#EEG Cap

[women-in-code-blue2]

[jessicapinedaw]

Adult EEG Cap Market Size, Trends, Competitors Strategy, Regional Analysis and Growth by Forecast to 2031

Market research “Adult EEG Cap Market Size, Share, and Growth by 2031” enriched with data tables, pie charts, figures, and graphs spread through chapters reveal actionable insights. At present, the Adult EEG Cap market is expanding at a lucrative CAGR. Through this assessment, The Insight Partners attempts to predict future trends, market values, growth factors, and related statistics. The report…

[neophony]

EEG Flex Cap: 8 Channel Dry EEG & Neurofeedback Device

Discover the Neuphony EEG Flex Cap - a versatile, portable EEG machine for brain wave reading, neurofeedback training, and biofeedback therapy. Ideal for EEG tests, brain scans, and mind control training.

[neuphony9]

Neuphony is revolutionizing neurofeedback and brain research with advanced EEG technology designed for researchers and practitioners. In this video, discover how the Neuphony™ EEG Flex Cap empowers researchers, practitioners, and institutions to access real-time brain data for critical applications in cognitive enhancement, neurotherapy, and brain-computer interface (BCI) development.

[amsgrey]

Deja Vu II

Part I

Okay so, I have been researching more and trying to get things at least somewhat accurate before I wrote part two. In the first part, I wrote TBI, with further research, what I was actually trying to write is an Anoxic brain Injury (still technically a TBI). The whole idea there is when the brain is starved of oxygen critical functions are impacted and there can be a whole bunch of differing symptoms after it. OBVIOUSLY, I am NOT a medical professional, so take everything with a big ol' grain of salt. I am thinking of writing some more parts to this but purely when I have time bc adult life sucks. I kept the ending open but also al actual end, unlike the first part. Hope it is somewhat enjoyable.

WARNINGS: Medical stay, seizures, talk of needles + medical procedures, hospitals, Will and Jay being their usually angsty selves, poor writing and zero editing

"Will?"

Abrams looked between the Halsteads, not sure what his place was. Everyone remembered when Pat Halstead passed, mostly because the Halstead brawl was talked about for weeks. Will Halstead was known for causing headaches for plenty of people around Med, he was the topic of gossip all through the building.

Abrams was saved by the bell - literally. His pager started beeping, excusing him from the brewing storm between the brothers.

"I'll put in for the tests," He tossed over his shoulder, disappearing into the stream of medical workers.

"Will." Jay snapped, glowering at his brother.

Will scrubbed a hand down his face, "Abrams needs to run more tests."

"More tests?" Jay pressed, "What just happened, Will?"

Will shook his head, looking at his younger brother he knew, telling Jay how bad this might be, would destroy him. Jay hated hospitals, hated medical things in general. Will couldn't look him in the eye and plant the same fear he had gnawing at him.

"I don't know, Jay," Will sighed, "I'm not a neurologist."

Jay didn't want to accept his answer, but Will didn't give him much of a chance. He turned back to your hospital room, forcing a smile as he entered.

"What was that about?" You asked, exactly where they left you.

"Just more tests," Will smiled. He stopped at the top of your bed, checking you over with doctor's eyes. You could always tell when he flipped between Big Brother and Doctor because Big Brother Will wore his emotions. Doctor Will was better at keeping his poker face like he was now.

Will's eyes flittered around the monitors before settling back on yours. His eyes softened, the slight furrow in his brow disappearing and a smile pulling on his lips again.

"You feeling alright?"

You nodded, "I'm just tired."

Will nodded, he reached out and brushed the hair off your forehead, "Get some sleep, yeah? We'll be here the whole time."

Jay reached out and squeezed your hand, before pulling up the blanket and tucking you in.

A few hours later, you were sitting up in your hospital bed while a Neurology Tech attached electrodes to your scalp. Jay had left for home, for a shower and clean clothes. He promised he would bring back your blanket and pillow and some other stuff to make you more comfortable, seeming Will said it would be okay.

While he was gone, Will sat at the end of the bed, holding your hand through the Electrode placement. After the Tech finished, you were attached to a monitor with wires upon wires, all differing colours. The tech apologized for the cap that sat over all the leads, promising it wasn’t too bad.

“it’s a new fashion trend,” you joked, smiling at the tech, “Nuero floor chic.”

The tech laughed, continuing her work. When she was done, she walked you through what she had done. Explaining the placement and the leads, and how it all worked.

"This is your personal EEG," She explained, gesturing to the boxy machine on wheels that your wires were attached to, "Try to keep it close."

She explained a few more things, then promised to return in a little while. In her absence, Dr. Abrams stopped through again. He looked over the techs work, mumbling to himself and making medical comments only Will understood.

"How are you feeling?" He asked.

You had already taken a nap, so you weren't as tired as you had been.

"Sick of sitting," You said, stretching your legs and accidentally nudging Will in the process. Will playfully batted at your feet, feigning offence.

Abrams pulled at the EEG machine on wheels, testing how the wheels glided, "If you are feeling up for it, you can go for a small walk."

You lit up, "I can?"

"If you take it slow," Abrams ordered, "And Will is by your side."

Will nodded, "Are you feeling up for it?"

"Yes."

Will helped you detangle yourself from the blanket, letting you adjust to being fully upright for the first time that day. Your feet dangled over the bed as you took a moment to compose your spinning head. Will pulled a pair of socks over your bare feet, muttering something about keeping your toes warm. He held your arm as you stood up, supporting your weight as your body adjusted again.

"You alright?"

"Mmm," You responded, focused on staying upright.

"Okay," Will wrapped an arm around your waist, "One step at a time, we'll try to make it to the nurse's station and back."

It was slow going. With every step you took, it felt like the world was twisting, like walking through an earthquake. Will's arms hovered around you, only holding you up when you needed the support. He was so steady in his support, his warm presence keeping you grounded and calm.

Two steps outside of your room, Jay bounded up with your pillow and blanket tucked under his arm.

"They're upright," He commented, "Nice hair, too."

He reached out and pretended to ruffle your hair, careful to avoid touching the wires around your head. You reached out to smack his hand, but missed drastically.

You frowned at Jay, frustration barely contained, "Sshut. uphh."

The words sounded fumbled through your gritted teeth. Abrams had mentioned how you needed to take things slow and Will tried to tell you that it might be frustrating at first, but you weren’t expecting to feel such anger. It was gnawing away at you. A week ago you were dancing around with Makayla, wrangling her for a weekend while Kim and Adam worked. You had run around, danced, sung, every little thing that made Makayla happy. Not you hardly knew how to move your feet, could hardly tell what direction was up.

The anger grew and held firm in your head, making itself known with its red cloud fogging your mind.

Will grabbed your hand, "You okay?"

"Hmm."

Your vision blurred, everything swaying and twisting as you fell forward.

Will was faster than Jay was, for once. He saw the signs a mile away, already braced for when you would fall. He held you to his chest, lowering both of you to the ground and cradling your head as your body started to convulse.

Jay immediately dropped what he was carrying, falling to his knees by your side. Jay looked up at Will trying to ask silently what to do, but the eldest Halstead had gone full doctor mode.

"Need some help over here!" Will shouted, calling for the nurse's assistance.

"I need you to breathe,” Will spoke with such certainty, like he was treating any other patient.

“You’re okay,” Will kept repeating, “Just breathe, I’ve got you.”

Jay was ushered out of the way by the nurses, who crowded in with monitors and equipment to help Dr Halstead. All Jay could do was watch helplessly.

Jay held his breath as the medical team got you off the ground and transferred you back to the hospital bed. The leads they had removed that morning were reattached, placed on your ashen skin.

Dr Abrams rushed into the room and ordered Will to get out of his way, the forced politeness gone now the situation was emergent. Will stepped back, somewhat dubiously, letting Abrams run his team.

“How did you do that?” Jay asked when will stood by his side, the pair of them watching as Abrams and the team worked.

With a dose of meds, the convulsions stopped, but the team checked over the leads and kept working.

“Do what?” Will asked, turning to look at his brother. Jay had grown pale, the fear and anxiety he felt spelt out across his features. His eyes kept darting from you to the heart monitor screen like it was going to flatline.

“Stay so calm?” Jay whispered, taking a deep breath for the first time in the last few minutes. The nurses placed a mask over your face, securing it behind your head and then leaving the Halsteads and Abrams in the room.

“Jay…” Will tried to find a way to explain it, how he could just shut off his fear in that moment to help you. But he couldn’t find the words.

“She’s stable,” Abrams spoke in the silence that had formed, “From now on, we’ll keep giving them diazepam to keep them relaxed. No more strolls, even if it is supervised.”

Will nodded, taking it in.

Abrams was mostly speaking to Will, Jay was by your side, focused solely on you. He held your hand, careful to avoid the IV that was in the back of it. He watched you breathe, every-time you exhaled, he watched the mask fog up. He listened to the quiet puffs and the melodic beeping. You were okay. He kept trying to force himself to remember that. You were okay.

“Hopefully we can get this under control. In the meantime, we’ll keep monitoring, keep on with the EEG testing for the next few hours. Hopefully we’ll learn more.”

Will nodded, clapping Abrams on the back, “Thanks, Sam.”

The big brother in him wanted to press for answers, but the doctor in him knew that sometimes Doctors didn’t have the answers. If Abrams knew, he would share.

Will did a check over you and the monitors with his eyes, again. Then looked over to Jay, who looked completely deflated. It was no secret that Jay hated hospitals and medical treatment in general, especially needles. Spending time in hospitals usually gave him the creeps and he would always say to Will, “I don’t know how you do it, man.”

But Jay hadn’t complained even once. Not when he was watching the IV get put in your hand, or while you were attached to countless machines. Will knew it was because he felt hopeless. The same look that he wore at their dads bedside he wore now. Will stood and stared for a while, the memory playing in his mind in time with real life. This was different. You weren’t on life support like your father had been, things were different. That didn’t change the memories Will had of his dads last moments plaguing his mind.

“I stayed calm because i had too,” Will finally spoke. Jay looked up, watching his brother cross his arms over his chest and take a deep breath.

“I had to stay calm, for her.”

Jay shook his head, “I just froze, Will. And you-“

“Trained for years to react in medical emergency situations, spent years working the ER,” Will interrupted.

“Jay,” Will reached over the bed and gave jays shoulder a reassuring squeeze, “I do this every day. I know how to tune out the emotions and focus on medical stuff.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Will sat on one of the chairs, mirroring Jay across the bed, “Listen. I could never get used to being shot at, could never be shot at and react how you do. Because I’m not trained, I’m not good at that. You aren’t a doctor Jay, stop beating yourself up over something that was a basic human reaction.”

Jay didn't answer, letting silence fall over the room. Neither one of the brothers was up for a conversation, mostly just consumed with their own thoughts as they watched you sleep.

You had stirred a few times in the coming hours but mostly stayed sleeping. Will told Jay that it was a combination of the medication and the stress of recent events catching up with you. In his words, it was nothing to worry about.

"Hey," A soft voice called from the door, Will and Jay stood to greet Hailey as she stepped into the room.

Will and Jay had been off work since you had gotten worse, staying by your side or close by ever since. Both Voight and Goodwin understood, giving them all the time they needed.

"I brought some supplies," Hailey joked, handing food over to the brothers, "And I stopped by home and Wills, got some clothes."

"Thanks, Hailey."

"Yeah, Of course." Hailey stood by Jay, taking his hand for his comfort. "How's she doing?"

Will relayed the events of the day, the incident in the hall and all the things that had happened since. Things were moving fast, more tests and hopeful treatment plans were being talked about.

"It'll be okay," Will finished, mostly trying to convince Jay more than himself. He knew the look on Abram's face, knew that everything was far from okay.

Will told Jay to go back to work after a week, promising him that sitting by your side was a one-man job. Will had spoken to Goodwin, who agreed to let him take his occurred PTO for as long as he needed. So for the three weeks you were in the hospital he stayed by your side. You weren't used to having Will there every single minute of every single day, but you didn't mind it too much. Mostly he helped you go on walks or watched over you like a personal nurse. You knew that he and Jay were worried, but the overprotective brother act was suffocating at times. During the last week of your stay, you managed to convince him to let you have more space - that when he left the room you wouldn't make a break for it like Jay would. He agreed hesitantly, mostly hanging around from lunch until you fell asleep at night. You complained to Jay when he visited every day, but you were thankful he was there.

On the last few days of your time in the hospital, you were more independent, nothing like what you were before the accident, but more than before. You could walk small distances unsupported and some of your fine motor skills came back. The PT had told you it was common after TBI's for patients to lose control of their movements and motor skills, she promised that you would get better as time went on.

Dr Abrams had spoken to Will and Jay about Rehabilitation centres, there were a few in the city that focused on TBI rehabilitation but Will had been dragging his feet. Jay wanted to do what was best for you, even if it meant you might have to stay in a rehab facility. Will had a sour taste in his mouth over it all.

"Come in," Goodwin called from inside her office.

Will pushed open the door, greeting Sharon and Peter.

"What can I help you with, Doctor Halstead?" Sharon asked after Peter had left.

Will explained his plan, reviewing all the details he had sorted out. When he finished, Sharon was nodding in approval.

"Are you sure about this?"

"I am," Will was sure nothing could change his mind now.

"Okay then, I will talk to Dr Archer, and see how we can help," Goodwin bid Will the best, letting him continue on his way.

Will met Jay right outside your room, almost running straight into him.

"Will," Jay grabbed his brother's arm, "We need to talk about the rehab facility-"

"Yeah," Will nodded, "I know, i have a plan."

Will ushed Jay back into the room. He gestured to Jay to a chair and took a seat at the end of your bed. You were expecting him to stop by, sitting up properly on the bed expecting some kind of serious conversation from the eldest Halstead.

"What is it, doc?" You joked.

Will smiled, reaching out and holding your hand, "I have spoken to Dr Abrams and Sharon Goodwin and I have decided that we won't be trying to find a rehab facility."

Jay sighed, he had been arguing with Will about this for the better part of the week. "Will-"

"I think you should stay with me," Will told you directly, "I've taken a leave of absence, I think you should be home and recovering."

You looked to Jay, who was just as surprised. Jay hardly got caught off guard by Will, right now he had never been more surprised.

"Are you sure?" Jay broke the silence that settled over the room.

"If that is what you want?"

You could feel the joy blooming in your chest, a wide smile breaking across your face, "Yes. Please, yes."

Will mirrored your grin, pulling you into a tight hug and kissing your forehead. At times like this, you were reminded how much Will and Jay became like parents to you after your father's death. Although it was painful for all of you, you didn't have a good relationship with your father. He was never caring or affectionate, he never came to your sports games or awards, that was all Jay and Will. They stepped up and took care of you, they always have and promised they always would. You were so drained from the last few days of tests and the week in the hospital that you felt like you might burst into tears.

Will could sense your fragile state, staying sitting by your side and holding your hand. Jay got to his feet and pulled you into a hug too, then clapped Will on the back. 

“So when am I allowed out?” You pressed, hoping to be home and somewhere familiar. 

“Slow your roll,” Jay laughed, “There's still things that need to be organized.” 

You let out a loud dramatic sigh, “I hate it here,” You whined. 

Will wrapped an arm around your shoulders, pulling you into him and playfully messing up your hair, “It won't be too much longer, promise.” 

“Pinky promise?” You raised your finger, dramatically pouting. 

Will indulged you, linking his pinky through yours and giving you a serious stare, “Pinky promise.”

taglist: @halstead-severide-fan

[eggsaladstain]

thinking about those canadian reserachers who gave cats EEGs by making them wear little knit caps so they wouldn't play with the electrodes

Source: Non-invasive electroencephalography in awake cats: Feasibility and application to sensory processing in chronic pain

[iminseriousdebt]

GENLOSS RAMBLE

Heyo! This is a little ramble I needed to make before the founders cut comes out!  yipee!

(GENERATION LOSS SPOILERS)

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

So we can see in the above images the methods Showfall Media is using to control gl!Sneeg gl!Charlie and gl!Ranboo, they use an already pre-existing technology called an Electroencephalogram (EEG). Now this technology has been in use for decades, and essentially how it works is that it uses electrodes placed onto your scalp combined with a conductive gel to measure the electrical activity in your brain, these electrical signals are usually referred to as “brain waves” and these brainwaves can be subdivided into four categories, Gamma (greater than 30 Hz), Beta (13-30 Hz), Alpha (8-12 Hz), Theta (3.5-7.5 Hz), and Delta (0.1-3.5 Hz)

These different brainwaves are generally assosiated with different emotions, awareness levels, brain activities, etc. Now if Showfall Media has installed these onto sneeg, charlie, and ranboo, that means they have access to their thoughts and feelings, but brainscanning isn’t an absolute precise device, it still takes a lot of human effort and time to properly interpret the brainwaves. If Showfall somehow had a tool to easily interpret the signals they could much more easily operate, say, a live show. Lucky for them there is already a real life solution to this problem, kinda.

Its called Brain Generative Pre-Training Transformer, or BrainGPT for short.  What its goal is, is to act as an assist tool for human neurologists to use in real neuroscience cases and case studies, what it does is it uses a Large Language Model (LLM) full of pre-existing human research papers and other neuroscience knowledge too vast for human comprehension. And whenever a neurologist hands BrainGPT a prompt, (such as anomalous finding or to asses the fields understanding of a certain topic) , “would generate likely data patterns reflecting its current synthesis of the scientific literature”  (braingpt.org)

Now in regards to Generation Loss, what this means is that Showfall Media potentially has acces to this sort of technology, and would be able to use it in the production of their shows, now BrainGPT has a good way to go before its widely avalable. But in the genloss au, it can be far into development at this point, and be available for companies to use in whatever way they see fit.

Now reading and decoding brain signals is one thing, but to mind control someone is far beyond what is capable today, but Showfall Media has somehow developed technology to do so, the way I’m guessing they did it is that they produced certain brainwaves from the electrodes on the actors heads to give them the emotional reactions they needed for the show. I can’t exactly get into the technical stuff cause I’m not a neurologist, but its just a hunch on how I think they did it.

As for the mind controlling devices themselves, I feel there’s a more subtextual reason as to why those objects in particular are chosen as the devices that are central to the show’s operation. Ranboo’s mask has been a heavy emphasis throughout Gen 1 TSE,

Its been a central figure in not only generation loss’ marketing, but also ranboo’s marketing, because when you think of ranboo one of the first things that pops up is the mask, atleast in the wider public’s eye.

But these general associations not only exist with Ranboo, with Slimcicle you usually think of the wide brim glasses, with Sneeg its his backwards cap, and this is with the other cast members too when their introduced on the spinning carousel in episode 2. Furthermore, with Niki it’s that’s she's just so nice, with Austin its that he’s just a gay guy,  and with Vinny and Ethan these associations don’t really exist. So, with Vinny he's just the “hoarder”, and Ethan isn't even introduced. And then there's Jerma, who is relinquished to a goofy character with a weird voice and a strange sense of humour which sort of fits his public image.

But what I wanna mention with Ranboo’s mask specifically is that with the three images shown on the genloss twitter of the control devices, sneeg’s is just a hat, like theres nothing special about it, just a hat with electrodes on it, when you take it off he’s completely in control of himself. But, with charlie’s it’s a good bit harder to just take it off. His glasses are drilled into his skull connected to electrodes which are also implanted in his skull, with an additional feature of a speaker in his jaw. But if you remove the glasses, there would be a lot of bleeding and his vision would be impaired, but he would still be a free man.

But with Ranboo, poor, poor, Ranboo… Like Charlie, they have electrodes implanted on to their brain connected to a switch on the back of their skull (which also may or may not also be connected to their spine, idk its hard to tell). These sprout wires that thread through the mask and lead into their throat, and the mask piece itself is sewn shut onto their SKIN.

Now this makes me wonder, why is Ranboo so heavily guarded when the other are (relatively) easy to set free? Is it because Ranboo is an integral part of the show and therefore high risk? Is it because Showfall needed extra resources for the chat to be able to control them?... Or is it because Ranboo tried to escape so many times before that they were forced to disfigure them to such an extreme degree, and yet somehow, SOMEHOW, they are able to resist, whether it be tapping SOS on their hand when they're on full control mode or shanking a Showfall employee with a dagger, Ranboo, Resists. But Showfall will never let them leave. Or they will? Idk founders cut hasn’t come out yet as of writing this, anyway ramble over. You can leave now.

[bethanydelleman]

I find it really funny how mundane and haphazard science is so much of the time.

Today I sewed new Velcro onto a thousands of dollars brainwave measurement hat because the babies ripped it off their heads too many times and I happen to own a sewing machine.

When the fancy brain science hat doesn't fit the baby's head, we secure it with a highly technical... binder clip.

One day we were dyeing and slicing animal brains. After super cooling it with liquid nitrogen (so science!), it was a bit too cold so we heated it with... a hair dryer.

There is a colander in the kitchen sink at work for washing EEG caps.

[curliiwurlii]

SPOILERS FOR AMANDA THE ADVENTURER 1 AND 2!

I have a theory for how Amanda and her monster are connected.

There are some moments in the game where the monster has control over Amanda and some moments when it's not. However, in the 2nd game, during the story tape, we see Amanda talking to the monster and telling it to stop from killing Riley, saying that they've helped before (or that they're trying, depends on the route).

I think the reason why this happens is because sometimes Amanda and the monster are connected and sometimes, they're not.

In one of the secret tapes (I think it's the green one), you can see Rebecca with an EEG cap on with some doctors checking her brain waves, with one of them commenting that her brain waves are out of balance. This could be the reason for why sometimes the monster and Amanda re connected and sometimes, they're not.

This could be the same for Wooly, now that we have a Wooly monster. Maybe Wooly has a better success to keep his monster at bay with him possibly being older than Amanda, with his brain being more developed, hence his brain waves being more in sync (I don't know anything about neurology, so don't count on this). That's probably why we only got to see Wooly's monster in the true ending, either because Joanne mentioned bringing Hameln down so it killed her, or because of Wooly getting angrier and more pessimistic overtime.

[aetherspoon]

Kitteh cats with tiiiiiny hats~

[waytooinvested]

Forgotten, Not Forgiven - Chapter 9

Rift era reconciliation/fix-it fic in which Kara's memories of Supergirl are stolen and Lena has to rally round to help her get them back. Starts out kind of on the angsty side but there will be more fluff down the line.

This and previous chapters are also on AO3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today was the day.

The Q-wave generator was calibrated, the lab was set up to Lena’s precise specifications, and (after a threat of violence so imaginative and specific it crossed the line from menacing to absurd) Alex had finally stopped blowing up her phone every five seconds with anxious pre-trial reminders, check ins and (on three occasions) comments that Lena suspected were nothing more than an excuse to call her Lulu.

Everything was ready.

Except, as it turned out, Lena.

She had thought she was. Genuinely, in the minutes before Jess had tapped on her door to announce the arrival of her test subject, Lena had been feeling perfectly composed. She had run plenty of trials before, some of them with far greater risk of bad outcomes than this one, and she had been spending one on one time with Kara for weeks now. It should have been nothing.

… Only then Kara had walking into the room, beaming at her like they were about to go to an all you can eat dumplings-of-the-world restaurant, holding out a bouquet of flowers and a large box of macarons (because ‘I wanted to get you something to celebrate the start of your trials!’), and suddenly it didn’t feel like just another clinical trial. It felt like she was about to mess about in her best friend’s brain using untested technology on an ill-defined malady, where a successful outcome would mean the end of every good thing that Lena had experienced since Lex had revealed the truth of who Supergirl was.

It also didn’t help that Kara had arrived dressed in sweats and an oversized hoodie (apparently having taken the suggestion to ‘dress comfy’ to heart), and she looked the way she did at the mid point of one of the sleepovers that used to give Lena hope for more.

Kara lying sprawled on the couch with her head in Lena’s lap as they watched a movie they knew it was too late to start if Lena was going to make it home that night, sipping wine and making up alternative dialogue options when the plot got slow. Finally dozing off together in a tangled heap, someone’s head pillowed on someone’s chest despite the crick-in-the-neck they would inevitably wake up with...

Stop it. It was not appropriate to think about snuggling one’s clinic trial participants, OR one’s traitorous former friends. Not even if they looked as soft and cuddly as a teddy bear in that sweater. Instead Lena accepted the gifts as graciously as she could, then moved swiftly into explaining what would happen during the session before she could start wondering whether being alone together like this (not just one on one in public, but actually alone, without so much as a passing stranger to act as a social buffer) was really a good idea.

They went through the usual informed consent procedure, then Lena showed Kara the Q-wave stimulator and attached transmitter net. It looked similar to an EEG cap, and as far as anyone outside this project was concerned that was all it was, but the technology it contained was entirely unique.

‘You put this on, then after I’ve made some adjustments to make sure the fit is right, you just lie back and relax while I turn on the Q-wave frequency. It should be very gentle – you won’t feel any discomfort, but you might be aware of a slight hum or vibration, and the cap may get a little warm after a while. If it gets uncomfortably hot, or you want to stop for any reason, just raise your hand or call out and I’ll turn it off straight away’.

‘And that’s it? You don’t need me to solve puzzles or read out loud or anything? I just… lie there?’

‘That’s it’ Lena confirmed. ‘We’ll just do thirty minutes this time, but over the next couple of sessions we’ll work up to a full hour. I’m afraid it will be quite dull, but you can always nap if you want to’.

‘That’s okay. Do I need to keep quiet while it’s working, or will we be able to talk?’

‘Talking’s fine, the main thing is just to keep your head as still as possible, so the electrodes won’t shift out of place’.

‘Got it, so yes talking, no practising my dance moves’.

Kara demonstrated an odd flail-y move that involved swinging her head about with such zeal that she sent her glasses skittering off her nose onto the floor, and Lena couldn’t help the undignified little snort that erupted from her as Kara tried and failed to grab them out the air.

‘Yes, that is exactly what you shouldn’t do. Not least because I’m not sure how many hits like that a pair of glasses can take before you cause them irreparable damage’.

Lena knelt to retrieve the glasses from under the cot, but before she could reach them she found her attention catching on Kara’s socked feet where they dangled over the edge. From this angle she could see part of the motto stitched across the underside of each one: “If you can read this, pass the p”.

The rest of the phrase was obliterated by a large hole rubbed right through the heel, but it was easy enough to fill in the blank – partly because of the pattern of dancing cartoon potstickers that left little room for ambiguity, and partly because Lena was the one who had chosen the words in the first place: “If you can read this, pass the potstickers!”. The socks had been a joke gift the Christmas before last that she had spent far more time over than was strictly necessary for something that she’d been pretty sure would get a token wear or two on Chinese takeout feast nights, then disappear into the back of a drawer never to be seen again. And yet here they were again after all this time, not merely a reminder from another era, but clearly a well worn one.

‘You’ll get blisters with holes on your heels like that’.

Kara belatedly tried to hide the worn patch by tucking her right foot up against her ankle, though the left sock wasn’t in a much better state.

‘Sorry, I didn’t think about the fact that I’d be taking my shoes off for this when I put them on this morning. I keep meaning to learn to darn so I can mend them, but I never seem to find the time’.

Lena raised an eyebrow. Who darned in this day and age? She knew Kara didn’t make a huge amount of money as a junior reporter, but she certainly wasn’t struggling with the basics either.

‘Or you could just… buy some new socks?’

‘I have plenty of other socks, but these are my favourites. I don’t want to just throw them out’.

I’ll order you a new pair.

She almost said it, just barely managing to close her teeth around the words before they spilled out. Because of course she wouldn’t be getting Kara new socks. Today was the start of the Q-wave trial, and that meant that Kara would begin regaining her memories soon. There was every chance that by the time Lena had had the custom design made up and shipped over to the States, they would no longer be on gift giving terms.

Besides, she could hardly imagine Supergirl flying out to fight wearing silly smiling potsticker socks under her boots.

Then again, it was equally difficult to picture Kara as she was now – Lena’s Kara – donning Supergirl’s cape and hypocritically unbending moral code, let alone catching falling planes and buildings (and CEOs) when she couldn’t even catch her own glasses...

How many times had Kara risked her life saving those of everyone else in the city, only to pick herself up, wipe the blood from her knuckles and hurry over to see Lena with a laughing apology about buses or snapped shoe heels to explain away her lateness? She had borne the weight of two worlds on her shoulders, and yet still found time to be goofy with Lena, to bring her lunch and invite her to sleepovers and comfort her when she was sad, as if her own burden wasn’t a thousand times heavier than anyone on this planet could ever truly know...

Lena wrenched her gaze away from the holes in Kara’s socks and grabbed the dropped glasses before her distraction became too obvious, though it did nothing to dispel the confusing mixture of tenderness and pain that was beginning to feel a lot more like regret than the rage it was supposed to be.

Somehow she went through the motions of securing the cap and placing electrodes, hearing herself talk through what she was doing as if listening to someone else, while her mind stayed far away. She tried not to notice how close she had to stand to Kara, or the fact that leaning over her like this engulfed her in the familiar smell of coconut shampoo that had always been so much a part of the experience of hugging her that it had once induced Lena to claim that her ideal vacation would be to a beach, despite the fact that her pale skin would frizzle to a crisp if she attempted to sun bathe, and she could never entirely relax around large bodies of water in any case.

It was just that coconut was such a safe, comforting scent, it felt like a vacation in itself.

...Had Supergirl smelled of coconut?

She had carried Lena in her arms often enough that she should have been able to pick it up if she had, but she couldn’t remember one way or the other. Mostly what she remembered of those times was the relief of not being dead, and how inconceivably strong the arms holding her had been, like they could carry her to the ends of the Earth without ever getting tired. Honestly, if she hadn’t been so absorbed by her feelings for Kara she probably would have gone completely weak at the knees over Supergirl, at least before things started going wrong between them. If the whole situation wasn’t so awful it would be almost funny that her crush on Kara had been the only thing keeping her from developing a full blown crush on... Kara.

Lena tightened one final strap and then at last stepped gratefully back to the safe remove of her computer, where the only smells were of cleaning fluid and the lingering traces of the conductive gel she had used when applying the electrodes. Familiar, uncomplicated science lab odours that made her breathing come a little easier.

‘Aw, you stuck pictures up on the ceiling? That’s so nice!’

‘Hmm? Oh. Yes’.

She had almost forgotten about that.

‘It’s such a good idea – do you do this for all your trials?’

‘No, I- just the ones that involve staring at the ceiling’.

In fact, Lena had never even considered it before today, though it wasn’t the first time she had conducted a trial that involved someone lying still with nothing much to look at for an extended period. But for some reason this time it had occurred to her how unbearably boring it would be to stare up at the blank white of the lab’s ceiling for a full hour with no kind of visual stimuli, and had had Maureen from Maintenance stick a few things up.

‘Okay, slight buzz coming, try not to flinch’.

Kara stayed obediently stock still while Lena turned the dial to a gentle starting dose of five biohertz, then checked the readout on her laptop. The waves were targeting the dark S exactly as intended, and there was no indication of any danger-response in Kara’s vital signs. So far so good.

Kara remained rigid to the point that it looked almost painful.

‘Kara, I know I said not to move, but you’re allowed to breath’.

A slight loosening. A hint of a smile.

‘Sorry, I just want to make sure I get everything absolutely right. I mean, I’m helping with something epic right now. Obviously it’s mostly you and all the work you’ve done to get to this point, but I’m honoured to be even a small part of what you’re doing here’.

‘You’re very sweet to say so, but it’s not that big a deal, really’.

‘It is though. Seriously Lena, I am so impressed by you and how much you do to help people. If you weren’t my best friend I’d honestly be a kind of star struck. I mean, you’re basically a superhero with how much good you do in the world, and you don’t even need powers to do it’.

‘I- that-’ Lena started, then stumbled to a halt, unsure how to respond. She was no superhero, and the irony of Kara being the one to suggest she ever could be was enough to leave her momentarily speechless. She would never have said it if she knew...

‘How was work today?’

Kara’s brow knitted at what had to be the clunkiest segue of Lena Luthor’s entire rigorously socially-trained life, but mercifully she didn’t comment. In fact, she answered a bit too quickly and enthusiastically for such a mundane question, as if she was the one who had just made an awkward social blunder and was equally keen to move on from it as swiftly as possible.

‘Oh, things have escalated. I’ve actually been dying to tell you about it all day’.

‘Really? What did Andrea do this time?’

Lena settled back into her seat to listen, simultaneously relieved that Kara had accepted the topic change and braced for a further attack of guilt if she was about to find out that Catco had become the official press champion for kicking puppies, or had established a ‘no smiling in the office’ policy.

‘Just the usual. It’s actually not so much her this time, it’s William Dey’.

‘The new reporter from London? I’ve heard of him, he’s supposed to be really talented. Do you… like working with him?’

She tried to sound casual, but something about the way Kara had said the name made Lena’s hackles rise. As if this was someone who mattered. As if...

‘No. I think he might be evil’.

The response was so unexpected that it startled a laugh out of Lena. It was not at all the direction she had been imagining this would go, and she couldn’t help a little rush of gladness on realising that she wasn’t going to have to listen to Kara gush about her new crush for the next half hour. She might not want her that way herself anymore, but that didn’t mean she would relish hearing about her attraction to someone else.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Well, to start with he rewrote my article’.

‘He must be stopped!’

Kara chuckled. ‘Okay yes, that bit is more of a petty grudge, but it was a good article, and he puff-i-fied it. It’s not just that though. He always seems to be right behind me, waiting for me to trip up so he can make me look bad and himself look good in front of Andrea. I thought he was just an ambitious ass, but now I think there’s something more going on. Today he pushed us away from a story about the unexpected death of a genetic engineer I interviewed last year. He claimed he’d looked into it and there was nothing suspicious, but… I don’t know. I can’t say why, but I am almost certain he was lying’.

Lena paused then, fingers hovering over the dial she had been about to adjust up to the next dosage level, no longer finding the whole thing so funny.

‘Wait, when you said you think he might be evil – was that just hyperbole or were you being literal?’

‘I honestly don’t know. Evil might be putting it too strongly, but there is something there, and if he really is covering up a murder I don’t think he can be one of the good guys’.

‘Kara, this sounds like it could be dangerous’. And you are not invulnerable right now.

‘Don’t worry, I’m being careful, and James and Nia have been helping me out’.

‘Hmm… Well, if there’s anything I can do to help please let me know. I have a lot of connections that could be useful, and I’d hate for any of you to get hurt over this’.

That didn’t count as getting too involved, right? Not if Lena was the one in control of the offer, and it was over something that could be a genuine danger to people at Catco. A danger to Kara.

‘Thanks, I will’.

Kara was quiet for a little while after that, staring up at the pictures above her. She kept her head perfectly still as instructed, but after a couple of minutes her fingers started fidgeting with the cord of her hoodie, wrapping it round and round her pinkie so that the tip went almost painfully red, until at last she appeared to come to some decision and broke the silence.

‘Lena?’

Her voice shook slightly, and Lena looked up at once, instantly alert, though apart from a slightly elevated heart rate none of the monitors suggested anything physically wrong.

‘What is it, do you need to stop?’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s…’

She paused, releasing her pinkie from its strangulation to reveal white ridges in the flesh where the cord had been digging in, only to start wrapping it round her ring finger instead.

‘We haven’t really talked about… you know. What happened between us. And I wondered if maybe we should’.

‘Oh’.

They had been studiously avoiding any mention of the fight ever since their first lunch date, and Lena had assumed they would continue to do so. It had been something she was both angry about and grateful for as they had started spending more and more time together, because Kara should care. She should think about it, and be sorry for it, and want to make amends for what she had done. But at the same time, there were no amends that could be made, and pretending it had never happened made it easier to build a small, temporary reality in which they were friends again without any of the baggage of their past.

For all Lena had idly imagined them having a deep heart-to-heart about everything when it was just an unlikely hypothetical, faced with the possibility of doing it for real her adrenaline levels spiked as if Kara had suggested they should jump into a volcano. In fact, Lena wasn’t sure she wouldn’t prefer the volcano, if it came to it. It would probably hurt less.

‘I’m not sure what there is left to say about it’.

It came out less certain than she had hoped it would, and although Kara couldn’t turn her head to look properly at her, her eyes swivelled, seeking a contact that Lena wouldn’t allow herself to offer.

‘Don’t get me wrong, I am so, so grateful that we’re friends again and the last thing I want to do is jeopardise that in any way, but I think I might have made you uncomfortable before, and maybe we should talk about that and work it through’.

‘I’m not uncomfortable’.

The last time Lena had been this uncomfortable was after wearing brand new four inch stiletto heels for sixteen hours straight with what had later turned out to be a fractured toe.

Kara continued to pull at her hoodie string, the fabric of the hood bunching as she tugged it too hard to one side, but despite her own evident discomfort she didn’t back down.

‘Okay… I guess I just- I’ve been trying to just accept it because I so badly want us to be back to normal, but honestly I don’t understand how you can just forgive me after I hurt you the way I did. I’m not sure I really deserve it’.

I can’t forgive you. I don’t forgive you.

That was the answer she was supposed to mean (but not say), and while it was still there, it came less easily than it should have. Because of course she hadn’t forgiven the Kara that had spent years betraying every moment of their friendship… But this Kara, as she was now? Well, her maybe Lena could forgive…

Maybe she already had.

She kept her eyes on her monitor, fiddling unnecessarily with a dial to buy herself a few more seconds (though in fact she was doing nothing more than messing with the volume control for an unplugged pulse oximeter’s low oxygen alarm) as she struggled silently to formulate a response that would placate Kara without risking everything she had worked for to get them to this point. This had been so much easier with Alex. The stakes were lower for one thing, because even if they had found there way back to a more or less amicable working relationship, what Alex Danvers thought of her was never something that Lena would lose sleep over. But Kara? Despite everything, Lena still cared far too much to take this lightly.

And of course even if the subject hadn’t been too raw to be touched, it would be hard to have an honest conversation when they were talking about two different fights, and Lena didn’t even know what one of them was supposed to have been about. It did occur to her that with some careful probing this might be the perfect opportunity to find out, but something in her shied away from attempting it. Whatever it was, it would come too close to the ragged hole at the core of her being, and the only way to stop that wound from bleeding was to keep the tourniquet she had made for it firmly in place.

No, talking about it wouldn’t do either of them any good.

‘I appreciate you saying that Kara, but I think we should just draw a line under the whole thing and move on. We can’t change what happened in the past. All we can decide now is where we go from here, and how we can do better by each other this time’.

She was consciously echoing Alex’s (well, probably Kelly-via-Alex’s) sentiment from a few days before, and while she knew that using it in the context of sweeping hurt feelings under the rug would probably not have been the original intention, it seemed to work. Lena watched from the corner of her eye as Kara finally let go of her hoodie cord and allowed her hand to fall back against her stomach, losing some of the nervous tension from her posture as she did so.

‘Alright. I do want us to move forward’.

‘So do I’.

For now.

After that Lena nudged the conversation back towards safer territory, and they talked about the pictures on the ceiling and where in the world they had been taken, then moved on to a game of where-would-I-rather-be-right-now. Kara wanted somewhere with a clear view of stars, and Lena offered up Jasper National Park in Canada, which was a dark sky preserve and far enough north for a good chance of seeing the aurora borealis into the bargain. Lena decided she was in the mood for somewhere cool and green, far from the sticky heat of the city, and Kara suggested Hallerbos Forest in Belgium, which at this time of year should be thickly carpeted in bluebells (this was something she probably shouldn’t have known about without her ability to fly around the world in mere minutes, and Lena had been momentarily alert for the possibility of a returning memory, until Kara added offhandedly that she had come across it during research for an article on the global disappearance of wild spaces).

They carried on in this way, and bit by bit Lena relaxed into it, until they were back to a place that felt mostly normal. By the end of the thirty minutes they were up to 12 biohertz with no signs of any ill effects to Kara, either on the scan or in the questionnaire she filled out after the cap had been removed, and all in all it had been a successful first run. There was admittedly no difference to the black S on Kara’s scan, or any indication of returning memories or powers (assuming otherwise-explicable knowledge of the flora of north-western Europe didn’t count) but that was only to be expected at this early stage.

While Kara was dealing with the mess the Q-wave cap had made of her hair in the next room, Lena sent a quick summary of the first session results over to ‘Annie’, promising the full write up once she was back at home.

Then she and Kara went out for ice cream.

Cherry Garcia for her, a double scoop of cookie dough and rocky road for Kara.

And whether it was down to Kara’s acknowledgement of the hurt she had caused, or simply the relief of something cool and creamy after all the unseasonable heat they had been having, it was the best ice cream Lena had had in years.

[theinternetisaweboflies]

Jägermeister

Chapter Nineteen: Rivalry

“That was not Newt Oji-chan.”

“Of course it wasn't,” said Hermann. His voice was rough, but not from being choked. Newton had barely started to squeeze before he was restrained by medical staff. “He didn't speak.”

They were on the flight back to the Hong Kong Shatterdome, Newton sedated and restrained to a gurney only a meter away. 

By the time they reached the Shatterdome, the Four Seasons Hangzhou had forwarded the results of Newton’s MRI. All those top-dollar doctors, and all they were able to discern conclusively was that the swelling in his brain had become so severe that it was pressing up against his skull. 

Newton was placed in a medically-induced coma until the encephalitis could regress. The doctors administered anesthesia, monitoring his brain activity via EEG until it reached the target level. The anesthetic suppressed his respiratory drive, so he also had to be intubated.

They all took shifts watching over him, even though he had a dedicated medic with him at all times. Marshal Hansen himself took the first shift, after ordering them all to take naps, or at least showers. Hermann took the second shift after doing neither. Tendo supplied the coffee. 

A day passed, and the swelling did not go down.

Eddie the medic attempted to distract them all with photographs of his gravid gecko in her nesting box. He had decorated it with a miniature banner that read, “It’s a gecko!”

Another day passed, and the swelling did not go down. 

Dr. Lightcap came out of retirement to consult, and while Hermann had once been accused of going ‘full fangirl’ by Newton when they heard her speak at a conference in 2021, he now found himself unjustly frustrated with her for not having any answers either. 

Another day passed, and the swelling did not go down. 

Dr. Lightcap recommended a controlled drift. 

It was theoretically possible to establish a neural link despite the anesthesia, though it had never been attempted before. Many medically-induced coma patients reported vivid dreams, interpreting their surroundings through a surreal filter. Some believed they were taking part in the conversations carried on over their head. Others experienced the application of ice packs as nightmares about going down with the Titanic. 

At first, Hermann was vehemently opposed to Dr. Lightcap’s recommended treatment. It seemed too much like what had been done to Newton in captivity, but he knew that was not entirely accurate. They would not be forcing Newton to drift with a kaiju. They would be forcing him to drift with Hermann. 

It was with some trepidation that Hermann donned the squid cap and listened to Dr. Lightcap count down from three. 

The hive mind felt almost omnipresent. Everything shone with the heat shimmer of an orange sun, dark at the center, like the theoretical ‘dark star’ of Newtonian mechanics. Everything echoed with their clicking, like a million ticking War Clocks. Everything hissed. 

Newton’s presence in his own mind was little more than a whisper, but Hermann followed that whisper as though it was played by Pied Piper. 

He saw more of Newton’s memories. Getting all As. Getting a few Bs on purpose to fit in better. Getting nearly waterboarded, by several boys significantly his senior, in an MIT toilet stall, if the graffiti on the door was anything to go by. Hermann hadn’t even known ‘swirlies’ existed in real life, let alone at a private institute of higher learning, even if it was American. 

Then he saw a rabbit.

Hermann did not see a Random Access Brain Impulse Trigger. 

He saw Bugs Bunny.

“What’s up, Doc?” asked Bugs, a carrot sticking out of his mouth like it was a stogie. 

“I beg your pardon?” asked Hermann, more out of habit than anything else. 

Bugs Bunny suddenly cocked his head to the side, one ear perfectly erect. 

Hermann could hear something too, just the barest strains of music rising over all the clicking and hissing. It was Wagner. A piece from Die Walküre.

Bugs Bunny turned and started to follow the music.

So Hermann followed the rabbit. 

Bugs ducked into a bulkhead style corridor that twisted, turned, and forked before letting out into a theater. It was a gorgeous auditorium, with a proscenium stage, red velvet curtains, and a grand chandelier. The seats were all empty, but a woman was performing onstage. 

Hermann recognized her as Newton’s mother, Monica Schwartz. Her photograph had been easier to come by than Newton’s own when their correspondence first started. She looked too beautiful to be fully real, and Hermann knew that was because Newton remembered her primarily from photographs as well. 

Her voice was equally beautiful, but there was a very insistent part of Hermann that hated it with an intense and fiery passion. 

Bugs Bunny began applauding loudly even though the piece was nowhere near completion. When Hermann turned to look at him, Bugs shrugged and said, "Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?"

Then he played dead, performing a teetering twirl on the spot before falling over in full rictus. When Hermann continued to stare at him, Bugs cracked open one eye, and pointed an ear towards the stage. “I think Brünnhilde is up there. Watch out for the flames though. This whole place is burning.”

Even Hermann could follow a cue so overt. He climbed the steps onto the stage, where he was thoroughly ignored by Monica Schwartz. The backstage led to another bulkhead passage, this time with only one egress. 

Hermann emerged in a small room. It was sparsely furnished, but heavily decorated. The walls were covered with photographs, documents, and handwritten notes, all connected by red string tied around push pins like some sort of particularly intricate spider’s web. 

The photographs were all of Hermann. The documents were his academic papers. The handwritten notes were unmistakably his correspondence with Newton.

Newton was in the middle of it all, standing on both a chair and the tips of his toes to add more string. A row of pushpins was held between his pursed lips and he was humming, more or less along with the Wagner, but at twice its actual tempo. 

“Newton!” 

He startled, spitting pins and nearly falling off his chair. 

“Christ on a cock, Hermann! What are you doing here?”

“I'm here to save you,” said Hermann, like  a complete prat.

Newton rolled his eyes, which were not shot with blood the way they were in the real world. Hermann wondered if he even knew how badly he had been hurt.

“That's…. great. The NPCs have developed free will, and I have apparently developed a damsel-in-distress complex. I appreciate the initiative, Ghost Hermann. I really do, but I don't think you can do anything I can do better. I'm supposed to be in charge here, at least if you listen to the Existentialists. Although I don't think either one of us likes them.”

Hermann had tuned out, more or less on instinct, after ‘NPC,’ but he got the gist. Newton thought he was a figment of his imagination. Hermann might have corrected this misapprehension if he wasn’t so distracted by the decor.

“What is this place?”

Newton winced. “Wow, this is just as humiliating as I always imagined, even though neither of us is a real boy. Still, I guess it beats talking to myself. I do a pretty good Hermann, if I don't mind me saying so.”

“So, this is…” Hermann knew there were more important topics of conversation, but it was difficult to focus on anything else when he was looking at a photograph of himself offering Mako-chan his fifth attempt at omurice, complete with a crooked ketchup smile drawn on top to match his own. 

Hermann was reasonably certain  no such photograph existed in the real world. Newton had attempted to take one, but Hermann had confiscated his phone in protest. Apparently, he had captured it in his memory instead. 

Newton  referred to his memory as ‘semi-eidetic,’ but Hermann had always argued that ‘selectively-eidetic’ would be more apt. 

Apparently, he had selected Hermann. 

Repeatedly. 

There were photographs of Hermann writing on his chalkboards, drinking Jägermeister, arguing. There was a photograph of the day they met, before it all went wrong. There was another one of the day they drifted, before it all went wrong again. 

“This is the Hermann Cave! The real you wouldn't get that, so pretend you don't, for authenticity’s sake.”

Hermann didn't have to pretend. 

“I made this room to hide from the Precursors. I mean, sure, technically they know exactly where to find me, but they don't like coming here. It’s not even because of Mom— She’s just the perimeter guard. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they hate opera, but it turns out there's something they hate even more.”

“Oh?” 

“Love,” said Newton. “They hate love! They’re not even homophobic. They hate all love equally. See I've got sections for Dad, Uncle Illia, Mako-chan, and the Frog Formerly Known as Prince, may he rest in peace. So sure, Hermann Cave is technically a misnomer, but it’s also hilarious.”

Surely enough, the pictures on the wall did seem to include several photos of Mako by herself, Jacob and Illia Geiszler, and an African Dwarf Frog. 

“They really hate the romantic kind though,” Newton was saying, “and they really, really hate the sappy, song-writing, decades-of-pining kind I've got for you. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly why love is such an anathema for the Precursors. My working hypothesis is that they can’t comprehend sacrifice for something that’s not a part of themselves. Don’t quote me on that though. It might just be like Kryptonite.”

“Oh,” said Hermann. “Oh.”

Before he could say anything else, he was forcibly ejected from the drift. Everything seemed to freeze, like a lagging computer, and then he was back in the Medical Bay of the Hong Kong Shatterdome, surrounded by anxious faces. 

“Your heart-rate spiked,” said Tendo. “Like, a lot.”

It took Hermann a moment to catch his breath, and even then, all he could manage to say was, “Yes, I imagine it did.”

...

@lastdaysofwar

[verdart]

I work in a cognitive science lab (internship) and we need to put a 64 channel eeg cap on the patients and all I can think of is the invisible string thing Larson's basment monster put on people. I need to stop. I CAN'T TAKE MY SELF SERIOUSLY LIKE THIS!!

Edit: for reference this is exactly what it looks like (the same model we have and what do you mean its 4 months rent in price I wash that thing in my hands dont do this to me ;-;)

[neuphony9]

Have you ever struggled to stay focused or found yourself easily distracted? Many people face these challenges in today’s fast-paced world. But what if there was a way to harness the power of your brainwaves to improve your focus and attention? That’s where EEG insights come in

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #91

Today is day 3 of soup brain. But it's really my own fault. I ended up going to bed a couple hours too late last night, and waking up early to go to therapy, and in so doing, getting only 6 hours of sleep. I used to be "able to function" on very little sleep when I was in college. But "able to function" is in quotes, because in those days, I lacked any real sense of self-awareness regarding how deficits in my ability to care for myself impacted my ability to manage my own emotions and thus how I showed up in the world and functioned in my relationships with other people. I was in denial about the extent to which I was affected by sleep deprivation, and that denial manifested as total obliviousness to those effects and an inability to see the the impact, instead assuming that being depressed, anxious, and irritable were simply facets of my personality.

You know what sleep is for, yeah? Well. For myriad reasons, you can't answer me. Maybe you do, or maybe you don't know what it's for. But I like explaining things, so I'm gonna write about it either way; too bad. 😜🤣

It begins with brain science. I like to affectionately refer to brains as "electric meatballs"; they're essentially big electrochemical lumps of fat stuck behind a bone wall. And there's A LOT going on all up in there. A brain is made of specialized cells that connect to other specialized cells by branching out every which way. These cells communicate to one another with electrochemical signals. At any given time, there's enough electricity going on in the brain that we can detect and measure it just by wearing fancy equipment on our scalps, like EEG caps and stuff. Nowadays, we even have toys that can be clumsily controlled by brainwaves. It's wild stuff.

At the most basic level, our thoughts and emotions are influenced by how effectively our brains produce and use various different kinds of hormones, nutrients, and neurotransmitters. Our thoughts and emotions also influence which kinds of neurotransmitters end up getting produced, which ones flow where, which cells are most receptive to different kinds of electrochemical stimulation, and all that jazz.

With all that stuff going on, the spaces between our neurons can get clogged up with various kinds of debris. And that's a problem, because this debris interferes with electrochemical signaling, interferes with our brain's ability to make new connections between neurons, interferes with the ability of oxygen, nutrients, and fluids to get to where they need to get. Naturally, this has negative impacts on our ability to think logically, to regulate our emotions, to learn, to use our body and our senses, and to feel good in general. And what's more, a brain that's all gunked up and filthy with debris is a brain that is more likely to default to (and fail to resist succumbing to) the instinctual behaviors written into our amygdala.

So when we reach the appropriate section of our sleep cycle, the spaces between our neurons expand and our whole entire electric meatball is flushed clean with cerebrospinal fluid so that our brains can once more function in the way that it's supposed to. Because if debris keeps piling up, eventually it starts to interfere with even more important functions than our higher ones - think stuff like "there's so much debris that it's interfering with the brain signals that cause the heart to beat", and then we end up taking a premature dirt nap.

So ah… the negative impacts of lack of sleep? That's absolutely NOT a "willpower" thing. That is literally a chemical and physics thing. It is a fluid dynamics thing. No amount of "willpower" is ever gonna make water flow properly through a tunnel if that tunnel is clogged up with trash, logs, dead leaves, and rotting fish, right? It's the same deal with brains - the best a person can do if they've not allowed their brain to properly clean itself is be in denial about how negatively impacted they are as they run around being a miserable fucking crankypants with everyone they meet and acting like that's normal even though it's not.

What's super baffling is the number of people in my world who STILL think that sleep is for the "weak", or that sleep is not in any way essential, or that they should be unaffected by missing a few hours. Sleep is not a fucking luxury; it is a BASIC NEED. People don't prove how "tough" or "hardworking" or "morally superior" they are by bragging about how long they can go without sleep, or about how little sleep they think they can "function" on; all it does is betray their ignorance about basic biological, physical, and chemical principles. And it's absolutely fucking bananas - B, A, N, A, N, A, S.

But wait! It gets even hairier!

So there are a couple of hormones responsible for the sleep/wake cycle. The primary hormone is melatonin. And while the production of melatonin is significantly influenced by light (blue light will interfere with its production, for example), the fact remains that under ordinary circumstances, melatonin is run on a fairly strict timer. This timer is called the circadian rhythm. And it's FUCKING IMPORTANT, because going to sleep before the melatonin is produced and then waking up earlier than usual interferes with the whole "brain cleaning" cycle thing. And staying awake past the production of melatonin ALSO interferes with the whole "brain cleaning" cycle thing. And what you get as a result of this is that even a deviation of 30 minutes from a person's typical sleep time, in either direction, ends up causing the "brain cleaning" cycle to not do its thing as efficiently as it should. The cumulative effects of this over time are catastrophic. We're talking things like, "hormone disruption" and "brain damage", and all kinds of other nasty stuff.

What's more, if you're dehydrated, your body fluids are gonna flow like sludge and not do their jobs properly, and that includes stuff like blood and cerebrospinal fluid. Put it this way: would you rather clean your house's gutters with water or with molasses? 'Cuz I'll tell you what, molasses sure as heck ain't gonna do the damn job. So how well do you suppose your cerebrospinal fluid is gonna dislodge debris if it's flowing like molasses because you ain't drank enough water? Tell you what, it ain't gonna be pretty. And sure you'll sleep, but you're still gonna feel like crap when you wake up.

And don't even get me STARTED on sleep apnea and the hows and whys surrounding the ways it fucks people up over time. It's a huge freaking mess. Untreated sleep apnea kills people because the constant need to partially wake interrupts the brain cleaning cycle, which means that it never gets cleaned properly if at all, which causes debris buildup, which interferes with the flow of brain chemicals and electricity, and all of this is damaging.

Depending on how bad it is, it can take weeks to recover from a single night of disrupted sleep. So uh… yeah. If you wonder why I get so pissed when I think about your weeklong stint in that damnable library in which you refused to eat, drink, and sleep in favor of hyperfocusing on reading a bunch of wildly inaccurate and outdated books? Don't wonder, because THIS IS WHY. You CANNOT do this to yourself and then still expect yourself to be able to freaking function!! No matter HOW you were modified, no matter HOW efficiently your body supposedly runs, THIS IS STILL NOT HOW PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY WORK.

Goddammit, Sephiroth, war hero or not, YOU ARE STILL A SQUISHY MAMMAL. Like LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE OTHER HUMAN, you are an overcomplicated monkey with WAY too much anxiety. Even if you NEVER treat yourself like some kind of automaton ever again, it'll STILL be too soon. And at that, EVEN AUTOMATONS REQUIRE REGULAR MAINTENANCE. You somehow managed to treat yourself as though you are worth less than even an inanimate object, and then you STILL expected yourself to function! I love you and all, but still, there is not a large enough number of times I can ask you "what the fuck??" in response to this and have ANY answer you give me feel satisfactory!

For fuck's sake, PLEASE promise me that you'll never do that to yourself again. Someone with as much raw power as you CANNOT afford to go into meltdown like that. Someone with as much raw power as you CANNOT afford to go into a mental breakdown! You CANNOT afford to be triggered SO HARD that you dissociate and mindlessly follow your instinctual behaviors! You of all people HAVE to make sure your self-care game is on point, because if you don't, then like ANY HUMAN BEING, you're not going to be able to keep your shit together when things get painful and weird! You of all people HAVE to make sure that you actually acknowledge, feel, process, and get support for your emotions instead of denying them and bottling them up, because if you don't, you're gonna explode later, like ANY HUMAN BEING.

I know you have a LONG history of being mistreated by other people, but Sephiroth, that doesn't mean you gotta freaking mirror them to the point that you become your own enemy! You have a lot of power, but you still are subject to human emotional limitations, so you HAVE to treat yourself with kindness and respect, because when someone with an exceptionally able body like you gets so overwhelmed that you lash out, other people end up paying the price in far more devastating and permanent ways than what is typical! You HAVE to act responsibly with your power, and part of that responsibility is making sure you aren't complicit in pushing yourself to the point that you break!

…So don't do stuff like that anymore, okay? You gotta do better next time. You deserve better than that. And the people around you deserve better than that, too. Use what I wrote to motivate you to treat sleep as though it's important. Because it is. I'll try to do a better job of treating it like it's important, too - starting with tonight. I promise. So let's do it together, okay?

Speaking of which, I'm gonna go do that. Because, despite what this huge infodump might seem to imply, my brain is still soup, and I gotta do my best to rectify that so I don't end up accidentally taking it out in the people around me like some kind of confused derpasaurus.

I love you and I'll write to you again very soon.

Your friend, Lumine

[warningsine]

I've seen The Departed twice, but I still don't understand it. The first time I watched it, I was utterly confused, and the plot still didn't make much sense on the second viewing. I know exactly why this is – it's because I find it very hard to tell the difference between Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. I've been told that this might have something to do with the "other-race effect," which makes it difficult for us to identify people of other races or ethnic groups. But I'm not so sure – I can easily distinguish Robert DeNiro from Jack Nicholson, or Humphrey Bogart from Cary Grant.

Nevertheless, the other race effect is a well established phenomenon that we've known about for nearly a hundred years. "To the uninitiated American," wrote Gustave Feingold in 1914, "all Asiatics look alike, while to the Asiatics, all White men look alike."

But why does this happen? It could be because we have more experience of members of our own race and so find it easier remembering their faces. Or it could be because people of other races are generally perceived to have fewer unique personal attributes and, therefore, to have more in common with one another. These explanations aren't mutually exclusive, and two recent studies provide evidence for both. In the first of these studies, Heather Lucas and her colleagues of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University recruited 18 white female undergraduates and showed them colour photographs of the faces of white, black, Hispanic and east and south Asian adult men, presented in random order on a computer screen. The participants were asked to pay close attention to the faces and try to remember them for a recognition test. Afterwards, they were shown some of the same faces again, as well as some new ones, and asked to indicate whether or not they had seen each one before.

Participants wore an elastic electroencephalography (EEG) cap containing 59 electrodes, so that the electrical activity of their brains could be recorded throughout the experiment. The researchers focused on two event-related potentials, or neural responses associated with particular events – the N200 potential, which is recorded from the frontal lobes and associated with encoding of novel visual stimuli, and the P2 potential in the junction of the occipital and parietal lobes, which is thought to be sensitive to the characteristic features of a stimulus and, in this case, may be associated with extraction of facial features.

As expected, the participants recognised same-race faces more accurately than other-race faces, and this corresponded with larger N200 and P2 responses during the first phase of the experiment. Similarly, other-race faces that were accurately recognised evoked larger N200 and P2 responses than those which were later forgotten. Moreover, the researchers could predict which faces would be accurately recognised during the recall phase from the brain responses alone.

Why were some of the other-race faces recognised more accurately than others? The researchers hypothesised that some might be more distinctive than others, leading to better encoding of unique facial features, and ran a second experiment to test the idea. This time, they showed the same photos to 96 different white females, and asked them to rate how distinctive, stereotypical and approachable each one was, on a scale of one to five. Afterwards, the participants performed the same face recognition test as in experiment one.

In general, other-race faces were rated as being more stereotypical than same-race faces, but those perceived to be more distinctive were rated as less stereotypical. Faces expressing a positive emotion were rated as more stereotypical and approachable, regardless of race. Not surprisingly, the researchers found a relationship between distinctiveness ratings and accuracy of recognition – the more distinctive a face, the more likely it was to be accurately recognised later on.

Analysis of the electrophysiological data revealed that the other-race faces rated as being less stereotypical or more distinctive evoked larger N200 and P2 responses, compared to other-race faces that were rated as less distinctive or undistinctive. By contrast, stereotypicality ratings of same-race faces were not reflected in the neural responses.

Lucas and her colleagues believe this is the first study to correlate electrophysiological recordings with memory performance for other-race faces. They interpret the results to mean that same-race faces are encoded elaborately, with an emphasis on the unique facial features that help us to distinguish one person from another. For other-race faces, however, this individuating information is encoded less robustly. Consequently, we have a poorer memory for other-race faces, and are therefore less likely to recognise them or to distinguish between them. Distinctive other-race faces appear to be an exception, however, and may be processed in a similar way to same-race faces.

The other study comes from Robert Caldara's lab at the University of Glasgow, and looks at how the brain's responses change with repeated exposure to same-race and other-race faces. The brain is well known to adapt to familiar stimuli, so that the neural activity evoked by them decreases with repeated exposure to them. Faces evoke a larger N170 response in the occipital and temporal lobes than other visual stimuli, but the size of this response decreases when the same face is seen again.

Caldara's group recruited 12 white and 12 east Asian participants, and used EEG to monitor the N170 response while they viewed sequences of two faces. In each sequence, the faces were either white or east Asian; some sequences consisted of the same face with a different expression, while others contained faces of two different people. The participants were simply asked to indicate whether or not the two faces in each sequence were the same.

Both groups of participants found it more difficult to identify the other-race faces. This was reflected in the neural activity, too – the N170 response was significantly decreased when participants viewed same-race faces a second time, but not when they saw other-race faces again. Interestingly, the neural responses obtained when the white participants saw the same east Asian face twice were no different from those obtained when they saw two different white faces.

The other-race effect has been consistently observed in whites, but these findings suggest that it may be a generalised response that occurs in people of all races. Caldara and his colleagues put forward an explanation for the "all look alike" phenomenon, based on their findings. The N170 is an early response to visual stimuli, which occurs in a time window associated with categorising objects. The researchers therefore suggest that the other-race effect may occur because the brain encodes other-race faces primarily according to the racial group they belong to, rather than by distinguishing features.

Another factor that is likely to contribute to the other-race effect is familiarity – or, rather, lack thereof. In a 2003 study, researchers showed black and white participants from South Africa and England photographs of black and white faces and then asked them if they had seen each of the faces before. Both groups identified same-race faces more accurately than other-race faces, but some of the black participants could accurately identify white faces.

This was directly related to the amount of inter-race contact – the black participants who were best at recognising other-race faces were students who came into regular contact with whites at university. Feingold had hit the nail on the head in his 1914 paper: "Individuals of a given race are distinguishable from each other in proportion to our familiarity, to our contact with the race as whole."

How, then, can my failure to tell the difference between Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio be explained? It's clearly not because I think all white people look alike – I've been surrounded by them for most of my life, having lived in London for over 30 years. A more likely explanation is that I haven't seen enough of their films to recognise the facial features that others use to tell them apart. Or perhaps they're just not very distinctive, and look very similar to one another.

References Lucas, HD et al. (2011). Why some faces won't be remembered: brain potentials illuminate successful versus unsuccessful encoding for same-race and other-race faces. Frontiers of Human Neuroscience. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2011.00020 Vizioli, L et al. (2010). Neural repetition suppression to identity is abolished by other-race faces. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1005751107 Wright, DB et al. (2003). Inter-racial Contact and the Own-race Bias for Face Recognition in South Africa and England. Applied Cognitive Psychology. DOI: 10.1002/acp.898