#anyways this is my first proper theory post so i tried to organize it nicely

[laugtherhyena]

Today i spent a lot of time think about what's happening in chainsaw man part 2, why are these forcers stripping Denji from his identity as Chainsaw man? We know they want to use him, that part is obvious, but what exactly do they gain by prohibiting him from being Chainsaw man and putting others to kill devils so that his presence is no longer needed?

After stirring those questions around my brain for several hours i think i have an idea on why, i think public safety wants to use Chainsaw man the same way they used the Gun devil.

So by this point i feel like there's no way that public safety and the chainsaw man church aren't tied to one another, Fumi and Yoshida are both working towards the same goal of getting Denji to stop transforming and not expose his identity as Chainsaw man, and we know they're affiliated with the church and public safety respectively. If the two entities really are working together, then at the end of the day this all goes back to being orchestrated by the government.

Now let's think back to part 1, there we hear multiple times that a lot of people became devil hunters because they wanted to kill the Gun devil, that was what Aki dedicated his whole life to and the reason that Himeno, all of her deceased partners, and god knows how many other people joined public safety to begin with. The idea of being able to get back at the thing that destroyed their lives, a revenge.

The Gun devil was their motivation, their goal, the reason why so many were willing to risk their lives and public safety knew that.

In reality, the thing had already been defeated a long time ago, pretty much out of the picture by now. Yet that's something only a select few knew, the masses were never told that, they were led to believe that the Gun devil was somewhere out there and were fed this idea that if they joined public safety they could work towards retrieving pieces of his flesh so that one day they could find the bastard and finally put an end to creature that brought them so much suffering.

Public safety used their desire for revenge to get more and more hunters to use as their tools, but now everyone knows that the Gun devil is gone, they can no longer use him. And that's when Chainsaw man comes into the picture.

People see Chainsaw man as a hero, someone who gets back up no matter how many times he is knocked down, and they want to be like him. We see this with Yuko who was to become a devil hunter so that she could be like Chainsaw man, her hero.

Public safety knows that, and they want to use this newfound admiration for him as a way to get people to join their forces; "Join us and become a devil hunter so that you too can be like Chainsaw man!"

But in order for that to work he needs to have a good reputation. Do you think people would wanna be like Chainsaw man is they knew that he's actually some loser 17 year old that bends over to be some random girl's chair if paid like 10 bucks? Hell no! But if Chainsaw man is a hero, a righteous savioir, a god to be worshipped, then people will absolutely strive to be like him and fall into the government's hands.

That's why they can't have Denji running around telling the world that he's Chainsaw man, it would ruin all the work they've put into this.

[huearmy]

The Smell of Truth - III

Summary: After years being forced to fight in clandestine hybrid ring, Jungkook is now living in shelter, but life remains bad, the place is abusive, and nobody seems to want adopt him. Until one night a pro-hybrid activist group invades the shelter, and a woman in black smelling like truth promises that things will get better, and he decides to follow her wherever she goes.

Pairing: pitbull!Jungkook x human!Reader

Genre: fluff, angst, future smut maybe.

Words: 5303

Rating: NC-17

Sorry that it took forever, my head is messed up.

Chapter I  Chapter II  -  Chapter IV Chapter V  Chapter VI Chapter VII

For the first time in years Jungkook woke up on his own, when his body asked for it, without anyone waking him up with a bucket of cold water, or to meet some schedule. He felt numb and heavy, relaxed, rested. He stretched, sitting against the headboard in the dark room. He couldn't tell the time, since there was no clock, making him feel a little disoriented in space time. After so many years without freedom to come and go the boy was not sure what to do now. About ten minutes went by without anyone showing up to tell him to get up - and he didn't want at all, the bed hugging him - hunger settled in his stomach, as well as the urge to go to the bathroom. But could he really leave? He got up and tested the door. It wasn't locked. So he could leave the room, in theory. Without making a sound he closed the door again and went back to bed, thinking about what to do to make the best impression on the first day in his new home. He decided to make the bed and tidy up the room. When he opened the curtains, bringing light to the room, a pile of clothes on the armchair caught his attention - a pair of sweatpants shorts and a oversized t-shirt, a new toothbrush, a pink post it on top. These clothes are mine, but it’s for you to wear while we don’t buy some for you. I think it'll fit. By the smell it was obvious the clothes were yours, he didn't even need to read the note to know. It fit, but not the way Jungkook likes to dress up - he likes big clothes on him, to feel comfy, and your big clothes, wich are big for you, who are smaller than him, are just right to him.  Right now he was in clean clothes, smelling of fabric softener and you.  He put on his shoes and his cap too. Outside the window the now busy street was full of cars and people, making him excited to go out. But yet again, can he? Determined to be a good boy and not disobey, for you to love him, Jungkook sat on the edge of the bed and waited. More minutes passed before he heard light knocks on the bedroom door. He crossed the room in one step and opened the door as fast as he could, his tail wagging from side to side, but it wasn't you in the hall, his smile fell. It was the cat. "What are you doing?" Yeri asked, taking him by surprise. "I... I'm..." He stammered. She crossed her arms "You've been up for almost half an hour, why haven't you left the room yet? Are you alright?" "Yeah" He spoke so low that if Yeri didn't have feline hearing she wouldn't have understood a word. "I was waiting for Y/n." "Oh" Her confused expression softened. "She went to work." "She is not home?" Yeri couldn't understand the slight panic in Jungkook's voice at asking it, or why he didn't left the room by his own choice. She don't know the feeling of rejection like he does, or the pain of being treated like a animal. She knows she is privileged though, she don't need to understand to be empathic... And you asked her to be nice to Jungkook so... "No, and she asked me to keep an eye on you until she back." She smiled softly "Go wash yourself, Y/n let breakfast done for you." Jungkook loved the restroom, for no especial reason, he just he just never saw a bathroom so ... happy - all colorful and with little plants in cute pots, and smelling and clean like he never imagined a bathroom could be. Out of curiosity he decided to try the shower, turned the register slowly, and when the water started to fall he put his hand under it and ... oh, it was so warm. "Yeri!" Jungkook ran into kicthen , where the cat was waiting by the table, scearing her off. The white hairs on her tail were all standing on end when she answered in a hiss. "What?!" "Where do I find towels and shampoo?" He excitedly asked. Not quite understanding Yeri pointed to the hall. "In the closet under the stairs in the hall... But..." Before she could end the sentence he was gone, and the sound of the door of the bathroon closing againg. Jungkook love to shower, stay clean, water. This was often the only medicine he received after being beaten until he was unable to get up. After a while, the cold, limited water shower became the safe spot for him, where the world couldn't hurt him anymore, and he could just breathe. In the shelter the water was not so cold anymore, but there was still a time limit for each shower, it was still Jungkook's favorite time of the day, because he didn't need to think about anything other than himself. Now the water was hot and pressurized, massaging his sore muscles, more than the room you give to him, this felt like home. Of course Jungkook felt a litlle bit upset that you weren't home when he woke up, after all he wanted to see you, he never liked an owner so much that he missed them from one day to the next. But he wasn't going to complain, it's not like he's used to getting attention, in fact being alone was more common than anything. He understands that you can have more important things to do than show him the apartment or prepare and have breakfast with him... You are already too good to be real. He was rinsing his hair and ears, massaging his own scalp, when voices came from outside, caughting his attention. It was two voices, female. You were home. _________________________________________________________________________________________ You entered the apartment with arms full of shopping bags and document folders. You quickly dropped everything on the table or on the floor near the door, took off your coat to hang on the rack and kicked off your shoes. Your eyes searched the living room and kitchen, looking for Jungkook, without a sign of him. You tried to complete all your tasks at the office as quickly as possible and rescheduled some visits for other days of the week to be able to get home early to see him, you were anxious to know if he slept well, or if your male clothes fit him . The breakfast you prepared for him before leaving still wrapped on the counter. You frowned. "Where is Jungkook?" You asked to Yeri, who was lying on the couch by teh window, jumping through the channels. "Taking a shower. He just woke up." She said without looking away from the tv. You hummed. "Ok. Can you put on the news for me please. I didn't have time to check it today." Yeri complained despite obeying anyway, but you paid no attention to it, busy putting the mess you brought with you in its proper place. The TV journalist was talking about the economy updates, which was not the topic you wanted to see. The explosion of the shelter last night ended up on twitter trending topics, but you wanted to know what the official media outlets have to say about. On the internet your organization is seen as justice, everything you do is seen as a heroic act by many, and that brings strength to the movement. Those in favor of the slavery of the hybrids also speak out against you, but their ignorance only strengthens the abulutionist discourse too - in a slow process of difficulty, but there are so many people working for equality that you refuse to be shaken by these rotten people full of hate. This polarization of ideas, of course, also divides politics, and it is this part that interests you the most, because it is from the government that the rights of the hybrids will be guaranteed. Mess with the economy and popular opinion that it is possible to change the government, which is why you and your camarades love that much to explode some state buildings. "Why are you home? I was expecting you only in an hour." Yeri looked at you from the other side of the room with lazy eyes. "Ah, I have to go out to do some more sttuf, but I needed to come pick something... And maybe eat. I skipped lunch."   You decided to warm up the pancakes you made for Jungkook in the morning, and add toast and eggs to your meal. You heard the bathroom door and fast steps and was about to ask Jungkook if likes coffee, the moment you turned around he was already behind you, with a big smile and open arms to hug you. "Y/N!" You were enveloped by jungkook's long arms and squeezed against your chest, losing your balance the way he hit you with his whole body. By instinct and with no regrets, you hugged him back. His tail, which was already swinging from side to side, started to swing even faster. His dump hair was wetting you, and his litlle happy sounds were malink you soft. "Hi, Jungkook...." You give light taps on his back and opened up space between you two. " Let me see you... I knew the clothes would fit quite well. But if you don't like them, fine, they are only temporary, so you don't have to walk around in that shelter's hideous pajama." "I like the smell of it." He said smelling the shirt collar fabric. "Good. Because I'm a little paranoid about laundry." You really are. Actually you are kind of crazy tidy. "Are you hungry?" You softly said, still looking to how the clothes were wrapping his body. You didn't notices but you were making him blush with your stare. "Yes." He said in tiny. "Me too, lets eat breakfest together.". You reaffirmed your theory that Jungkook wouldn't be too picky about food, and that basically anything you put in front of him he eats happily. He just doesn't like coffee. And sweets are really his favorite. He ate the pancakes and egg with toast, plus a very large bowl of cereal, some fruit and a glass of juice. It wasn't just because everything was good, but he was happy you were eating with him, and that made him even more hungry. "Lucky me I have money." You still have a lot of questions in your head to do to Jungkook. You were curious about him in so many levels. Since from his habits and tastes to his past ... One doubt you have is: How is he so docile? His file said that he spent almost a decade in illegal dogfights. Most hybrids take less than five years to lost their and go feral, and then when they can no longer be controlled the owners put them down. But Jungkook doesn't. Furthermore, despite being a pitbull, he does not have his canine ears clipped, which is not common in the middle of where he came from. You wanted so much to ask... but you decided oposite it, thinking that it wasn't the moment. "Want more juice?" Jungkook offered, he was pouring himself more and saw your empty glass. "Of couse, thankyou, sweetie." You didn't notice the blush on his cheeks again, intending to pay more attention to the TV in the living room. Jungkook was not used to hearing praise like that, the most he heard from his former owner was 'champion' or 'good boy' when he won a fight and there was nothing satisfying about it. Your 'sweetie', on the other hand, accompanied by a smile from you, just because of a glass of juice seemed like the world to him. "Updates on the terrorist attack on a shelter in downtown Seoul last night: It was confirmed that despite the magnitude of the explosion and the damage to the building's structure, there were no victims, either by the hybrids or by the local staff. According to the authorities, the 100 hybrids that lived in the shelter were kidnapped by an anti-government organization as a form of protest, on social media entities defend that they were released by the Set Us Free movement." You got up and crossed your arms to watch the jornalist talking as aerial recordings of the burning building and post prints talking about took over the screen. "Early in the morning, a series of complaints linked to the shelter came to the knowledge of the police, involving corruption and money laundering, as well as mistreatment of resident hybrids. Among the evidence presented a list with names involved in the scheme ..." As the jornlist listed names of businessman and politicians. Many of these names you already knew, once your group that investigated and made the report, others were a surprise to you. In that moment you were so interested in the news that you sat on the end of the chouch supporting your elbows on your knees,  watching the TV without blinking. Jungkook recognized the images from the shelter last night, but he didn't find it so interesting, because seeing the explosion live was much nicer, and none of the information said anything to him. But seeing you so serious was interesting, he took the bowl of cereal and sat at your feet, looking more at you and your reactions than at the TV itself. "Senator Y/L/N spoke earlier in a news conference.." The image of the journalist was replaced by one of a man in a suit speaking in front of several different microphones. "Violent acts can't and won't be encouraged, but we need to pay attention to where it comes from. The social injustice and slavery of hybrids needs to be tackled in some way, and since the government is slow to guarantee the rights they deserve as similar to humans, manifestations of marginalized groups are to be expected. It is not giving them what they want, as the conservators say, it is guaranteeing them what should already be theirs by right. Situations like last night are nothing more than a symptom of the disease that we think we are entitled to own a hybrid." Jungkook thought it was cute the way you were biting the inside of your cheek or how it looked like you were narrowing your eyes with each word said. "Ya... Dad is so different when speeching..." Yeri mumbled.  It took Jungkook's attention away from you. "Dad?" He asked with his mouth full of cereal, looking from Yeri to you and to the man in the TV. "Yes." You awnsered, lying in the couch. "This is my uncle... He is cool isn't he?" Jungkook frowned, not thinking the guy is so cool... but since you say so... "Does he protect hybrids like you do?" You smiled to him, slightly petting his head. "On his way." At the same time that the news changed to weather forecast, your phone started to beep with messages. You praticaly jumped from the couch to your feet. "I need to go." You said. From the floor, Jungkook looked at you with doe eyes and a pout. "You are leaving again?" "I have something to do... But you can come with me. If you want." "I do." Jungkook jumped on his spot, finishing his cereal as fast as he could. "Then go put on that hoodie I gave you. Is kind of cold out side." You didn't need to say twice. Jungkook ran to his room to obligue, he came back finishing putting on his sweatshirt and putting on his shoes midair. He was so excited, and the look on your face when he took your hand was so affectionate towards him, just like the good dreams sometimes he have. He was intending on livig his best life with you while it lasted, as long as you wanted him, after so many bad, terrible things that he was forced to go through during his short life, Jungkook got used to not waiting for things to really improve, but he also learned to enjoy each of the good moments, whether they were truth or just dreams. Maybe he will wake up at some point and realize that he is still in the shelter ... or in the cold room, using a muzzle ... Until then he will not stop receiving all the affection that you are willing to give. Among the good things he was not expecting to happen, going out for a walk is one of Jungkook's favorite. "I'm ready." He told you with a cheekie smile, even if you could clearly see it for yourself. You just smiled back containing the urge to grab him by the cheeks. So cute. "Do you want a ride home,Yeri?" You picked the keys. "No thanks. Irene will pick me up in half of an hour." She didn't even looked at you to awnser, to busy scrowling throgh her phone. "Ok. Don't forget to lock the door when you leave," Said that you two left the apartment, and Jungkook got your attention all for himself again. ________________________________________________________________________________ It wasn't your plan to spoil Jungkook so much. Of course, you already intended to go shopping with him, and maybe, who knows, give the world to him if he wanted to, but the idea was that things would happen more slowly.  Instead, early in the morning on your way to work, you saw a beautiful jacket in a shop window and thought it would look beautiful on him, without hesitation you went into the store and bought it, and as a bonus some other pieces of clothing for essential use. Now you were supposed to go to the grocerie store, get an order of yours, and that's it. Kess than one hour and you both would be back home. Now its been almost two hours and your SUV is stuffed with shopping bags of clothes and other random things that made Jungkook's eyes sparkles as you strolled in front of shop windows - you let him buy a skate and an air freshener, for exemple. The tour was a big new world for him, clearly he was having fun just running around the store shelves and you had to pull him back into focus more than once. Like when he decided to try on all the hats in a store, first one hat at a time then all at the same time, it was cute, and you took the ones he seemed to like the most and added to his shopping pile without him paying attention. "Jungkook, do you want to choose some underwear? I have no idea what you like or what size you wear..." He was no where to be seen but you knew he was listening to you, especially after a few seconds, when the sound of the new boots you bought him two stores earlier approached fast, and then the hybrid's happy face appeared among the jeans racks beside you. "Oh, this is important, the only underwear I have is drying on my bedroom window." He said starting to look through the pile of new underwear, ignoring all the colored ones, and separating only the black and white ones. "Wait, what?" You blinked at him. "I washed in the shower and didn't know where to leave it, so I hung it in the window." He simply said. You were kind of shocked. "Jungkook... Aren't you wearing underwear? Like right now...?" He just made no with his head, too entertained in choosing several identical boxer briefs.. You looked around to see if anyone around heard it, taken with modesty but finding the situation a little funny. "Did you have more at the shelter? Why didn't you bring it when I said to get your things?" "I had it, but I didn't think about it at the time." You just laughed at him and hurried him so you would soon pay for everything and move on, with the promise of returning to buy more things later. You still needed to go to the grocerie store... Where together you filled a shopping cart with your list - last night he said he wanted to have a barbecue, so you were going to prepare one for him, lots of meat, charcoal and side dishes - and things that Jungkook thought might taste good by the look of it. "Jungkook, you will find some hygiene products for hybrid in this corridor. Take a look and choose, I'll be right back ... ". "Wait." He looked arond. The grocerie store was way bigger than the clothes shops you went before, with a lot more people, he was not comfortable being alone here. How would he know where to find you if you go too far? You read that in his expression and give his hand a squeeze. "I'll just pick a package. Three corridors from here to the right." You poited. "But don't worry I'll be right back. Can you look the cart for me?" "Of couse I can." He said, more confident now. "Thankyou, sugar." You gave him another of those smiles and then left him alone to choose deodorants and soaps for hybrids. But you didn't lie, as fast as you're gone you're back, now with a wrapped paper package in your hands. Out of curiosity Jungkook sniffed the package over your shoulder while you put it in the cart, but for some reason he was unable to identify what could be inside. "Please don't put anything on top of that, it's fragile." You said. "Ready to go?" "Yeah." Jungkook droped one of one soap bar into the cart, not seeing which of the two fragrances he had been choosing before. "What is it?" You gave him a mischievous smile, hooking an arm around his and then guiding him through the corridors to the cashiers. You knew he would be curious, and you specifically asked them to wrap the package in a special paper that will outwit his dog nose. "Its a surprise." Jungkook was convinced. He never had good experiences with the idea of 'surprise', but coming from you he did not imagine anything bad. If you were saying that he was supposed to wait to find out what was in the package, then he was just going to wait. ____________________________________________________________________ When you got home, you parked once again at the back of the building, the light from the florist indicating that although it was time to close, the employees still haven't left. The same thing in the office on the second floor. You thought it would take a lot of coming and going to take all the bags up to the apartment, but while you picked up some and thought it was too much for you, Jungkook picked up almost all the others, hanging them in his arms, and when he left the first batch on living room ran to get the rest alone. It had been a while since he had space to run a litlle, without even being able to remember the last time. He only slowed down when he heard voices on the second floor, adjusted the bags in his hands and tried to go unnoticed. "I want to finish this before call it a day." A soft voice spoke. "But I want to go home. I'm hungry..." Another male voice answered. "More fifteen minutes, Tae." The office door opened just when Jungkook was passing, and he felt like he was caught doing something he shouldn't have, even if he wasn't, two guys looking right at him. The one at the table in front of a computer and stacks of paper smiled and waved at him. The other, holding the door handle, didn't even blink at him, looking serious. Jungkook just bowed his head and continued on his way, stopping only after reaching you in the kitchen. You felt his arms embracing you from behind and his forehead on you sholder. The guy at the table was a hybrid, he couldn't tell what kind, but the smell was like a cat, and probably, since as far as he knows they both work for you, the two shouldn't be bad. Still, Jungkook couldn't make his heart slow down. Men scare him. You turned to look at him. He didn't let you go tho. "What's up?" You asked noticing his distress. Jungkook bited down his bottom lip. "Got tired." You smiled and pet his head for the second time today making him sigh and close his eyes. Without knowing it you made him calm down. "Go put your things on your room, the new clothes in the closet... When you're done, go up to the terrace." "And then we will eat a lot of meat?" "Yep" _______________________________________________ You were just finishing making the vegetable skewers, and putting the meat on the grill when Jungkook went up the stairs to the floor where his room is and the terrace, where he hadn't gone yet. Like the bathroom, the terrace were filled with plants, but here the vases and plants are much bigger. The starry sky was beautiful, and the movement of cars and people on the street is comforting and full of possibilities. Jungkook stopped by the glass door and just looked at you, who didn't noticed him yet. You were now in comfortable clothes and messy hair, drumming his fingers on the table to the beat of a song that was playing only in his head. Once again the thought that you seem inoffensive crossed Jungkook's mind. But that's a lie. You are powerfull in a way he isn't. During the tour of the city he saw your surname in names of shops and street signs more than once, your uncle is an important guy who appears on TV, and your friends do illegal things using guns and bombs... And you are human - and that's enough for you to be scary for any hybrid. You are not harmless, and one thing that would certainly hurt Jungkook hard would be if after today, when he felt at home after years of not knowing what that feeling is like, you decide that you don't want him anymore. That would be worse than every time he thought he was going to die in a fight. Rejection. Like in the shelter, Jungkook was trying to figure it out a way to be loved. To be so loved that someone would want to live with him forever and never leave him. But he doesn't know how to do it. "Do you want some help?" He approached you. "No. Now just don't let the meat burn." You proudly put your hands on your hips. "But I wantou to sit here... and close your eyes." You made him sit by the wooden picnic table and ran inside. He closed his eyes as you said so. You came back with calmer steps and put something in front of him, an instant after the smell of phosphor and sugar entered Jungkook's nose and you said... "You can open it now." In front of Jungkook was a cake with the words "Welcome home JK" written on it and some candles on top. His eyes got wet instantly. "This is an welcome party." You said softly, holding his hand. "And every party need a cake. Surprise, Jungkook." Jungkook wiped away the tears that began to flow with the sleeve of the hoodie - the hoodie that was yours and still smells like you. Seeing that he was crying, you tentatively rubbed a hand on his back and waited for the sobs to pass before you spoke. "Jungkook, we need to have this conversation sooner or later... But I don't want to be your owner." You said and he got freeze. He looked in shock to you and more tears ran down his face. He was so confused. The cake made him so happy and then you said exactly what he was afraid of hearing. A knowing look reached your eyes and you wiped the boy's face yourself. "Don't cry. Let me explain, ok?" He nodded, without realizing that he was holding your hand with all his strength. You couldn't care less. "I never intended on adopting or buying a hybrid. You are the only exception." You smiled sweetly. "When you said you wanted to come with me I couldn't say no. You were so sweet, trusting on me... You are very special to me, even if we've only known each other since yesterday." You took his face in your free hand. "But I'm unable to own a person. It may be strange for you to understand what I am saying now, but my intention in having you with me is for you to be free. If you want to live with me forever, in the simplest way in the world, I will take care of you. If you want to live your life in any other way, even if it is somewhere else, I will also take care of you, and support you. Because the choice is yours. Of course, you don't have to choose anything now. Today or years from now ... It will remain your choice." Jungkook relaxed but remained confused, not knowing how to respond. "What do you want?" He finally said. Your eyes saddened, the thought that your wanting to be more important to him than his own bothering you. "I want to be your friend." His answer seemed to be what Jungkook wanted to hear, because he opened a huge and beautiful smile. "That's enough for me. Can I eat the cake?" "Of couse!" You served him a piece and one for you, chattering like you never cared much for dessert after a meal, and that if he wanted to eat the meat and the cake together you wouldn't judge. His daydreams are cute, he concluded, determined to love you so that you love him. "Y/N... There are a lot of things about me that I don't like, and I know you won't like it either... And I don't like to talk about it, or to think about it at all... But since we are friends I feel like I should... " "That you should tell me?" He nodded. "You dont need to. Jungkook, I already know a lot of bad things about you." You made him freeze again. "Nothing personal, but enough that if it bothered me or changed the way I see you, I wouldn't even have brought you home. But I don't care, and if you don’t feel like sharing it with me now, or ever, okay, you don’t owe it to me just because we’re friends." He smiled to his cake. "Seriously, I have a lot of secrets my friends don't know. You can have yours too." "Thankyou, Y/N. I like you a lot, and I think I want to be with you forever." That was your time to smile to your cake. "So you are stuck with me forever then." Having a friend has always been more important to Jungkook than having a good owner. But for him the only friend he had stayed in the past, he was already sure that it would never happen again and that he was alone for the rest of his life. But now he had you, and that is enough. Regardless of the situation, friends are forever. If you are friends, he doesn't have to be afraid of you kicking him out, even with all the bad things he has done or all the fears he has.

And that good feeling tastes like cake. _____________________________________________________________

Tag list: @stayunderthelights  @deolly  @panconte @serendipityoreuphoria @madygswich

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If you want me to tag you, pls tell me.

AND PLEASE GIVE LOVE TO THIS WORK OF MINE: Clumsy

[sapphicscholar]

2020 Fic Year-in-Review!

It has been ... a year (both for global/national and personal reasons). I did less writing than I had planned to. Didn’t finish those WIPs like I promised myself I would. But! I worked my butt off to be there 110% for my students, and I still managed to write words and new fics! (According to AO3, I came in just under 200,000 words written/posted this year, which is more than I expected and a nice little boost.) 

With the whole “5 fics you’re proudest of” end-of-year meme going around (thanks for the heads up about it @chainofclovers!) and having been tagged at some point in a fic-in-review thing whose questions I’ve lost, I want to focus on being happy with some of the things I did! So, without further ado, 5 fics in chronological order of posting that I’m proud of!

1. Swipe Right for Soulmates - Supercat, T

In general, I really dislike soulmate AUs, and that’s putting it lightly. I’ve read a handful I adore; I’ve tried to write through my issues with the trope a few times; and this is perhaps my favorite of my attempts at playing with it! I got to do a few fun things with genre in this rival-CEO fic and write Cat and Kara into a rivals-to-friends-to-lovers arc, which I don’t think we get too often with this pairing. Anyway, it was fun and felt different, and it still makes me smile!

2. Your fav is in fandom series - one Supercat, M; one Sanvers, T

These two one-shots are meant as a  kind of cracky love letter to fandom and the kinds of relational practices it can foster at its best. It came to be in the early weeks of the pandemic and lockdown in the US when, utterly unable to sleep one night (all the nights?!?), I turned to my wife at 1am and asked: “So...which one of the Supergirl characters would be the fandom asshole?” Originally there was meant to be a third fic feat. Lucy/Alura (Majorly Judging You) with my personal headcanon that Lucy organizes the big annual events like fic exchanges and ship weeks and that Alura takes the whole “thank your mods!” A/Ns very seriously, messaging Lucy each and every day of an event with personalized thank you notes that lead to a friendship, then more. 

3. If you give an alien a syllabus... - General Danvers, G

Another love letter--this time to community colleges and the wonderful people who staff and attend them. This fic felt vital when I was writing it (there was a lot of stuff going on at my own university and many across the country that I was putting my job on the line to fight), and it was meant as a gift for a close friend who teaches at a local community college at a time when we couldn’t see each other in person. Even though I’ve only ever written a couple General Danvers fics, I quite enjoy fics about them (they were some of the earliest ones I ever read in the Supergirl tag!), and it’s always a lovely fandom to visit!

4. you showed me colors you know i can’t see with anyone else - Supercat, E

Despite being the only angsty thing I’ve written in quarantine when most of my fics have trended toward the cracky or the weird, I actually really enjoyed this smutty, feelings-heavy, years-later/post-breakup Supercat fic! I know that fic often shows some of the best of what life and love can be (which is awesome, even if I’m partial to messy characters who don’t do well with or think of themselves as deserving or wanting a neat happily ever after trajectory), but this felt a little gritty in ways that I personally like. It’s the aftermath of two complicated women coming together and shattering, showcasing all the messy emotions that remain when they start the process of picking those pieces back up and finding a new way to put them back together. Hilariously, I went into it envisioning something with a similar premise but lighter--essentially what would be a part 2 to this fic if I ever wrote it. It was meant to be about Cat and Kara after this initial moment of coming back together for the first time in years, seeing them sneak around almost like teenagers as they tried to keep this precious thing to themselves while they rekindled it and figured out what it could be away from the judgment of everyone who was there when they fell apart the first time. 

5. Writing Retreats Are For Lovers - Supercat, M

Another AU! Well, Cat’s pretty much canon Cat, but featuring ABD PhD candidate Kara who meets her at a writing retreat as she tries to get the dissertation written and Cat finally gets a writing coach to help her through the worst case of writers’ block she’s had in years. It hit close to the heart and was very, very fun to write! I always have fun getting to bring characters into new settings to see what about them is integral to who they are and what is context-dependent, much like I’m intrigued by the different (and very similar!) ways relationship dynamics play out, especially early on, when the characters are in new settings and/or roles.

Honorable Mention: Queen of All Mediums - Supecat, G

It’s weird and quirky and a first foray into writing a historical AU based on a period I know so much--like, too much--about to start figuring out how to strike that balance between “what do people need to know for your fic?” vs. “what do you want people to know but honestly it won’t hurt their experience of the story if they don’t?” I have a very long nineteenth-century authors period piece all outlined, which I’ve debated trying to make original fiction or a Supercat fic. I don’t know where it’ll go, if anywhere, but it was nice getting to dip my toes into the historical romance genre here, even if it’s just a tiny little one-shot about spiritualism with a sprinkling of nineteenth-century class and gender politics in the US. 

Theres a lot I could say about trends in my fic writing this year (so little angst! largely AU! no new WIPs!), but I won’t bore you all with my theories about why x or why not y. I wasn’t surprised by most of what I found looking through what I wrote, though I was shocked to find that I wrote only Supergirl pairings this year--a variety of pairings (only some of which appear on this list), but still. My writing and reading didn’t match up at all, and my random fic outlines and drafty drafts also include a much broader variety (some seeds of what was, at one point, to become a multi-chapter Grace/Frankie fic that I think I’ll need to ease into with a couple one-shots; several fully sketched out SwanQueen fics from binge-watching the whole series for the first time during the pandemic and having SO MANY thoughts about both the show’s promising notes and its many disappointments, as well as the fandom’s fabulous works; and a handful of notes about Dead to Me that are honestly closer to meta than fics proper anyway).

Honestly I’d love to see other people doing this! Consider yourself tagged, and feel free to tag me in your responses--I’d love to hear all about what writing you’re proud of!

[grisdidthis]

CHAPTER ONE: FIRST SIGHT

AKA, blessed fucknuggets, why do these fools feel the need to put themselves through high school, my sources tell me that the US school system isn’t all that to begin with, what gives?

PREVIOUS ENTRIES

(Warning: this got long. Looooong. Hence, cut, so that I don’t murder your dash like Edward doesn’t murder Bella in this chapter.)

Welcome to the first entry of a live-read that no one asked for, in which I’ll go through the first chapter of Midnight Sun, i.e. a retelling of the first Twilight book from Edward Cullen’s POV. Not to be confused with Grey, a retelling of the first volume of a Twilight fanfic with the serial numbers filed off, or the Life and Death edition, a retelling of the first Twilight book in which Bella Swan is genderbent into a dude called Beau, who utters the immortal line “I knew I must look like a gorilla on a greyhound.” Which still tickles my humerus to this day.

I’ve waited for this novel to drop so long that at some point I’d stopped waiting. If by some freaky turn of chance you stumbled on this without knowing about the hoopla surrounding the publication, here’s a Wikipedia link. The gist is that the first few chapters of the WIP got leaked, the author got upset, the book got shelved until ??? and no further information about it was forthcoming until a while ago, when out of the blue arrive the news that it’s getting released in August.

My first thought was “Oh, yay, something actually NICE is happening this year!”

My second thought was “Please let it be good, so that I can laugh outrageously at [name redacted] for mocking my enjoyment of this series!” And. Look. I know what’s said about Twilight with regards to its literary merit and Stephenie Meyer’s abilities as a writer. A lot of it is admittedly accurate. However, the metrics by which I measure the value of a book are a) did it entertain me? and b) did I gain anything by having read it? And yeah, those are personal and subjective items, but objectivity is a lie, Jesus enjoys using toasters to take selfies, and if ten years ago I hadn’t been looking for a place to post my 50k+ epic Renesmee-centric fanfic, I wouldn’t have met the people who are currently my best friends.

Which is to say: I’m too attached to this series to give a fig what color the prose is. Deal.

And yet. Me hoping that Midnight Sun would be good, in a way that people who don’t have my level of emotional investment might acknowledge, wasn’t… that farfetched?  Because the last book Meyer released before this one, The Chemist? Is an improvement on all her previous work. A huge improvement! It’s competently written! The characters read like they were intended to be flawed, messy people.

The main romance isn’t the kind of fucked up that Bella and Edward’s is, where you can pen treatises on why they’re omg so unhealthy. It’s the kind of fucked up where five seconds after meeting her love interest, the protagonist drugs him unconscious, kidnaps him, sticks a urinary catheter up his ding dong, straps him to a table and tortures him for information until the guy’s ex-CIA identical twin drops a plane on the barn they’re in and crashes through the ceiling all “HANDS OFF MY BABY BROTHER YOU DISCOUNT MATA HARI!”

Then they all make friends and go on a road trip together because a shady government organization is after them.

That’s not a fucked-up relationship that you write an essay analyzing the fucked-up-ness of. It’s something you stare at, stunned and, if you’re me, torn between thinking “Holy shit, this is so my brand of heroine!!!” and “How much crack was Auntie Steph on when she wrote this?” And it’s beautiful. I want ten more like it. So my hopes for Midnight Sun are tempered by the knowledge that, being a retelling of an established narrative, it can’t go all-out with the batshit. But I’m still optimistic that some part of it will give me that warm “Awww, you’ve come a long way from where we first met, author! Good on you!” feeling.

Now let’s (finally!) get started on the chapter proper.

…oh wait there’s an author’s note.

…uhm. Yeah. My dreams. About those. *fixed stare at faraway bonfire* Actually, let’s not talk about those and just move on to Edward Not Liking High School, thank you. Yeah. That’s good.

Edward Cullen doesn’t like high school. Edward doesn’t like that people think. Edward doesn’t like that the human student body is beside itself with the arrival of some new chick. Edward thinks his adopted siblings are super basic. (Rosalie = shallow, Emmett = simple, Jasper = psycho two seconds away from jumping off his chair and going on a rampage.) We don’t get to hear his utterly unbiased assessment of Alice, because she butts in and starts a one-sided telepathic convo about how Jasper is two seconds away from jumping off his chair and going on a rampage. You know. Normal sibling stuff.

WHY DO YOU PUT YOURSELF THROUGH THIS HASSLE, WHY!

(Let me take this opportunity to share my pet crack theory that Carlisle Cullen is secretly the most twisted, evil vampire in all of vampiredom, and that the sending the young ones to high school bit is something he does solely because he gets his evil fix by feasting on the emotional toil it inflicts on them. Also why he’s a doctor; he can ignore the call of blood, because being surrounded by the pain of patients and their loved ones already keeps him fed. I mean. He was chilling with the Volturi way back when, and Aro gives off a handsy vibe. No way he didn’t get his mind read in every which way, and if that happened - if he were reaaaalllyyyyy that nice, why would he still ping them as a threat of any kind?)

(This has holes in it, I know. And clashes with my other pet crack theory, which posits that the whole immortal child/Let’s Catch Them All: Cullen Edition was in fact the fallout of a Very Bad Italian Breakup, with Aro being the pissy ex who wants sole custody of the kids.)

Whatever. It still makes more sense than them going through “the inert state between active periods” when. My dudes! College is right there. Some places you can even sit out 90% of lectures and still get your diploma if you don’t feel like faking one, so Jasper would be all set! And you can pick different subjects! Diversify! Why must it always be med school rehashes, there are other worthy professions! And whole fields that are useless for getting-a-job purposes, but still interesting and enriching for those who have the luxury to pursue them. Let Emmett do Viking Studies, for fuck’s sake!

This amuses me much more than it rightfully should. I’m a child.

The Cullen clan tries to pep talk Jasper into not getting his murder on. Jasper is like OMG WILL YOU GUYS LAY OFF, while Edward is busy doing his judgy Edward thing and thinking to himself that Jasper should accept his limitations, that it’s a bad idea to have him at school at all, blah blah bleh, and you know what, I’m with you there, Ed.

Although we all know that this is just setup for the irony that will ensue as soon as Bella the Delicious klutzes her way into his line of smell.

Oh yah! Enter Bella. Edward can’t hear her thoughts. Jessica Stanley is a b-word. Edward wonders whether not being able to butt into the new girl’s head may be a red flag for vampire Alzheimer. Biology class next! The teacher is a man “of no more than average intellect” and, lord. It’s lucky that Edward is the mind reader in the family, because imagine if it were one of the others and they had to put up with listening to him bitch about the world at large, nonstop, at all hours of the day. And night, since these guys don’t sleep. Angela Webber is the only soul in the whole school whose thoughts have the Edward Cullen seal of approval. I feel sorry for her. I also feel this weird sense of hey, this all seems familiar in senses other than being a retelling, have I been here before?

Wait.

WAAAIIIIIITEEEEE.

*googles for the old version*

*runs first chapters through copyleaks*

*kubrick stare* MEYER, YOU LAZY SO AND SO, HOW COULD YOU!

*slams head on desk*

Well. At least I know what I’m in for. HONESTLY! It’s been. It’s been THIS MANY YEARS since the leaked version appeared, and that was a first draft, how in the… she’s way better than this, now! Was this novel produced in a terminal state of $#%CARING#NOT?&FOUND?! Is half of it just going to be the same old thing with a thin veneer of polish? I’m.

*sigh* You know what, I’m okay. We’re just going to call this first part a re-read. It’s been ten years, so I remember not a whole lot of the specifics, so at least I won’t be bored. BUT COME CHAPTER 13 I EXPECT TO BE SWEPT OFF MY FEET, DO YOU HEAR ME?!

Biology. Bella walks in right past a fan and gives Edward a throbbing throat boner. How awkward. Then she goes and sits right next to him and saucily tosses her hair around like he’s not actively plotting her murder and that of the rest of the class. The cheek of the thing!

Fortunately, Bella’s tasty ass is momentarily saved by a stiff breeze.

…I think we may have found the solution to Jasper’s control issues. The Cullens just need to start carrying air freshener around and spray the murder out of him every time he starts looking peckish. It would look weird if anyone else did it, but since they’re all pretty and rich, it’s more likely that the trend will catch on and cause Febreze sales to skyrocket.

Anyway. We’re not done victim-blaming Bella for…

…at least another couple of pages, but at least Edward gets his head out of his ass long enough to recall that hey, vampire! Oxygen is optional! But he still spends another lot of words grumbling about what a hassle it is to be forced to hold his breath in order to dampen his murderous urges. This is why you are a virgin, Edward. No, I don’t mean the planning the assassination a classmate’s assassination, plenty of serial killers still manage to get laid heaps, consensually, even! It’s the fact that you’re this much of a buzzkill that’s the issue.

Live, laugh, love, you dumbass disco ball!

Yep, he’s still on about how he’s going to kill her, totes kill her, he feral dangerous vampire, rawr. The miracle of adequate indoor airflow only got him to railroad a quartet of brain cells into thinking up smarter ways of snuffing Bella out. Now he wants to lure her to the forest. No, he’s going to kill her at home! He hates her! No, he hates himself and is projecting!

So he flees to his car, plays some calming music, breathes in and out and thinks about his family and how disappointed they’d be in him if he were to help himself to a Swan shake. Well, I’m nobody to shit talk anyone’s self-soothing routine. I’d probably throw in a truck of food + a bath, but he’s had 100+ years to figure out what coping mechanisms work for him, so let’s just let him do his-

Edward.

EDWARD.

…do you actually think this is an appropriate time to start a ginger-off with some random desk lady? Yes, we know you’re the One True Redhead To Rule Them All. (Though Kvothe from Name of the Wind may beg to differ, and I don’t know who would win that fight.) I mean, really? You pull this crap when you just barely talked yourself out of a murder? And then you call her eyes flat! What!

One of my favorite comic book series, Y the Last Man, features a scene where two characters discuss what it is that truly binds people together. One of them presents the argument that stronger bonds are formed not by shared love, but by shared hates. By which they mean not a kiss-kiss-slap-slap, enemies-to-lovers relationship dynamic, but like… you, being someone who really hates coleslaw, having a partner who likewise hates coleslaw, with whom you can indulge in tireless verbal roastings of coleslaw and who will never get tired of your complaining, because the fire of their loathing burns every bit as hot as yours.

I’ve always felt that this concept resonated with me deeply. And if you apply it to Bella and Edward, by its standards, they have the real deal. Go through the namesake chapter in Twilight-the-book, and you find Bella thinking similarly judgy thoughts, being irked by the same shit that no one normal would bat an eye to, going “Ugh!” and “Gah!” at everything that makes Edward wince internally. So their love will be eternal for sure. Perhaps not in an epic way. They’ll live boringly ever after, until they’re ancient and onion-skinned and lurking at passerby humans through the geraniums on their windowsill, exchanging “Holy crow, I can’t believe she bought a hydrogen engine car just to show off!” / “Awful! She should know that thinning the deer population so that they produce less flatulence is the most sound way of controlling toxic emissions!” And then probably gazing at one another like idiots for an ice age or two.

Edward wants to be moved out of Biology class. Goes back and forth with the desk lady, who obviously wants to tap that, because of course she does. Every hot-blooded woman within spitting distance must crave his alluring icicle, even as he mentally eviscerates every minuscule detail of their appearance.

Except Bella, because she’s soft, translucent, deep-eyed and edible. And, I mean. You can complain all you want about “you’re different from anyone else I’ve ever met, you’re SPECIAL, better, more beautiful, more everything!” being a dead horse of a trope so old and beaten that by all rights it should have turned to smelly glue, but. That pony is still kicking. And by kicking, I mean selling. And it sells because being made to feel special, even if it’s happening by proxy while you’re immersed into the thoughts of a fictional character, is nice. Readers enjoying that experience and seeking out fiction that provides it shouldn’t be considered so… mock-worthy as I’ve seen it be, in discussion of works that feature the trope prominently.

Which doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be nicer if Edward’s narration were focused solely on elevating Bella, instead of also viciously kicking down everyone in the vicinity. Man, we get the message, okay? You don’t need to act like you’ve swallowed a Simon Cowell before coming in for school.

I swear, it’s almost a relief when Bella interrupts, heralding the triumphant return of the throat boner. Edward’s thoughts about the people around him are actually LESS gratuitously bitchy when he’s contemplating how to best murder them.

At least this time he is able to extract himself from the situation and flee speedily. (Which… in Biology, what exactly was preventing him from asking for a bathroom break? Or just saying he was feeling poorly and getting the fuck out of there?)

He meets the sibs. Only Alice has any clue of what is going on because visions, and she doesn’t explain anything to the others, who just stand there baffled while Edward decides to get his shiny ass in his shiny Volvo and run off to Alaska. Probably because it would ruin the serious mood of the scene if she told them and Jasper started doing happy cartwheels at the prospect of no longer being the only fuckup in the family.

END CHAPTER. Same time tomorrow, hopefully, and I’ll TRY to be less longwinded. Try. 

[makingscipub]

A road called ‘gene drive’ and the road to ‘gene drive’: Trials and tribulations of media analysis

As people might know, I enjoy doing media analysis of emerging biotechnologies, from cloning to gene editing and beyond.

I have lately become fascinated with something called ‘gene drive’, a new genetic engineering technology that was brought to public attention around 2014/2015 at the confluence of two ‘events’: the outbreak of Zika and advances in CRISPR-Cas9 as a new tool to ‘edit’ genomes more or less at will (declared breakthrough of the year in 2015).

Zika is an emerging infectious disease caused by the Zika virus. Like malaria or dengue fever, it is transmitted by mosquitoes. The Zika outbreak around 2015 made people think more intensively about how to deal with the spread of such diseases and about finding new ways of dealing with the spreaders, namely the mosquitoes.

CRISPR-Cas9 is a new genome editing tool that makes it easier for scientists to modify genomes, of, for example, mosquitoes, in such a way that the change spreads exceedingly quickly through a population bypassing normal laws of inheritance. With the help of this new technology called ‘gene drive’, whole populations of mosquitoes can thus, in theory, be changed, eliminated, replaced and so on. This has so far not been tried anywhere in the wild and is, as you can imagine, rather controversial. The use of gene drive using genome editing for insect/disease control was put on the map in 2014 by Kevin Esvelt and others and has attracted some media attention ever since.

How is this controversy reported in the media, we wondered? By ‘we’ I mean Sarah Hartley, PI on a Wellcome Trust funded ‘Talking about gene drive’ project, Aleksandra Stelmach, research fellow on the project, and I, co-applicant.

Easy-peasy I thought. Put the phrase “gene drive” into Nexis, my favourite news database, and see what happens, i.e. see how it spreads, possibly exponentially, through the main English speaking news outlets. So we did. What happened was chaos.

Dead ends, new pathways and resurfaced roads

There were two problems. There is somewhere in the United States a road called “gene drive”. That’s the first problem. The second problem was that despite using quotation marks in order to search for the exact phrase ‘gene drive’, the machine picked out instances of, for example, ‘the cart that Gene drives’ or ‘genes drive the development of x’ and so on. Yet another problem was that Nexis was, unbeknown to us, in a process of transformation and quite a few things, like downloading, didn’t work.

In the end, we used another search engine, one I am not so familiar with, namely Factiva. We found it quite useful, as it also provides access to graphs and keywords etc. We searched for ‘gene drive’ in four regions: US, UK, Australia and Uganda. There were still some problems, but we got some interesting corpora and data.

Just when we had started to analyse these, Nexis changed. It became usable again (but the exact phrase search thing still doesn’t really work). It even has little graphs now and key word analyses.

As I have access to Nexis but not Factiva (only Aleksandra has access to Factiva in Exeter), I did a bit of searching once Nexis worked again – I couldn’t resist. I got some interesting results, once I had discarded the still lurking roads called ‘gene drive’ and some other anomalies.

The road to ‘gene drive’

For this little post I just wanted to know how and when conversations about gene drive started to emerge (but as I said above they only really got going around 2015). What I found confirmed what I had already dug out in my first blog post on gene drive. The first English language news article using the phrase ‘gene drive’ was published in 2007. The second in 2009. The topic exploded after 2015 (but not as much other topics, such as epigenetics and the microbiome, for example). I still haven’t met anybody out in the real world who knew what I was talking about when I mention ‘gene drive’….

The 2007 article refers to research carried out into this issue about 20 years earlier, that is, around 1996/97. As the phrase ‘gene drive’ wasn’t used before 2007 in English news, I searched for the larger category of ‘genetically modified mosquitoes’ (or GMM) and found an article from 1996.

I’ll now say a little bit about these early articles. First the 1996 one (i.e. the first one on GMM), then the 2007 and then the 2009 ones (i.e. the first two on gene drive proper). In between there were of course many others relating to various forms of GMM, including gene drive before the name started to be used. And it should be stressed that research into what one might call population GM was carried out in the sixties by Chris Curtis and George Craig, for example.

1996

The 1996 article, published on 15 June 1996 in The San Diego Union-Tribune, reports on research carried out at the University of California San Diego by Jane Burns and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). She talks about how one could in “a specific and controlled way… be genetically altering the mosquitoes so they can’t transmit diseases”. Her work dealt with Anopheles gambiae, which are mosquitoes that transmit malaria. They are also one the test organisms of choice used nowadays by gene drive researchers at Imperial College.

Burns compares what she does to ‘vaccinating’ the mosquitoes instead of vaccinating the people, a framing that is still being used today, for example by Austin Burt at Imperial College. In practice this means the GMM would have a trait conveyed by a “transferred gene” that “can be passed from generation to generation”.

How is this done? “Burns has succeeded in engineering the mosquito cells because she designed a virus that can penetrate the cells and deliver genes”. You have to read the whole article to understand exactly what’s going on! The title of the PNAS paper is: “Pantropic retroviral vectors integrate and express in cells of the malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae”. She basically succeeded in doing something that nowadays can be achieved more quickly by genome editing using CRISPR-Cas9 I think…

2007

The 2007 article, also based on a paper published in PNAS – the first using the phrase ‘gene drive’ in our corpus – appeared on 25 July in US States News and is in fact a press release by Virginia Tech and the University of California Irvine. It starts by saying: “A decade ago, scientists announced the ability to introduce foreign genes into the mosquito genome. A year ago, scientists announced the successful use of an artificial gene that prevented a virus from replicating within mosquitoes” (that 2006 paper also appeared in PNAS – it focused on genetically modifying Aedes aegypti which transmit dengue fever).

The 2007 paper, also focusing on Aedes aegypti, “demonstrated the ability to express a foreign gene exclusively in the female mosquito germline”. The main player here was Zach Adelman. The gene drive system they developed used “the nanos (nos) gene, which is essential for germline formation”.

To explain how their ‘gene drive system’ works, Adelman used a metaphor, namely that of key. “’Think of the nanos instructions as a key to a room,’ Adelman said.” Unfortunately, we don’t hear much more about that key! The metaphor is not elaborated and the rest of the press release is pretty impenetrable to lay people!

2009

The 2009 article, which appeared on 30 May 2009 in New Scientist, is quite long, well written, draws the reader in and focuses mainly on the use of Wolbachia in an Australian experiment. At the very end, the reporter Rachel Nowak also talks about various kinds of ‘gene drive’, but only briefly.

Back to a dead end – and the road ahead

Reading this New Scientist article, I remembered another one published in 2003 by Oliver Morton, entitled Splat!, and reporting on work relating to what one might call a proto-gene-drive carried out by Austin Burt and Andrea Crisanti at Imperial College. I searched Nexis high and low and I could not find the article. It should be there, but it wasn’t. This shows that one cannot rely on anything!

2003

Anyway, the article describes the work of Burt and Crisanti very nicely and in much needed detail. It turns out that they developed a ‘gene drive’ before CRISPR-Cas9 was even on the horizon, which is interesting, as, confusingly, some people, even scientists and commentators in Nature, define gene drive by reference to CRISPR-Cas9. In the 2003 case, researchers used a different genetic trick to do what CRISPR-Cas9 now does, namely ‘homing endonuclease genes’.

Morton homes in on the most important aspect of gene drives, namely the copying of a genetic change from one chromosome to the other in a cell – which was also used in this case. “In organisms that have paired chromosomes, a gene present on only one chromosome normally gets passed on to exactly half the organism’s offspring. Unless, that is, the gene is an HEG [homing endonuclease genes]. An HEG on one chromosome in a cell can use that cell’s repair mechanisms to get itself copied onto the chromosome’s partner. If the cell in question is a cell that makes eggs or sperm, this copying means that all the eggs or sperm will contain a copy of the HEG – and so all the offspring get a copy. In this way HEGs can spread through a population very quickly indeed.” That’s ‘gene drive’.

Homing endonuclease genes or HEGs were, some say, “the first engineered ‘gene drive’”, but the news, at least as recorded by Nexis, didn’t pick that up. For gene drives to become newsworthy we had to wait for them to go CRISPR.

Finding a road through the semantic jungle

Gene drive research seems to have started about two decades ago (with roots that reach into the 1960s), but it will still be long time before gene drives will be deployed, if at all, according to most experts involved. GMM, by contrast, are being field-tested already.

For me, it will take an even longer time still to get my head around all the types of gene drives that I have now read about (natural and synthetic, global and local, etc…. there is even a lovely sounding daisy drive)! So I was quite relieved when reading through our Nexis samples and found Burt saying in 2018: “there isn’t even agreement on what a gene drive is”!

‘Gene drive’ seems to be an extremely polysemous phrase, that is to say, it has many meanings, some old, some new, some used by some people, some by others, sometimes denoting an object (a ‘cassette’), sometimes a process (‘mutagenic chain reaction’), and so on. This makes it very difficult for non-experts to talk about ‘gene drive’ in any, at least vaguely knowledgeable, way. That’s at least my personal impression!

I’d appreciate any help I can get to find a road through this semantic jungle! Something like this perhaps, metaphorically entitled ‘Sculpting Evolution, but catering more for the lay person.

Image: Road in California, Pixabay

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