wrizard's super basic guide to y-chromosome-based identification!!
for those interested, on this fitzcovery day:
a dear friend asked me to explain why i felt completely insane about the phrase "genetic distance of one" and, as usual, i got overexcited and wrote an entire thing about it complete with goofy images! it's on twt HERE, but i figured it would also be nice to pop it up here also. SO. with the caveat that it has been many years since my last bio class and this is VERY OVERSIMPLIFIED. here's
Human DNA is grouped into chromosomes. We generally have TWO of each chromosome: 22 pairs (numbered 1-22), plus one pair of sex chromosome (typically either two X-chromosomes (XX), or one X-chromosome and one Y-chromosome (XY)). That's 23 pairs, or 46 chromosomes, in total.
When producing sex cells, matching chromosome pairs will RECOMBINE (swap bits of information) - eg. one Chromosome 4 will remix itself with the other Chromosome 4, making TWO UNIQUE C4s. When the cell splits into two sex cells, each sex cell will carry ONE unique C4.
That's sexual reproduction! Every new offspring is genetically unique - new combinations of traits pop up quickly, and if they improve reproductive fitness, can be passed on to future offspring. This allows for rapid adaptation and changes in a species over time.
But what about Y-chromosomes, which don’t have pairs? They can't recombine in the way paired chromosomes can - which means Y-chromosomes pretty much only change via mutation (errors in copying DNA). Mutation is VERY slow, especially compared to recombination.
This means that when an XY parent passes down their Y-chromosome to a child, chances are high that chromosome will have few, if any, changes – as opposed to X-chromosomes, which recombine in both XX parents and children, shuffling genetic information all over the place.
Due to this slow rate of change, Y-chromosomes can be more easily tracked through the generations than other human chromosomes. A Y-chromosome might be passed down nearly unchanged for hundreds of years from genetic father to genetic son.
GENETIC DISTANCE refers to the measurement of difference between two sets of DNA. The lower the genetic distance, the more closely related the two samples are likely to be. A genetic distance of 1 means the samples are close to identical.
Because we know how slowly Y-chromosomes change over time, we know that if the Y-chromosomes of two people have a low genetic distance, this implies that those people are paternally related – even if the two people live/lived hundreds of years apart.
In the case of Captain James Fitzjames, genetic data was extracted from a set of unidentified remains (a molar from a disarticulated mandible). 17 genetic markers from the molar’s Y-chromosome were compared to the Y-chromosome of a confirmed paternal relative of the Captain.
Those 17 markers were the same in both samples, giving the two Y-chromosomes a genetic distance of one – meaning, with the genetic information available, the living relative and the unidentified decedent are more than 2000 TIMES more likely to be paternally related than not.
EDIT: DOIP I MISREAD THE CHART 16 of 17 match, not all 17!!
Along with all the information we have from the historical record, the context of the remains, and this new comparative genetic analysis, we can safely conclude that this particular set of remains belong to Captain Fitzjames.
160 years isn't long in the grand scheme. Every identified set of remains is another reminder that these were people, not just a distant curiosity. It's humbling to remember not just that we have identified Cpt. Fitzjames, but that still, today, we have a genetic distance of one.
Photos and Y-chromosome comparison chart taken from Stephen, Fratpietro, and Park's paper "Identification of a senior officer from Sir John Franklin’s Northwest Passage expedition" from the Journal of Archaeological Science: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X24003766?via%3Dihub
hope my nonsense is helpful and/or informative and/or at least made you smile!! if you like this sort of thing :) cheers doves
talked myself into a tizzy regarding modern ned/jirv au c/o @irvingcoded over on twt here, in which john, pastor, meets ned, architect, during church renovations, and very slowly ruins his own (married with children) life. i couldn't stop thinking about it.
have this! i have edited it not at all!!
*
“oh, it’s perfect,” john marvels, tracing his fingertips over the tablet screen with reverence. the final window design: a work of art. glass, colour, light – fine angles, sunshine, abstract enough to please the artist in him, a perfect synthesis of contemporary and traditional. john’s guts fizz in delight. he zooms out, then in again, then carefully sets it back on the desk. “it’s going to be beautiful – i can’t believe it, you’ve – you’re a miracle worker.”
edward shifts his shoulders the way he does when he’s flustered, and even goes charmingly pink about the ears. “i’m certainly glad you like it. i’m no painter or anything – most of it was off your sketches, i only made it a bit simpler, is all.”
john’s cheeks ache. he’s grinning, wide and real and easy as anything. he wants to laugh. he’s electric all over. he wants to – shout, or jump for joy, or fling his arms around edward’s shoulders in an embrace. there’s no one around to see them, not here in edward’s tiny office, not after hours; he gives in just a little, letting himself spin once in place.
edward laughs, sweet and warm. it’s a lovely laugh, the sort that carves those long dimples in his cheeks – john’s surprised him again. “it’s just a plan,” he says. “haven’t even found an artist. we’ll have to raise extra funds for the commissioning, but not too much. no need for any bake sales just yet.”
“bake sales,” john laughs, and grabs edward by the shoulders, gives him an enthusiastic shake. “i’ll – i’ll make a hundred trays of brownies, ned, a thousand, i don’t care! it’s perfect!”
that smile – edward’s ducking his head to hide it, the weasel, and john won’t have it, can’t stand to miss the brightness in his eyes, the sparkle that makes him look a decade younger. john lets his arms go. grabs his head instead. edward’s five o’clock shadow bristles against john’s palms as john tips him up to look properly. and – yes, goodness, those dark eyes glitter in the lamplight, the glow of the tablet turned to matching blocks of star-blue floating on deep chestnut-brown.
“you’re brilliant, edward,” says john. “you’re – oh, you talk such nonsense about yourself, you’re – brilliant. you’re a gift. god sent you to me as a gift.”
edward’s grin falters. his gaze darts back and forth between john’s eyes.
they’re very close together.
the giddiness swirling in john’s belly swoops up into his throat. edward’s lashes are so dark against the fairness of his skin. john ought to bother him to come out hiking again, soon. get some colour back into him. some of that light. all the warmth that’s inside him, burning, hidden under dark circles and deadlines and all those bizarre coffee drinks.
“john,” edward breathes, strangely.
john sways in closer. it feels – natural. easy. edward is so warm in his hands. this is what friends do, john thinks; they touch each other. he’s seen it. he remembers how george kissed edward on both cheeks, and how edward laughed and shoved playfully at george’s arm, not the sort of shove to push someone away but to bring them closer. what would it feel like, to kiss his cheek? what if –
tipping edward’s head to one side, john presses his lips to edward’s cheekbone.
it’s a peck, is all. a way to siphon off a fraction of the joy bubbling up in john’s lungs, his veins, his heart. an expression of the love he bears his friend. stubble pricked a bit at his lips, perfectly; edward was, of course, soft beneath the sharpest bits, and almost fever-hot against john’s mouth.
edward makes a tiny, quiet noise in the back of his throat.
“a miracle,” murmurs john, and, bowing to the sudden urge – no one to see them – no one to know – he dives in again, presses his face to the other side of edward’s, harder, deeper, nuzzling in, and this time when he pulls away he’s distantly surprised he isn’t shaking.
slow and careful, edward raises his hands up. wraps his long, slender fingers around john’s wrists. he’s staring. he’s staring at john. he’s breathing too quickly. his eyes are wide, but he blinks, a few times in a row, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.
all at once, the words slip out of john’s mouth: “i prayed for you.”
edward’s thumb caresses the back of john’s wrist, and his brow furrows. “i’m fine, john, we’ve talked about this–”
“no, no, i, i prayed for you,” john insists, fingers tightening over edward’s face. “i asked for – a miracle. and then the next morning you showed up. you’re – he sent you, to fix this, to help me, and i…”
like a magnet, like gravity, john is pulled in. their noses brush.
john – kisses him.
it’s a peck. again. small. simple. friends do this, he knows, he’s seen maggie kiss her friends a thousand times, and edward is his best friend, his only friend, maybe, or at least the only person who’s ever made him feel so real, so himself. lips to lips. quick in, quick out.
he pulls away, pulse roaring. there is space between them again. not much. just enough for breath.
edward holds john’s wrists. his eyes have slipped closed. he looks – pained. like a martyr in an old masterwork. his lips are open. his lips are wet. his lips –
some thoughts regarding john irving standing with his mouth agape on a busy sidewalk in front of a busker, having an epiphany
imagine with me john irving. he is exhausted. he is overwhelmed. he has worked too many hours in a row. he is under an exceptional amount of pressure from his family to return home to their town and their church, now that he's come crawling back from the dream of a simple farming life that collapsed under his feet, leaving him and his brother both half-dead and cowed. his boss is... complicated. everything in the city is too loud and too crowded and far too chaotic.
he misses elphie, he misses his family, and the more time he spends with the few people he can call his friends, the more acutely he can feel the way they neatly sidestep topics when they talk -- george will laugh and change the subject, ned will look away, no one will meet his eyes, and it feels like everything has felt in his whole life repeated once again. he's doing it wrong, he's said it wrong, he's wrong he's wrong he's wrong.
he's buried his hands in his pockets to keep them from tapping, and he bites back a flinch every time another body brushes past; it's not normally so busy, but he's been politely shoved out of the office for an early weekend -- "a proper break," mr crozier had insisted -- and the mid-afternoon crush is suffocating. it's like he's never seen so many people in one place.
then over car horns and the beeping alert of the crossing lights, over a hundred thousand feet on pavement, he hears it -- a song he remembers, faintly, from decades ago, as a child, one he pulled from a pile of ancient sheet music and taught himself to play on the detuned stand-up piano his mother kept in the back room, alone for once amid the constant press of family and noise and church.
"'tis the song, the sigh of the weary," comes a pure, sweet baritone, somehow familiar, with a jangle of steel-string guitar close behind. "hard times, hard times, come again no more --"
over the crowd he spots a blond head, and a face he knows, and he almost stumbles --
little tommy hartnell, barely twenty, an island in the mad rush of people, clutching at the neck of a battered guitar, eyes half-closed as beauty falls from his mouth.
john freezes. someone bumps him from behind, and he nearly stumbles, but he's caught in the soft sway of tommy's movement, the way the sun catches in his hair. he looks so much like his brother -- they share the same nose, the same eyes, the same patchy facial hair, and he remembers how tommy had stood, strong, fragile, at the front of the room at the memorial, and how tommy thanked them for their generosity. he'd said something about moving back in with his family, john thinks, because they'd shared a home, and without the income there was no way he could keep the apartment on his own. but their family wasn't here. wasn't supposed to be here. they were -- overseas?
tommy lifts his head, and shakes the long fringe of his hair out of his eyes. john can't look away. he's so much thinner than he was all those months ago. he's playing so beautifully. he sings like honesty, and like truth; slightly rough at the edges, but transcendant all the same. at his feet sits a large, dirty backpack, stuffed full, with a bedroll and coat tied scout-tight to the base.
john thinks suddenly of the empty spare room in his apartment. he thinks of music, and the divine beauty of mathematical frequencies, and the ecstasy of singing. he thinks of the tiny rainbow pin tommy wore to the memorial, and the way john's father shook his head and looked away even on his deathbed when john tried to tell him the truth of himself, and how even in a city this crowded he feels scraped hollow with sick loneliness. he thinks of how he hasn't sat at a piano in nearly five years.
Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤
HULLO MY DARLING MY ANGEL!!! THANK YOU OH MY GOODNESS <3 <3 <3
okay after some Consideration: here are my top five fics, aka ones i think are the best as a reader and also the most satisfying as a writer!! if you haven't read my stuff, these are a good cross section of The Themes And Vibe I Tend Toward. (i also write Nice things, but i don't find them as satisfying to work on or to read!!)
that said: oh my GOD mind the tags.
NOW, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER, I IMPLORE YOU TO TAKE A CHANCE ON:
all of these drink blood
Hadesgame, Greek Myth and Legend
Ares/Aphrodite, Ares/Dionysus; Past Zeus/Ares, Current Zeus/Zagreus, assorted others
77k, 9/9 chapters (complete), rated E
‼️Non-con, Graphic Violence
“Pops pulled a bit of a heist, last night. Went downstairs for a tick. Brought home a new cupbearer." Dionysus takes a deep draught of wine, then laughs, raspy and intent. “He’s carried off our sweet little cousin.”
Ares huffs. “Which of Poseidon’s thousand bloody offspring must we bear the company of this time, then?”
“Oh, no, man, not Poseidon’s — think lower. Much lower.”
Zeus has taken Zagreus for his new cupbearer. Ares, subject to Zeus' attentions for centuries, is left out in the cold. But Zagreus isn't the only one at risk — and his loss may put Olympus on the brink of war.
MY MAGNUM OPUS!!!! taking a scalpel to The Dynamic -- a family of gods under control of an abusive Patriarch fumbles to reconcile their love, their pain, and their survival; meanwhile a Visibly Weird Guy with a bizarre sense of self due to centuries of grooming is just doing his best to save his cousin from the clutches of their father. also if they don't save him THE WORLD WILL END. YEAAHHHH!!! Totally readable to those who don't know the game; also there are Loads of Lore Bonuses for those who like those sorts of things <3
the naming of israel hands
Our Flag Means Death
Edward Teach/Izzy Hands
40k, 5/5 chapters (complete), rated E
‼️Graphic Violence, Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
"Off the starboard bow, the fog parts, and a sleek, smooth ship slips into view, easy as a panther before a fat, helpless sheep. Atop the mainmast flies a strange, horrible flag — two daggers stacked above a grinning skull, laid a field of mourning-black.
Sound falls away. Only the pounding of Israel’s heart and the creak of the rail under his white-knuckled grip remain.
Pirates."
When Israel Stockard's ship is raided, he catches the eye of a strange, brilliant young pirate named Edward Drummond -- and finds himself stumbling face-first into a new world of violence and intrigue.
A gritty pirate thriller full of sex and violence and the power of claiming your own identity in the face of losing everything you've ever known. If you like Boat Media and damaged dudes trying to survive while also falling hard for one another in terrible circumstances: This One's For You!!!
we ate the birds
The Iliad, Greek Myth and Legend
Patroclus/Ajax the Greater, Patroclus/Achilles
11.7k, complete, rated E
‼️Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Handsome isn’t quite the word for Ajax; he’s too strong, too solid for it. Too loud and large and warm. He carries his family’s cheekbones, though, the same ones borne by Achilles, and the same thick, curled lashes. With the right wife, he would bear beautiful daughters, and handsome sons, skilled and strong as the children of kings ought to be.
Idly, Patroclus imagines the grip of those great hands around his waist. If he did not have Achilles…
But he doesn’t. Not really. The cold-hearted creature in his tent is far from the noble man who called to his soul, even in childhood. The Achilles he cleaved himself to, the one he would never betray – that man is gone.
And Ajax’s eyes shine so dangerously in the firelight.
this is one of my absolute favourite pieces i've written point blank. an exploration of betrayal, sex, wanting, guilt, and the day-to-day life of a decade in a camp full of human beings who AREN'T demigods. also dramatic irony. can't forget the dramatic irony :)
sparagmos
Our Flag Means Death, Greek Myth & Legend, Hadesgame
"Calico" Jack Rackham/Dionysus
3.7k, complete, rated E
‼️ Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Violence
Flesh and blood and bone, wine and breath and being fucking alive: that’s the real God. That's the God that follows Calico Jack Rackham.
CJ RACKHAM: A FAVOURITE OF A GOD HE'S NEVER HEARD OF IN ANY REPUTABLE CHURCH -- A GOD OF SURVIVAL AND BLOOD AND FUCKING AND WINE AND PLEASURE, WHO PULLS HIM FROM THE ASHES OF HIMSELF TO REJOICE IN THE GLORY OF THE FLESH!!!! a backstory and an explanation of the world's most emotionally stunted frat boy cowboy pirate, from rat's blood to wine to seawater to the blood of men. i LOVE the structure and style of this as much as i loved writing it.
a monologue for two faces
Our Flag Means Death
Lucius Spriggs & Izzy Hands, Lucius/Pete
4.5k, complete, rated M
‼️Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
An empty stage. Remnants of life: a net in one corner, floorboards pitted, dark stains spattered over the wall, a sketchbook propped up against the wall. Or not. Maybe it’s just empty.
A YOUNG MAN enters. Uncomfortable. He takes a trinket from his pocket – a wooden shark toy – and places it down. The position is wrong; he fixes it. Fixes it again. Curses. He’s tried too many times; it will never be right.
He crosses to the wall, curls up against it. Breathes. Counts to ten, uncurls deliberately; a breathing exercise. Shakes out his hands.
YOUNG MAN: This is so fucking stupid.
Or: the man who used to be Lucius Spriggs mourns.
so when i watched ofmd s2 i had... complicated feelings about it, and this piece leapt from my hands as a way to explore specifically what the fuck happened with lucius and the wedding and the funeral. it gets heavy but it's scraped up from the bottom of my heart, and i love it very, very much. also it was nice to go back to script format (my background is in theatre)!! a story about grief, love, and piecing yourself back together after you fall apart. xo
❤️❤️❤️ if you read this far i love you and also i hope you enjoy!!!
a brief glimpse into the boudoir of miss sophia cracroft and her dear friend mister james fitzjames as they discuss a matter of dressing, circa 1843 (sophia/jfj, 650wds)
started talking with the brilliant pluto (@plutoshark) on twt and this happened!! enjoy xxo
includes: crossdressing, minor Gender Momence, very brief dip into roleplay, zero francis sorry bud you'll get em next time
--
Sophia smooths down the front of the waistcoat. It feels… odd, running so evenly down over her belly. The lack of petticoats and skirt below smooth her hips into boyish flatness, and the trousers – her trousers, she thinks, a bit dizzily – seem to cling to her thighs and calves, despite their relative looseness. It’s rather as if she’s taken to wearing stockings far too large, and all the way up her legs.
From behind her, a swishing of fabric – James cannot keep still for the life of him, even in ordinary circumstances, let alone the private sanctuary of her rooms, and seems intent on savouring the sensation of skirts enough to carry it with him for the next long months away. She would chide him for it, but it’s sweet, really; like a young girl in her first ballgown.
She shakes her shoulders a little, resettling her shirtsleeves. Her jaw tightens. She really ought to look in the mirror, at least to ensure she hasn’t folded anything too strangely. Instead, she turns, head tipped up to meet James’ eyes.
“Well?” she says.
James blinks, then stares.
Sophia wrinkles her nose. “It’s awful, isn’t it.”
“No, not at all, I merely – Sophie, love, it’s…” James raises a long, blunt, delicate finger to his cheek, brows drawn together in earnest confusion. “It… Goodness, Sophie, it suits you. Rather marvellously, if I may say so.”
Sophia, despite herself, feels heat rise in her cheeks. “You, ah. Really?”
James pulls up both hands to his cheeks this time, sweet and feminine; when he’s in the chemise Sophia keeps for him with her things, he tends to tuck his arms in, perfectly ladylike, bent at the elbow as if he might make himself just that bit smaller. It’s terribly endearing. “Something in how you hold yourself, I suppose,” he says, then lets out a bit of a giggle. “Get you on as a ship’s boy, going somewhere you mightn’t need to strip for the heat, and I’d have you training as a linesman in a moment.”
“A linesman!” Sophia can’t stop the grin, and doesn’t want to. “Up in the ropes, you mean? Climbing about over everyone’s head?”
“Well, now that you’re in trousers, it’s not like they’ll be able to look up your –”
“Jem,” she laughs, and she reaches up to give him a playful smack on the arm. “You awful thing.”
“They’d hardly mind,” James chirps, grin wide. He’s gone a gentle pink over the high arch of his cheekbones. “You’re a vision of beauty, Miss Cracroft. Could inspire the good and valiant men of the Service to heroic feats with just a glimpse of –”
“Awful!” Sophia cackles. She’s not the sort to, usually, but her skin prickles all over with a strange, shivery delight, and she feels a bit like she could walk up to God and spit in His eye, so she gives James a solid shove.
He bleats in surprise and topples backward onto the divan in a mess of too-short petticoats.
Sophia gasps. “Oh, I – Jem, are you –”
“Ha,” says James, then, “Oh, gracious, I really am not used to wearing these stays, though I ought to be by now.” Awkwardly, he props himself up on his elbows.
His hair – not curled, today, as he must go out by the evening – has been shaken from its neat styling, pins coming out of place to leave him dishevelled and artfully mussed. His thin, delicate lips, softly rouged, part. Sophia cannot tear her eyes from them.
Those lips curl into a grin, first wry, then cocky. James’ tongue (oh, James’ tongue) sweeps out to wet them. “You’re staring,” he says, a low, breathy rumble, “sir.”
The prickle of Sophia’s skin brightens into a shivery, hot knot of something right below her breastbone. “You like to be looked at,” she says, then adds, as James’ grin twitches wider: “Miss Fitzjames.”
