The squad from this post, who I have dubbed Petal Squad, has been occupying a large portion of my brain all day so of course I wrote a snippet about them. Cross-posted on ao3!
(@deancodedinthewater @the-starry-seas)
CT-9360 had an idea.
Well, maybe. He was still thinking.
See, he and the rest of his squad still didn’t have names. Which was a bit of a problem, as they were about to be deployed, and they’d really prefer to have names by then.
Their deployment assignment had just come in. Commander Cyar’ika. CT-9360 had heard of him before, but only in passing, and had never put much thought into his name. Now, though, he did think about it. He thought about it a lot.
Part of the reason his squad had taken so long to choose names was that they all wanted to match. Well, CT-9360 wanted to match, and CT-9144 and CT-6112 had agreed with him, and since CT-8057 and CT-8203 didn’t have a preference either way, it had been decided they would have matching names. Only problem was, it was hard to come up with five matching names that all of them liked.
CT-9360 was about to solve that problem. Hopefully.
“I have an idea!” He announced the second they were back in their bunkroom. CT-6112, already dangling upside down from his sleeping tube, quirked an eyebrow.
“Well?” CT-9144 prompted.
“Don’t leave us in suspense, vod,” CT-8057 agreed, smirking.
“Our names!” CT-9360 beamed. “I know what the theme can be!” CT-6112 perked up and gestured for him to continue. “So you know our Commander’s name? Cyar’ika? Let’s do that!”
CT-9144 tilted his head like a curious tooka-cat. “You want to do pet names?”
“Mhm!”
CT-8203 scrunched his nose. “Isn’t that kinda… I dunno…” He trailed off, apparently unable to think of a word, and made a vague noise and hand gesture to indicate his meaning. His squad understood.
“I mean, kinda, I guess?” CT-9360 shrugged. “Some might think that. But our Commander’s name is Cyar’ika, is anyone gonna make fun of us?”
“Good point,” CT-8203 agreed.
“All in favor, then?” CT-8057 raised his hand. The other four copied. “Alright, then. I’ll be Darling. You’re Sweetheart-” He pointed at CT-9360. “Dear-” CT-6112. “Honey-” CT-9144. “and Sugar.” He finished with CT-8203.
“Sugar?” The newly-renamed Sugar’s nose scrunched again. “No offense, but that’s the one you chose for me?”
“Yep!” CT-8057, now Darling, popped the ‘p’ and grinned. “That’s exactly the point. Since you’re named Sugar, absolutely no one will guess how much of an asshole you are. It’s gonna be great.”
Sugar opened his mouth to reply, then closed it with a hum. “Ya know what? Yeah, I like that. Sugar it is.”
“Dear is nice,” Dear smiled, voice quiet. “Short and sweet. And Honey definitely fits you,” he giggled, tilting his head towards Honey. “You’ve got a voice like it. Plus that silver tongue of yours.”
“Honey tongue, now,” Honey smirked, the aforementioned tongue flicking across his lips. “Though I gotta say, Sweetheart’s new name suits him best. He’s such a sweetie.”
Sweetheart blushed, but beamed. “Really?”
“Yeah, why do you think I gave you that one, Sweet’ika?” Darling ruffled his hair. Sweetheart pressed into his hand with a happy hum. “Now c’mon, it’s almost lights out. In your tube.”
Like saying the words had triggered something, all of Sweetheart’s exhaustion hit him at once. He yawned and nodded. “M’kay.”
“Wanna share tonight, ‘60- Sweetheart?” Dear offered his hand down. Sweetheart perked up and with an eager nod, grabbed Dear’s hand and climbed up into the tube with him.
“Night!” Sweetheart called. The rest of his squad echoed him. Dear tugged him down and pressed the button to close the tube. As it slid closed, Sweetheart snuggled closer with another big yawn. He was asleep in seconds.
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Interesting Papers for Week 24, 2024
Dissociable online integration processes in visual working memory. Balaban, H., Drew, T., & Luria, R. (2023). Cerebral Cortex, 33(23), 11420–11430.
Interactions between specialized gain control mechanisms in olfactory processing. Barth-Maron, A., D’Alessandro, I., & Wilson, R. I. (2023). Current Biology, 33(23), 5109-5120.e7.
Beyond spiking networks: The computational advantages of dendritic amplification and input segregation. Capone, C., Lupo, C., Muratore, P., & Paolucci, P. S. (2023). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(49), e2220743120.
Adaptive oscillators support Bayesian prediction in temporal processing. Doelling, K. B., Arnal, L. H., & Assaneo, M. F. (2023). PLOS Computational Biology, 19(11), e1011669.
Targeted V1 comodulation supports task-adaptive sensory decisions. Haimerl, C., Ruff, D. A., Cohen, M. R., Savin, C., & Simoncelli, E. P. (2023). Nature Communications, 14, 7879.
Meta-reinforcement learning via orbitofrontal cortex. Hattori, R., Hedrick, N. G., Jain, A., Chen, S., You, H., Hattori, M., … Komiyama, T. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26(12), 2182–2191.
Sensory cortical ensembles exhibit differential coupling to ripples in distinct hippocampal subregions. Jeong, H., Namboodiri, V. M. K., Jung, M. W., & Andermann, M. L. (2023). Current Biology, 33(23), 5185-5198.e4.
Corrective feedback guides human perceptual decision-making by informing about the world state rather than rewarding its choice. Lee, H.-J., Lee, H., Lim, C. Y., Rhim, I., & Lee, S.-H. (2023). PLOS Biology, 21(11), e3002373.
Alpha oscillations encode Bayesian belief updating underlying attentional allocation in dynamic environments. Li, S., Seger, C. A., Zhang, J., Liu, M., Dong, W., Liu, W., & Chen, Q. (2023). NeuroImage, 284, 120464.
Item-specific neural representations during human sleep support long-term memory. Liu, J., Xia, T., Chen, D., Yao, Z., Zhu, M., Antony, J. W., … Hu, X. (2023). PLOS Biology, 21(11), e3002399.
Behavioral read-out from population value signals in primate orbitofrontal cortex. McGinty, V. B., & Lupkin, S. M. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26(12), 2203–2212.
Catecholaminergic neuromodulation and selective attention jointly shape perceptual decision-making. Nuiten, S. A., de Gee, J. W., Zantvoord, J. B., Fahrenfort, J. J., & van Gaal, S. (2023). eLife, 12, e87022.3.
Neural patterns differentiate traumatic from sad autobiographical memories in PTSD. Perl, O., Duek, O., Kulkarni, K. R., Gordon, C., Krystal, J. H., Levy, I., … Schiller, D. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26(12), 2226–2236.
Neural substrates of parallel devaluation-sensitive and devaluation-insensitive Pavlovian learning in humans. Pool, E. R., Pauli, W. M., Cross, L., & O’Doherty, J. P. (2023). Nature Communications, 14, 8057.
Age-related dysregulation of homeostatic control in neuronal microcircuits. Radulescu, C. I., Doostdar, N., Zabouri, N., Melgosa-Ecenarro, L., Wang, X., Sadeh, S., … Barnes, S. J. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26(12), 2158–2170.
Topological analysis of sharp-wave ripple waveforms reveals input mechanisms behind feature variations. Sebastian, E. R., Quintanilla, J. P., Sánchez-Aguilera, A., Esparza, J., Cid, E., & de la Prida, L. M. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26(12), 2171–2181.
Parietal cortical alpha/beta suppression during prospective memory retrieval. Villafane Barraza, V., Voegtle, A., de Matos Mansur, B., Reichert, C., Nasuto, S. J., & Sweeney-Reed, C. M. (2023). Cerebral Cortex, 33(23), 11235–11246.
Modeling the diverse effects of divisive normalization on noise correlations. Weiss, O., Bounds, H. A., Adesnik, H., & Coen-Cagli, R. (2023). PLOS Computational Biology, 19(11), e1011667.
Melanopsin enhances image persistence. Woelders, T., Allen, A. E., & Lucas, R. J. (2023). Current Biology, 33(23), 5048-5056.e4.
A corticoamygdalar pathway controls reward devaluation and depression using dynamic inhibition code. Yuan, Z., Qi, Z., Wang, R., Cui, Y., An, S., Wu, G., … Luo, M. (2023). Neuron, 111(23), 3837-3853.e5.
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