing is fake? Not necessarily, I don't like to jump to "people are lying". However, I am saying that there are too many confounding factors that could have easily kept E high for a long time to question Contrary to what popular media would have you believe, CRISPR is extremely fickle, and not well optimized for humans. I'm also saying that, without additional time points or verification of data, those hormones levels could just be taking a longer time to change.

In fact, I literally consider it more likely that transfemme HRT for extended periods of time might be able to cause transdifferentiation in extremely small amounts on its own. It's been possibly documented going the other direction:

I say possibly because there are other potential explanations that haven't been investigated yet, and it's never been studied in transfemmes. Either way, is it enough to endogenously produce hormones at cis female levels? Maybe, after a decade or so. But I want to see a lot more investigation into it.

Generously, I want to say that long term HRT did cause a lasting change- either the pituitary suppression of testosterone was so prolonged that it took a long time to rebound, or there actually is some transdifferentiation happening as a result of previous HRT itself. I don't think there's a world where the CRISPR actually worked.

Now. Is CRISPR to edit the genome to cause transdifferentiation of testes into ovarian tissue, that would be just enough of an ovary to produce estradiol, theoretically possible? Probably yes, actually! But did someone do it with no documentation, minimal funding, and then disappear afterwards? Not really buying it.