#life without brain

[algeroth]

While many other types of jellyfish can only detect light—sensing the direction it is coming from and following it—T. cystophora can also discern the contrast between dark and light, which means it can form images. “Two of their eye-structures are camera-type eyes which are basically built like yours and mine,” says senior author Anders Lydik Garm, associate professor of marine biology of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. 

Garm and study co-author Jan Bielecki, who studies neurobiology at the Kiel University, Germany wanted to know whether the jellies’ behavior—swerving between dark and light—was hardwired, or whether the jellies could learn new behavior. In their natural habitat, the jellies use their visual sense of contrast to distinguish the dark tree roots from the brighter water to avoid bumping into the tangles of protruding roots. “They use the contrast, because contrast is the difference between how dark the root is and how bright the water is,” explains Garm. “That contrast is how they evaluate distance.” But could they learn to avoid obstacles that look different from the ones in their natural environment? 

Garm and Bielecki set up an experiment. They outfitted a fish tank with a bunch of gray and white plastic strips, which were meant to mimic the tree roots and light streaming through. The trick was that to the jellyfish, the light gray color looked like a root that was simply far away. “In reality it wasn’t far away. It just seemed far away because we painted it gray,” Garm explains. Initially, the jellies perceived the gray “roots” as being remote—and bumped into them. But after a few bumps, they would learn to avoid the gray strips. “They get the mechanical sensory input telling them, OK, this root was much closer than it originally appeared,” says Garm—and they start changing their behavior.

Less than 10 minutes into the experiment, the jellies quadrupled the number of successful pivots to avoid collision, scientists found. “They learned that in this condition, low contrast still means that the ‘root’ is close by and then within three to five errors of bumping into the root they learn to turn earlier and not bump into it,” Garm says. “We were surprised at how quickly they learned.” This form of learning is called associative learning: The jellies learn to associate sensory stimuli—such as images of the gray strips—with bumps, to remember this association and then adapt future behavior.

The findings suggest that even without a brain, jellyfish can learn from experience through visual and mechanical stimuli, researchers say. But if the jellyfish doesn’t have a brain, where are these memories stored? Garm says that this learning may happen within the cells of the distributed nervous system, particularly the neurons in the rhopalia. These neurons form a memory of sensory stimulation, which then becomes associated with a particular behavior: The image of the root, plus the bump, leads to avoidance.

[juniemunie]

[Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.]

Hitting a lil' too close to home?

[irenespring]

Really I think nothing shouts "my first Presidential election as a politically active person was 2016" more than the fact that when I feel hope and excitement for the future (possible President Harris) for more than five minutes I immediately get a crushing, all-consuming anxiety of "feeling this positive emotion now is going to make it so much worse when the worst thing possible happens" to the extent that I'll probably need my break-glass-in-case-of-emergency anxiety medication.

[ghostbeam]

Mech pilot yuuta and his mech that’s incredibly possessive over him. He takes to you as a handler almost immediately, excited for the help after his last few handlers were scared off. You’re not allowed inside, your constantly dodging malfunctioning limbs and faulty wires, but you’re not one to back down, and gaining her trust is just as important as gaining his.

Rika only realizes how important you are to Yuuta the day after you spend the night with him, and he’s left alone in the morning with an empty bed and a broken heart. You’re his handler. You’re not supposed to leave him. Not ever.

She lures you into her chest one night, faking some sort of lighting malfunction and allowing you inside for the first time. She keeps you inside all night, enduring all your yelling and banging on her insides to be let out, a nice gift for Yuuta.

[cozylittleartblog]

JUST GUYS BEIN' DOODS

redraw of the meme under the cut

original by @knightmarebug

[motherofplatypus]

This fic is inspired by @solargeist post, and i wanna see how far i can go. This will be based on the aftermath of session 4.

Also i make a cat =(^ • w • ^)=

***

As stressful as it was having two teammates who endanger themselves more than they endanger others, Grian loves Mumbo and Skizz unconditionally...to some extent, at least.

Like, sure, with the Wild Card being a menace and Skizz's skill in making traps should be considered a war crime, Grian cares for them deeply throughout the day. Yes, only during daytime, because at night time, boy does the urge to blow them up in their sleep almost felt too tempting.

Mumbo and Skizz talked in their sleep. Like, literally talk and even almost having a full coherent conversation, even laughing as if they're making jokes. How does that happen is anyone's guess, but Grian, having the fourth night of his sleep being disturbed, had reached his breaking point.

He got three choices: 1) Blow his teammates up; 2) Sleep outside, or; 3) He'd rather deal with zombies than doing Option 3.

Option 1 is tempting, but he's green, he can't kill. Option 2 is worth the risk, but getting shot by a skeleton every time he tried to sleep isn't a viable option either.

Like, he could just suck it up and force himself to sleep and be sleep deprived in the morning, but he's too petty for that.

So, option 3 it is, and he despise every moment of it.

He went over the bridge and climbed up the stairs. The three parrot statues looked menacing under the moonlight, as if telling him to turn back. Grian would love to, but at night, there's not really any place for him.

He reached the top of the mountain, the base for the Bamboozler. The place was dimly lit, but just enough to keep the mobs from spawning. He saw Jimmy and Lizzie sleeping on their bed, quite far away from one another, busy with their own dream.

Not far away from them was another bed, occupied by the last person Grian wanted to see tonight, and that same person was the one Grian approached.

Grian didn't bother to wake Scar up first. He lifted the blanket and set himself on the small bed. It creaked as Grian laid himself there, with his back facing Scar.

It's just for tonight, Grian thought to himself.

He changed position a bit and his back brushed against Scar's back, and he shuddered immediately. The pain from the arrow that pierced his back appeared once more like a ghost. Being stabbed in the back.

Betrayed.

Grian found himself shivered. He never had problems being stabbed in the back, being betrayed, or being killed. But to be killed like that by Scar? The one person he trusted would kill him in a grandiose way, and not the cheap, underhanded way? It stung his heart so deep it hurts.

It's not that he couldn't forgive, but it's not like he could trust him either now. For all he knows, Scar could wake up and stabbed him again right now to take a life from him.

Betrayed, that feeling has been engraved in his heart.

But then an arm wrapped around him, pulling him closer to the body behind him. The smell of fresh bamboo filled his lung, an like a drug, it calmed him down.

Soft breathing sound on his ear, quietly speaking to him. I'm sorry, said the silence.

There are words hanging by Grian's mouth. Curses, anger, sadness, all but at the tip of his tongue. And yet, even with his mouth slightly opened, there's nothing that came out but a sigh that relaxed him further, as he put his hand on that arm that holds him close.

When the daylight came, he may not be able to trust him again. But for now, he sleeps in the safety he's familiar with.

[transmasc-rose]

I'm thinking about the horror of the Doctor from the perspective of non-companions again, especially as it relates to people those companions know.

Rose? "Ran away" (not wrong) for "a year" (a week) with a "man" (alien) "twice her age" (approximately 50 times her age but yeah, he is Time Lord middle aged), and then gives absolutely no explanation for how or why that happened, except that she was "travelling".

Then when her mum does get an explanation (which, frankly, is only comforting because of the unfamiliarity of the alternative given. The devil you know.), Rose barely checks back in.

She almost dies for him. When she thinks he's dead, she's changed in a way her family doesn't know how to handle. Then she's gone for who knows how long and comes back with the Doctor wearing a new face.

When her original tenure as a companion ends, and Rose lives in Pete's World, she works for Torchwood/UNIT (they become the same organization). She volunteers for the Dimension Cannon. She explains to the alternate earth how to rig up a time machine.

She's changed in ways that no one else can really understand.

Amy? There's everything with River Song of course (though I'm still not there in my viewing), him running away with Amy the night before her and Rory's wedding, and also the connection between the Doctor and the Time Crack being the reason all of Amy's family's dead. Obvious stuff.

However he's also the strange man who broke into this child's house and made a mess of her life that she never got over, that promised to take her away from here, that she wrote about and drew and carved and made her friends dress up as.

And they sent her to psychiatrist after psychiatrist without any help. In their perspective, to work through what she imagined. In her perspective, to tell her that her reality wasn't real.

And then he comes back.

And to some extent, later, when he shows himself to everyone, isn't that more frightening? That the story your child told you, of the strange man she met as a child, of time travel, of nearly being stolen away, hadn't been a lie, or a misinterpretation, or an imagining?

And so he shows up at her wedding. And steals her away again.

Donna I feel like has the least horror until her final episode. I think exploring the in between section of her meeting the Doctor and finding him again would be interesting, but not exactly horror. More an exploration of how obsessive the companions can get about him, how it eats their whole lives with even one encounter, even as it makes them better people.

And then, obviously, the horror of having your mind altered and erased against your will by someone you trusted. For your own good, of course. Because he knows best. How could you know better than him? He's ancient. He's practically all knowing.

Shouldn't you be grateful?

(And he's forgiven.)

[maraune]

A radioapple AU is ghosting in my brain where Hell itself decides it will have Alastor as its new Queen and not only claims him as the new Hell matriarch but also thinks he is the perfect partner for their sad King and tries to do sth about.

Ensue the fabric of a dimension itself shipping that strange demon and fallen angel and trying its damnest to get them together.

Bonus points if everyone but the two of them realize whats going on

[shalom-iamcominghome]

My jewish community, friends, rabbi, and educators: We are very invested in helping you be jewish. Do you want to help read the haftarah? Here's a chanukiah! You can have it!! Borrow these books! Here's some books! You need more books... Come to pesach! Come to the chanukah party! When are your classes done? We need a minyan for once!

Me and my 50000 IQ: What if I am Secretly Appropriating judaism? What if I am doing a Cultural Appropriation........

[petitepatateuwu]

It's way too hot and I am way too tired to do any more efforts, so excuse the critical lack of quality here.

If you didn't know, Cole is my favourite Power Ranger :D

And while I was binge watching Ninjago I had the pleasant surprise to see him physically and mentally traumatized in season 5 😈

And since I'm a huge sucker for angst, my brain immediately thought of developing that idea in order to hurt my beautiful baby boy some more. That and also the fact that my brain immediately looks for logic in the laws of cartoon physics (I really shouldn't do that...)

So I bring you the "Cole is a Ghost Kind-of-Saga". I still have a few more ideas to exploit, notably adressing the ways the other ninjas will help him cope with his new condition :3

And maaaaybeeeee a small comic too 😇

Anyways, I will let my brain rest a bit for now and sleep.

[silusvesuius]

nnnnnnnnnnnnno maa'am

[spicyvampire]

[deoidesign]

Hey I have to go on hiatus after tonight's episode and I'm not sure when I'll be back, and all orders are delayed. I'll keep you updated and hopefully it won't be long.

[starry-bi-sky]

Names, Marbles, and Fae-vors - More Lore on my Changeling Danny Au

In my last post I talked about the Infinite Realms and the three different planes existing inside it - the Long Far, Home to the Ancients and Celestial Beings. The Fey Wilds, Home of the Fey and other such Mythological Constructs. And the Ghost Zone, Home to the Mortal Spirits. - as well as three of the different ways beings inside the Infinite Realms can travel between planes; the Lake Portals, the Cave Tunnels, and the Starflare Currents. The Lake Portals and the Cave Tunnels don't have an official term for them yet, but I'll come up with something :).

In this post we'll be talking about some of the abilities of the fey! Specifically the things they're most popularly known for: their name stealing and etiquette thing.

For those who are not as well-versed in Fey Lore, or need a refresher, (and because I just want to yap infodump), one of the first rules you learn when interacting with the Fey is that you never, ever, say "thank you" or "I'm sorry" to them! Which is crazy, because they're really big on etiquette and being polite to each other, which is why one of their epithets is "the Good Neighbor/s". So why should you not say two phrases most commonly used when being polite to someone?

There are two big reasons for this, and the reason I'll be focusing on for this au is because, to the Fey, saying "Thank You" is acknowledgement of a debt that's owed to them. It turns the action or gift into something transactional, and results in a verbal contract that the receiver must then repay later down the line -- and whatever point in time, and with whatever the Fey they are indebted to sees fit. Whether that be food, valuables, or your firstborn child.

The other big reason is because some Fey just think it's rude, and view "thank you" as something that dilutes their act of kindness, and/or implies that they are there to serve you. One of the best summarizations I've seen for fey is that they're bros; they're doing this because they think you're friends -- or something similar to the sort. It's deeply insulting to do all these nice things for a friend, only for that friend to reveal that they don't view you the same way at all.

It's for similar reasons that you also shouldn't say, "I'm sorry" either, except instead of repaying a gift, you are now making reparations for a wrong you have done. A misdeed must be repaid in full, now how are you going to make it up to them? And also because well, I imagine that if saying "thank you" is seen as rude, "I'm sorry" is the exact same way because it dilutes the act.

If you're in a situation where you must say "thank you" or "i'm sorry" there are ways to get around it. "I'm grateful", "you're too kind", "I apologize", or "I feel regret" are just some examples I saw used.

NOW! How is this used in my Changeling AU? The Fey work by these same rules, the only difference is that I've added a physical aspect to it! If Fey are capable of stealing the abstract and turning the incorporeal corporeal, then lets run with it!

"Thank Yous" and "I'm Sorrys" are debts, and Fey can magically bound you into a verbal contract with that alone. However, it's not uncommon -- and actually pretty standard -- for Fey to weave the excess magic of that debt into something physical. They create these delicate-looking, iridescent threads that they then weave into their hair for decoration. And in some areas of the Fey Wilds, use it as a way to show off wealth and/or their own wit.

Ever heard of Fairy Hair? Yeah, same concept.

Debt Threads, as I am temporarily calling them, are thin and airy, and not that much thicker than gossamer. Since it's a debt that is intended to eventually be paid back, it's not practical -- nor is it seen as such -- to use the threads for anything more than temporary cosmetics. As a result, they're usually used for decorating the hair, but some crafty fey use their threads to decorate other appendages, or as form of makeup. Despite their dainty appearance, the threads are actually very sturdy and can only be unweaved by the Fey that created it.

You can, technically, take back your debt thread. However, the threads are made using excess magic of the debt, and not made of the magic of the debt itself, which is why it's so thin and airy. So if you do manage to get it, congrats! All you've got is some pretty string and a pissed off feyrie whose hair you probably just yanked out.

Danny's managed to accrue a few "debts" before he realizes he's a fey, mostly from his friends and sister -- although there are a few from his parents, and some from the other student body from when he was unknowingly and instinctually doing Fey Bullshit. As a result, he starts forcing Sam and Tucker and Jazz to stop thanking him for things, and typically makes them repay him through petty, menial stuff. Like getting him food, or buying him a small but relatively inexpensive trinket he's been eyeing for a while. Never usually anything super important - it's his own way of apologizing for indebting them to him in the first place.

As for his parents... well, he'll hold onto those debts for now. Having a way to magically get them off his back with no questions asked is a boon he's pretty willing to keep close to his chest, and no amount of persuasion will convince him otherwise. Sorry Jazz, Fey side wins out on this one. As for some of the students he's got, Danny manages to psych himself up and release some of them from their contracts without repayment -- even if it makes his bones itch.

AND NOW THE NAMES! You never give a Fey your name because they say everything literally. "Can I have your name?" is a literal question -- they are asking for your name, and thus ownership over you. The other thing is that Names have power, if a fey knows your Full Name they can make you do things for them -- however it goes both ways so you could do the same thing if you learn a Fey's name.

Knowing a Name and owning a Name are two different things, with owning a Name being, naturally, more dangerous as you are basically submitting yourself to permanent indentured servitude, among other things. Knowing a Name can be risky because it results in being more susceptible to fey charms, enchantments, and requests.

But! I digress! Just like how Thank Yous and I'm Sorrys can be turned into a physical object, so can Names! This is not obligatory, nor is it recommended to do often because unlike debt threads, these can be taken back, but it happens!

Names can be trapped in these little, colorful glass-like orbs -- marbles, they're marbles/pearls. They can be trapped in what are basically magic marbles, and just like debt threads, be used for decoration. They're more versatile though, and are used for different things since unlike debt threads, the pearls are meant to be permanent! They make beautiful jewelry, since the pearls come in various different colors depending on the person it once belonged to, and the intent behind its creation.

The marbles have a hard outer shell, with the cores having a fluid, shimmery appearance. Look up liquid core dice, and Name Marbles have a similar appearance, just more... ethereal, with different shades of the same color swirling inside. Not two pearls look the same, and even ones that have similar colors or appearances have subtle differences in them that are imperceptible to the mortal eye. Some pearls look like the deepest trenches of the ocean, blacks and dark blues swirling around each other as flecks of bioluminescence float inside. While others look like a lilac winter sunset, with hand-held purples bleeding into pink and gold.

Convincing Danny to return the Names he's gotten is harder than convincing him to absolve the debts. It takes a lot more psyching up on his part to actually do it, and more verbal coaxing and negotiating on his friends' part. Because on an instinctual fey level, those names are rightfully his. For all intents and purposes, he was given those names freely and without reservation, and so to be told that he has to return what were essentially gifts to him is... deeply distressing.

Lots of cognitive dissonance there. His human-raised brain and morals know why he needs to give them back, and he feels bad for owning them. But his new changeling-baby fey-brain is deeply upset at the prospect, and is a liittle bit stronger than the once-human part of him. He rapidly becomes overwhelmed when trying to convince himself to return the Names. He does, eventually, end up doing it, but he's unwillingly upset the whole time.

[dearabsolutelynoone]

🚨 KANTHONY SNEAK PEEK 🚨

[skunkes]