#mc1r gene

[saintxgerard]

Some unbelievable revelations are occurring…

[harpalion]

it says a lot about me that my idea of fun is writing 10k words about the reproductive systems of my aliens. it says even more about me that my other idea of fun is plotting out their color genetics down to the locus and every single possible color mutation and all methods of inheritance. melanocortin 1 receptor u will always be famous

[battle-subway-ghost]

again

oh fuuuckkkkkk. oh dammit oh arc. wghats happening to me,

[sins-of-the-sea]

".......Do you think Abena's sedation command wasn't effective on Phoebus the first try around because he's a redhead?"

"What does being a redhead have to do wi-

"Wait......

"ABENA!!"

"No, you silly nillies. My gift is centered around controls of souls and the mind, not the body. The body is Phoebus' domain as our healer and insta-death killer.

"Although......

"Would you two like to be a part of an experiment? We'll even have proper control and experimental groups. I'll even create a hypo-"

"Save your stamina, Abena. Soul and mind control means connecting yours."

"Killjoys."

[doctor-fancy-pants]

Wednesday Words

Good Things Can Come From Mistakes #1

Cell division is a glorious, microscopic ballet.

A dancer’s silhouette is revealed from an artful smoke machine; so too does our genetic material coalesce from the organised chaos of the nucleus into chromosomes.

Diligently, they twin themselves, then separate, pulled to opposite ends of the stage; and then the stage itself splits in two, and you don’t see that shit in Swan Lake.

But the most miraculous part of all this is how much it gets fucked up and you still end up with a human being at the end of it.

Only now you’ve got red hair. You’re welcome.

Good Things Can Come From Mistakes #2

A weed is any plant that grows where you don’t want it to grow. It’s a context-specific term. A mistake is to do something when you intended something else.

An error is a computer telling you to go fuck yourself, because you’re speaking gibberish (as far as the computer is concerned).

What do you get when you combine these things?

Well, I got a sarcastic cyborg plant person, and after 50 magical years of marriage, I don’t regret a single thing.

I have a Wednesday night writing group. We do prompts, and drabbles, and it's a good time. Everyone comes out with something so different! They're short snippets - the drabbles are only supposed to be 100 words (eventually I got there!), a warm-up for the later prompt. I've decided to post my favourites, because why not? This one was more recent, and I got two in the time limit that I liked.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

By Sharon Guynup | 21 January 2023

On the screen and on the street, strawberry blonds and those with auburn tresses attract attention, and always have.

That is, in part, because red hair is an exotic trait, occurring in just one or two out of every 100 people.

While the gene variants that endow flaming locks are rare, redheads are not destined to vanish from the population, despite recurring claims to that effect.

“Redheads are not going extinct,” says Katerina Zorina-Lichtenwalter, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at University of Colorado, Boulder.

To understand why this is so, it’s necessary first to understand why there are redheads in the first place.

As it turns out, it’s not only tabloids that are interested in flame-haired people. Scientists are too.

There’s more research on the variations in human hair color than you might expect, and the science makes it clear that crimson locks are not becoming increasingly rare, nor will they disappear any time soon. It’s a trait that dates to prehistory.

Analysis of 50,000-year-old DNA revealed that some Neanderthals were pale-complected redheads.

A famous 3,800-year-old Bronze Age mummy, known as the Beauty of Loulan, was unearthed from a desert cemetery in northwestern China with intact sepia-colored hair.

From the fifth century on, in what is now southeast Europe and Turkey, the mythological King Rhesus of the ancient Thracians was depicted on Greek pottery with carrot-colored hair and beard.

The gene variants involved are recessive, meaning two copies—one from the mother and one from the father—are required to produce a red-haired child.

"Only if both parents are redheads can they be almost certain their baby will have fiery hair," Zorina-Lichtenwalter says.

In her book Red: A History of the Redhead, author Jacky Colliss Harvey characterizes the odds of having a crimson-haired baby this way:

“In the great genetic card game, red hair is the two of clubs. It is trumped by every other card in the pack.”

The genetics of red

Ginger coloring in people—as well as horses, dogs, pigs, and other mammals—is conferred by just a handful of genetic mutations that both parents must carry.

The “redhead gene” was discovered in 1995 by a team including Ian Jackson, now a professor emeritus at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh.

This melanocortin 1 receptor gene, or MC1R, plays a key role in producing melanin, the tan pigment that protects skin from ultraviolet radiation (sunlight) and also colors eyes and skin.

One type, eumelanin, endows brown or black hair.

Pheomelanin creates red or blonde locks and confers light skin and freckles.

In people who have red hair, the skin cells (melanocytes) that produce pigment have a variant receptor on the cell surface.

When exposed to UV light, this variant fails to trigger a switch that changes melanin pigment from yellow/red to the protective brown/black.

“MC1R is one of several genes that work together to produce dark melanin, and without that switch, you’re going to have light skin,” says Zorina-Lichtenwalter—and easily burn when out in the sun.

In their 1995 research, Jackson and his colleagues compared 30 Irish and British redheads with the same number of brunettes.

More than 80 percent of rosy-haired and/or fair-skinned people carried variations in the MC1R gene; but just 20 percent of the brown-haired individuals did.

When they published the study, geneticist Richard Spritz told the media “this is the first time in humans that a specific gene for any common visible characteristic has been identified.”

Genetic advantage—and peril

Pale coloration bestowed a key advantage to cultures migrating from sunnier regions into northern Europe with its gray skies and short winter days.

“There was evolutionary pressure to lose skin pigmentation,” Zorina-Lichtenwalter explains, because lighter skin absorbs more UV, which produces more vitamin D from the limited amount of sunlight in northern regions.

Vitamin D helps the body absorb and retain calcium, build stronger bones, and protect against inflammation.

These health benefits increased the likelihood that women would survive pregnancy and birth, successfully passing on genes for light skin and red or blonde hair to their offspring.

The trait flourished in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where there are, by far, more fair-skinned redheads than anywhere else on Earth.

Some unofficial estimates peg the number at around 10 percent.

Much of the research into redhead genetics stems from their elevated skin cancer risk.

The MC1R gene mutations linked to crimson hair, light skin, and freckles also allows more UV to reach DNA and damage it.

One study found that people carrying a so-called R variant of the MC1R gene had a 42 percent higher incidence of melanoma, one of the most aggressive forms of cancer.

Melanoma is 20 times more prevalent in Caucasians than in African Americans.

However, the average age for melanoma diagnosis is 65. Therefore, Zorina-Lichtenwalter says, “it doesn’t threaten reproductive fitness.”

At that age, women have already passed their genes to the next generation. This is why, she says, redheads are unlikely to disappear from the gene pool.

More ginger genes

When he was working on that 1995 genetic analysis, Jackson knew there was more to understand about the factors conferring red hair.

“It seemed logical that there were other genes involved,” he says, but deeper exploration was not yet possible: Genetic research was extremely slow and costly.

While rapid advances in genetic technologies and computing had launched the Human Genome Project, the first draft of the genetic map would not be complete until 2001.

Now, a quarter-century later, quick, inexpensive genetic research is the norm.

Jackson and his colleagues recently revisited their inquiry with resources unthinkable in 1995.

They analyzed DNA from the UK Biobank, which contains genetic and health information on a half million residents of the United Kingdom.

They discovered eight previously unknown genetic variants that affect red hair and skin pigmentation.

“To go through and find those genes using the Biobank was very, very satisfying,” Jackson says.

This research, published in 2022, identified most of the genetic variation contributing to differences in hair color.

Most redheads have two MC1R variants, according to Jackson, one from each parent. But several other genes also affect whether your hair will be red.

“It's a particular combination that gives rise to red hair,” he says.

Researchers assigned each of the implicated genes a “genetic risk score”: with some variants exerting higher probability of red locks.

Others had much less clout but were still associated. You don’t need all of them to have red hair, Jackson says.

“MC1R is king when it comes to red headedness,” Zorina-Lichtenwalter says.

“It has a tremendous amount of say in whether we'll have dark pigmentation or light pigmentation.”

More than four-fifths of redheads carry MC1R; whereas the remaining reds are caused by other genes.

Geography and ancestry

A recent U.K. genetic study correlated the incidence of burnished tresses with place of birth, with more redheads in the country’s north and west.

“In the Biobank, you've got the latitude and longitude of birthplace of every individual,” Jackson says.

“The further north you were born, the higher the likelihood of having red hair.”

Red-haired, light-skinned genetics thrived in remote regions, closed communities, and islands––such as Scotland (estimates of redheads there range from Jackson’s 6 percent up to 12 or 14 percent); Ireland (10 percent); and Britain (6 percent).

While the populations of these countries are no longer cut off from the rest of the world, “when you have an insular population, isolated from others reproductively, then whatever alleles, they rise in frequency from generation to generation,” Zorina-Lichtenwalter says.

However, redheads are not only Celts or Caucasians. Their distribution is a testament to the global movement of DNA across societies and landscapes.

Although most common in Northern Europe, parts of Russia, and among European descendants in Australia, there are redheads from all ethnicities and races.

For example, both Morocco and Jamaica have higher-than-average numbers.

The reason, Zorina-Lichtenwalter says, is that several genes are responsible for triggering dark eumelanin production to protect skin.

But for hair color, she says “MC1R does appear to dominate, which is why variants in MC1R can still produce red hair in Jamaicans and other dark-skinned people.”

We are not amidst a redhead extinction event

"Claims that redheads are a dying breed are not new, and some of them were clearly linked to financial gain," Jackson says.

One headline that started an uproar blared, “Redheads May Soon Join Polar Bears As Casualties Of Climate Change,” which is a serious stretch.

"Climate change is creating more extreme temperature, drought, and flood; but the possibility that it will impact UV radiation enough to alter Northern Hemisphere genetics––within the predicted few hundred years––is slim," says Zorina-Lichtenwalter.

The source of this claim was Alistair Moffat, CEO of the now-defunct genetic testing company ScotlandsDNA.

Prior to that, the Oxford Hair Foundation (also dissolved) predicted that redheads would be extinct by 2100, with the gene variant that confers flaming hair slowly disappearing.

“[The institute] was a front, funded by a hair dye and cosmetics company to generate interest in hair color,” Jackson says.

While recessive genes can become rare, they don't utterly disappear unless every person who carries that gene either perishes—or does not bear children.

And clearly that’s not going to happen.

Wherever they live, redheads garner outsized attention, sometimes stigmatized, sometimes admired.

As testament to their continued presence in the world, they celebrate themselves in yearly “red pride” events in the U.K., France, and Italy, as well as the U.S.

The largest may be an event in August, when thousands of gingers from across the world convene in the Netherlands for “Redhead Days.”

[welcome-to-green-hills]

mystery! I love the sonic you made <3 him having freckles really represents of a person that has mutation of redhead!!. people that have real red hair has freckles in their skin! and some of them can also hav eye colors of blue/green/hazel. 😄

That’s actually why I gave him freckles, my dear. I am one of the individuals with the rare mutation with red hair, freckles, and turquoise colored eyes.❤️✨

[snigepippi]

I'm looking forward to when we can get more personalised medication where they look into our genes and figure out which will work best.

I'm considering printing out the scientific papers showing that NSAIDs have little to no pain relief effect on people who have no functional MC1R gene, so I can underline the relevant conclusions and hand it to health care people whenever they suggest paracetamol/acetaminophen. If they ask me if I'm sure I don't have any MC1 receptors, I can roll my eyes and point to my hair.

Paracetamol mainly acts by reducing the transformation of arachidonic acid freed due to tissue damage into pain signals that activate the nerve receptors. If there is no pain signals from damaged tissue involved in the pain, it doesn't do shit. And it cannot pass the blood/brain barrier so it has no effect in the brain. Studies also show paracetamol do little for bone or joint pain, for that you need ibuprofen or naproxen for joints, while it works on muscle pain. If it clears your headache it's like because the headache was from musche tension. I do not understand why doctors love it so much. It's a very specific pain killer for muscle pain and muscle tension, and nothing else.

It’s really funny when I Google meds to see how other people react, because I did that the other night, wondering how other migraine sufferers reacted to compazine and Reddit was full of people saying it was the worst experience of their life and they’d rather die than take it again and I was like, “Oh. I felt fucking great lmao.”

Point is, we all react differently to things. Especially when you’re a weird mast cell disorder bitch like me.

Like the number of people who tell me they get sleepy from antihistamines and I’m taking 4x the daily recommended dose (as prescribed by my doctor) and it just makes me feel awake.

Bodies are wild.

[felinefractious]

[Image Source]

Gene Behind Orange Fur in Cats Found at Last

Shared from Science.org.

It would be pretty easy to guess that Garfield was a tomcat even if you didn’t know his name—or didn’t want to peek under his tail. Most orange cats are boys, a quirk of feline genetics that also explains why almost all calicos and tortoiseshells are girls.

Scientists curious about those sex differences—or perhaps just cat lovers—have spent more than 60 years unsuccessfully seeking the gene that causes orange fur and the striking patchwork of colors in calicos and tortoiseshells. Now, two teams have independently found the long-awaited mutation and discovered a protein that influences hair color in a way never seen before in any animal.

“I am fully convinced this is the gene and am happy,” says Carolyn Brown, a University of British Columbia geneticist who was not involved in either study. “It’s a question I’ve always wanted the answer to.”

Scientists have long been fascinated by tortoiseshell and calico cats: the offspring of a black cat and an orange cat. Multicolored cats from such a cross are almost always female, suggesting the gene variant that makes fur orange or black is located on the X chromosome. The male offspring of such a cross are typically unicolor because they inherit just one parent’s X chromosome: We can guess, for instance, that Garfield’s mother is orange because he inherited his only X chromosome from her.**

But female cats inherit an X chromosome from each parent. Cells don’t generally need both, so during embryonic development each cell randomly chooses one X to express genes from. The other chromosome rolls up into a mostly inert ball—a phenomenon called X inactivation. As a result, tortoiseshell cats end up with separate patches of black and orange fur depending on which chromosome was inactivated in that part of their skin. Calico cats add white fur into the mix because they have a second, unrelated genetic mechanism that shuts down pigment production in some cells.

In most mammals, including humans, red hair is caused by mutations in one cell surface protein, Mc1r, that determines whether skin cells called melanocytes produce a dark pigment or a lighter red-yellow pigment in skin or hair. Mutations that make Mc1r less active cause melanocytes to get “stuck” producing the light pigment.

But the gene encoding Mc1r didn’t seem explain where cats’ orange fur came from. It isn’t located on the X chromosome in cats or any other species—and most orange cats don’t have Mc1r mutations. “It’s been a genetic mystery, a conundrum,” says Greg Barsh, a geneticist at Stanford University.

To solve it, Barsh’s team collected skin samples from four orange and four nonorange fetuses from cats at spay-neuter clinics. As a proxy to determine how individual skin cells express genes, the researchers measured the amount of RNA that each melanocyte was producing and determined the gene it encoded. Melanocytes from orange cats, they found, made 13 times as much RNA from a gene called Arhgap36. The gene is located on the X chromosome, which led the team to think they had the key to orange color.

But when the researchers looked at Arhgap36’s genetic sequence in orange cats, they didn’t find any mutations in the DNA that encodes the Arhgap36 protein. Instead, they found the orange cats were missing a nearby stretch of DNA that didn’t affect the protein’s amino acid components but might be involved in regulating how much of it the cell produced. Scanning a database of 188 cat genomes, Barsh’s team found every single orange, calico, and tortoiseshell cat had the exact same mutation. The group reports the discovery this month on the preprint server bioRxiv.

A separate study, also posted to bioRxiv this month, confirms these findings. Similar experiments run by developmental biologist Hiroyuki Sasaki at Kyushu University and his colleagues revealed the same genetic deletion in 24 feral and pet cats from Japan, as well as among 258 cat genomes collected from around the world. They also found that skin from calico cats had more Arghap36 RNA in orange regions than in brown or black regions. Moreover Arhgap36 genes in mice, cats, and humans acquire chemical modifications that silence them on one of the two X chromosomes in females, Sasaki’s team documented, suggesting the gene is subject to X inactivation.

When Barsh and Sasaki learned their respective teams had discovered the same mutation, they decided to post their preprints at the same time. (Because they are preprints, neither study has been peer reviewed.) Both groups further found that increasing the amount of Arhgap36 in melanocytes activates a molecular pathway that switches the cells to producing light red pigment regardless of whether MC1r is active.

No one previously knew Arhgap36 could affect skin or hair coloration—it is involved in many aspects of embryonic development, and major mutations that affect its function throughout the body would probably kill the animal, Barsh says. But because the deletion mutation appears to only affect Arhgap36 function in melanocytes, cats with the mutation are not only healthy, but also cute.

Arhgap36’s inactivation pattern in calicos and tortoiseshells is typical of a gene on the X chromosome, Brown says, but it’s unusual that a deletion mutation would make a gene more active, not less. “There is probably something special about cats.”

Experts are thrilled by the two studies. “It’s a long-awaited gene,” says Leslie Lyons, a feline geneticist at the University of Missouri. The discovery of a new molecular pathway for hair color was unexpected, she says, but she’s not surprised how complex the interactions seem to be. “No gene ever stands by itself.”

Lyons would like to know where and when the mutation first appeared: There is some evidence, she says, that certain mummified Egyptian cats were orange. Research into cat color has revealed all kinds of phenomena, she says, including how the environment influences gene expression. “Everything you need to know about genetics you can learn from your cat.”

A Deletion at the X-linked Arhgap36 Gene Locus is Associated With the Orange Coloration of Tortoiseshell and Calico Cats

Molecular and Genetic Characterization of Sex-linked Orange Coat Color in the Domestic Cat

**Minor correction: Garfield’s mother could also have been a tortoiseshell.

[amber-tortoiseshell]

I don't understand amber. How does it work? What does it do? How is it different from wide band/golden/ect.? Please explain

Ohoho, you invited me to talk about my favourite gene!

Amber is the mutation of the MC1R (melanocortin 1 receptor) gene. Recessive mutations here are associated with red and yellow color varieties in lots of species: rabbits, horses, mice and humans, to mention a few examples.

So what does this gene do? Replaces the black pigment with red. That's the gist of it.

The regular orange color of cats is a different gene, but they have similar molecular backgrounds: red and amber are both phaeomelanin-based colors. Phaeomelanin is one of the two most important pigment types in mammals, together with eumelanin. Eumelanin is responsible for black and brown colors, phaeomelanin is for reds and yellows. Black, chocolate and cinnamon are the traditional eumelanin-based cat colors.

Eumelanin-based tabbies have both eumelanin and phaeomelanin in their fur, the alternation of these two pigments make the agouti hairs banded: the lighter bands have only phaeomelanin. Phaeomelanin-based colors have only or overwhelmingly phaeomelanin in both the lighter and darker bands (the difference is probably the amount of pigments).

Now wide band does something different: it extends the lighter bands, so the coloration becomes less eumelanin-dominated (when there's eumelanin present). Thus, yellow cat.

The first figure shows basically the comparison of the hairs of a black and a red or amber tabby, the second is how golden hairs look like:

That's the difference between amber and golden. One of them changes the color of the agouti bands, the other changes their size.

Here's a red, an amber and a golden cat for comparison:

The amber tabby in the middle has darker orange tabby pattern, the black golden cat still has a black tailtip, black feet, sometimes even some black markings on the face.

The coolest thing about amber is that unlike red and golden, the kittens born with a lot of eumelanin, and they gradually lose it as they mature. Like this:

Nowaja (Galaxy vom Ritterclan), amber smoke with white

[nadinescholtes]

This is how Laia would look like as a human, maybe?

I was thinking of her as a chubby Latin American with red hair (MC1R gene). She would still love to eat candy and pastries. And likes to wear comfy clothes with pastel colors.

[kywaslost]

Good day! Could you make a Ciel x reader where the Ciel has a crush on the reader who is Lizzy’s sister (for the sake lest say Lizzy and Ciel ended to engagement) the thing is the reader is the only one in the Midford family to have dark hair (from a grandparent) and she gets very insecure about it, feeling like a black sheep in her family. Lizzy and everyone is very kind to her it’s just she constantly feels left out because she has a very different personality compared to her sister and brother. She feels very out of place during photo’s with her family. And especially during parties when people talk about her either being adopted or the cause of her mother being unfaithful. She just is naturally much more moody, and she doesn’t have as many friends unlike Lizzy because she just brings the mood down.

Sorry if it’s a lot, have a good day!

Odd One Out - Ciel Phantomhive

A/N: I decided to post this one a day early! I only have one class today and have a lot of free time at the moment. So sorry this took so long!

Not gonna lie, I had to do some research for this one. I’m a sucker for genetics, and so I got super excited for this one. Blonde hair is an autosomal recessive trait, meaning both parents have to be blond. Since both Midford parents are blonde, all of their children have to be blonde, that’s how I learned it. But I did some research to see if there’s mutations or something that can cause dark hair in children born from two blondes. I’ll try my best to simplify what I’ve found. 

Melanin is a polymer, and it is most often known as the polymer that gives skin, hair, and eyes its color. By what I can understand, there are two types of melanin: eumelanin and pheomelanin. Lots of eumelanin produces black or brown hair, whereas pheomelanin produces red hair. Blonde hair is produced by very little eumelanin. Melanocortin 1 Receptor (MC1R) is responsible for determining hair color. Mutations in the MC1R gene can cause red or auburn hair. 

For the sake of this fanfic, let’s just say there’s a mutation in the reader’s production of eumelanin cause I can’t find any way for two blonds to produce a dark-haired kiddo. And yes, I know this is a fanfic but listen people my love for science is strong so fiction or not I’m gonna make my details as accurate as possible. Anyway, hope you enjoy, and here are my sources <3

You were the black sheep of the family in every way possible. Literal or not, others found great joy in pointing out every difference between you and your siblings, especially when it comes to your appearance. It’s difficult to explain to others why you bear little resemblance to your family. Sure, you had your mother’s build and your father’s eyes, but that was as far as it went. You didn’t have the same hair color as your parents and siblings.

It’s common knowledge that two blonde parents bear a blonde child, yet you had dark auburn hair. After years and years of torment and rumors of your mother being unfaithful, or that you were adopted, you began researching why you were the way you were. There wasn’t much out there, but you did discover that you had some type of genetic mutation dealing with hair color. That’s why it was so difficult to explain to others why your hair was so different from your family’s, they didn’t have the same extent of knowledge as you did. 

It didn’t help that you were also extremely different personality wise. Your sister Lizzy was very outgoing and extroverted, never hesitating to host parties or to meet new people. Your brother Edward, on the other hand, was very stoic and serious. He didn’t tolerate much of anything, and was very protective over you and your sister. But you weren’t much like your siblings. You often kept to yourself, only spoke when spoken to, and were generally just very independent. Growing up, the only real friends you had were your siblings, and your twin cousins.

Now that you’re older, you are even more independent. You spent less and less time with your family, often opting to stay in your room or going off on your own into the city. Your family constantly tried to get you to go to events with them, such as going to balls, parties, and even things as simple as family outings, but you couldn’t help but feel out of place. People constantly stared at you, and you couldn’t help but notice their hushed whispers as you walked by with your family. 

You were grateful that your family didn’t see you the same way the rest of the world did. Your parents treated you no differently than your sister and brother. If anything, they tried their hardest with you to try and make you feel more comfortable and confident in yourself. Lizzy constantly wanted to be with you, doing your hair and makeup to spend some quality time with you. She took you dress shopping, and tried to cheer you up in that sort of way. 

Because of your discomfort around your family, you often spent a lot of time with your cousin Ciel. His servants never treated you any differently than they did the rest of your family, and the boy’s Estate overall felt like a safe place for you. Ciel was always willing to let you vent to him, whether it be about how people had been treating you or how you were thinking of yourself, he always had advice to offer. 

What he never would confess, however, was his feelings for you. His engagement with Lizzy ended just over a year ago, and it was all because he realized he had feelings for you instead. Watching you change throughout the years broke his heart, how you became more independent and less willing to socialize and go out. 

You were staying a few nights at the manor to spend some time with Ciel. You had been having a particularly hard time, and you thought it best to spend some time with the boy. He greeted you with open arms, and immediately ordered Sebastian to prepare your favorite meal for dinner. You fell into your cousin’s arms, tearing up as he held you tightly. 

“May I ask what brings you here?” CIel asks calmly as he hugs you. He can feel your tears soaking into his shirt and he becomes even more worried. 

You sniffed as you pulled away from Ciel, wiping at your eyes. “I’m sorry, it’s just been a really long week.”

Ciel frowned, gently taking your arm and leading you inside. “Come, tell me about it.” You were led inside the Estate and to the sofa beside the fireplace. Ciel draped a light blanket over your shoulders as he sat beside you. Taking your hand in his, his blue eye met your E/C ones. “What happened?”

You began to cry harder as you recalled the events of the past week. Ciel listened as you told him about the hushed whispers and not-so-hidden stares followed your every move at a ball you attended with your family. Then how you stepped out of your comfort zone to speak to girls your own age at said ball, and how they giggled to each other as they ignored you and walked away.

Ciel wrapped you tightly in a hug, pulling you so your legs are draped over his lap and your face is buried in his shoulder. “Look at this,” you sniffle, reaching for your bag at the end of the couch. Ciel released you from his arms as you dug through your bag, pulling out a photo. You replaced yourself on CIel’s lap, handing him the photo. His warm hands brushed against your own as he took the image.

“This is a lovely photo,” he smiled softly. It was a printed image of the most recent family photo taken three days ago. Your father held your mother’s waist, Edward on his other side and Lizzy standing beside your mom. You were beside your sister. Ciel was right, it was a lovely photo. But the longer he looked at it, he noticed everyone’s bright smiles, and then you. It looked as if you were near tears, barely able to hold your smile long enough to take the photo.

“Honey,” Ciel coos quietly. This was very uncharacteristic of the Earl. He never showed this much empathy and emotion towards someone before.

“I hate this photo,” you cried as you rested your head on his shoulder once again.

“Why?”

“I look so out of place!” You pointed to yourself in the picture. “I hate that I was born this way! Why did I have to have this mutation?”

Ciel set the picture aside, wrapping you in his arms again and running a hand down your back. “I think you’re beautiful,” his voice was soft as he whispered in your ear. “Genetic mutation or not, I love the way you look, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.” CIel continued to hold you until you fell asleep in his arms. As he carried you to your designated room, he whispered to you. 

“I don’t understand why others treat you this way, and I wish they would stop just as much as you do. But I love you, Y/N, and I would give everything to have you in my life. Genetic mutation or not, you are beautiful just the way you are.”

[dropthedemiurge]

It somehow came up but I just found out that the red-haired people have a mutated gene MC1R which turns their hair red, their skin whiter and – increased pain sensitivity, as well as more difficult reception of anesthesia.

And I immediately thought of – oh my gosh, Neil Josten. A born red-head. The non-stop torture throughout his whole life was not enough, he also felt everything stronger than normal people, goddamit. No wonder he would not remember his time in the Nest or childhood details well, the pain kicking him out of conscience. (The opposite of Andrew who remembers his every trauma but chose to disassociate and mediate himself to numbness).

More painful headcanons for AFTG... =))

In the early 2000s, it turned out that redheads actually have a number of very unpleasant features for doctors. Firstly, they have a low pain threshold (that is, they feel pain more strongly). Secondly, the usual doses of painkillers and anesthetics are like grain to an elephant. The cause is a mutation in the MC1R gene. In blondes, brunettes and brown-haired people, it is responsible for the production of the receptor that responds to melanocortin-1 and for the production of melanin. In redheads, the gene has mutated and stimulates the production of another substance - pheomelanin (dyes the hair red and makes the skin lighter). In this case, pheomelanin turns on pain receptors in the brain, which explains the increased sensitivity. Anesthesia and analgesics affect redheads every once in a while. Therefore the anesthesiologist need to add more, and dentists must use very strong painkillers.

[hyperfixation-fix]

Headcanon that a lot of the black children of Apollo have the MC1R gene (the gene responsible for red hair and freckles), like from the photo series MC1R by Michelle Marshall.

(PS - I tried to find a variety of skin tones, but it's really hard to find photos of natural red hair/freckles in races besides white, outside of this photo series. I hope the idea is still enjoyable and you can imagine this applied to a broader range of ethnicities. I'm a (white) redhead and I think the MC1R gene is just stunning in all its iterations - I just wish there were more photos or something even just awareness of it🫠)

[nightwingdog]

Thing i just noticed watching First Class

When Charles is flirting with Moira, he mentions her MCR1 gene. Referring to the gene that’s responsible for red hair.

But that’s MC1R (melanocortin 1 receptor)

MCR1 is a gene that affects bacteria or yeast.

[lonesurvivorao3]

Eris Shepard: Sixteen, or thereabouts

Eris Shepard, Sixteen, or thereabouts:

In a species with a depleted genome range, her genetic code more resembled a script for a play, open to various inferences and offered few definitive conclusions; the single copy of the MC1R gene that should not result in the phenotypic presentation of autumnal auburn hair being the least of it.

He entered the cell alone, becoming acutely aware of whimpering from under the bed at the far side, a result of their hideous efforts to induce her biotic ability. Watching him lock the door and start disconnecting all recording devices, she supposed this was the part where the ‘unsanctioned’ state torture started.

The detached gaze of the scrawny, mucky faced child came into view as Anderson, keeping a safe distance away, lay on the cold concrete floor. On his way in, the psychiatrist cautioned him that her commitment to being evasive and bullish was outstanding, but he was in no danger as they’d successfully neutralised her. But he saw only a forlorn, grief-stricken little girl who had been alone for far too long. Two decades later, that haze lingered. “You need to start talking, kid, or you’ll be here for quite some time.”

Having fabricated everything about herself in each new location over the past few years, deception came as easily as breathing, but she doubted he would believe any of her stories. The inexplicable urge to respond, at least partially, to his questions, rose again. Certainly not everything, perhaps very little, only just enough, yet whenever she tried to speak, her mouth felt filled with the fuzzy static of old televisions.

A dangerous compulsion, and instead, she decided now was the optimal time to find a fulcrum on which to place her lever. “A rather more accurate name for Cerberus would be Hydra.”