your whole world in Underline the Rainbow seems incredibly well fleshed out, down to the thought of what dietary needs alphas would have in comparison to omegas. Is there any omegaverse fiction that inspired the world of Hillview? Are there any fics/original fiction in the omegaverse that you particularly enjoy? Your interpretation of it has been my favorite that I’ve ever read, so I’d love to know what you draw from and what you enjoy reading in that world. I can’t wait for more Underline the Blue, I can tell that it’s going to tear me into teeny tiny confetti sized pieces and then put me back together again - janusz and nate already have my whole heart
(Also I hope that whatever is going on in your life resolves quickly and easily and with the best possible outcome - it seems like you’ve been through hell lately, I hope things get easier for you soon <3)
Hi anon!
The worldbuilding is so fleshed out in the Underline the Rainbow series because I just outright stole some of it from my other original omegaverse series, my published Perth Shifter e-books Blackwood and The Gentle Wolf (you can see those on the first pinned post on my Tumblr).
And I spent like...quite some time actually - like hours and hours - doing the kind of research I've never seen in most of the omegaverse stories I've read. I dove down pretty deeply into hormonal research, before inventing unique hormones (ardolphogen, larentin etc.) - even giving them the same suffixes as known hormones - for alphas, betas and omegas to distinguish them physiologically, so I could at least make a pretence at dealing with the medical side of things re: suppressants and health matters.
What I actually haven't included in Underline the Rainbow is all the historical research I did for Perth Shifters. Because in Perth Shifters, as the name implies, the characters are wolf shifters, and there are also humans who aren't alpha/beta/omega in that universe. So some of it wouldn't apply.
There's no one omegaverse work that inspires me. I'd say I've read literally hundreds of them now - in original publishing, in fanfiction, in manwha and manga. What I actually really love about it is that quite a few of us appreciate the chance to do some unique or different things with the standards of the genre, which means I can do stuff that people have seen before (knotting, heats), but that I can also do stuff that no one has done before (no one has given omegaverse folk the names for the hormones that I did, for example).
When it comes to details like the dietary needs (more fat for omegas, more protein for alphas etc.) I literally made that up on the fly. No thought went into that beyond 'shit that sounds good.'
But what goes into being able to do this is simply that I'm an avid learner of just about everything. I know a little about hormones already because I have a hormonal cancer. I know a little about nutrition and digestion already because I have an eating disorder and see a dietitian. These kinds of things are often in the back of my mind (along with decades of research into things like PTSD, or biology, or ecosystems and ecosystem management, or...the difference between grass fires and tree fires and the heats they burn at and how to survive either, etc.) I am filled with a repository of knowledge that is often useless in my day to day, but comes in handy when I'm writing.
So while I improvised the nutritional differences on the fly, I didn't do it with no knowledge behind it, I just didn't need to stop and research it at the time. It pays to read like over a thousand non-fiction books on literally any subject, y'know? That shit is so helpful for improvised worldbuilding.
The reality, anon, is that I'm drawing way, way more from research into science than I am from other omegaverse stories for these specific kinds of worldbuilding. Spending hours reading books and Wiki articles on hormones for example, has done way more for my omegaverse worldbuilding than any fics/stories I've read. Which probably sounds pretty weird, but most of the extra worldbuilding in this comes from science and resembles more of the work you'd put into science fiction or even hard science fiction worldbuilding, than it does from...reading other books in the genre?
Because frankly most omegaverse stories don't focus on this stuff. And also, a lot of the omegaverse I've read is pretty much straight-up smut, lmao. Which I love. Let's face it, a lot of folks are here for the knotting and the heats. :D And I love that! But I also love...worldbuilding (both in advance and on the fly, lol).
I will say that Leta Blake's omegaverse work has some pretty awesome cultural worldbuilding that I've not seen before. Mine isn't based on hers, and a heads up that there's mpreg, including literally 'sex while the baby is inside and the person feels the baby moving through their dick' which is like...very much past my line of what I like reading lmao. But the worldbuilding itself in Slow Heat and Alpha Heat is pretty awesome. She often does unconventional omegaverse dynamics, such as older omega / younger alpha with significant age gap, or alpha / alpha, etc. I would definitely say that I admire her worldbuilding, even though I don't base mine on hers. (Hers is a world where women no longer exist at all, for example, with religious and cultural lore that springs up around this and the duties that then apply to omegas and alphas to procreate in a fairly extreme dystopian setting where the mortality rates for omegas re: childbirth are shockingly high and being afraid of dying during childbirth is extremely normal/appropriate).
The Big Bad Wolf series by Charlie Adara also has some pretty cool worldbuilding (though not nearly as deep as Blake's, also no mpreg), which features a human/alpha pairing. Also it's romantic suspense which is just an awesome genre overall.
Also, there's more Underline the Blue coming on AO3 this month! And also more coming on Patreon too! This is definitely an Underline the Blue month. :D
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We love MK, child of un-divorced. The next update will be more gay. And fluffier.
Shadowpeach Bio Parent AU (PREV / FIRST / NEXT )
before saying anything, read the stuff under the cut
About wukong and macaque
Both these bitches did wrong, but remember that MK saw the vision starting from the fight itself, not what happened before. He then read the chapters of the book and read that Macaque also attacked. I personally think he's mostly hurted by what Wukong did, not because it's worse of what Macaque did, but because he idolized Wukong for so long, and while he know he did so many wrongs in the past, his vision of a "hero" dissapeared in this moment. He s mostly dissapointed let's say. Of course it's not the best of things to put tour heroes on a pedal because you will always be dissapointed. I guess MK learned the lesson...
About what MK said in panel 8
Our monkey boy is remembering his own very stupid thing he sacrificied himself without trying to talk it out with the others AND using the circuit on Wukong.
About the posters
Yes they were Monkey King posters. MK ripped them immediately after the vision because he still was not sure was reality and vision and was scared.
About the eye
Because I would prefer no one dies of angst, his eye is fine, it s more like symbolism.
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the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.
capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.
now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.
and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.
and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.
and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".
it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"
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