#i mean. except tim but he was 9 and doesnt count bc i dont think tim would be a ytber. sue me. kill me. im stronger than you.

[catboybatman]

you ever think about the in-universe online world of dc? the youtube essays must be insane

[thatforgottenbasilisk]

Jonathan Sims Is Dead In The End

Chapter 9: Neural Pruning (AO3) (My Fic Masterpost)

Originally Posted on 4/18/2024

Rating: M

Summary:

neural pruning is when neurons die, but like, intentionally.

no, i do not mean intentionally as in "i intentionally killed my brain cells by consuming substances such as alcohol." i mean it in a brain development context- when ur a little baby child, you have a shitton of neurons. you still have a shitton of neurons btw but you had a Bigger shitton when you were a baby (technically speaking you had the Biggest shitton before you were born due to prenatal brain development and apoptosis but whatever it doesnt matter)

so. lots of baby neurons doing their baby neuron thing. except this costs a lot of energy! so then you hit puberty and your brain's like "okay this is fucking untenable like look at how much energy we're wasting here" and cuts certain connections by getting rid of some neurons that weren't really getting used but WERE using energy. so then the remaining neurons shuffle around to increase efficiency in communication bc theyre closer together now

so. you finish puberty and you look back to when you were a child and youre like "man i was dumb." but you werent dumb. you had neural connections you didnt use then (and dont use now) that made things slower and less efficient in terms of the way you think now

Sasha takes his hand.

He stands up as he pulls her upright, moving just enough to free her a little at a time, probably to keep her aware of the fact that she's still at his mercy. They're still in Tim's apartment, and if anything happens, he can claim self-defense, legally speaking- of course, that's assuming that she'll try anything. She won't even breathe wrong right now, not with how tense this all is, not with how scared Tim clearly is, no matter how well he hides it. She knows him better than almost anyone, she can tell when he's afraid.

She loved him, once, in a way that she doesn't think most people would call love, in that classical fairytale way. Still does, sort of. She trusts him, less than she did before, but she still cares about him. He wanted her in that way, he once liked her in that way, and Sasha had tried to let him down easy instead of telling him she'd never reciprocate, but it turns out she failed in that too. She thinks that if she ever felt what everyone else calls "love," the real storybook romance stuff, she would feel it for Tim; but she doesn't, and she hasn't, and she doesn't think she ever will.

She thinks that might be part of the reason why she doesn't feel betrayed the moment he puts the knife against her wrist. It's lighter this time, there's less pressure on it, but the threat to her life is still very much present.

"I don't know what your game is. I don't know what the hell you think you're trying to pull, but if I find out you're exactly what I thought you were? I'll make your death as long and painful as I possibly can." Tim stares her dead in the eye, and says every single word with cold intent. There's nothing warm left in his voice, nothing of the man in the pub a few hours ago, only a man who is completely and totally willing to get blood on his hands.

Again, she nearly adds to that, but the first time doesn't count. It was in the future, after all, and Tim hasn't even met his murder victim yet. It's not right to hold it against him now, no matter how much she reflexively brings it up in the back of her mind.

Besides, he's justified- more so than he was the last time, anyway. He's justified in his fear and suspicion, all he knows about any of the real kinds of monsters is that there are things that pretend to be people but just a little off, and all of a sudden she shows up in the Archives and she's got different colored eyes? She's surprised he hasn't outright killed her yet. He's probably more impulsive with people he doesn't know as well.

"I'm not. I'm still- I'm still me, I promise. I promise." Her voice is shakier than she wants it to be, too quiet for her liking, but she doesn't look away from Tim's gaze, just holds the same stare as he is. She doesn't say that she's still human; in a technical sense, she's closer to human than a mannequin, which is what he's looking for, but she doesn't think she can call herself fully human anymore. She's done things that no human should do, a hundred thousand times over, for better or for worse, and now she can't rightfully consider herself one of them. A reflection of a refraction, maybe. A copy of a copy of herself as she should have been.

"Prove it." Tim doesn't hesitate to dismiss her word. Why shouldn't he? Why should he trust promises that are, as far as he knows, empty? His voice is quieter, but no less harsh than it was a moment ago. She doesn't know why it hurts more than the knife he's still holding to her wrist- maybe because the knife isn't cutting her, barely even touching her, and his grip on her hand is just firm, not overly tight.

The nerves around the cut on her throat send pain signals to her brain. She ignores them. The stinging isn't anything compared to the things that aren't scars anymore.

How can she prove it, though? How can she prove that she's still herself, beyond what she's already said? There's nothing she can think of as an argument. There's no concrete, golden proof that she can pull out, nothing that something else couldn't guess if it took her over. All there is is to prove that she's from the future, and that's easy and impossible at the same time. What would she tell him? Everything?

If only. No, she's alluded to future events enough that he knows what her story is. He knows she's going to claim she's from the future, and it's up to her to sell him on the truth.

"I'm from about three years in the future. Things... things have changed. A lot. My eyes are the least of it, if only you'd seen all the scars we both picked up- but that's beside the point, isn't it?" She waits for half a moment, waiting for an answer that she knows won't come, and then continues. "There's a Statement in one of the boxes near Jon's desk. It's by a man called Carlos Vittery, he was haunted by some sort of ghost spider. He's dead, so you can break and enter as you please, and in his old basement is where you'll find Jane Prentiss. You know who she is by now, right?" She shifts her tone easily to business. It's easy to Know where Vittery's Statement is, easier still to remember that as the place that Prentiss was hiding out before Martin found her.

"Yeah. Everyone does. You honestly expect me to believe all that?" He acts like he's caught her in a lie, but he doesn't so much as move anything other than his mouth. That's not enough to say he believes her, of course, but it is enough to say that he hasn't decided that she's lying.

"I'm not stopping you from going. What, do you think I'm secretly in contact with her, and friendly enough to give her a location that would be safe to hide out from police and everyone? We can go to the Institute right now and find the address if you'd like." She doesn't keep being all cooperative without at least a little bit of attitude. Does he really believe she can just manipulate things like that? He doesn't, of course not, not unless he's deluding himself.

He hesitates. He keeps hesitating, for longer than she thinks he should, before finally taking the knife away from her wrist and helping her actually stand. The knife doesn't leave his hand- he doesn't trust her, not yet, which is fine because she doesn't quite trust him either, not so much as to believe he wouldn't kill her under the right circumstances- and he backs away by a single step.

"We're leaving in the morning." He says, and she knows he's calling her bluff. She would do the same thing in his shoes, really, so she shouldn't feel it get under her skin the slightest little bit.

"Can I go home, or am I sleeping over?" She doesn't ask if she's being held captive; there are enough clothes of hers over here anyway, from various nights in his bed- without a hookup- that it would almost be like being held prisoner in her own home. She's not even going to word it like that if she can help it.

"The couch is comfortable enough." Tim says, and she really shouldn't have thought it would be any different.