#dna strand direction

[er-cryptid]

[theskit]

Sticker AU

Important!!!

Direct linking gets rid of the readmore cuts!

If you came here via direct link, or wish to use the direct links to another part of the story, and DO NOT want to spoil the surprise stickers, please click on my blog name to go to the actual post after using the link.

Part 8

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Once Tim, Bruce, and Damian had returned from patrol Saturday night, it hadn't taken long to catch on that they'd all had an encounter with a mysterious, sticker wielding stranger.

It still sent a small wave of humor through Tim to recall how Bruce had looked, walking through the cave with a sticker proclaiming how many 'goodies' his utility belt had before he'd used an anti-adhesive spray to remove it and the rest of the 'evidence' without risking its destruction.

Damian was still quite adamant that the sticker placed on his katana sheath belonged to him, regardless of if it went with the rest of them into an evidence folder or not.

Pooling their information hadn't resulted in much of a physical description. Tim himself hadn't seen them at all while 'young with blue eyes and dark, possibly-black hair' and 'a sensed presence approximately equivalent to a 12 year old Dick or 14 year old Tim' was not exactly a unique description. Also, he did not need yet another reminder that he was shorter than any other Robin of the same age, thank you, Bruce.

Bruce *had* managed to bring back two blood samples that, while proving a match to each other, were stubbornly refusing to match with much *else*. Including normal human DNA.

The samples somehow had an incredibly mangled DNA strand. Some of it seemed to be *missing* or appeared to be merged with something that the batcomputer outright refused to identify on the first scan. Or the second. The third spit out a partial match to *Lazarus Pit water*. At which point the samples, which had degraded at an exponentially fast rate, were no longer considered by the computer to be a viable DNA sample to analyze.

They couldn't even definitively say the person in question *had* a meta gene, regardless of the odds being in favor of it, (or extremely good stealth tech no one had ever even heard of before) what with the, the, swiss cheese *nonsense* of a DNA strand the analysis had spit out! If the sample on the sticker didn't pull the same results as the ground-collected sample, Tim would have bet money on it being corrupted with something to prevent identification on purpose.

As it was, if the person those blood samples belonged to was not an incredibly sick individual, given the DNA irregularities and the sheer speed of degradation, Tim would be very surprised.

Or they possibly had ties to the League of Assassins, with the partial Lazarus Pit match, though admittedly, the light-heartedness of the stickers made that an incredibly low chance.

This discovery had not proven helpful in getting Bruce to calm down about a young, possibly ill, possibly LoA-adjacent, probably-meta child running around Gotham in the middle of the night, stealing from and pranking every vigilante they came across. The fact that Damian was almost as fixated on finding the child as Bruce came as somewhat more of a surprise, considering. All he would say on the matter was that the level of stealth displayed was quite admirable and worth investing in. Like they needed *more* assassin-trained children running around.

Ugh.

Alfred had eventually been forced to banish both of them upstairs to rest, giving Tim a look that he was choosing not to interpret at the moment. Tim was fine, it hadn't even been *that* long since he'd last slept.

Besides, disregarding the dead-end of the blood samples, there was more than enough information yet to be sorted through.

On top of trying to comb through any possible camera footage in the areas around the incidents, the hotel the sample was found at provided marginally more information. If you counted finding out that a large ghost hunting convention had been scheduled for the long weekend and most of the hotels around the area were booked with *hundreds* of non-local participants to then check up on as a positive information gain. They couldn't even say the hotel the blood samples were found at was the hotel the person in question was staying in. They only knew for certain that it was where the communicator had stopped working.

Plus, the strange way the signal had wavered before cutting out, and the way some of the cameras he had been checking showed nothing but static, pointed to a possibly quite sophisticated piece of jammer technology. Which brought back up the stealth tech option and *more* investigations into where it could have been obtained and who could be producing advanced tech like that.

At least that made the stickers make marginally more sense if they were bought at or created for the convention, though he had already tried to do an online search for the stickers and come up empty handed.

Batman and Robin would be heading out later that evening to see if they could find any new leads or possibly encounter the sticker kid again while Tim continued to track and filter information in the cave.

Stretching a bit and taking a large swig from the not-exactly-Alfred-approved cup of coffee he'd smuggled in, Tim cracked his knuckles and got back to work.

Danny was perfecting his thousand-yard stare off into the distance as his parents corralled yet another poor sap into debating ghosts with them when Jazz swung by the booth to check in. "Hey, Danny. How's it going?"

Danny slowly turned his head to look at her with an expression of immense suffering as he slid a sticker over to her.

Taking a peek at what she'd been handed, Jazz snorted a laugh. "Fair's fair, little brother. Yesterday was my day at the booth, today's yours. Chin up! At least we'll be taking it down and packing it up tonight and tomorrow we can just wander around for the last bit of the convention before we leave."

Danny sighed, "Yeah, at least there's that," he responded glumly. Hopefully, tonight's vigilante adventure would make up for this...

@mygood-bitch99 @stargazer-luna @easily-broken-by-emotion @dolfay @britcision @cyber-geist @is-this-even-relatable @alcorbearson @fisticuffsatapplebees @thegatorsgoose @my-mom-calls-me-rat @some-rotten-nest @crystalqueertea @meira-3919 @wandererofthestars @seraphinedemort @bjurnberg @blep-23 @stargirl1331 @bianca-hooks123 @addie-lover-of-stories @pickleking8 @iconicanemone @sarina-elais @mur-ururu @sailor-goddess @dragonfirefeather @nutcase8691 @ravenpainter @liandrin @jaguarthecat @russetfur1128 @purefrickingspite @oakskull @idfk-man10 @vythika96 @molasses-being-slow @satisfactionbroughtmeback @serasvictoria02 @tkiesai @breesperez139 @dhampir-princess @redhoneysugarorange @gildedphoenix @iglowinggemma28 @f4nd0m-fun @therandomartmaker @mandyne-1001

[starry-bi-sky]

part THREE of the "Clone Danny" au

the first part is linked above

SO for the "cloning" thing. Danny finding out still occurs in the same way as @minnesota-fats described it as going in their post.

In all honesty it was never his parents' intention to clone Bruce. They were intending to clone Jack instead, actually. But they made Danny shortly after they met up with their old college friend Bruce and they guess some of his DNA ended up on Jack and the hair they used was Bruce's instead.

They never thought to inform Bruce of this mistake.

And Danny? Danny is furious after he gets over his shock. Mainly over the fact that his parents have been lying to him for the last 14 years of his fucking life (i imagine he had his accident when he was 13 instead). He's more angry over that than being a clone. He can't do anything about that. He'll be upset over it later, but for now he's furious over the lie.

He goes and stays with Tucker for the night, and brings his vigilante stuff with him. he tells Tucker that he's a clone. He texts Sam and she comes over for a sleepover. He even tells Ellie later on when he's had time to sleep on it.

After the rage fades though he just... feels unsure, and a little lost. He wants to reach out to this Bruce Wayne guy and tell him that he's been cloned. It's a violation that Danny knows from when he met Ellie. God he loves her like a sister but it doesnt change the fact that he was fucking cloned. If he was Wayne, he'd want to know.

It's as if Danny found out that he was born through a sperm donor and now wanted to reach out to his biological father. but at the same time he was scared of Wayne's reaction. Wayne is a rich civilian man with a business and many kids. He has his life and family, and Danny doesn't want to.. to intrude on that with his own existence.

So he doesn't reach out. Even though he is so tempted to ask Sam if he could come with when she's being dragged into some Wayne Gala by her parents that they managed to get into. instead, he denies her invite, and she tells danny about bruce when he comes back. he sounds like a good guy. This is only backed up by his deep dive into bruce wayne and hearing all about his charities and businesses and its drive to make the Gotham better.

(Bruce Wayne is the only billionaire Sam actually likes, even if she looks down on his personality. She tells Danny about his grumpy youngest son who Sam shares a bit in common with. he's a year or so younger than them.)

It makes Danny feel worse about not telling him.

(danny's obsession, despite popular belief, is not protecting the town. Its family. he can never have enough family)

Of course this one-sided avoidance completely fucking blows up in his face, as normal, when he comes home and finds Bruce fucking Wayne sitting in his kitchen with his parents happily chatting over their college days. it was mainly Jack talking.

"Danbo! You're just in time, our old friend Bruce dropped by for a visit!" Jack exclaimed cheerfully.

Danny made direct eye contact with bruce, and slammed the door shut with a loud bang.

"Bruce Wayne is sitting in my kitchen." he says calmly to the door, internally freaking out. And then opens the door again. Bruce Wayne is still. there. looking vaguely amused. His eyebrow raised in an elegant arch

its weird. He looks nothing like Dan. Its comforting.

danny is pale in the face and he smiles painfully, his teeth grinding. "hiiiiii" he says through his teeth.

"your son doesn't look too happy to see me" bruce jokes, and danny closes the door quietly. his long hair is falling over his face in strands. he prays that bruce doesnt notice the resemblance.

"he's just being shy" maddie says, giving danny a reprimanding look

danny shoots her a "what the fuck" look in response, and keeps his head turned away from him while walking by. there's a small boy sitting next to bruce with tanned skin and emerald eyes. he looks like danny. he looks like bruce.

he must be Damian.

"I have homework, i'll be up in my room" he practically announces to the room, and takes the stairs two at a time. if you asked him, he wasn't running.

he calls tucker, trying not to yell.

"Bruce Wayne is sitting in my kitchen"

aaaand.... my fingers are freezing off thanks to the ac so im gonna leave that there for now. I'll go more into phantom meeting the vigilantes or the justice league tmrw. hopefully.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 4.5 (Dani interlude) Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 7.5 (Dan Interlude) Part 8

[cellarspider]

13/?? Science interlude!

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We return to Prometheus, where I am taking a break to ramble about my job. A thing that I love. It will be a nice change. Also: weird blood!

I have been informed that some methods of accessing tumblr do not play well with long alt text rambles. To keep the flow between the main text and alt text separate, I’ll be copying the longest ones below the main text and citations. Captions that I think are going to be long enough to need this treatment will be marked with “Overflow Ramble [number]”, so they’ll be slightly easier to find. It’s not a perfect system, but Tumblr is not a perfect website.

And I am going to need the overflow space this time, because we’re getting into genetics!

After electrocuting a decapitated alien head until it exploded into a shower of green gore, the creatures that claim to be scientists stuck a bit of the goop in some sort of very science-y DNA machine, leading to this:

“Let's have a look at its DNA. Isolate the strand. Okay. Compare it to the gene sample?”

“[Overlay… Processing… Processing… DNA MATCH.]”

“Oh, my God. It's us.”

I want this preserved for posterity, because this made me absolutely hoot. They avoided fake science technobabble by going so far in the other direction that it becomes equally meaningless.

What the scene is trying to say is “this alien shares the vast majority of its genetic material with humans, indicating that they are in fact related.” 

I will get to how one would actually determine that, but first: The head turned into green goop. Green goop. Humans are notably not prone to turning into green goop. Otherwise Nickelodeon would’ve probably been shut down within a week.

(Image credit: Rich Fury/KCA2021/Getty Images for Nickelodeon)

This annoyed me so much that years later, I dug up a possible explanation that backfills this with cool biology.

Humans, and almost all vertebrates have hemoglobin-filled blood. And on a tangent that I must follow: The only vertebrate that doesn’t is the icefish Channichthyidae family, commonly known as the white-blooded fish. 

You’ll never guess what’s special about them. 

Yes, somehow these fish manage to live without hemoglobin, their blood only having 10% of the oxygen carrying capacity of their red-blooded cousins. Hell, most of them also lack myoglobin, which stores oxygen in muscle. The loss of myoglobin isn’t just a one-off event either, genetic studies have shown that these icefish have seen four distinct branches of their family tree lose myoglobin independently of each other. They have a wild series of adaptations to permit this, but basically they were already in such cold-oxygen rich water and moving so slow that they didn’t need all that extra oxygen-having stuff. They lost it, kept going, got bigger hearts, weirder muscles, and just kept going. They’ve actually expanded their range in the past 30 million years or so!

I love them! Evolution is wild. You know what’s also wild? There’s green-blooded vertebrates. Yes. You read that right. Yes, they still have hemoglobin. What they also have are staggering levels of biliverdin, which human bodies only produce when breaking down hemoglobin–when a bruise takes on a greenish hue, it’s because the dismantling of the blood under your skin has created biliverdin. While it’s generally been thought of as just a breakdown product, some research suggests that it also has protective effects against a number of diseases. In moderation, though. If you have enough of it to actually turn a bit green, you’ve got jaundice, which is not a thing you want to have. 

But for a number of fish species, bush frogs, and skinks, they have way more biliverdin. 

(Austin, C. C., & Jessing, K. W. (1994). Green-blood pigmentation in lizards. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Physiology, 109(3), 619-626.)

Humans usually don’t have much circulating biliverdin at all, so the table above compares someone with untreated jaundice to a number of other species–fish with two to fourteen times that amount, and the green-blooded skinks have twenty-two times as much! These creatures have green blood and turquoise-colored bones, and we still don’t know why. Maybe it’s protection against diseases, maybe it’s protection against parasites like malaria, maybe it’s to make them really blend in with foliage. Could be all of those at once, could be none of them, we don’t know! What we do know is that, as with the icefish, the green-blooded skinks in particular have independently evolved this feature four different times. (Rodriguez, Z. B., Perkins, S. L., & Austin, C. C. (2018). Multiple origins of green blood in New Guinea lizards. Science Advances, 4(5), eaao5017.)

(https://australian.museum/blog-archive/amri-news/amri-three-tiny-green-blooded-frogs-sing-like-birds/) 

(https://web.archive.org/web/20180619143048/https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/09/30/why-do-mysterious-lizards-have-green-blood/) 

We have no mammals identified with biliverdin-filled green blood, you would need a lot of tweaks to how our bodies function to make this work. But it’s not literally impossible, like I thought in the theater! I’m quite sure the prop department didn’t do this level of research on the subject, but think about it! 

I love biology! It’s! So! Weird!

And because I love biology, you’re not getting rid of me yet. My chosen field is genetics. This movie has presented me with a laughable sci-fi depiction of what we do. 

So! What do we actually do, when we want to find out how related we are to another species?

I’m going to get into excruciating detail, so here’s the top-line summary: We extract the DNA, mash it up into readable little chunks, use some wicked cool machines to do the actual reading, and then we compare the target DNA with our DNA, and do some cooler stuff the movie isn’t aware of. A competent analysis would not only be able to tell you how much overlap two genomes have, but also be able to estimate how long the two species have been genetically distinct. 

Is this way more than the movie needed for this plot point? Yes. But they didn’t actually have to do this at all, they could’ve just said the truth that science fiction usually ignores for budgetary reasons: “there’s no way these beings independently evolved to look so much like us, we have to be related.” 

(Although even Star Trek, despite being the classic example of “putting a rubber thing on an actor’s forehead to make them an alien”, actually does acknowledge this. Precisely once. TNG s6e20, “The Chase”. It has never been mentioned again in the main line series, possibly because Rick Berman didn’t like it.)

Now. Time for me to take you all on a grand tour of DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. You are all getting into the Willy Wonka boat with me. You have no choice.

So! You have a sample you’ve taken from a non-human mammal, one that’s never been genetically analyzed before. You are very lucky. You get to do fun stuff.

But before you get to sequencing, you have to purify any DNA in the sample. Your sample is full of all sorts of other biochemical gunk, and when cells are happy, DNA is packed away in the nucleus–you need to crack those open to get at the DNA. 

Next, you need to break the DNA into chunks, that’s #1 on the diagram above. For most of the past twenty years, this has meant chunking DNA down into pieces 25-50 letters long–just enough to probably get something unique over most of the genome, though you will have some areas that look identical at that tiny scale. In recent times, we’ve been getting better and better at what’s called “long read sequencing”, which at this point means fragments of several thousand DNA letters in length–though that’s still pretty short, compared to human chromosomes though: the average length of a human chromosome is 134 million letters long.

Depending on the sequencing technology and its needs, the sample may also need “amplification”: getting copied over and over using a protein originally harvested from hotspring-loving bacteria (#2). I always love that bit just as a concept: it’s one of many places where the modern study of genetics uses the microscopic, biological machinery of proteins for our own use! 

After everything’s prepared, Then the sequencing itself can occur. That too is wild–the most common versions these days use tiny little fluorescent proteins to tag each letter of the DNA and read the sequence of lights (#3!). Some use infinitesimally tiny electrical modulations as DNA passes by a microscopic reader. There’s loads of different ways, anything works, so long as it can be read by a computer.

All this takes place in machines that are either small enough to fit on a countertop, or big enough to look like a fridge, and come in Apple White or Cheap Plastic Appliance.

Because you have a new species, you’re building what we call a reference genome. This tries to capture as much of the entire genome sequence as possible. Here’s an interesting wrinkle, though–A lot of samples won’t be just DNA from your target species! You might be picking up microbial DNA along the way as well. That can be really interesting and worth knowing about, though! Some people spend their whole careers studying the genomes of microbes found on people’s skin, or in their bodies. You’ll be computationally sorting out which sequences are in contiguous, mammalian chromosomes, which are from mitochondrial DNA (those cute little powerhouses have their own genomes!), and which come from microbes.

At the end of it, you have sequenced an entire genome. Because you want to find out how related it is to humans, you compare it to our reference genome–The human reference genomes we use is an assembly made from multiple individuals.* We use the reference genome as a common point of comparison that we refer to when studying genetic variation.

*Though if you’re working with data form the Genome Reference Consortium as is usually standard, one anonymous African-European donor, RP11, is still the backbone of the reference, accounting for 70% of the latest assembly.

(https://mk.bcgsc.ca/telomere-to-telomere-human-genome-assembly/posters.mhtml)

So, we’d compare this new mammalian genome to our own–how much overlap would we find? A lot. How you define our similarities and differences from other species can change the answer, but you’ll expect a lot of overlap. Some areas of the genome diverge faster than others, others are highly conserved–generally the more stable it is, the more important it is for our function. 

Through many, many, many studies and corroboration with the archaeological record, we’ve worked out how to estimate how long ago two species diverged from each other. Actually, you’d rarely be comparing between just two species at this stage–get out all the other relevant reference genomes you’ve got! Compare them all! Build a phylogenetic tree–the modern version of that “tree of life” idea that Darwin popularized. Then you’ll have a more accurate sense of how your mystery species relates to everything.

(https://www.embl.org/news/science/a-new-tree-of-life-allows-a-closer-look-at-the-origin-of-species/) 

I’m going to go off on a tangent to end this post, because that’s just the start, taking the entire genome of a single individual. This is what most people think is what we always do. But no! That’s expensive overkill for most experiments. Once you’re familiar with a species, and you’ve sequenced DNA from many individuals, you can identify areas where lots of them have sequence variants. These can be completely benign, differences that make us all unique, or make an individual more susceptible to disease. This allows us to target what we want out of DNA sequencing: Are we trying to diagnose an illness? Identify a person from a tissue sample? Or are we doing something more exploratory?

Depending on what you want, you select anywhere from a handful of locations, up to tens of thousands. The closest many people have gotten to this stuff is through ancestry services like 23andMe, which uses this kind of sequencing.

But that’s not all! There’s so many different targets to choose from, depending on what you want to do! So many techniques to get DNA in different ways! And we still haven’t gotten to the part that I actually work on.

I’m a computational geneticist. I get all the gigabytes of data that comes out of these experiments and I get to dig into the details, the patterns that emerge between genetic code and the details of the organisms we study, the connections between genome sequence and other, wilder things we can collect data on, the dizzying complexities of what goes on every microsecond of every day in every cell in your body.

I love my job. 

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Citations for alt-text rambles:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_YuTMDkWfI 2. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.116129 note: this source lists the image as credit to “J.M.B.”, which is not how I’m used to seeing images credited. Those are the initials of one of the authors, but I thought it meant “Journal of Molecular Biology”, so I went on a half hour wander around the internet trying to find where the hell this fish blood came from. 3. https://www.thebhs.org/publications/the-herpetological-journal/volume-13-number-4-october-2003/1729-01-hyperbiliverdinemia-in-the-shingleback-lizard-tiliqua-rugosa 4. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0264.2009.00952.x 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrill#Characteristics 6. https://www.vogue.com/article/dune-part-two-costumes-jacqueline-west-interview 7. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.29564.08327 8. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357946568_New_approaches_and_concepts_to_study_complex_microbial_communities 9. https://karobben.github.io/2023/10/30/Bioinfor/PacBio/ 

Overflow Ramble 1

 the fuckin “DNA MATCH” machine. I already wrote a 380-word alt-text about this thing last time. I’m not doing it again. I’m going to talk about things I like instead. Such as Dune: Part Two! Yes! I mentioned it last week and then didn’t ramble about it after seeing it. Well, NOW I WILL. tl;dr it’s good, go see it. I only vaguely remember the book, but I liked the changes they made to center the fact that no, Paul becoming Lisan al-Gaib is not actually a good thing.

Man, it’s nice to see a movie where the costumers and set designers got good time to work on their craft. (cite 6) Even the generic Harkonnen soldiers looked great–reminded me a lot of my beloved Warframe, probably because the costume designer was using H.R. Giger for inspiration there. Everything felt real. Even the stuff that definitely wasn’t–the gigantic spice harvesters and ships felt like living, physically present beings. The sand worms looked great. The movie did a fantastic job visually communicating the massive size of so many things. Especially because the camera remains restrained: no weightless zipping around, the camera itself follows paths and finds locations that make sense. 

Chakobsa continues to be a fantastic conlang, now the work of both David and Jesse Peterson. It’s heard a lot more in this movie, and there are some great flourishes with it. While there isn’t as much Arabic vocabulary in it as in the original books, I remember from DJP’s work streams that he definitely was using the grammar of Arabic as one of his touchstones. Most key words remain Arabic though–jihad was removed, but it made me double-take in the theater when Stilgar referred to Paul as the Mahdi.

I’m of two minds about lowering the Arab influences on the Fremen–on the one hand, missing representation, which included some explicit ties to real world anti-imperial struggles in North Africa and the Middle East. On the other, these first two movies are about how the Fremen are manipulated by a colonial power, using their adherence to a faith that was manipulated by a different colonial power. They become both hapless victims and also perpetrators of colonial violence, with only Chani seeing through it.

I think the general decisionmaking process on cultural changes was motivated by a desire to remove some of Frank Herbert’s bad ideas–particularly around the Harkonnens, thank fuck. That seems to have been the thinking around altering the Fremen a bit as well. Did it succeed? Not my place to say. On all other notes, I have no reservations recommending the movie. It’s a very earnest attempt to bring that world to life, and I think it succeeds.

Overflow Ramble 2

A figure showing the basic steps of the standard Illumina sequencing method (cite 7). It is broken into four sub-figures:

Library Preparation. The genome is snipped into small fragments, then adapters are attached (“ligated”) to stabilize the molecule and make it behave. This creates a “library” of DNA that will be read from.

DNA library bridge amplification. The adapters on DNA fragments stick to a prepared plate, which is covered in little clusters of molecules that specially attach to those adapters. Biochemical processes are then carried out in repeated cycles to duplicate (or “amplify”) those fragments in such a way that the clusters on the plate are all filled with copies of just one DNA fragment.

DNA library sequencing. The DNA is modified so that the four letters it’s made out of all glow a specific color, with each DNA letter shining in sequence. This is pure awesome and I love it.

Alignment and data analysis. Because of some details on how step 1 is done, you have lots of fragments that create an overlapping patchwork of sequences. This allows (most of) the genome to be pasted back together by looking for overlaps (“contiguous sequences”, or “contigs” for short).

Congratulations! You have just attended an abridged graduate-level introductory lecture on Illumina sequencing.

Overflow Ramble 3

A diagram of PacBio Systems’ sequencing technology, Single Molecule, Real-Time Sequencing, or SMRT Sequencing, because scientists love acronyms. Pretty much every step is different from how Illumina does it. I cannot find a diagram that’s both brief and also good at explaining what it’s showing, so this is the best I could find. It’s split into four parts with attendant text, which I’ll try and explain as well.

“SMRTbell template. Two hairpin adapters allow continuous circular sequencing.”

Library preparation basically involves taking a longer chunk of DNA and splitting it in half lengthwise, in such a way that the two strands of DNA will form a single-stranded loop. This is called a SMRTbell library. Why? I have no idea! 

“ZMW wells. Sites where sequencing takes place.”

Then, these are fed into SMRT Cells, which contain zero-mode waveguides (ZMWs). I was once told what this means, and I have completely forgotten, but it sounds like something from Gundam.

“Modified polymerase. As a nucleotide is incorporated by the polymerase, a camera records the emitted light.”

What I do understand is that at the bottom of each of these little holes, they stick a molecule which the DNA sticks to. This molecule, a polymerase, has precisely one job: make more DNA, an exact copy of what it’s latched onto. So you give it this loop of DNA, feed it a soup of free DNA letters, and it starts cranking out a new strand. 

“PacBio output. A camera records the changing colours from all ZMWs; each colour change corresponds to one base.”

Each one of the DNA letters given to the polymerase has a special modifier, on it which flashes a color when the polymerase slots it into the new strand it’s making. A camera picks up this flash. And, because the DNA is a circle, the polymerase doesn’t know where to stop–it just keeps going and going until something breaks or it runs out of letters to work with. This means that even if the camera misses a flash the first time, it will have more chances to see it, and confirm what it already saw.

Wait what in the fuck this figure was from somebody’s thesis (cite 8), but that wasn’t what actually got this into search results. What got it there was a github page with a vtuber avatar sitting in the corner?? What??? (cite 9)

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[talonabraxas]

Angels of Sirius “Messengers of the Crystal Realm.” Talon Abraxas

This Ascension process can and will manifest in many different ways, and it is up to all of us collectively to decide how and when this occurs. Creating the Ascension starts with each of us, on the inside. The Sirians tell us that the most important thing to do is to go inside our hearts, be open to Love Unconditionally.

The Sirians are working with individual human beings first, then are giving us hints as to what's happening, as we meet others and form little groups together that interconnect with one another, and then we begin to share our experiences.

Later, this would lead to more conscious understanding of what their/our purpose is in the transformation of planet Earth as it goes into Ascension. The Ascension will be like a key, opening and anchoring the Light Body with the physical, emotional, and mental bodies, allowing them to integrate and thereby give each individual much greater access to higher dimensions and experiences of Oneness with others.

There really would be no "other," because everyone would realize their connection to the whole. Of course, all these things happening would still be the choice of every one.

I know what I'm going to choose...

What the future really holds, I don't know, but I envision a great paradigm shift, and a re-birth for Earth and its symbiotic companions that live here physically and in other dimensions.

We are all here to experience this fantastic journey, and there are many beings from other realms, dimensions, universes, and star systems who are here to help us.

The Sirians are some of those beings. They work with some of us on the third dimension in subtle ways that we cannot easily see with our mere five physical senses, and on higher dimensions in more blatant and direct ways, which we still can't perceive unless we have access to those dimensions.

Well, we do have access, just not usually in a conscious state. So they often work with us in dream states, when our consciousnesses are not being so affected by our personality and ego filters.

The Sirians are etheric in their native form and are now working with many of us not only to activate and open our five higher inter-planetary chakras that have been dormant, but also they are working on our genetic structure.

Human DNA is going to be shifting back to its original twelve-strand from the current double strand; the Sirians are here to aid us in this process.

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

Can we get some details about Time Lord/TARDIS symbiosis? And how it works for a single pilot vs a full crew of six pilots being bonded?

Time Lord/TARDIS Symbiosis

🧬 Rassilon's Imprimatur: The Symbiotic Core

Rassilon’s Imprimatur, also known as 'imprimature' or 'imprimateur', is the term for the essential connection that Time Lords form with their TARDISes. This link is facilitated by the 'symbiotic nuclei' encoded within the hidden 4th strand of a Time Lords' DNA. This connection is mutually beneficial as the TARDIS needs the Time Lord's unique genetic codes to work - like a key in the motor - and the Time Lord obviously needs a TARDIS for safe time travel.

🚀 Single Pilot vs. Crew Dynamics

Single Pilot Bonding: When a Time Lord pilots their TARDIS solo, the connection is intensely personal and direct. Imagine a rope linking two entities, where communication and control flow seamlessly as long as the rope is in one piece. This way, the connection is quite intimate.

Crew Pilot Bonding: Introducing a full crew of six to the equation transforms this intimate connection into more of a network of friends. Each Time Lord adds their own strand of rope, creating a web of interconnected symbiotic nuclei. This expanded setup can enhance the TARDIS’s capabilities, distributing the piloting and navigational duties among the crew and allowing for more complex operations. However, all pilots must have harmony and precise coordination to maintain stability and efficiency.

🌌 Consequences of Symbiotic Disruption

Disruption to the symbiotic nuclei or the 'rope' itself, whether through damage, illness, or external interference, has consequences. Symptoms can range from physiological distress to severe mental afflictions for both TARDIS and Time Lord. In extreme cases, this disruption can endanger the lives of both the Time Lord and the TARDIS.

Hope that helped! 😃

→🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (WIP) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine/Monitoring Guides →📝Source list (WIP)

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》📫Got a question / submission? 》😆Jokes |🫀Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts 》📚Complete list of Q+A 》📜Masterpost If you like what GIL does, please consider buying a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious for future projects, including complete biology and language guides.

[science-lover33]

Genetic engineering: CRISPR and beyond

In genetic engineering, we find ourselves amidst a scientific revolution with the advent of revolutionary technologies like CRISPR-Cas9. However, our journey into the intricate landscape of genetic manipulation is far from complete. This post delves into the nuanced world of genetic engineering, exploring cutting-edge technologies and their remarkable potential in shaping the future of medicine and biotechnology.

CRISPR-Cas9: Precision at the Molecular Level

CRISPR-Cas9, a revolutionary genome editing tool, stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and CRISPR-associated protein 9. It utilizes a guide RNA (gRNA) to target specific DNA sequences, and the Cas9 protein acts as molecular scissors to cut the DNA at precisely defined locations. This break in the DNA prompts the cell's natural repair machinery to make changes, either through non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) or homology-directed repair (HDR). CRISPR-Cas9's precision allows for gene knockout, modification, or insertion with remarkable accuracy.

Beyond CRISPR: Emerging Technologies

While CRISPR-Cas9 has dominated the field of genetic engineering, numerous promising technologies have emerged on the horizon. These include CRISPR-Cas variants like CRISPR-Cas12 and CRISPR-Cas13, which offer unique advantages such as smaller size, increased specificity, and targeting of RNA. Additionally, base editing techniques, such as adenine base editors (ABEs) and cytosine base editors (CBEs), enable the direct conversion of one DNA base into another without causing double-strand breaks, expanding the range of genetic modifications possible.

Applications in Medicine

The implications of these advancements are profound, particularly in medicine. Genetic engineering can potentially treat various genetic disorders, from cystic fibrosis to sickle cell anemia, by correcting disease-causing mutations at their source. Precision medicine, tailored to an individual's genetic makeup, is becoming increasingly feasible, allowing for personalized therapies with minimal side effects.

Ethical Considerations and Regulation

As we venture further into the genetic frontier, we must acknowledge the ethical considerations surrounding genetic engineering. The ability to modify the human germline, with implications for future generations, raises ethical dilemmas that necessitate rigorous oversight and regulation. The international community is developing guidelines to ensure responsible use of these powerful tools.

Future Directions and Challenges

While genetic engineering offers immense promise, it is not without its challenges. Off-target effects, unintended consequences, and the potential for creating designer babies are among the issues that demand careful consideration. Researchers and ethicists must work in tandem to navigate this uncharted territory.

References

Doudna, J. A., & Charpentier, E. (2014). The new frontier of genome engineering with CRISPR-Cas9. Science, 346(6213), 1258096.

Anzalone, A. V., Randolph, P. B., Davis, J. R., Sousa, A. A., Koblan, L. W., Levy, J. M., … & Liu, D. R. (2019). Search-and-replace genome editing without double-strand breaks or donor DNA. Nature, 576(7785), 149-157.

Kime, E. (2021). CRISPR and the ethics of gene editing. Nature Reviews Genetics, 22(1), 3-4.

This post only scratches the surface of the profound transformations occurring in genetic engineering. The relentless pursuit of knowledge and ethical exploration will shape the future of this field as we continue to unlock the intricate secrets of our genetic code.

[sometimesiwanna-disappear]

I don't know why it is that the last unicorn specifically fills me with such deep, rich, painful melancholy. Partially it must be because of my personal intimate-feeling history with it. My forgotten beloved childhood movie, the one I begged to show to all my friends and family, that I rediscovered in my adulthood like unearthing a fragment of my own soul in the sand as the wave receded. I almost feel like loving the story is in my dna, like there's an invisible strand connecting me to it. Reading about the author's painful struggle to produce the book, his near-poverty while writing it, the lack of magic in the process- his promise to himself that he would not write anything untrue. The events and characters laid themselves out with his painstaking direction and effort, and he did not realize what exactly he had made for many many years. The birthing process of this story is one I experience with my own creative work. The visceral pain yet NEED to create and perpetuate the myth, the Story, is present in my soul as it was and is in Peter s beagle's. Shmendrick summoned Robin Hood and Robin Hood was not real. There has never been a time without unicorns.

[impossiblescissorspeachpaper]

Demons of Night Past [I]

A Halloween treat! 🎃👻

A demon!Elain x detective!Azriel two-part story. Modern fantasy AU.

Summary: Detective Azriel Corleone has been investigating the gruesome murders terrorizing the city of Velaris for three weeks now. He’s got zero leads and a mountain of pressure pushing the Velaris Police Department to solve the murders, and quick.

When he discovers a mysterious artifact at one of the crime scenes, he’s convinced it holds a clue that can help the investigation. But things take an unexpected turn, plunging him into an implausible fantasy world, far from anything his mundane life has ever known.

Artwork by @/artofelaineho on IG

Elain x Azriel. Modern AU. 3.5k words

Detective Azriel Corleone ran a rough hand through his hair, the black strands artlessly tousled. Having been roused from sleep at two-thirty in the morning, in conjunction with the numerous times he’d already threaded his fingers through the inky locks in aggravation, his mop of thick hair stood dishevelled in every direction.

Padding his way carefully through the crime scene, cautious not to step on any crimson patches of sticky blood or nearby debris, his keen gaze scanned his surroundings with meticulous scrutiny.

Hazel eyes examined the back alley vigilantly, attempting to capture every detail in the darkness of the early morning. The sky was still pitch black, but the full moon above cast a silvery light over the world, as the wavering streetlamp ahead emitted a weedy glow over the scene before him. The gritty brick walls, the dubious puddles across the damp cement ground, the piled bags of garbage along either side of the alley… and the prone body left dumped in those grim surroundings in the wake of the rampaging murderer that had been terrorizing Velaris now for three weeks.

Three murders, in just as many weeks. And no leads. The media was having a field day with the story. The perceived incompetence of the Velaris PD was making headlines daily due to the particularly gruesome nature of the crime scenes and the subsequent incredulity of the public that the murders so far remained unsolved.

Despite the grisly scenery each slain victim had found themselves in, detectives had not yet been able to gather any clues to lead them to an arrest. No DNA left behind or beneath victims’ fingernails, no weapons, no footprints or stray hairs or particles from foreign clothing. It was as if the assassin had appeared out of thin air, slain their victim swiftly and expertly, then disappeared once again without a trace.

Azriel had groggily answered his phone twenty-five minutes earlier, the gruff voice of his commanding officer barking the address of the site of the latest killing down the line; only a few short blocks from his sad little apartment on the west side of Velaris.

After a few choice colourful expletives, Azriel had pushed his feet through the discarded pants crumpled by the side of his bed and grabbed his jacket before hastily making the short trip to the dingy alley on his motorbike.

Thoughts of the murders engrossed his mind his entire ride there, as they had been since the killings started, trying in vain to uncover the missing piece of the puzzle. That taunting mystery remained hanging just out of reach, dangling mockingly outside the breadth of their fingertips, only serving to baffle and embarrass the Velaris Police Department. Not to mention the wide-spread terror that was flowing across the city, its residents now living in fear, dubiously appraising neighbours and strangers alike.

The task force had painstakingly considered the crimes from every angle they could. The victims themselves didn’t even have any known connections. Other than they had all found themselves in downtown Velaris when they met their demise, and that they all had convictions of various heinous crimes on their files. Domestic abuse, sexual assault, aggravated assault. It made Azriel feel just a tad less guilty they hadn’t caught the perpetrator yet. It was as if some masked vigilante had taken it upon themselves to rid the city of all the vermin, the worst of the abusers and monstruous criminals, the scummiest of citizens.

Still, Azriel couldn’t figure it out. And he needed to. His livelihood depended on it. A life lost was a life lost, and it was his sworn duty to protect this city.

Turning his focus toward the ground at the victims’ feet, he swept his eyes up the cooling corpse. Hazel eyes settled on the male’s face and surprise coloured Azriel’s features; he recognised this one. A pretentious, insufferable man from Spring.

Azriel had arrested him just last month against claims of domestic abuse. He couldn’t recall his name, but he remembered the smug look on his face as his frightened looking wife had meekly rescinded her accusations. He’d given the woman his direct number, imploring her to call if she ever needed help, and made sure she received the appropriate anonymous counselling and support from the department.

Sighing, Azriel got to work, pulling out his notepad. As a result of being the first detective on the scene after the call from his commanding officer, Azriel had the unfortunate honour of examining the victims mangled body.

The male lay bloodied and bruised, emerald eyes wide with terror and mouth agape as if in a scream. It was as if he had been slashed across the chest with a blade whilst the air had been strangled from his lungs simultaneously. The veins in his neck bulged and ran darker than normal, leaving ominous looking navy tracks across parts of his cold skin. Deep ruby stains bloomed across his chest although his clothing remained intact. His grimy white t-shirt was soaked with his own blood, and his ruddy blonde hair caked with it.

Trailing his gaze over the body and making notes in his pad, a shimmer caught Azriel’s attention. Partially covered by the cold fingers of the victims’ right hand, was something that Azriel hadn’t immediately noticed.

Pulling a pair of black latex gloves from his pocket, he crouched beside the body, pulling them over his rough scarred fingers. Poking around in the pooled dirt and blood, his fingers fished out a fine gold chain. Carefully tugging it out from beneath the corpse, a small charm revealed itself on what appeared to be the end of a necklace, the amulet barely the size of his thumb nail.

The charm was made of glass, and somehow, despite the blood and dirt that caked the alleyway, it remained unblemished, as if it repelled all and any substance that would stain it. Holding the necklace up to the light, Azriel noted the glass charm had a small, intricate, onyx rose embedded into one side. The obsidian of the rose seemed to gobble up the dim light, setting the delicate petals gleaming as the moonlight delicately caressed its edges. The charm slowly spun, rotating in his hand as it dangled from the fine gold chain, when strange lettering on the reverse side was gradually revealed:

Venisti ad me

Azriel’s brow furrowed as he looked at the words gleaming in miniscule gold lettering, intuition telling him that the strange phrase on the charm could very well be the breakthrough the VPD had been looking for. Reading the engraving over once, twice, he wracked his brain, pondering what language it could be and how he could set about finding out. It was like nothing he had ever seen before.

“Venisti ad me…” Azriel murmured into the silent darkness of night, his breath puffing out before him like a fog. The chill autumn weather of October had finally grasped Velaris in its hold, preparing for the inevitable turn of seasons as winter approached.

An icy wind swept through the alley, ruffling Azriel’s hair and whipping at his leather jacket. But despite it being early in the morning hours before dawn, despite it inching ever closer to winter, the temperature had dropped uncharacteristically low just in the last few moments. The streetlamp ahead flickered and died, plunging the alleyway in almost complete darkness for several moments before shining unsteadily once more.

Azriel’s skin erupted in goosebumps beneath his leather jacket and his breath continued billowing clouds of mist as his exhales grew heavier against the suddenly arctic air. The unnerving feeling that he was being watched expeditiously crept across his mind, causing the hair at the nape of his neck to stand on end.

Whipping his head back to glance behind him from his crouched position, he was only met with an empty lane, distant sirens alerting him to the knowledge that his squad were on their way. He almost sagged with relief, reminding himself not to be so paranoid.

Turning back toward the corpse, his sigh of relief caught in his throat as hazel eyes snagged on a figure that hadn’t been there a moment before.

He startled, stumbling to his full height briskly, habitually reaching for the gun holstered at his side.

A supple-bodied woman had appeared in the alleyway up ahead, her face obscured by the shadows that seemed to swarm and darken around her. But despite the swirling shadows, he could just make out the silhouette of her taller than average stature, her hourglass figure, and eyes that seemed to gleam like embers in the darkness. He thought he noticed those glowing eyes flashing to his gun before landing on his face once more. His fingers curled around the grip in response.

“That won’t be necessary,” her melodic voice rang out in the stillness of the night like a bell, “I don’t intend to hurt you.”

Her voice was raspy and yet sweet, soothing and exhilarating all at once. It slithered along his bones and allayed his soul. Yet, his head told him not to act a fool, it reminded him that innocent, albeit alluring women, did not just appear upon gruesome crime scenes without some macabre reason.

Ever the careful detective, his head won out. He didn’t lower his hand from his weapon. “Come out of the shadows, leave your hands where I can see them.”

He heard a breathy laugh, light and tinkling but with an edge of sharpness that spoke of secret ferocity. The woman edged forwards, stepping out of the darkness and into the light, and Azriel was rendered utterly speechless.

His breath had caught in his chest, for she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. But could he call her a woman? She looked… other worldly.

Surely, she didn’t belong in this world. For whatever reason, that thought crept upon his mind and refused to subside. Something about her was peculiar, unnerving, yet all the while enthralling. He couldn’t tear his eyes off her if he tried.

He’d never seen anyone like her. Her glossy golden-brown hair hung down to her waist, floating about her as if a phantom wind danced and affectionately caressed its silky lengths. As if the air itself couldn’t resist the temptation of touching her, giving her luxurious mane a life of its own. She wore a black figure-hugging dress, the silk appearing almost fluid as it mellifluously wrapped around her sinful curves, leaving her arms and décolletage bare. She should have been shivering in this cold, but she didn’t seem phased in the slightest by the harsh chill. On the contrary, her pale, golden skin seemed to glow— beautifully stark against the midnight hue of her gown— not a single blemish or scar marring the expanse of exposed alabaster skin. She looked too perfect, as if carved of marble, designed by man. Her eyes were large, wide and all-seeing, like a doe, the soft chocolate of her irises swirling ominously within a ring of depthless ebony. Even her hands were beautiful, if such a thing were possible. Her palms were held out before her and he noticed her red tipped nails crowning her long, elegant fingers. A solitary ring adorned the third finger on her left hand, the lustrous cobalt gemstone glinting in the dim alleyway.

Azriel’s heart ratcheted in his chest, a reaction he wasn’t sure whether to contribute to fear, or amorous curiosity toward the woman before him.

As if hearing his treacherous heart, the woman smiled, her lips curling to reveal white teeth, larger and brighter than he had anticipated.

“Ma’am, were you the civilian who called in the tip?” Azriel inquired, his hand still on his holster but otherwise rendered frozen in place. He was certain the murderer wouldn’t be stupid enough to return to the scene of the crime.

The woman angled her head, her hair shifting over a slim shoulder with the movement as she beheld him, carefully scrutinising him.

“I believe you summoned me,” the woman replied with a lupine smile, her red lips lifting higher at a corner, a single perfect dark brow arching in question. Another slow step toward him bathed her further in the iridescent glow of the moon, the black silk dress shifting with her movement to reveal a long, slender, creamy thigh. The split in her dress came up almost indecently high, grazing her hip, and the movement revealed a knife strapped to her leg, the hilt so dark it seemed to gobble up the light. Strange etchings along the handle glinted as the moonlight bounced off it with her gait, snagging Azriel’s attention.

Azriel observed her suspiciously, determined to remain calm and pacifying until he had back-up arrive on the scene. He reached a scarred hand out toward her placatingly, palm facing her in a gesture of composed control, intending to halt her advances. “This is a crime scene; you cannot be here—”

Just then, the woman hissed, her nostrils flaring and elongated canines flashing. Her head snapped toward the end of the alley, the movement so animalistic in contrast to the fluid grace she had exuded so far that Azriel was caught off guard, and a moment later he heard what must have triggered her. Faint, thudding footsteps; his squad must have arrived.

Darting her gaze back to him, he could have sworn the woman’s eyes flashed the darkest shade of onyx before she strode the few remaining paces over to him— faster than his sight could follow, faster than should have been possible. Standing suddenly before him, she didn’t hesitate before she grasped his forearm tightly in her hold as shadows swarmed her like plumes of smoke, engulfing them both into unending darkness.

Azriel’s entire world went black.

A shout left his lips as the sensation of being hurtled through space engulfed his senses. All the while, the strong clasp of the strange woman’s fingers on his arm remained, digging into his jacket as if he were being gripped by stone. Before he could fathom what was happening to him, what direction he was being thrown in, the scene changed again. His feet once again landing on solid ground.

Stumbling and glancing around in disbelief, he found himself in a gloomy, filthy, dilapidated house. The room appeared to once have been very grand but had since fallen into disrepair. The windows were murky with grime and the parquet floors covered in a thick layer of dust. The heavy curtains were tattered and hanging off the rods haphazardly. A broken sconce that hung on a yellowing wall was feebly illuminating the room in a watery light, and the full moon peeking through the shattered window seemed much too large, much too white, to be real. Glancing out at the scenery beyond the window, he couldn’t help but think he’d never seen the night sky so…alive.

But possibly the most unnerving thing, sprawled across the entire expanse of the walls, ceiling, and what he was sure was the remainder of the decrepit manor beyond, were gnarled, thick, tangled vines. And although one would expect to find vines within a house of this state simply twisted with thorns and baron branches, these, astonishingly, bore a riot of roses. Midnight black, ruby-red edged roses. Thousands of them. They seemed to explode from every direction and filled his senses with their perniciously sweet aroma.

Azriel scuttered back, his footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. Pulling away from the woman, he wrenched his arm out of her strong grasp, a look of utter panic plastered across his face.

“Where are we? What is this?”

His mind reeled. How had they appeared in this room? Had he been drugged? Had he fallen, hit his head, and was now having a fever dream whilst in a coma? He didn’t think his imagination was this creative.

He couldn’t be sure, but the bite of the cool steel of his gun felt stark against his skin, and the howling wind from the broken window set his teeth to near chattering. This was it. All signs pointed to you’ve finally lost your fucking mind, Az.

The woman angled her head in that unnerving way that she did, her once again chocolate brown eyes trailing across his face, as if searching for something. Looking for the answer to a question he hadn’t spoken.

“You do not remember me,” she murmured bleakly. It wasn’t a question. Her voice had turned cold, her eyes falling flat.

“Remember you? I do not know you. Where are we?” he almost shrieked.

Azriel was trained to keep his cool in times of duress, keep his wits about him to ensure his own survival and the survival of those around him. But in the current states of events, he was downright struggling to keep his breathing from reaching levels of hyperventilation and his voice from hitching like a teenager.

He closed his eyes. Deep breath. Another.

So soft, as if the words were not intended for him to hear, he heard a murmured, “I thought you had finally come for me.”

His eyes flew open at her words. She was making no sense. This entire situation made absolutely zero sense. This woman had to be an escaped mental patient. Or perhaps he was the one having a mental episode.

Azriel ignored her statement, not knowing how to answer anyway.

“Where am I? Where have you brought me?” he demanded again.

The woman appeared to consider him for a moment, her peculiar eyes searching his face, the halo of black around her irises glinting in the dim light.

“This is Rosehall, w— I lived here for a while.” She gestured to the room around her with a small wave of her hand, but her gaze remained imprinted on him. On his face, her eyes boring into his. She didn’t blink nearly as often as normal. She was so strange.

He had never heard of anywhere called Rosehall. This had to be a hoax.

“Who are you?”

The woman’s shoulders seemed to sag imperceptibly, her brown eyes hardening in resolve before the hollow obsidian flashed within her bright irises again before turning back.

“My name is Elain.”

Elain. Something small, unanswered, tugged at the edge of his subconscious. He promptly ignored it.

“You cannot… remove a police officer from the scene of a crime, it is an offence to cause harm—”

“I already told you, I do not intend to cause you harm.” She looked at him so openly, so unabashedly, he almost believed her.

“I have a murder to solve, I don’t have time for these ridiculous pranks,” he was truly dubious now, his anger beginning to rise.

Azriel wasn’t sure how this woman had pulled it off, but he had no time to play games. He knew the youth of Velaris took Halloween very seriously, and October was always rife with elaborate hoaxes and games and spectacles. A waste of his damn time, that’s what this was. Either that, or he really had fallen and hit his head. Hard. He avoided thinking on it too closely.

“I’ve been looking for you,” the woman breathed. Elain. Her eyes shone with something like hurt, longing. She was really sticking to this extravagant charade then.

His patience was waning, she was speaking in riddles and wasting his damn time. “I’m leaving. Now,” Azriel deadpanned, deciding she wasn’t a threat after all and turned on a heel to make his way out of wherever they were.

He heard her sigh deeply, as if she truly was sorry for his rejection of the situation. Whatever this situation was.

“If that is what you wish, Azriel.”

He whirled back around at the sound of his name on her lips, his gaze flickering across her beautiful face, hazel eyes wild. But before he could ponder further on how this strange woman knew his name, his world once again, turned black.

~

Azriel awoke in the morning with a groan, the watery autumn sun streaming in from behind his blinds. His head thumped angrily at him, murky memories of last night swimming into his subconsciousness in drips and drabs. Rubbing his temples, a futile attempt to alleviate the pounding in his head, Azriel pushed himself up on an elbow.

What the fuck kind of dream was that? Beautiful demon-women, sudden relocations to dilapidated manors, summonings? Had he even been called to a crime scene last night? He really was fucking lonely if he was dreaming of strange, beautiful woman whisking him away in the night.

Fuck his life was sad. He had to get a pet, or something.

Blindly reaching for the Advil he kept on his nightstand, his fingers brushed against something unfamiliar. He curled his fingers back as something poisonous had lurched out and bit him.

Azriel froze, his eyes snapping open. Twisting his gaze toward his bedside, he reached his fingers incredulously toward the single black rose with ruby-red edges that lay there. Moving slowly, as if the rose were a figment of his imagination, as if it would disappear in a puff of smoke, his fingers once again grazed the satin edges of the blooming petals.

Lifting the rose gingerly between a forefinger and a thumb, his eyes all but bulged from their sockets at what he beheld. Snagged around the sharp thorns of the stem was an unremarkable gold chain, a small glass charm hanging from its length, the obsidian of the petals of the black rose within glinting in the morning light.

*******

tagging: @offtorivendell @fawnandshadows​ @the-laughing-bubble​ @swankii-art-teacher​ @pagemasters​ @tswaney17​ @sakurakittypeach​ @thefangirlofhp​ @wingedblooms​

A/N: As mentioned, this will be a two part story (I think). It’s something I discussed with a few friends about writing a while ago, however have only just found the inspiration to do so. Thank you to those special people that helped me hash this out. You probably don’t remember doing so as it was forever ago, but this wouldn’t be seeing the light of day without you all. You all know who you are ♥️

It’s not my best work and I don’t really know how I feel about it but I just couldn’t agonize over it any longer. I would love to hear any thoughts and comments about this so far! It’s probably the first thing I’ve ever written that I’ve somewhat planned in it’s entirety before publication. I’m usually a fuck-around-til-something-works kinda gal 🙂 T xx

[muchadoaboutstartrek]

Petty

Written for @salrevientad and inspired by conversation with @female-fogbank

Spock and La'an didn't argue often...

Well, at least they didn't argue about serious topics often.

But more often than not, Spock wondered if there was something in the human DNA, even augmented one, that made them more succeptible to irritation from a stimulus that normally wouldn't cause a reaction in any Vulcan. And as he stared at the red faced La'an, her braids a mess on top of her head while she gestured wildly with her hands, he concluded that yes, it most certanly was a human trait.

"You know I don't like it when you move my shit without asking me first! Why do you keep doing it?" His short girlfriend was becoming an increasingly warmer in the face, so much so that Spock started wondering just how long it's going to take before she turned the color of her uniform. If the vein ticking in her forehead was any indication, it shouldn't be too long now.

He suppressed a sigh as he knew such action would cause even worse reaction. Instead he squared up his shoulders as he gazed down at the woman half his size that looked like she was one wrong word away from ripping his head off. Her feisty nature and naturally short fuse were some of the things that Spock loved but also hated at the same time.

Not that he'd ever admit that to her out loud.

"I apologize for misplacing your work PADD without notifying you first. Next time I will make sure to send you a message beforehand."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Spock knew he screwed up. Even the most emotionally stunned Vulcan would have no trouble recognizing the sheer rage that almost radiated off of La'an as she shook in place, her fists clenching by her side.

"You did not just say that to me, you condescending fucker!" The words were more of a growl than an actual sentence, her voice coming from the deepest parts of her vocal cords.

There were very few things that would cause Spock to shrink in fear.

Enraged La'an was one of those things.

"I apologize. That was not my intention." He replied immediately, his voice even more apologetic than the words.

"You do this every time! You say something to make me mad and then apologize and look at me with those eyes and I just cave!" She shook her head, her index finger suddenly shoved up his face. "Not this time!"

Something in Spock seemed to snap at those words and without even thinking his actions through, he grabbed La'an by her hips and slung her over his shoulder in a fireman carry, her strained and surprised yell, followed by a string of profanities slung in his direction falling on deaf ears as he carried her over to his newly made bed and tossed her onto the sheets. He didn't even give her a chance to stand back up as he pushed her down, his hands gripping the band of her trousers and yanking them down her legs alongside her underwear.

La'an tried pushing him off of her with her hips, her voice straining as she repeatedly asked him about the state of his mental facilities, the answer Spock couldn't provide at the moment as he felt positively unhinged. Her trousers and underwear reached as far as her boot before Spock yanked it off as well and slid one of her creamy legs out of it before he spread her thighs like jaws of life and simply dived in.

La'an's protests died off on her tongue immediately, profanities that were aimed at him suddenly disappearing only to be replaced by shaky sighs as he feasted on her pussy. He put his anger and frustration into every lick and suck on her sensitive, twitching cunt, his feelings evident in the way he was eating her out, aggressively almost to the point where it matched her energy from few minutes before.

La'an was shuddering and grinding her pussy against his face, her hands sliding into his hair and tugging on the strands as he allowed himself to be directed in the way she wanted him to go, letting her enjoy that aspect, illusion really, of control because it was evident to him that he was the one in charge, holding her release in his hands.

As her sounds increased in volume Spock found that he had no heart to tease her and torture her with denying her release, even though she more than likely deserved it. Instead he doubled down on his efforts and sucked on her clit with more vigour, her fingers almost ripping out his hair in the process.

La'an let out a scream as she fell apart, her orgasm taking her by surprise as Spock grazed his teeth over the sensitive nub on top of her pussy, her whole body shuddering with the force of her release before she melted into the sheets, practically boneless.

Spock licked his lips, tasting the last remnants of her essence like he was savoring the delicacy, before he stood up, crawling over La'an's still half dressed body, her uniform shirt still on while her pants hung on one of her legs.

"How are you feeling now?" He asked, burrowing his brows as he gazed down at the completely fucked out woman who was screaming at him about misplacing her PADD only a few minutes ago.

In contrast to that image, La'an was laying in bed completely relaxed with a lazy smile on her lips. "Fantastic." She sighed dreamily and surged up to kiss him, her teeth tugging on his lip. She broke the kiss when air became the problem. "Spock?"

"Yes, La'an?"

"Don't ever move my stuff without asking me again." Her eyes hardened and Spock knew that she meant business. He, however, simply smiled and said nothing. He just found the way to make her effectively loose her train of thought and he planned to utilize it to it's fullest capacity.

In fact, if this was the way he could make her shut up, he might start initiating these petty squabbles himslef.

[cbirt]

Pancreatic Cancer and Drug Resistance: Researchers Identify Key Metabolic Regulators

Drug resistance can be countered only by interrupting the adaptive measures taken by the cells to deflect the drug action. Scientists from the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Buffalo, performed an extensive study through proteomic analysis that identified key regulators driving the resistance against Gemcitabine, the principal chemotherapeutic against Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma. The study also mentions viable pathways and protein targets onto which therapeutic efforts could be directed to better improve the drug efficacy.

Gemcitabine, first marketed under the brand name Gemzar by Eli Lilly, is an antimetabolite capable of retarding tumor progression and promoting apoptosis by inhibiting DNA synthesis. On its uptake into the tumor cell, the compound is phosphorylated to form gemcitabine monophosphate, which acts as the precursor for its diphosphate and triphosphate forms. The diphosphate interacts and inhibits the ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) complex that maintains the nucleotide levels within the cell, while the triphosphate is a structural analog of deoxycytidine triphosphate(dCTP) and masquerades around as dCTP on its synthesis. In a nucleotide deficient state caused by gemcitabine diphosphate, it competes with dCTP for incorporation into the elongating DNA strand. On achieving this, it causes chain termination, ultimately dismantling the DNA synthesis machinery of the cell.

Continue Reading

[lilbombus]

excuse the constant different name spellings but Malaine Jona Harley (or May May Jona for short) is the eldest daughter of Jade Harley and Davepeta.

She’s the essential scout of the group and the heart of the family. Due to this new session trapping the kids and descendants in the game without their parents, she usually scouts the dream bubbles to find any clues on how to get back home, while finding ways to lvl up. She talks to dead versions of the trolls and even becomes close to her Leijon side of the family. While she’s hesitant to meet the beta and alpha groups, she may talk to them without fear of them finding out who her parents are by hiding her blond hair strands, wearing black mascara, and wearing a face mask. 

One of the strongest players in the group, she has multiple skill sets in both long-range, short-range and even hand to hand combat, she also has two sets of pistols with different modes such as charged electric shots, ray gun, lasers shots, grappling hooks, and regular bullets that she can change with ease. Also her two pistols can be attached together to make a long ranged rifle. Her specialty is probability - making it extremely difficult for her opponents to predict her next moves due to her numerous “combo” attacks. (think of her like those character in fighting games such as street fighter)

Her personality and Inspo were based on Sango (Inuyasha), Edward Elric (FMA), and Kanaya Maryam.

Anyways, I like to think May May Jona met Davepeta during the few years Davepeta’s was in the game and gave them a note with half of her name on it. She never told them who she was but she kept calling them "Renny." Davepeta was suspicious but didn't know if she was a Leijon descendant or their "direct descendant".

(if you're wondering May May Jona was born from the ectobiology machine with Davepeta's dna mixed with some random trolls dna. she might not be biologically related to Jade but she's her kid and they have the same laughter. Jade added Jona to her name so she'll follow the name trend of the family in hopes she wouldn't feel left out.)

Her name created a paradox and guaranteed the crisis countdowns’ timeline/universe.

[shannontheslayer]

This palace was not built of stone or wood, but rather of two strands of intricately woven nucleic acids. These nucleic acids were admired for their beauty and grace by all who encountered them. They were known as DNAs and RNAs, and they were the most sought-after companions among the other macromolecules that populated the cell.

DNAs were the most sought-after partners; they were the epitome of elegance and sophistication. Their double helix structure was the talk of the town, with each strand consisting of a long chain of nucleotides bound together by phosphate groups. The five-carbon sugar that adorned each nucleotide, deoxyribose, was said to be the source of their irresistible charm. And then there were the four nitrogenous bases that completed their look: adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine.

RNAs, on the other hand, were more adventurous and free-spirited. They were known for their versatility and their ability to take on different shapes and forms. Their single stranded helix was admired by all who saw it, and they were often found in the nucleus and the cytoplasm of the cell, regulating gene expression with a grace that was unmatched by any other macromolecule.

The palace of nucleic acids was a bustling place, full of life and energy. The DNAs and RNAs would dance and twirl, their phosphate groups forming intricate patterns as they moved. They would exchange compliments on their unique structures, each one more beautiful than the last. Sometimes, the RNAs would tease the DNAs for their inflexibility, while the DNAs would tease the RNAs for their lack of direction. But deep down, they knew that they were meant for each other, and that their lives would be incomplete without the other.

[cosmiccandydreamer]

Violent delights chapter 2

You follow Alastor back to his room; you've pretty much sobered up now, and a pleasant, calm feeling has washed over you; maybe he thought everything you said was a joke; he knew you had a strange sense of humor. He watched you observe the many books and art pieces he had scattered around the room. “You know that the second time you told me that you read that book “Oh, sorry,” you put back a book that caught your attention. “ no apology is needed. I enjoy your stories.” he ushered you to sit down while he set a small box on the table. Maybe you had just imagined the tense moment a moment ago at the table; you wondered if maybe he wasn't flirting with me; he is a gentleman, after all, and from a different time. “Do you ever get tired of my questions, though like about your life before and stuff ?” you asked him, lightly rubbing your hands together. He smiled lightly at you. “No, no, I don't. I enjoyed our conversations and telling you about my time; I think it's refreshing that you're interested.

" The past is an important thing, my dear. We can learn much from it.”.” I wish I could have spent more time on earth” your head in your hands signing, “those damn satanic nuns were so strict you'd think they were real nuns” You both sat in comfortable silence until Alastor cleared his throat.” So, did you enjoy the dinner earlier? I must say I was surprised at your adventurous nature”. He folded his hands on the table, looking at you inquisitively. “Oh, I don't know,” you looked away as you spoke,” you and Roise seemed so fond of it, I thought, why the hell not?”. That wasn't the whole truth; you knew it and felt he knew it. But he didn't press the issue, “Well, I have more for you to try! I keep some bites around my room in case I have the midnight cravings”. The Idea of him having midnight cravings is a little comical to you. Something so simple and domestic. It reminded you that even though the radio hosts secretly pretended to be above frivolous domestic things, he craved it. You had a clue about such things, considering your friendship's direction. You two longed for a simple domestic life at times. You enjoyed your life here for the most part, you had no desire to be redeemed and go to heaven. You had quite an animosity towards heaven.

Your eyes glossed over as you remembered your long and heartbreaking journey to where you were now. The angels had killed your angelic father for disagreeing with them and their politics and drove your other father out into the stars for his protection. Your fathers Azirphele and Crowley, angels and demons who had fallen in love on earth, angering heaven. Crowley had been a friend of Lucifer’s before the fall and helped them escape Adam's wrath when he learned of it their love. Azrapehle was created after Lilith used strands of her hair, but later, he turned into an angel because his pure heart and soul which made him her little brother part angel part human. Both of your fathers were respected liaisons between heaven and hell, which promoted meetings with each other on earth. They eventually realize they do not like their life's direction and decide to make Earth their home. Zira had realized the extent of heaven's depravity and hypocrisyy and Crowley had decided he was done spreading chaos.

Zira was no longer welcome in heaven after they learned of his betrayal, but it seems they were leaving them alone for the time being; Crowley was welcome in hell but knew that his time there was done. He had visited Lucifer and Lilith with Zira after Charlie was born. He expressed that they wished they two could have a child, but the miracles of heaven had now been lost to Zira. Which is when the Morningstars decided to offer to surrogate for the couple. After all, they both owed them a debt and with some demon magic, they could transfer Crowley's DNA to Lilith. The pregnancy was instant and only took a day or two due to accelerated magic. You were born in hell, technically making you hellborn, but your fathers insisted on raising you on earth, their home.

You would come back and visit your cousin Charlie periodically and spend weeks in hell. I was wondering if you enjoyed your time with Morningstars. It wasn't until Armageddon had taken place on Earth. Most of Hell's residents didn't understand the politics and goings-on of what happened on Earth, but your fathers had tried to intervene. Heaven had deemed Zira a traitor and killed him in the crossfire. Crowley, fearing for you, dropped you at a satanic covenant loyal to him. He instructed them to raise you until his return as he fought off heaven to ensure your safety. He also told them in the event he does not return, summon Lucifer to take them into hell. With a kiss on the head and tears in his eyes, your demon father left for the night. You never saw him again. The satanic nuns were kind and fun but also very protective. You missed exploring Earth with your fathers. The nuns scolded you for your carelessness. What if heaven had seen you, but they understood your restlessness.They had waited long enough, it seemed Crowley would not return. Summoning Lucifer, they explain the situation to him, who immediately melted at the side of you. He took you back to hell with him. She is excited that Charlie has a friend and cousin to keep her occupied. Lilith had left him, and his depression was causing him to be an absent father. He adopted you, giving you the last name Morningstar and anointing you a fellow princess of hell.You and Charlie became inseparable, caring for each other when you both had absent parents. You two were inseparable until you grew up, and you began to take your responsibilities as a princess of how much more serious than she did. You attended the hell meetings with the overlords in place of your adopted father, who you called Uncle Luci; you also didn't take any shit, You were kind like Charlie, friendly, sweet, but you also had a temper. You weren't afraid to extend your claws and swipe someone across the mouth for verbally assaulting you.

Grown now, you attended the overlord meetings often in place of Lucifer, bringing back information to him about the companies and goings and the pentagram. You didn't believe he read the reports, but he still was grateful that you brought them back to him. The overlords respected you, for the most part, understanding that you took your ranking in hell seriously. That is where you met a particular deer demon and cannibal demon. You liked both of them. You didn't get a chance to get to know Rosie as much as you wanted, as she was always quick to return to Cannibaltown to attend to her many responsibilities. Still, you had developed a rapport of affection for each other. On the other hand, the dear demon was a little more hesitant to get to know you, cautious to anyone he let in his inner circle, but you had grown on him.

You were usually waiting until the meeting was over. Both of you would walk back to your car, gossiping about the events of the meeting. Before long, you both would stop for tea at a nearby cafe and decompress from the meetings. He enjoyed your company. He learned of your time on earth and your family; you knew very little. You turned into his radio broadcast every night with fascination. This was short-lived because his chair was empty at the meetings one day. Soon, days passed and weeks, and you believed you'd never see him again. A strange longing began to creep into your heart. You missed his company, And unbeknownst to you. He missed yours. He enjoyed that he could relate to you on so many levels.

Despite your rank in hell, you were lonely; many people disliked the Morningstar family due to Lucifer's absent nature. So, of course, it was amazing when you showed up at the hotel after hearing your sister's plan; at this point, you called each other sisters, which felt too informal for your relationship. So you were excited to check out this new project she told you about and asked you to stop by this "hazbin hotel". Walking into the hotel, Charlie ran up to you excited "Y/n oh, it's excellent. I'm so happy you're here; we have someone who wants to help us.” She pulled your hand towards the main room. Dragging behind her, you laughed, “Who is this? They must be super special if you're this excited!”. She introduces you to the current staff, husk and niffty

He shakes your hand, saying it's nice to meet you, while Nifty hugs your leg, saying she is so excited for another princess here to watch her roach show, whatever that is. “and this is Alastor! The radio demon; you may have heard his show?”. You turn, smiling at him, meeting his gaze. He takes your hand, kissing it,” I wondered where you went. Great to see you again.” his lips felt soft, surprisingly, against your skin. He straightens up. “And it's good to see you again, Miss Morningstar; I've missed our post-meeting talks greatly.” “Oh! You met before!!!! That's wonderful! This should work out great then,” Charlie exclaims. She wanders off, talking out loud to Vaggie about some exercise for tomorrow. “COME,” Alastor said, “let's catch up, my dear.” and catch up you did; it felt as if no time had passed; soon, you were laughing and walking around the hotel as if you were the oldest of friends.

You had stopped going to the meetings. However, the piles of notes and paperwork going untouched by Uncle Luci made no sense to continue, plus the tension that had started to build at them made you feel uneasy. And so it went an unexpected family dynamic. The two of you began to get closer, and Alastor started to feel possessive about you in some ways;when others seemed to occupy your time. Narrowing his eyes when you told him "just a second" while listening to angel or husk. He also disliked when he heard of outings in seedy parts of town. What if someone hurt you? Kidnapped you?. It wasn't something he wanted to think about. He asked himself why though he cares so much. You're nothing but another morningstar after all. But he realized he craved those moments in the morning, you sleepily walking downstairs to say good morning to him, asking him how his previous day was. Interested in any sinners he has to slaughter.

He also felt a sense of pride every time you expressed interest in anything related to him. He overheard you asking others for information about him, like his favorite food, movies, and past. It intrigued him that you were taking interest, and it scared him that he could see a future with you, especially when he discovered that your past was not as squeaky clean as your sisters.

You weren't afraid to get your hands dirty, and he wanted to explore that; he wanted to explore more of you, how much he could push you, and what lengths you would go for him. Little did he know that you felt the same. You had become intrigued by him entranced there was something so mysterious so alluring you wanted to know more of him. You wanted to see more of him, it didn't hurt that. He was incredibly handsome as well and such a gentleman. The more you two spend time together, the more you realize this magnetic pool that you had of him. You were curious about his life before he died and you were curious about his life that he currently lived. He was an overlord yes, but still it seemed as though there was many inner working in his daily life that left much to the imagination. He was also so particular. It felt like everyday you were learning something so new about him. You found yourself wanting to impress him. The fact that he was so picky was so many mundane things. When you can find something that he enjoyed, it felt like an accomplishment. More and more, you started to realize that you wanted to spend most of your time around him declining invites and choosing to spend evenings talking with him or listening to his broadcast. You couldn't put your finger on it, but you started to imagine that possibly he felt the same. You noticed that he hovered around you more than anyone else was very inquisitive about where you would go when he could not accompany you. He also seemed to narrow his eyes and twitched the corners of his mouth. If you expressed you were going somewhere in a neighborhood that was a bit more dangerous.

He started to insist that he would come with you or that you wait until he can. "It's for you own safety my dear! Can't let anything happen to my dear friend". Friend the word sounded so right and so wrong at the same time. You remember your father's domestic lives making dinner together and breakfast going for walks, spending time in each other's company with comfortable silence. When you lingered on that memory too long, a pain started to grow in your heart. You felt as though you would never have that with someone. At least not here. Not until you met alastor, his 1930's demeanor made your imagination wonder, could he be the closest you could have to a domestic "normal" life?. His habits of depravity and violence would turn most people away but not you. They stirred something down inside of you, primal attraction. He was so powerful, demanded respect and authority; it was attractive and you felt yourself falling harder and harder everyday.

[kemetic-dreams]

NEW DNA STUDY - results from 4,000 year old remains found in Northern Sudan

“Petrous bones and teeth are the skeletal elements most often targeted by researchers for ancient DNA (aDNA) extraction, and the sources of the majority of previously published ancient African genomes. However, the high temperature environments that characterise much of Africa often lead to poor preservation of skeletal remains. Here, we successfully reconstruct and analyse genome-wide data from the naturally mummified hair of a 4000-year-old individual from Sudan in northeastern Africa, after failed attempts at DNA extraction from teeth, petrous, and cranium of this and other individuals from the site of Kadruka. We find that hair DNA extracted with an established single-stranded library protocol is unusually enriched in ultra-short DNA molecules and exhibits substantial interior molecular damage. The aDNA was nonetheless amenable to genetic analyses, which revealed that the genome is genetically indistinguishable from that of early Neolithic eastern African pastoralists located 2500 kilometres away. Our findings support established models for the southwards dispersal of Middle Nile Valley pastoral populations to the Rift Valley of eastern Africa, and provide the first direct evidence for a genetic source population for this dispersal. Our study highlights the value of mummified hair as an alternate source of aDNA from regions with poor bone preservation.”

What these results show is that North Africa was once identical to the fauna and peoples that now occupy Sub-Saharan Africa.

What these results show is that North Africa was once identical to the fauna and peoples that now occupy Sub-Saharan Africa.

Many of these reconstructions have no genetic backing. They’re just drawn by random people, which Walter Smyth seems hellbent on pushing their agenda. Most likely, all of these ancient North Africans had dark to black skin, not olive skin. Olive skin is associated with SLC24A5.

The hair type also seems incorrect. Even if they did have straight hair, the people would have looked as dark as Australian Aborigines.

Even if West Eurasian genes are found in the Rift Valley people, those early West Asians were dark to black skinned, as opposed to the later ones associated with the West Asians of the Caspian culture, who were lighter skinned.

Ancient North Africa had a fauna to the Savannah of East Africa. This means the Central African forest was much higher up, and the people would have been tropically adapted, not olive-skinned. The Iberomaurusian culture (which began with a black skinned mixed race people similar to that of modern Ethiopians) gave birth to the caspian culture,which gave birth to the Libyans and Garamantes.

[spaceandthedigitalfrontier]

Been meaning to post this for a while, and keep thinking about it, so for your consideration: Tron Murderbot AU.

Encom is one of the numerous companies out in corporation rim.

They produce a lot of the software that runs everything from space stations and ships to robots, and constructs, and can even be found in augments for humans.

Fcon is another company in corporate rim and a direct competitor with Encom. (Potential for a war or cold war among their colonies?)

GrayCris still exists and is still trying to mine alien remnants.

Preservation Alliance also still exists as a non corporate polity because they seem cool.

The Grid is a non-corporate polity rulled by Kevin Flynn, sort of like a private island that he has as a sanctuary.

Tron '82 AU?

All the programs are constructs???? Probably? Or robots? Probably a mix of everything.

It makes a lot of sense for Tron to be a sec unit actually. Maybe a new sec unit prototype software that Alan was working on? Either way, Alan designed Tron without a governor module.

Sark is a combat unit.

Maybe the laser exists, maybe instead it's human augments to connect to the data feed... Haven't decided yet.

The MCP probably originally started off as a hub system for encoms main port or something but hacked and took over everything on Encom's main station.

It hacks everything that uses Encom's software, gains control of much of corporation rim or maybe just Encoms colonies.

Yeah gonna be real not entirely sure what happens to Flynn instead of being sucked inside a computer here... Maybe he has an augment and the MCP hacks it/pulls his consciousness entirely into the data feed?

...in which case the programs seen in Tron are how the bots perceive themselves in the data feed??? (I think I like this one, but we'll come back to it later)

Anyway same-ish deal: Dillinger steals Flynn's IP, he flees to a small (probably seedy) space station owned by an undisclosed company and tries to hack Encom for evidence that Dillinger stole his stuff.

Will develop this later, but it has a similar outcome of defeating the MCP, realising the programs are more human than they realize

Legacy:

During his reign as Encoms CEO, Flynn buys a planet/steals one from the company for his own purposes, as well as several space stations. These collectively are called the Grid.

The Grid still absolutely still has the fun glow-y effects, partly through a bio luminescent material that grows on Planet Tron.

He also buys the space station he fled to and probably turns it into a resort/casino/arcade type place for people to play videogames.

The planet is named Tron after the prototype SecUnit created by Alan Bradley.

...Which Flynn absolutely stole for his 'digital utopia'

The grid becomes a non-corporate polity lead by Flynn.

It starts out as a sanctuary for "rogue" constructs, bots, etc.

He still creates clu (organic parts cloned from his own DNA???) to govern the grid while he is in charge of Encom.

Somehow this all still remains a secret from everyone else.

Isos are constructs from alien society that used to live on Planet Tron and formed their own society. (The aliens that built them lived in the oceans, and so the isos come from there, but can live both on land and in the sea). The isos are made with the bio luminescent material.

Flynn still treats everything like it's a game, and Clu does not appreciate that.

Same thing happens, Flynn gets stranded on Planet Tron, Clu destroys the Isos and takes over the rest of the Grid.

Somehow Sam finds it, again through some hijinks involving Flynn's arcade/port/resort

Games probably include something like the ones that Murderbot describes where the humans make the SecUnits fight each other.

Not sure what disc equivalent would be here. Probably still discs because they're a cool concept.

...Thoughts about Ed Dillinger Jr in this universe (or the version that is my muse, anyway...)

Is absolutely an augmented human, though he's hacked his augment because paranoia about surveillance and his safety.

Is something of a political refugee at On Encom's main space station though not by official status.

The suspicion is still there because relations to fCon.

Purchases a SecUnit from a third company after the incident where his father tries to kidnap him.

Immediately tells the SecUnit he needs to see it's code with the intention of hacking it's governor module and making it so it can't send data back to the company. (Because he's paranoid about corporate surveillance getting back to his father. Have I mentioned Ed is paranoid about his security?)

SecUnit already hacked its governor module.

SecUnit politely refuses.

Ed refuses to say why he needs to see SecUnit's code because he is not about to let the company know what he's about to do.

Ed's stubbornness wins this round.

SecUnit waits in anxious silence while Ed goes through it's code.

Ed discovers that SecUnit's governor module is already hacked. It takes him a little while to realize SecUnit hacked its governor module.

There is a conversation. They eventually both come clean about their intentions. Ed apologizes for scaring the crap out of SecUnit, but the damage has been done.

Most of everyone else is not happy about the SecUnit following Ed around.

While there is now an understanding, trust is tenuous from both of them until SecUnit eventually saves Ed from an attack by fCon agents that nearly destroys SecUnit and results in corrupted code, and Ed painstakingly fixes their code.

The Incident eventually gets out, which Ed is not happy about. Neither is Encom, for different reasons depending on who you ask.

...Anyway... not sure where I'm going with this, but I think it would be a cool AU.