#Dna Day

[jpyoerixfanxv]

Happy DNA Day. (Late)

[twistingtreeancestry]

Happy National DNA Day!

As a hobby genealogist, DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is an invaluable and fun tool.

I was lucky to have a head start on my family tree, but taking a genetic test through 23andMe (psst, their kits are on sale!!) has allowed me to take my research further.

After submitting my DNA, I connected with relatives that I otherwise may have never known existed. I've filled in branches of my tree that were sturdily brick-walled due to a distant cousin and I putting our heads together to figure out our MRCA, or most recent common ancestor.

It's also given me insight into my ancestry composition! Though Ancestry's database is larger, 23andMe and Ancestry have comparable accuracy rates for their ethnicity estimates. My results have shifted since I took my test in late 2020, but it largely stayed the same.

Image Description: An image of a colorful strand of DNA. It is illuminated with a glow and has soft bubbles flowing from it. My DNA results are typed through the center of the image. Image from BeFunky stock images. Edited by Keekee Smith with BeFunky.

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Everything outside of my Northwestern European percentage came as a shock to me. The exception is the trace ancestry of Indigenous American DNA, as my family claimed this ancestral ethnicity for generations. The shock with the Indigenous DNA was mainly that it was true to any extent (check out this article from Harvard University's Native American Program to learn more about the "Cherokee Princess Myth"). That's a story for a different post, though!

Initially, I wasn't sure where the Spanish & Portuguese DNA could be from, but I've since learned about an 8th great-grandfather born in Jamaica who allegedly had a Spanish father or mother. I haven't yet verified his information, so it's still unclear if that's my Spanish/Portuguese link but time will tell!

The Asian and Broadly Arab, Egyptian & Levantine DNA blew my mind. There were no family rumors or other inklings that would have ever led me to believe those would show up in my DNA. A quick Google search says that 23andMe goes back about 8 generations, so these bits of DNA likely come from within that range. Wherever it is, though, I've yet to find it!

While some of my branches are fleshed out as far back as a 12th great-grandparent, I still have many lineages brick-walled 3-4 generations back. Truth is, there's just no telling until that ancestor decides to reveal themself.

Until then, I'll keep up the familial work and enjoy the fun little things DNA has to offer. I'm taking a short hiatus from genealogy research to catch up on other responsibilities, but I'll be back to reporting my family's shenanigans in no time.

In the meantime, tell me about your ancestors and their lives! What are some interesting discoveries you've found?

[carebooks]

to all those new comers to the Percy Jackson world and being off on shipping Percabeth because Poseidon and Athena are uncle and niece, it’s stated in the books (specifically The Lost Hero) that gods don’t have DNA the way humans do.

and if that still doesn’t convince you or you may think it’s not a real or valuable explanation, let’s recall other ways that births happen in both greek myths and the Riordanverse:

- Zeus birthed Athena from his brain

- Athena’s demigod children are born the same way. out of her mind. so Annabeth is already way off from the usual goddess birth route

- Zeus also birthed Dionysus from his thigh

- Hephaestus was born from Hera and Zeus, but in a lot of versions its actually Hera who just had him by herself. she got pregnant and it happened. they’re gods. (then chucked him down a mountain) again, they’re gods.

- Hebe, goddess of youth, was born from Hera and a piece lettuce she ate

- in the Trials of Apollo, we learn that Kayla Knowles, daughter of Apollo, has a human father, Darren. meaning she has two fathers: Darren and Apollo. no mother involved in her creation whatsoever.

- Zeus has impregnated quite a large number of people during his time and in various different forms. one of the weirdest ones by far was when he came to a queen in the form of a swan, embraced her as that swan and nine months later she gave birth to two eggs. they hatched and inside was Helen of Sparta (as in Helen of Troy), Clytemnestra, Castur and Pollox.

- Poseidon and Medusa had a child and that child was born from Perseus cutting off Medusa’s head. that child was Pegasus. (yes, that Pegasus) (also some other dude was born too)

- Aphrodite was born out of sea foam made from the severed genitals of Ouranos that fell to the oceans

have i convinced you already? are we done here?

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo!!💙💗🤍💗💙

[new-revenant]

Dani finally gets stable via the help of a reformed Vlad and discovers her obsession is discovery. Once she's old enough, and all the legal papers are settled, Dani goes to college in Star city, she's studying medicine and bio engineering along with paleontology, while bored one day she decided to use the campus lab and a smidge of dino DNA from the local museum, she bumped into a dino skeleton while fighting a rouge ghost, and essentially created a clone baby dinosaur, specifically a triceratops. Over the course of a few weeks Dani makes a few more of different species and catches Green Arrow's attention

Green Arrow!!!! Yes!!! And discovery is a neat idea for an Obsession, even if this prompt does go in a bit of a weird direction. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I just did not expect that at all lamo. Dani accidentally becomes a Dino themed “villain” because you cannot expect her to keep an eye on all of them 24/7. Although it becomes very obvious that she is trying so hard to wrangle all of them whenever they cause the slightest amount of mayhem. Green Arrow is just glad that Dani isn’t trying to sick the dinos on the city on purpose. But she will get banned from messing with any prehistoric DNA.

[chirpsythismorning]

Yeah a teaser dropping on ST day would be cool. But can we agree that a DNA board reveal would be infinitely better?

[mobius-m-mobius]

#wake up y'all the husbands are husbanding again 🥰🙏

John Simm and Philip Glenister on DNA Journey S05E01

[alipeeps]

Fangs of Fortune and Hope

So much of Fangs of Fortune revolves around hope, not just for the characters, but for the audience... and the way hope is used as a narrative device.

(Read more cos holy shit this got away from me...)

Hopes and dreams are a primary motivation, and humanising aspect, of the characters.

Zhao Yuanzhou's story is all about hope. Has been without hope for so very long... trapped by his own nature in a life without end, without hope of relief, mired in misery.. and fearing what he will become/do. Zhuo Yichen represents the first spark of hope he has had in so long - that the cycle can be broken, that his torment can end... and that the world can be protected from the danger he represents.

But as the show progresses, he finds himself daring to hope for more than just death... as he builds connections with the team - with Zhuo Yichen and Wen Xiao in particular - he begins to hope for something else... for the possibility of a future, one that is no longer bleak and lonely. As the Baize goddess - who never gave up hope for him - promised, he found the person(s) who would make him want to live.

When his senses are sealed and he is fighting not to be overwhelmed his demonic energy, he holds onto the hope - the dream - of a future for him and Wen Xiao to keep the demonic energy at bay.

And he never - never - gave up hope for Li Lun, that he could be redeemed, be saved. Even as he used up all his thousands of years of cultivation to re-forge the Cloud Light Sword in order to forcibly remove Li Lun from Bai Jiu's body, he still hoped for Li Lun to live on, made Zhuo Yichen promise to save his life, offered a way for his spirit to endure with the hope of cultivating back to a human form.

Bai Jiu's entire story arc is motivated by hope. He leaves home whilst still a child with the desperate, burning hope of learning medicine to become a healer and be able to save his mum. And it is that desperate hope that leaves him vulnerable to Wen Zongyu's manipulation, that pushes him to go against his nature and betray his friends - people he genuinely cares for.

And Ying Lei is all about hopes and dreams. He goes against centuries of tradition and expectations to pursue his hopes and dreams in the mortal realm.. and the dream he is pursuing is informed wholly by the hopes and dreams of humans. He sees how humans find connection and comfort in food, how food can be an act of love and caring, and longing... and he wants to be a part of that, to be able to provide that connection and affection to people. He uses his magic in "frivolous" ways to make a perishable food last much longer, in the hope that his friend will still be able to eat a comforting food even if he is not there to cook it freshly. He does this even before they have rescued Bai Yu.. spending his time and his magical energy in the hope that they will rescue him.

Even in the midst of tragedy, these characters cling onto hope - even as both Bingyi and Zhuo Yichen are forced to kill the ones they love most to save the world, each of them finds a way to save a shred of their soul, so that they are not gone forever, so that there is hope of return.

And hope is a major theme for the audience too. Despite the clear and repeated foreshadowing, as we come to know and love these characters, we cannot help but build hope that there is another way, that the fate they are seemingly doomed to can be avoided. The show plays with this idea, by turns affirming that their ending is inevitable and suggesting that maybe it is not. Ying Long's spirit reminds Zhuo Yichen and Zhao Yuanzhou that they are fated to repeat the same choice that he and Bingyi had to make, before expressing the hope that they and their friends will be able to travel the world and have adventures together.

If there were no hope at all, if the fated ending were presented as relentlessly inescapable, there would be no tension, no investment in the outcome. So the show keeps offering us that hope, teasing us with the idea that... maybe. Even though in our hearts we know how it must end... we can't help but hope. And isn't that the very core of the story? So much death and tragedy, loss and pain... and yet there is always still hope.

But what struck me in particular - and what inspired me to write this post - is the way hope is used as a narrative device.

One way in which this is done is in subverting expectations. I've remarked several times on how the show often used flashbacks to add more information/context to a previous scene that then alters the present narrative. And this was often done when a situation seemed hopeless. Where it seemed there was no way they could escape/survive this - and then a flashback to a previous scene would reveal that the team had foreseen this outcome and planned for it and all hope was not lost after all. For a moment the audience is plunged into despair - the team is doomed! - and then we rejoice because hope is given back to us.

But more powerful than that is how the audience's hope is used to underscore the most harrowing scenes.

Out of the many deaths in this show, the two deaths that were (for me) the most traumatic were those of Ying Lei and Bai Jiu - both by virtue of their being unexpected, and also because the characters were the youngest (I know Ying Lei was a demi-god and physically older than everyone but Zhao Yuanzhou, but in god/demon terms he was still a youngster and his personality was very young, and he and Bai Jiu were very much the goofy kids of the team) and most innocent of the group.

But also because in both of these deaths the show deliberately - it seemed to me - offered us a moment of hope that they would survive... only to then snatch it away.

During the fight with Li Lun, Ying Lei was so badly injured and I was so worried that he was going to die... but then he broke through to Li Lun and the team saved Bai Jiu and Ying Lei was hugging him and reluctant to let go of him and I thought it was over, they'd saved Bai Jiu, everything was going to be okay.

A moment of hope and relief. And then Ying Lei died.

And then when Zhao Yuanzhou and Zhuo Yichen realised Bai Jiu must have been the one to destroy the ashes and save Zhuo Yichen, Zhao Yuanzhou urges Zhuo Yichen to use the feather and go to Bai Jiu and I had a moment of wild hope that yes, Zhuo Yichen can get to him and get him to a doctor, it's not too late, he can be saved...

The episode ends on a moment of (for me) fierce and desperate hope that Bai Jiu will live.

Only for that hope to be immediately ripped away at the start of the next episode. Zhuo Yichen - who had rushed there hoping against hope - finds Bai Jiu already dead and his grief, and ours, is all the more raw and debilitating for that brief moment of hope.

Our hope is weaponised against us to maximise the impact of the narrative. And god is it effective. I don't think I've ever had such an emotional response to a show.

And then the extra episode, after all the pain and loss and grief of episode 34, once again gives us back hope. Zhuo Yichen saved that scrap of Zhao Yuanzhou's soul and sets out on a desperate, hopeful quest to find it. And at the very end, he does. And the show ends on that final, joyous moment of hope restored - their story can continue.

[judasisgayriot]

Signed in Blood

[hazbinbabbling4ever]

Your daily reminder JK Rowling sucks.

[temeyes]

seido baseball team's formidable captain, everyone! (clean ver below!)

drew this as a warm up, but the editing crap took me almost 2hrs ahsahsha!!!!

he likes to take tito-coded selfies imo,,,,,

[lurkinginnernarrator]

I think Shen Jiu in a/b/o fics being an omega so often goes hand in hand with him being so woman-coded. Jiumei and all that y'know.

But any flavour of Shen Jiu is chefs kiss

[junkobato]

Upcoming Kdrama June 2024 🧡

3/6: Player 2: Master of Swindlers with Song Seung Heon, Oh Yeon Seo, Lee Si On. 12 episodes; action, thriller, comedy.

7/6: Hierarchy with Roh Jeong Hui, Lee Chae Min, Kim Jae Won. 7 episodes; thriller, mystery, romance.

12/6: My Sweet Mobster with Uhm Tae Goo, Han Sun Hwa, Kwon Yool. 16 episodes; rom-com.

15/6: Miss Night and Day with Jung Eun Ji, Choi Jin Hyuk, Lee Jung Eun. 16 episodes; rom-com, fantasy.

22/6: DNA lover with Choi Si Won, Jung In Sun, Lee Tae Hwan. 16 episodes; rom-com, melodrama.

28/6: the Whirlwind with Kim Soo Ae, Sol Gyung Gu. 12 episodes; political.

Uhm Tae Goo in a rom-com?! It was about time! 😍

[perhapsinsydney]

they got the disappointed parents look downnn

[radioactivepeasant]

Free Day Friday: Trespasser

(From the poll: "In Which the Demolition Duo made it to the Wastelands without being banished because They Are Trespassing)

Damas was not, by and large, a religious man. He didn't worship Precursors -- there were some who insisted that his ousting from Haven was divine punishment for his arrogance -- nor spirits. If spirits could be killed, so could Precursors. That made them oracles, elders to be respected for unique perspectives on time, but not gods in Damas’s opinion.

Which made it an oddity to find him in the temple.

He sat on the shallow steps, staring up at the six carved heads meant to represent Precursors. More insectoid than Oracles, or perhaps just more elaborate. They seemed to wear headdresses over their bizarre masks.

"If you, by action or inaction, let Mar die, then at least have the decency to tell me," he whispered into the empty air.

"You always foretold a future moment of need that my House would answer. Has that need passed unnoticed that you stay silent while my bloodline ends? Or does my son live?"

The masks were silent, of course. Carved stone could neither hear nor speak.

Ungrateful wretches. Damas had a fleeting thought that perhaps they'd allowed -- or even orchestrated -- the abduction of his little son because he wasn't servile and "pious" enough for their tastes.

Damas wondered if spirits could harm Precursors. If perhaps the "Good Grandmother"*, She-Who-Hears-Them-Cry, might take an interest if something in this temple had been directly involved in bringing Mar to harm.

Má took her payment even from the hides of fellow spirits, after all.

"Even if you were capable of bringing him back unharmed, I very much doubt you would," Damas whispered harshly to the open air. His throat bobbed with a painful, bitter anger.

"But if you took him, you owe blood-debt to my House, old ones. So grant closure or sit in your realm knowing that I will seek answers among others as old as you."

Was it wise to threaten the Precursors? Damas neither knew nor cared anymore. Two years he'd barely survived having his heart metaphorically ripped out of his chest.

What more could they do to him? Really, what could they possibly do that could be worse than not knowing?

No answer arrived, not that it surprised him. Damas sighed and braced his elbows against his knees, head in his hands.

Stone grated against stone and metal to his left, and he turned his head swiftly.

There was a door there, one heavily fortified with traps. A hovering Sentinel eye kept watch for movement, designed to activate a spike trap if anyone tried to enter the lower levels without permission. And if someone managed to somehow get past that, the door would still be sealed. Whether by an enterprising ancestor of his or by meddling Precursors, that door could not be opened without an Heir of Mar. Damas was the only one who had ever been beyond it.

It should not have opened even an inch.

And yet Damas was witnessing the two mighty halves forcing themselves apart with a tortured groan born of idleness.

He was on his feet in an instant, ready for a fight. There was no chance that this heralded anything good.

"Whoa!"

That was a hu'men voice.

Damas’s hand hovered over his sidearm, ready to draw the moment he saw a face.

"And I thought this place was huge before!"

It was a young voice. High and a little squeaky.

"It just keeps going, doesn't it?" laughed a second voice, deeper, but just as young.

And then the doors were open wide enough to see the silhouette in between them.

And more importantly, to see the object glowing faintly in his outstretched fist.

Damas’s mouth was dry as he fumbled for the pouch between belt and leather armor where he kept his own amulet of Mar. He knew the shape by heart: twin comets orbiting each other, over stylized hands.

Thief-!

Pure, outraged, fury burned through his veins for a moment. Who had this scrawny figure stolen that amulet from? Heaven forbid it be Mar's amulet, lest Damas murder this boy before his very next step.

"Identify yourself!" Damas shouted, raising his gun.

The figure stepped into view. He was small, so thin his clothes hung loosely on scrawny limbs, but he held himself like a warrior.

"People!"

The animal curled around his shoulders sat upright and spoke.

"Jak! There's real people in here! We're saved!"

Odd reaction to a man pointing a gun at them.

The boy eased a step forward, hands raised as if soothing a frightened animal. He still held the incriminating amulet in his hand.

"Whoa, okay, put the gun down. I don't want to hurt anybody-"

He took a step too far and the sentinel flashed. The spikes shot up out of the floor with a faint shunk!

With a yelp, the boy leapt back -- he was surprisingly light on his feet for someone wearing boots two sizes too big. Then, as if the nearly fatal encounter was no more than a slight inconvenience, he backed up, got a running start, and launched.

He kicked off the wall, seeming to find handholds in the tiniest of crevices as he bypassed the spikes entirely.

Once on the ground again, the boy dusted himself off.

"You okay, Dax?"

"Just peachy, considering you almost dropped me!"

"Did not!" the hu'men boy protested in annoyance.

He really was small.

The general gangly sprawl of his limbs suggested he would gain an impressive height, but for now he just looked..small.

And entirely too excited.

"Who....do you- Where did you come from?" Damas demanded.

The boy pointed back down at the steps and shrugged before scratching his head.

"Exploring?"

Oh that green hair hurt to look at. It was filthy, and matted, like it hadn't been correctly washed in years. He couldn't even determine the age of the trespasser, what with the layers of grime embedded into every crevice of his face. The clothes were just as stained with sweat, dirt, and what looked to be bloodstains. From traps?

"Exploring."

Damas repeated the stranger's explanation incredulously. "How did you even get in here?"

The boy and the orange animal looked at each other for a curiously long moment. They seemed to be having a conversation merely by narrowing and widening their eyes in turn. Then, seeming to come to an agreement, they shrugged and turned back to face Damas.

The boy pointed down a barely visible flight of rough-hewn stone steps, lit by torches.

"We came up through the catacombs."

There were catacombs? He hadn't seen anything like that down there, and Damas liked to think he'd made it pretty far! He examined the stranger more closely, avoiding his eyes -- they're not familiar, you're just projecting your grief -- and avoiding looking at the talking weasel thing. He saw sunken cheeks drawn tightly against sharp cheekbones. A pale, barely visible scar across the bridge of his nose. Deep, deep shadows beneath his eyes. How large was the temple, altogether? Were there more people living below their feet?

"How...long were you down there?" he asked after a few seconds.

"Trust me pal," the weasel-rabbit said, "he smelled like this before we got in that zoomer."

"Hey!"

"What zoomer?!" Damas asked, feeling more confused than before.

"The one we took through the lava tube to the catacombs."

Damas was beginning to wonder if he'd somehow inhaled the monks' incense by accident.

The trespasser cringed as if only just noticing the bewildered and only barely softened hostility on Damas’s face. He shoved his amulet -- not his, it can't be his, there aren't any more of us left!*-- into his pocket and waved his hands placatingly.

Was there another Heir all this time? Is that why I was given no chance to protect Mar? Were my child and I expendable?

"Didn't mean to bother you," the kid apologized, "We'll just uh- huh. Actually, where are we?"

And then he looked to the door rather than Damas.

"Hey Oracle!" he shouted, and Damas was glad no monks were present to hear this and faint at the impertinance.

"Where the rot are we?"

Alright. This was now officially more of a problem than he'd first thought. Not even the monks were supposed to have found that Oracle down there.

One of the past Heirs who never inherited the throne had sealed it up the moment he discovered it long ago. After all, the discovery of light and dark eco being opposite poles of one energy might have thrown society into chaos and they didn't want to deal with the fallout. Even Damas was leery of reintroducing that knowledge outside of the Arena yet. Apparently this trespasser had no such thoughts.

He spoke to Oracles -- or pretended he did.

He held and used an amulet.

The boy was a mystery. And Damas hated not having the answers.

"You," Damas decided, wearing anger like a shield, "are coming with me. You have questions to answer."

The boy balked.

"No!"

He dodged before Damas could seize his arm, stumbling back amidst the columns.

"Uh-uh, I'm not falling for that."

"Falling for what?"

Damas was genuinely confused, and more than a little irritated.

The boy continued to back away.

"No, no I know how this goes. You're gonna take me back to the Haven Council, aren't you!"

*

"Haven?!" Damas sputtered, "Why the bleeding rot would I want to go there?! I'm taking you to my city!"

That didn't reassure the kid, who apparently was not fond of the leaders of Haven City.

Well, that was at least a bare minimum of common ground.

"You ain't takin us to no secondary location!" the orange one declared, pointing a skinny digit at Damas.

"The last time I got transported to a new place, I got kidnapped and experimented on for two years," his friend agreed.

Embleer Frith.

Damas stared at the boy. He squinted, as if that would give him insight into the unsettling response, then shook his head.

"You what?!"

What was he talking about? Experimented on?! That would explain the sudden shift from curiosity to distrust. But why-?

Damas knew. Deep down, he thought he knew.

If the boy was an Heir -- and he didn't even want to entertain the thought, but it had to be acknowledged as a possibility -- then that alone would be motive for someone like Praxis to torture even a young man -- or young boy?

If he was still obsessed with creating the ultimate war-sage, then an unclaimed and unattended Heir of Mar would be invaluable.

But if Praxis had been so focused on an older Heir, then perhaps it at least meant that he'd never gotten his hands on Mar.

That there was a stab of shame to follow that whisper of relief was an unsettling proof that he had not successfully hardened his heart as much as he'd thought.

"You came here from Haven?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

Thoughts of a breach in their defenses sickened him.

"And others will follow in pursuit of you?"

This time both trespassers scoffed.

"Only if they feel like sharpening their reaction time enough for a volcanic subrail," the hu'men said. He almost smiled.

The orange one nodded. "Jak here's the best driver there is! Also the most demolition-happy, but nobody's perfect."

Jak?

Now that was a name his spies had been mentioning a lot in their reports. An alleged juggernaut who had turned the Baron's own secret project against him and -- rumor had it -- even destroyed the metalhead nest.

Damas had been expecting someone a little...older.

* the "Good Grandmother" Damas is referencing is a spirit I made up for the Wasteland called Má Crocadeer. Fairly grisly figure with a crocadeer skull wreathed in flowers for a head, and a crocadeer's legs and tail. Her purpose is to punish those who deliberately cause or inflict harm on children. There's a lot of people in Haven who should avoid the desert for this reason.

[thatsaseriouscomplexhun]