#neurons that fire together wire together

[daveinediting]

So. 

Is there a difference between reading, summarizing, and analyzing Shakespeare... versus prompting for a summary and analysis and reading that?

Is there any point to putting in the mental work that's usually prescribed?

Hmmm.

I did, actually, put the question to Claude AI, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Bing’s CoPilot.

Why should I read Shakespeare when I can have ChatGPT summarize and analyze his work for me?

The answers returned to me by each of the four coalesce around a handful of bullet points: deeper understanding, active engagement, the beauty of the language, discovery and surprise, and developing critical thinking. Good answers, all.

However.

These answers are light years from where I landed pursuing the question myself. Even as I understand there's a biological connection underlying all, I was on the hunt for an explanation that had a more foundational and essential vibe to it... not one that sounded more elective and to each their own.

So I started with neuroscience.

My expectations were wide open to whatever I learned as well as asking the obvious follow-up questions. I wanted a kind of Theory of Everything but I didn’t have to conjure one right away. I had plenty of room to explore a little, to allow my process to unfold at its own pace, no harm, no foul.

Ultimately, my question wasn’t just about Shakespeare. He’s a stand-in for my larger question of What’s the point of reading anything? What's the point of learning anything? As if what’s on the table is learning to internalize knowledge versus requesting answers on demand. I also wanted to acknowledge that I have, I do, and I will always request answers on demand so…

Why am I poking at this so hard?

The long answer’s that I know for a fact that my education shaped who I am today. I have specific, foundational, professional beliefs and skills that I can trace straight to college. I even have some that date back to high school and junior high school. I know that I was tuned to reading, writing, and music from a very early age and that engaging those activities when I was a child, when I was a teen, when I was a young adult made me the creative professional I am today. Habitually engaging those activities to which I was tuned set in place the gears and mechanisms that do my subconscious heavy lifting. My subconscious: a vault set in the floor of a massive cathedral somewhere deep in my mind.

I don’t know what goes on in there. 

But it’s magic, whatever it is.

It’s an interesting thought exercise to consider what would’ve happened had I not put any effort into reading and writing. They are the lens through which I view the world. They are the tools with which I eventually took to composing music. Music, after all, is communicating in another language. And I’m pretty good with language. 🙂

So.

Who would I be had I not exercised those particular neural pathways, those specific muscles in my brain?

The short answer? You know, the short answer to why I’m poking at this question so hard which is this:

Because... had I relinquished most of my mental effort growing up to Large Language Models that would summarize, analyze, and write for me…

I’d be a completely different person.

[blursy]

How neurons connect

Neurons communicate with each other through connections called synapses. When an action potential or electrical impulse travels down the axon of a neuron, it reaches the axon terminal, which contains tiny sacs called vesicles. These vesicles contain neurotransmitters, which are chemicals that can carry signals across the synapse to another neuron, muscle cell, or gland cell. When the action…

[girlwithrituals]

9 WAYS TO TRAIN YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

“Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become reality.”

1. PRACTICING AFFIRMATIONS- when you make a clear, definitive statement about yourself as if it is already true, your subconscious mind will take over and act under that belief. in order to reprogram the subconscious mind you must provide it consistent messaging that aligns with the new program you want to install.

2. VISUALIZATIONS- visualization is a powerful tool to retrain your subconscious mind because it allows you to feel and experience a situation that hasn't happened yet - as if it were real.

3. MEDITATION- meditation is a particularly powerful brain retraining method because it transcends any form of conscious thought.

4. DO SOMETHING YOU'VE NEVER DONE BEFORE- when you do this, your mind has no choice but to make new connections in the brain. in the unknown is where we can create great change and miracles.

5. WIRING IN A NEW THOUGHT/HABIT WITH REPETITION- brain neurons that fire together, wire together. the more consistently you wire in a new behavior, action, thought, etc the more it becomes apart of your new autopilot mind. when you forget that you were supposed to do that new thing, don't beat yourself up about it, your brain is designed to take shortcuts and revert to what it knows best; we call these shortcuts mental heuristics. what you could do then instead, is stack the new behaviour above the old one to remind you of the new habit/behaviour you're trying to ingrain.

6. SLEEP- it's the most essential step in consolidating new memories and facilitating neural plasticity. getting good quality and deep sleep means you release growth hormone, and getting enough sleep (7.5-9 hours) means you release testosterone, both are key molecules for learning and memory.

7. as you drift off to sleep, feel the emotion of what you want to experience. the subconscious mind speaks in the language of feeling and as as you drift off to sleep you are going into the theta state which is where the subconscious mind operates.

8. surround yourself with images of things you want to influence you.

9. mimick archetypes or role models.

++ practice positive thinking.

[dreamofhircine]

The pilots are not government property, that's a common misconception.

Only their training is.

They get to keep the implants, the neural interface ports, the subdermal autoinjectors (depleted of chemical supply) even the targeted brain & optical augments that bump up their reaction speeds but the training data is too important to allow for uncontrolled proliferation or mercenary employment.

They take it back the same way they put in in: hypnotherapeutic memory injection, cracking open the deepest parts of their minds with carefully calibrated sequences of light and sound and highly compressed data that slowly spools out inside them, guided along the decompression and integration sequence by highly controlled training sequences and neural test patterns.

The problem is that they don't really have anything to put back in once they've sanitized the mind of lifetimes worth of cockpit experience and subconscious conditioning, they don't have a 'happy civilian' template equivalent to the Pilot Template that they inject into and mold the recruits around so most leave the process with barely two thoughts to rub together for warmth. All the wiring is still there, the neurons are (mostly) undamaged and firing but it'll be years before all the rights memories are re-seeded and all the correct pathways re-forged to create something as functional as they were when they started.

So yeah, they drool. They twitch. They stare at walls and space out, drop conversations mid-sentence, fall asleep standing up and forget nearly any set of directions you give them but they'll get better. Probably. Eventually.

[philistiniphagottini]

Dante. Dante is ready to feast from any fucking position 💦💦

Oh my god Rev, you are so right how could I forget about the og of pussy eating? Lol thanks for indulging my horny, I had to write this as soon as I woke up hope you enjoy <3

cw. smut, oral sex (fem receiving), wet & messy, female reader, chubby reader, minors DO NOT interact

The moment Dante spotted the pair of booty shorts sticking out of the bottom of your ridiculously oversized shirt, it was over for you. The neurons on his prehistoric brain activated and he was raring to go, begging and pleading with you to bend you over the nearest sturdy surface so he could, in Dante’s words:

“Eat that pussy.”

A soft squeal fell from your parted lips, followed by a bout of giggles as Dante manhandled you, pushing you over the sturdy arm rest of the leather sofa, until your back was bowed and your arse was flaunted in the air. He fell to his knees behind you, the short stubble of his beard scratching against your skin as he dragged his lips over your thick thighs, leaving behind a blazing trail of fire and causing heat to pool into the pit of your stomach. You squirmed as his strong hands anchored to your plump hips, squeezing your skin until the soft pudge spilled between his splayed fingers. His touch was scorching hot and your blood started to simmer in your veins the longer he toyed with you, leaving behind indents of his teeth just beneath the skin that peeked out from the bottom of your shorts. A soft huff fell from your parted lips, blowing a few stray strands of hair out of your eyes as you threw your voice over your shoulder.

“Hurry up Dante” you griped. “Stop teasing me.”

“Don’t rush me babe~” Dante cooed softly at you in response.

He smothered his head between your thick thighs as he hungrily mouthed at your clothed pussy, nose pressed into the fabric as he took a deep breath and inhaled your intoxicating scent. The seat of your panties were soaked, the wet seam of your cunt dripping as beads of arousal pooled between the soft insides of your thighs. Dante’s fingers hooked beneath the waistband of your shorts, the digits teasingly dipping below and teasing the skin as your nerves tingled like a live wire. Before you could offer up another complaint, he sharply tugged both your shorts and underwear down in one, swift movement, leaving you completely exposed to his hungry gaze. The articles of clothing dangled uselessly around your ankles as you were pushed further against the couch, the arm digging uncomfortably into your soft belly as your fat tits threatened to spill out of your shirt. 

Every hair on the nape of your neck stood up in anticipation, goosebumps prickling along your flesh as Dante grabbed the scruff of your arse and spread your cheeks wide until you were intimately exposed. The hot knot in your stomach twisted tighter as Dante let out a soft whistle, his hot breath fanning over your creamy folds as pearls of arousal dribbled from your drooling center.

“All this for me?” Dante said as a warm chuckle breezed past his lips. “You’re treating me to a feast.”

You wriggled your hips enticingly, rocking back into the warm touch of Dante’s hands as a breathy moan stirred in the back of your throat. 

“Eat up.”

Dante didn’t need to be told twice. A blistering moan tumbled from your bruised lips as he sealed his lips over your pulsing warmth and stuffed your gorgeous pussy into his mouth. You raked your fingers across the couch cushions, desperate to find purchase as a new wave of heat blossomed in the pit of your stomach and made your head spin. Your breathing stuttered, lungs pinching in your chest and long lashes fluttering over your burning cheeks at the slick sound of Dante’s lips smacking together. A groan vibrated between your thighs as he suckled at your puffy folds, strong hands pawing at the fat of your shapely arse before lazily swatting at the skin. Your eyes fluttered wildly as a moan bubbled up your parched throat, tongue feeling like lead in your mouth as you struggled to peel it from the pocket of your cheek. Dante lacked finesse but he made up for it with enthusiasm as he sloppily made out with your pussy, tongue and teeth joining the fray as he ate you like a man starved. 

Stars wavered in your bleary vision, a constellation of tears clinging to the corners of your soused lashes as the pleasure inside of you gnawed at you like a ravenous beast. The coil twisted tighter, threatening to break something inside of you as Dante’s tongue dipped into the tight ring of muscles of your fluttering hole, slurred praises muffled into the heat of your cunt as he swatted at your backside again, groaning as your skin rippled against the palm of his hand. You whined as your hips jolted forward, the aching nub of your clit begging for attention as a pleasant itch tickled the base of your skull. Pleasant tingles raced along the notches of your spine as your mind grew dizzy, only able to focus on the drag of Dante’s tongue between your plush walls as he split open the creamy folds of your pussy. The pressure in your stomach was reaching boiling point and it made you thrash in Dante’s hold from the mounting pleasure. 

“Dante- fuck…fuck!”

Dante was lost in the vivid taste of your pussy as he swallowed the budding saliva on his tongue, throating bobbing as you lingered on his taste buds. His teeth dripped with saliva, jaw aching with a pleasant burn and cock swelling with arousal as the push of his tongue finally made you unfurl. You cried his name out with pure bliss and he knew he was going to get a noise complaint from his neighbours as the coil in your stomach shattered into a million pieces. He didn’t care though. Not when you pussy fluttered around his tongue and squirted into his open maw with the force of a flowing river. Dante’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as his tongue continued to ravage your pussy in the midst of your mind-numbing rapture, strings of translucent fluid webbing on his lips as he drank his fill. Your toes curled in the soles of your feet as Dante worked through your intense high, clit kicking weakly when he pressed his thumb over the tightly packed bundle of nerves and worked it until it was shrieking. 

Your mind was buzzing and swirling with dizziness as you tried to gulp down ragged gasps of air, heart ready to leap out of your throat as the dregs of pleasure still burned through your veins. Dante pulled away from you with a loud and wet pop, your taste still sticky sweet on his lips as he lapped at the beads clinging to the corners of his mouth.

“Such a sweet treat” Dante said as he pat your thigh, his touch a soothing balm as it calmed the ache in your limbs. “My compliments to the chef.”

You would have smacked him out of sheer embarrassment if you weren’t feeling so boneless. You settled for a pathetic snort of laughter. You’d get him back once the room stopped spinning so violently.

[anti-porn-unicorn]

In The Brain That Changes Itself, psychiatrist Norman Doidge summarizes research on the neurobiological aspects of sexual development. He writes: “The human libido is not a hardwired, invariable biological urge but can be curiously fickle, easily altered by our psychology and the history of our sexual encounters,” and he goes on to conclude: “Sexual taste is obviously influenced by culture and experience and is often acquired and then wired into the brain.”

Neurons that fire together wire together. Once this happens, aggression automatically triggers sexual arousal. Or fear and anxiety automatically trigger sexual interest. When this fusion of neural networks becomes pronounced, people often will present to the psychiatrist with clinical problems. Patients complain, for example, that they cannot get aroused unless they get aggressive or violent. Or they complain that they become involuntarily aroused whenever they experience fear. Once these distinct neural networks are fused, the person is—at the level of the brain—literally tied down.

With sexual behaviors, the problem of tolerance means that one needs to push the envelope more and more just to get aroused or climax. The aggressive, domineering, or painful behaviors need to become increasingly intense and increasingly dangerous in order to “work.” Frequently, a person who engages in BDSM becomes habituated to these intense experiences and needs to up the ante to stay in the game.

Some individuals are clearly drawn to these practices because they tap into deep emotional scripts, often based on childhood trauma or insecure early attachments. One psychiatrist studying BDSM practitioners in Los Angeles found that a disproportionate number had a history of severe childhood medical illness, and often underwent painful treatments.

[luxe-pauvre]

Your brain network is not static - it changes continuously. Some changes are extremely fast. Your brain wiring is bathed in chemicals that complete the local connections between neurons. These chemicals, such as glutamate, serotonin, and dopamine, are called neurotransmitters, and they make it easier or harder for signals to pass across synapses. They're like the airport staff - ticket agents, security screeners, ground crew - who can speed up or slow down the flow of passengers within an airport and without whom we can't travel at all. These network changes happen instantaneously and continually, even as your physical brain structure seems unchanged. In addition, some of these chemicals, such as serotonin and dopamine, can also act on other neurotransmitters to dial up or dial down their effects. When brain chemicals act in this way, we call them neuromodulators. They are like the weather between airports. When it's clear, planes fly quickly. When it's stormy, flights are grounded or rerouted. Neuromodulators and neurotransmitters together allow your brain's single structure to take on trillions of different patterns of activity. Other network changes are relatively slower. Just as airports build or renovate their terminals, your brain is constantly under construction. Neurons die, and in some parts of the human brain, neurons are born. Connections become more or less numerous, and they become stronger when neurons fire together and weaker when they don't. These changes are examples of what scientists call plasticity, and they occur throughout your life. Anytime you learn something - a new friend's name or an interesting fact from the news - the experience becomes encoded in your wiring so you can remember it, and over time, these encodings can change that wiring.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain

[nightmares-and-dreams-come-true]

Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. Where are your fingers? Seriously. It's a pretty easy question. You should be able to answer it. But how do you know? How does anyone know anything?

You might say, well, I know where my fingers are. I'm looking right at them. Or, I can touch them, I can feel them, they're right here and that's good. Your senses are a great way to learn things. In fact, we have way more than the usual five senses we talk about. For instance, your kinesthetic sense, proprioception. This is what the police evaluate during a field sobriety test. It allows you to tell where your fingers and arms and head and legs in your body is all in relation to each other without having to look or touch other things. We have way more than five senses, we have at least twice as many and then some. But they're not perfect.

There are optical illusions, audio illusions, temperature sensation illusions, even tactile illusions. Can you turn your tongue upside down? If so, perfect. Try this. Run your finger along the outer edge of the tip of your upside down tongue. Your tongue will be able to feel your finger, but in the wrong place. Our brains never needed to develop an understanding of upside down tongue touch. So, when you touch the right side of your tongue when it's flipped over to your left side you perceive a sensation on the opposite side, where your tongue usually is but isn't when it's upside down. It's pretty freaky and cool and a little humbling, because it shows the limits of the accuracy of our senses, the only tools we have to get what's out there in here.

The philosophy of knowledge, the study of knowing, is called epistemology. Plato famously said that the things we know are things that are true, that we believe and that we have justification for believing. those justifications might be irrational or they might be rational, they might be based on proof, but don't get too confident because proven is not a synonym for true. Luckily, there are things that we can know without needing proof, without needing to even leave the house, things that we can know as true by reason alone. These are things that we know a priori. An example would be the statement "all bachelors are unmarried." I don't have to go survey every bachelor on earth to know that that is true. All bachelors are unmarried because that's how we define the word bachelor. Of course, you have to know what the words bachelor and unmarried mean in the first place. Oh, you do? Okay. Perfect. That's great. But how do you know?

This time I mean functionally, how do you know? Where is knowledge biologically in the brain? What are memories made out of? We are a long way from being able to answer that question completely but research has shown that memories don't exist in the brain in single locations. Instead, what we call a memory is likely made up of many different complex relationships all over the brain between lots of brain cells, neurons. A major cellular mechanism thought to underlie the formation of memories is long-term potentiation or LTP. When one neuron stimulates another neuron repeatedly that signal can be enhanced overtime LTP, wiring them more strongly together and that connection can last a long time, even an entire lifetime. A collection of different brain cells, neurons that fire together in a particular order over and over again frequently and repeatedly can achieve long-term potentiation, becoming more sensitive to each other and more ready to fire in the exact same way later on in the future. They're a physical thing in your brain, firing together more easily because you strengthen that pattern of firing. You memorized. This branching forest of firing friends looks messy, but look closer. It could be the memory of your first kiss. A living souvenir of the event. If I were to go into your brain and cut out those cells, could I make you forget your first kiss or could I make you forget where your fingers are? Only if I cut out a lot of your brain. Because memories aren't just stored in one relationship, they're stored all over the brain. The events leading up to your first kiss are stored in one network, the way it felt to the way it smelled in different networks, all added up together making what you call the memory of your first kiss.

How many memories can you fit inside your head? What is the storage capacity of the human brain? The best we can do is a rough estimate, but given the number of neurons in the brain involved with memory and the number of different connections a single neuron can make Paul Reber at Northwestern University estimated that we can store the digital equivalent of about 2.5 petabytes of information. That's the equivalent of recording a TV channel continuously for 300 years. That's a lot of information. That is a lot of information about skills you can do and facts and people you've met, things in the real world. The world is real, right? How do you know?

It's a difficult question, but it's not rocket science. Instead, it is asking whether or not rocket scientists even exist in the first place. The theory that the Sun moved around the earth worked great. It predicted that the Sun would rise every morning and it did. It wasn't until later that we realized what we thought was true might not be. So, do we or will we ever know true reality or are we stuck in a world where the best we can do is be approximately true? Discovering more and more useful theories every day but never actually reaching true objective actual reality. Can science or reason ever prove convincingly that your friends and YouTube videos and your fingers actually exist beyond your mind? That you don't just live in the matrix?

No. Your mind is all that you have, even if you use instruments, like a telescope or particle accelerators. The final stop for all of that information is ultimately you. You are alone in your own brain, which technically makes it impossible to prove that anything else exists. It's called the egocentric predicament. Everything you know about the world out there depends on and is created inside your brain. This mattered so much to Charles Sanders Peirce that he drew a line between reality, the way the universe truly is, and what he called the phaneron, the world as filtered through our senses and bodies, the only information we can get. If you want to speak with certainty you live in, that is you react to and remember and experience your phaneron, not reality. The belief that only you exist and everything else, food, the universe, your friends are all figments of your mind is called solipsism. There is no way to convince a solipsist that the outside world is real. And there is no way to convince someone who doubts that the universe wasn't created just three seconds ago along with all of our memories. It's a frightening realization that we don't always know how to deal with. There's even The Matrix defense.

In 2002 Tonda Lynn Ansley shot and killed her landlady. She argued that she believed she was in the matrix, that her crimes weren't real. By using the matrix defense, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity, because the opposite view is just way healthier and common. It's called realism. Realism is the belief that the outside world exists independently of your own phaneron. Rocks and stars and Thora Birch would continue to exist even if you weren't around to experience them. But you cannot know realism is true. All you can do is believe.

Martin Gardner, a great source for math magic tricks, explained that he is not a solipsist because realism is just way more convenient and healthy and it works. As to whether it bothered him that he could never know realism was true, he wrote, "If you ask me to tell you anything about the nature of what lies beyond the phaneron, my answer is how should I know? I'm not dismayed by ultimate mysteries, I can no more grasp what is behind such questions as my cat can understand what is behind the clatter I make while I type this paragraph." Humble stuff. What strikes me is the cat.

Cats do not understand keyboards, but they know the keyboards are a fun place to be. It's a great way to get the attention of a human, they're warm and exciting, surrounded by noises and flashing lights plus cats love to get their scent on whatever they can, a mark of their existence. We aren't that much different, except instead of keyboards we have the mysteries of the universe. We will never be able to understand all of them.

I'm adding a new rule

[kafkaoftherubble]

Weird thought but I really love the various contexts Fushi uses different bodies in. Sandel is for taking care of people, Shin is for talking and carrying things, Nando is to intimidate people and the most fun one is Yuuki as a symbol of peace. How lovely.

Being me, I automatically interpreted this from a cognitive-scientific perspective. I actually think it's scientifically accurate for Fushi to treat each form that way!

Fushi's access to forms is based on memories, right? Once they forget, they can no longer access that form. It means Fushi's form is always bundled together with what they remember as that person's most meaningful traits.

In neuroscience, the famous Hebbian Rule is that "neurons that fire together, are wired together." In other words, I kinda see Fushi's transformation-memory as a fantastical way to illustrate this concept. Transforming to a given form triggers an entire web of memory in Fushi's mind—exactly like how memories themselves also trigger transformation in Fushi's early days. If Fushi had neurons, then these bunches would definitely be bundled together, because when they learn about a person, they are not just forming memories of this person but also how to re-create them. Recreating them on their own flesh, and we see it as Fushi transforming. Recreating them outside of Fushi's current form, we see it as Fushi creating a new body altogether for any Fye to inhabit.

I may hazard a guess and wonder if this is one of the factors why Bestbonnist believes Fushi has no Fye, but imma wait (EXCITEDLY!!!) for their meta essay on this!!! Can't wait to see what they cooked!

There's also another non-scientific perspective for me to interpret this—it's a Buddhist one. It's got to do with the idea of aggregates and non-self. Chiefly speaking, under this thought, a "self" is really just an aggregate of qualities and material making up a "personhood," which is then mistaken as a "self." There is no personhood/"self" existing independently of these aggregates. Hence, whenever Fushi takes a form, they also take up the aggregates that make them, often overlaying these qualities with their own (supposed) "default" qualities[1]. This is why as Sandel they become better at treating people and doing doctor-y things. As Mia they become adept at chair kung-fu. As Yuuki, they become most resolved in being the bridge between two factions.

[1] I have a hypothesis that Fushi's "default" qualities/aggregate are not their own. I actually think it could very well be the Nameless Boy's—Fushi is an addition of all things, but their base as a human is the Nameless Boy's aggregate... according to what Fushi remembers him as. I won't know if it's true until the manga ends!

That's just how I see this, personally! Also, wow a short ramble? I surprised myself!

[molsno]

I feel like my adhd makes me a better learner, just not necessarily in the ways that schools and employers want. adderall certainly helps, but it's not a silver bullet, and I wouldn't attribute it to my learning ability in the first place. before I was on it, my teachers consistently said that I was very smart, despite my issues with behavior and focus. adderall just helps me maintain focus on things that aren't inherently stimulating.

anyway, the reason I say this is because with adhd, my mind is in a constant maelstrom. I cannot stop my thoughts from jumping about chaotically, and they all feel very intangible, making it hard to pick out any one in particular. I had a friend in college who also had adhd, and there would often be times when we'd be talking, and one of us would say "that reminds me-" and bring up something almost completely unrelated, but we both understood how the other person mentally got to that topic. because the way I see it, adhd increases my ability to form connections between thoughts.

these connections are forming constantly, and most often, passively. I'm not making an active effort to connect the dots, which is why I've often struggled to talk to other people; they don't understand my thought processes. regardless, there's a saying in neurology: neurons that fire together wire together. it means that the more often a group of neurons fire together in a pattern, the more easily it is for them to do so again. making these connections between thoughts in my brain creates repetition, which reinforces those thoughts and allows me to recall and better understand more information. so yes, my mind is in a constant maelstrom, but sometimes, there's a lightning strike, and I fully connect the dots and have a kind of revelation. most of the tumblr posts that I've written that people find persuasive or insightful are a result of these moments; I'll have been thinking of something completely unrelated to whatever I was doing, and have a kind of eureka! moment that I have to share with the world before it disappears.

to be clear, I don't think having adhd makes me more intelligent than others, nor does it set me up for success in the real world. as I've said, it's extremely hard to make friends when this is how my brain works, and that can and has been very isolating. I also can't force myself to think about things I'm not interested in, which made completing school and college extremely difficult, even on adderall. likewise, it makes it hard to get a job, as employers tend not to like the way I think during interviews and don't see value in me as a potential employee. while I think that my social issues are kind of inevitable, the latter category of issues is systemic, and can be changed. I want to live in a world where my natural thought processes don't doom me to failure, and I can actually use my ability to learn to do good in the world.

[rusty-jester]

QSMP x PORTAL AU

ok ok, so hear me out ^ both aperture and the federation have vvery similar vibes, with the white walls, extremely dubious morality and silly little creatures that they employ. (theres even this beta intro that is some disfruta la isla type shit, like; a fake island? that fits so well) Aperture is still called Aperture, but there's a subset within Aperture called the Federation! The Federation controls mostly managerial work and Human Resources, their manager is The Duck/Pato, and although they are indeed an AI, they are not the GLaDOS of this au! :D The EGGS (Encouragement for Generalized Groups) are part of a new joint testing initiative, where they try and motivate you to test by making it so that if you don't complete 3 tests a day, your Robo-Child might die! Egg partners all get a unique gun and or tool along with a portal gun to make all of their tests unique! (Such as Slime & Mariana having a Gel Gun and a Portal Gun & Roier and Jaiden having a portable Excursion Funnel and Portal Gun) the GLaDOS of this au is called BLUEBRD (Biotechnical Logic Upload (with a) External Branching Research Database) and you can probably guess who it is just by the name lol. I wanted Jaiden to be the GLADOS solely because of the 'Welcome back' scene and how in the opening of portal 2 the facility is in such disrepair, and i think it would be neat if the BLUEBRD chassis is empty at the start :) Cellbit would be Rattmann ofc, maybe Romero Richas could handle the more artistic side of Rattmann? (or being the oracle turret!) I'll ramble on a bit more abt this stuff under the cut, but hoo boy i have a lot of ideas

The Island: The Island was their starting chambers all clumped together, hosted on a fake island with a fake sky/biosphere. The Wall is a huge chunk of testing rooms splitting the biosphere in half. The islanders take a little longer to break the wall in this one, having been paired off and given the eggs early. They could sometimes do double tests and could talk to eachother through the panels though :) Brazilians were a chunk of subjects that accidentally crashed into the side of the biosphere? unintentional but it opened the facility up for all the other residents for them to explore, although The Island is often the main meetup point and is one of the safest places in the facility. The French were a group of subjects that were intentionally dropped through the top of the biosphere by the Feds. and the most recent batch of frozen islanders were stored in one of the Old Aperture vaults, probably a ways away from The Island. Being so close to the depths of aperture also brought on the Codes. Mobs are still a problem on the Island, being modified wildlife that has grown within the sphere, or sometimes being entirely artifical creations. Their parts are useful for jerryrigging gear and such, but they're dangerous. The rain is sprinklers :) Codes / Binary Entities: The Codes usually reside in Old Aperture and are far more common down there. They're mishmashed amalgamations of broken screens displaying binary and wires, usually using a husk of a mob (or prototype egg/egg) as a shell and or protection. Its unclear if they were a Aperture experiment went wrong, a worm/virus that has spread itself too far or a old security measure. They have been slowly making their ways upwards from OA, disturbed by all the commotion of the feds and islanders, slowly becoming more and more of a problem. Some of them have been hijacked by the feds, but it's hard to tell between them and the more feral codes. thats all i have for rn but im still cooking.. neurons are firing monkeys on typewriters type beat

[daveinediting]

So I described this thing about neurons, connections, and wiring... how the wiring makes a difference.

And I described yesterday how I go about using my neurons, connections, and wiring in my own profession, beginning with a riff on neurons that fire together wire together... and ending with diffuse thinking. 

The process of writing about all that brought up another strategy I use when I'm trying to do some mental heavy lifting. It's actually a kind of combination of the two in which I send into my mental vault specific information that might be helpful... but I don't know how or why.

Most recently, I picked up a book at Value Village that was related in a way to what I was working on but, once I started reading it, it wasn't exactly what I thought. And then...

And then...

And then later I'm struggling with what I'm struggling with when I get this idea.

Hey. Why don't you frame this like the author of that book you're reading?

BAM.

I'm not completely sure what's going on when "I'm" choosing what to send into my brain's vault... but the strategy works. It's a way of putting my thumb on the scale when I'm struggling with some creative challenge. I'll add one or two or more ingredients that seem likely. I don't know for sure and I don't why I know which ones to add but...

Yeah.

I know which ones to add.

It's a development in how I work that showed up last in my mental tool box. Something I figured out late in the game. Which is another reason I believe we can intentionally direct our neurons in specific ways and that we can cause that wiring to change, adapt, and rewire.

For me, I had to learn about myself and how my brain works over time, experience, and repetition.

Woulda been great to get there sooner but there you go and there you are.

[sapphic-sasuke]

snippet from my new hashimada oneshot ‘in their dreams they sleep with the moon.’

“Are you challenging me, Hashirama?” Madara bellows, Rinnegan expanding and face twisting into a sneer. “You dare challenge me? I possess power so great I could split this earth into two with my strongest attack.”

From afar, Hashirama’s form flickers, and Madara hesitates, because while his soul is an empty husk, no longer bleeding out for anyone except ghosts, he can still feel that pure, overbearing pressure of Hashirama’s chakra. He’s real.

Hashirama denies him the violence he craves. “I don’t want us to fight again. That’s enough.”

Madara has not fought anyone since the world has come to a standstill, in its process of rebirth. To him, fights are what makes him come to life, heart blazing like his most powerful fire jutsu, decimating all that is in front of him. Only Hashirama sparks that primal delight deep in his gut, gives him back just as strong and never falters.

Hashirama never denies him if he pushes hard enough.

So why now?

“I’ll make you fight me!” he decides, charging forward with an attack at the ready. He uses a fire jutsu that Hashirama easily dodges, and he deflects the barrage of shuriken with mokuton that have a life of its own, wood at the ready to shield him at all costs.

“What will fighting do now?” Hashirama asks, a tone he’s never heard before seeping into his voice. It sounds anguished, stranded and weak. “I’ve been fighting my whole life. Everything is over now. Can’t we sit and reminisce together like old friends? That’s all I want, Madara. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Madara’s mouth parts and closes, tense and strung. He lets go of the hand signs at the ready and his eerie ringed eyes focus on Hashirama’s form. He looks tired and incorporeal, like he would be shimmering and flickering at his peripheral. He is not grand and divine anymore, like that figure Madara would gladly worship and laud for all his existence.

The sight angers him. This is not who Hashirama is to him, a weak fool who only wants companionship at the end of the world, a man who too seeks the end of human suffering like him, but unlike Madara has failed terribly, and is witnessing the consequences of such failure: beings suspended in tiny universes of their own, all the wirings and neurons in their brain under an illusion so strong it breaks the constraints of dimensions.

“You will fight me,” Madara decides. Hashirama’s face twists, and he ignores it. “In order to undo Infinite Tsukiyomi, you have to fight me. Isn’t that right? But you haven’t yet taken the chance to do so. Perhaps you are waiting for me to grow weaker as the years pass, but that will never happen. Like the sun and like that red moon, I am eternal. The only way to free this world and emerge victorious is to fight me.”

They are on opposing sides. Madara is not controlling the kyuubi this time. It is only them. They alone exist and matter. Nobody else does. Madara feels the first vestiges of euphoria awaken from its deep slumber.

“Will you dance with me, Hashirama?”

Hashirama presses his hands together, and this prayer seems more desperate than the rest. Wood emerges from underneath the shallow waters and begins striking outwards towards him.

“If that is what will appease you.”

[rabbitess]

you can avoid a panic attack by repeatedly yellin "neurons that fire together wire together" at your brain.

[purpleknight9k]

If you think he’s going to talk about it, you can think again~, but…assimilating into the mainframe of the Technodrome was simultaneously the worst and best moment of Donnie’s life.

Worst, because it was an absolute sensory and existential hell.

Cold and squishy in all the wrong ways, suffocating. Hundreds of thin tendrils burrowing through his shell and tapping directly into his spinal column — the incomprehensible pain, the momentary loss of control, loss of self and everything that made him Donatello Hamato.

He will have nightmares until the day he dies.

He won’t be able to endure the sight of things like jellyfish or anemone (so time to cross all those aquariums off his bucket list), and even a sight as innocent as a panel of wires in a server room will throw him for a loop. Every time he gets pins and needles after a limb falls asleep, he’ll think of the Technodrome. Every time he hears anything that sounds wet or squishy, he’ll want to scream.

Best, because after the messy and invasive process of connecting to the Technodrome was over — it was exhilarating. Like flying down the crest of an infinite roller coaster hill. Like a hit of a powerful stimulant filtering directly into his spinal cord, suffusing every neuron all at once. Brain firing on all cylinders with no effort. The thrill of momentary invincibility, of pure mental clarity and control, of sheer power.

Fuck yeah, dude, he was a spaceship.

Mind and matter, together, in a brief instant of perfect harmony and consummation — before he was forcibly ripped out of the console.

In the back of his mind, Donnie worries he’ll never feel a high like that again. And it’s even worse because it went hand-in-hand with one of the most disgusting, demoralizing experiences he’s ever had.

The contradiction kills him. He can’t make it make sense. And Donnie wouldn’t know where to begin talking about it.

So he doesn’t. Ever!

[thornsandflames]

Reasons Why I Am A Horrible Person and You Should Never Talk To Me Again

I. The mirror always has water spots on it. I never clean it because when I was thirteen my friends wanted to play Bloody Mary, but Emma cried so loud we stopped on the second one, and now whenever I look into mirrors I fear what I’ll see looking into my eyes. My brain can conjure worse things than a glass ghost without any prompting and sometimes they spill from my mouth just as easily. Misery loves company and I am a miserable parasite begging for a victim to latch onto. What do I win in trauma bingo? I hope it’s a fifth of vodka and mirror cleaner.

II. Nothing in my room belongs to me; it’s all fragments of a girl who was here for a second and then gone. What am I if not fleeting moments of lucid character held together by alkaloids and scar tissue? When I can’t sleep at night I pick a moment I wish to be back in, but that girl wanted to be in my shoes now and the guilt staples my eyes open. If I can’t be the hero to a teenager then what can I be? Maybe twenty melatonin pills will pick for me. My roommate has to lock her medicine cabinet again tonight; maybe I’ll remember to return her blanket.

III. Hints don’t work yet I still keep dropping them, as if I’ve forgotten your brain is as oddly wired as mine. Sometimes my fear is I could wave a banner in your face and you’d still never acknowledge it; maybe I made up the fire in my chest and the stars in your eyes and the way that living seems less hard when you’re by my side. The only way to know is a leap of faith, but I promised my younger self I’d stop trying to jump off cliffs.

IV. There are more ex best friends in my life than just exes. You’d think I learn by now how to move from stage one to stage two rather than tossing stage one into the incinerator. I keep telling myself they weren’t all my fault. Amelia wanted to be popular, Jenna never liked me, Emma’s parents wanted her away, Olivia made her choices, Makayla couldn’t talk, Maddy just followed orders. If you squeeze a kitten too hard it wails and never comes back; if you just let go it breaks its neck from the fall. I never learned how to walk a tightrope before I was balancing in the middle of it and the grass had turned to fire. My skin will always smell burnt but rose-tinted glasses make it shine.

V. When I see a lamplight at dusk I imagine kissing you underneath it. Like that will cure every broken neuron in my brain and make me who I was before. I picture holding hands in dimly lit convenience stores and leaving indents in each other’s mattresses; matching jewelry which comforts in absence and clothes that smell of each other's shampoo. But those lips aren’t mine to kiss and your love is not mine to have, yet you still come to me in my dreams to welcome me home. The bed is always cold when I wake because home has never existed except behind closed eyes.

—

“Reasons Why I Am A Horrible Person and You Should Never Talk To Me Again” by Olive Aurora