#he has connected dots and neural pathways | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

limitedrevolverworks · 7 years ago

Text

My Mother 2.0 [2]

[Chapter 1]

Above all else, it’s the silence that that he cannot comprehend.

A deep quiet fills his ears, flooding with a silence so paradoxically deafening. Mere instinct reaches out as best it can, grasping for the slightest vibration it could feed to eardrums sorely starving for that hint of familiarity, but all it can scoop out of the stale air is an utter anomaly it doesn’t know what to make of. The frightening shadow of an indecipherable unknown looms over him, daring his powerless, broken shell to do something, anything about it that he obviously cannot. He could chalk it up to the numbness that seems to envelop his entire being, from the smallest atom to the very thoughts produced by his half-comatose brain, but even in his stupor, the boy knows better. And of all the interrogatives pressing down on him, this one feels the most daunting precisely because he can blame it on himself, rather than some factor outside the scope of his perceptions. It’s a minuscule, vibrant spark of audacity that the very mind culpable for its creation regards it with cautious hesitation, unable to fathom its own ability to birth it. For a time that his diluted consciousness desperately stretches into a seeming eternity, the child refuses to acknowledge the one truth he could process, choosing instead to wallow in an uncertain oblivion that is at least partially of his own making. It’s a long, drawn out, tiresome battle, a silent war fought without weapons, a peaceful, stubborn conflict where nothing happens aside from waiting, waiting.

Waiting.

He doesn’t realize the gradually shifting tide of his struggle until his sole serviceable eye timidly spreads open to brave the unknown sight that has been waiting all along for his acceptance.

Now, the boy finally admits it: that the very unknown he should fear, he very much welcomes far more than anything he’s ever been acquainted with.

And so…

At last…

Time begins to flow anew.

“Hey now, awake alread-D-D-D-D-D-y? Go figure.”

The rapidfire barrage of glitchy reverb is interspersed between words that sound like they’re rattling within a box made of thin metallic sheets. The auditory concoction stampedes its way through the child’s hearing with all the grace of a bombardment and hurting twice as much.

It’s odd, though.

Common sense etched deep inside tells him that the optimal response should involve either lots of thrashing and screaming, or curling into a ball and quietly begging for it to end. There’s the fact that the neural pathways in charge of his muscles are currently fueled with a thick, uncrossable gel paste-like form of paralysis, but that’s not the whole of it. The pain is far from pleasant, yet it conveys a clear message - that he is alive, and not anywhere he would recognize. One of these two conclusions fills him with something akin to relief; the other, not so much.

It’s hard for the boy to decide which corresponds to which. He decides that, for the time being, a better way to keep busy what few of his brain cells are awake would be deciphering exactly what it is that he’s staring at.

Through the fog blanketing his vision, the child sees grey lips, framed by a shade of dull blue well on its way to fading into the latter color. The plated shape gives him the impression that it must be a helmet covering the rest of the stranger’s face, but the two halves hug each other so harmoniously to form a solid mass that he questions this interpretation, despite any other making little sense. He seeks answers in the single black strip cutting into the superior portion: the bright red dot swimming inside it, however, dumps only more questions onto a pile that has already grown rather healthy.

His eye begins to burn, reminding him of such a basic need as blinking that he’d seemingly forgotten in his stupor. The boy’s eyelid trembles: will it manage to arise once more, after it’s fallen? The darkness was daunting, but he felt safe within its embrace. It tasted different from the one he’s grown accustomed to - ah, hold on, that’s not quite right.

As more and more of his consciousness tears itself free from its sleepy cocoon, the child begins to make sense of his own thoughts. He understands that it’s not quite that his unconsciousness felt safe in and of itself - rather, it’s what he feels now, after he’s already gotten out of it. Knowledge informs his less rational side, rewriting his immediate past in light of the present. It’s the fact that he knows what comes after the darkness, that leads him to trust it for the first time his short, young life. And for how utterly fruitless his attempts at making heads or tails of his present predicament may be, he has no doubt that he prefers it to the routine that preceded it.

Lingering for a long, drawn-out second more on the thing that may or may not be a face, the boy tells himself that he has nothing to lose anyway. And in the simple act of blinking once, he perceives the rush of an emotion he’s never known he could harbor.

If he’d ever had any conception of it, the child could relish in his first taste of freedom.

“Do yourself a fa-A-A-A-A-A-vor and don’t move, will you?”

More words come out from a mouth that doesn’t move to spell them. The boy speaks his obedience with silent immobility: at the end of the day, old habits are too stubborn to lie down and let themselves die; he receives a nod for his effort, or lack thereof.

“Not that you can move an-N-N-N-N-yway.”

From the corner of his vision, the boy witnesses what seems to be a shoddy impression of a shrug from a pair of stiff shoulders that must have been made for anything but.

“Had to strap you good in case these aneS-S-S-S-S-thetics failed to do their job, and what do you kno-O-O-O-O-w? Never trust chemic-C-C-C-C-als a couple centuries past their expiration date, kid.”

Peeling off the various layers of noise and glitching haunting it, the voice digs out the impression that he’s been talked to by a woman, despite his eyes’ struggle to acquiesce with this conclusion. If what she’s wearing is a protective suit of sorts, it’s nothing like the ones he’s seen.

Panic threatens to seize him. Could they have transferred him to another research facility?

No! No!

He’d just begun to warm to the idea that perhaps, finally, it had all ended, but now that his lucidity has wrestled back control of his ability to process things properly, he wonders how he even came to that conclusion. His path had never, ever strayed from its repetitive course until that fateful day. Why, exactly, should he believe it to be the case now?

Foolish. Stupid stupid stupid! He dared dream for the first time ever, and he knows that all it did was set him up for greater anguish than he’s ever known. Because now, he has tasted hope. It’s far too late to retrieve the resignation that he cast away at a whim. He’s left himself vulnerable, discarded his fragile shell in the spur of a momentary madness. For all he knows, he’s left himself bare against a realm of suffering that could surpass anything he’s experienced. That is… that is…!

He wants to cry. To scream atop his lungs until his throat will have burned away along with what’s left of his sanity.

Burning…

His throat is burning. He feels a lump in it that has nothing to do with the one born from his desire to cry his heart out. The distraction is a tiny one, yet he clings to it as best he can, a minuscule island in an ocean of self-made terror. He notices now that the noise he was picking up while barely conscious is his own breathing. A ragged, drawn out sound like dusty wind sweeping off a gravelly path. The boy’s eye moves down on its own, seeking an explanation. It can only manage to pick up the vague shape of a cylindrical shape, jutting out of the edge where his pupil meets his lower lid. The woman bends aside so that her masked face can meet his gaze again, her head tilted even further to express what her “face” simply can’t.

“Yeah, that w-W-W-W-W-W-W-ould be the reason why you’re tied like a b-B-B-B-B-undle of rations. I can’t have you thrashing all ov-V-V-V-V-er the place with a tube sticking out of your throat… wait, hold on. Does it hurt? Those painkillers I stuffed you w-W-W-W-W-W-ith are three decades older than the anaesthetics.”

There’s a long, drawn out pause filled mostly with one-sided blinking, and little else.

“Oh! Right! Can’t move! Sorry, this one’s on me. hA-hA-hA-hA!”

For a moment, the boy thinks his… caretaker? Captor? Whoever that may be, the way her voice spazzes out at the end and her whole body shakes, it looks and sounds dangerously close to a seizure. It comes to an abrupt conclusion and a return to her very relative normality, which means… what exactly was that supposed to be?

“That’s a face you’re making there… well, half-F-F-F-F-F a face. Did I startle you, maybe? Sorry, faulty voice m-M-M-M-M-odule. Gave up trying to fix it a couple centuries ago, not worth the has-S-S-S-S-S-S-sle. You don’t find many conversational partn-N-N-N-N-N-ers around these parts, you know?”

He doesn’t, but then again it’s not like he can point that out.

“Anyway, anywa-A-A-A-A-A-y, I’ve just told the IV to inject you with another sleepytime cocktail, so sit tight and relax. You’re g-G-G-G-G-G-oing to be doing a lot of that, honestly, at least until I’m done downloading all this medical training software for the surgery.”

A metal-clad arm raises: at the end of it, fingers lightly curl around a wire that begins somewhere outside the boy’s scope, and ends in a rectangular protrusion connected to a similarly shaped hole in the side of the mysterious stranger’s neck. It makes about as much sense as anything else the child has learned about her, and he’s given up trying to put together all the clues he’s been given into a cohesive, discernible whole.

“I mean, a thracheos-S-S-S-S-S-tomy’s a piece of cake by itself. But anything beyond going stabby-stabby on your tr-R-R-R-R-R-R-achea is a tad more complicated than that. I haven’t half a clue what they’ve d-D-D-D-D-D-one to you up there in that big floaty world of theirs, but whatever it was, it made a mess of your throat. There was enough goop stuck in there I had to spend an hour drain-N-N-N-N-N-ing it to make sure you wouldn’t choke on it. I reckon that when my scanning module’s been updated, we’ll disc-C-C-C-C-C-over that the rest of your body’s even worse for the wear.”

Silence falls anew at the end of a series of informations that the boy tries to digest all at once. Half of his features are still perfectly usable, and could lend themselves to expressing what a metal visage cannot. But the child does not visibly react to the news given to him. His lips do not smile. His eye does nothing but look at the one speaking to him with a half-lidded stare, unsure of what to make of any of it, less of all his worry that this may be a prelude to a nightmare.

The boy is tired. He closes his eye, deciding to thrust himself to the darkness, and the infinitesimal chance of salvation hiding in it.

If he has any hope left in him now, it’s the old, familiar brand that cannot wait for his body to do away with itself.

Sensors that were state of the art back when they were made do their best to try and do what they weren’t built for. The staticity on the little human’s face brings up correspondences with old, untouched corners of her databases. Visual data from times long forgotten by those they begot, visions of broken husks of flesh and bone, deader than the corpses of their comrades. Some of those fallen to the very same iron-cast hands that have done their best to keep a lone boy from biting the bullet, based on what can only be defined a whim.

The automaton born of war kneels besides her guest, and wonders. She does so by sending microscopic sparks across a net of data swimming inside her artificial brain, in search of an act that no medicine or surgical procedure could emulate - a way to heal something other than a body.

Something comes up. A tiny possibility buried among billions of others, at the very edge of her range of intended abilities. Fragments of culture acquired for mere curiosity and to stave off whatever form of boredom a machine could even feel to begin with, knowledge thought obsolete until it came up in this very moment, suggesting a pattern that seems convincing enough to be put into tentative, awkward practice.

Thunk. Thunk.

The child raises his eyelid, startled. A gelid, hard sensation is spreading on his head, where his forehead gives way to his disheveled hairline, right next to where the chitinous substance has overtaken the rest of it.

His view is obscured by something. A shadow that robs his sight of light, only to let him seep through again, cyclically going through the motions while the sharp feeling becomes more defined against his skin. It’s only after the fifth time that the shadow finally relents and draws back enough for him to find its source, staring at him through a red, unblinking light.

“How is it? I’m not entirely confident since it’s my f-F-F-F-F-F-irst time, but apparently headpats are supposed to feel g-G-G-G-G-G-ood for young humans like you.”

Her hand approaches again, stopping short of reaching him. It reels back just enough that he can see the black band where her eye resides, and the mouth whose lips cannot flap, nor curl.

“You want me to stop?”

He hadn’t noticed it before, taken as he was with pretty much everything else assaulting his senses, but… there is something about this voice. Beyond the metallic-sounding raspiness, aside from the occasional slip into an ear-piercing torture, there is a tone about this voice that feels unmistakably reassuring.

It’s a rough, alien-feeling sort of softness.

The boy’s eye lingers on the hand hovering above him, shifting to the person staring back with what he decides must be expectation, then back to the hand.

The lid falls like a curtain, letting the centuries old anaesthetics do their job. If he wishes to protest, he doesn’t make the slightest attempt to show it.

As sleep beckons him back to its thoughtless cradle, the child hears it again. Thunk. Thunk. It’s cold, and hard, so much so that at the epicenter of it he can feel a sharp, prickly pain.

Yet somehow, he doesn’t mind.

#wordy seeds #Let's Meet the Robot

14 notes · View notes

azotus-worksheets · 4 years ago

Text

COGNITIVE SKILLS IN CHILDREN

“Thinking, learning, remembering and paying attention, is all made possible because of cognition”.

(Anderson & Reidy, 2012) claimed that a Research during the preschool period has shown that a working memory, motor skills, cognition building, language ability and emotional /social skills all develop at a quick rate when a child is young. The study aimed to objectify that the impact of the socially communicating environment on the cognitive development of the children is majorly influenced by the environment. The environment for the children proved to have a positive impact on the cognitive evolution of the children based on the activities that involved peer interaction.

Children develop cognitive skills rapidly in the first few years of their life!

When a pre-schooler enters into her new world of surprises and tries to explore new things, her brain establishes connections with everything that is around helping her intellect to grow. It is actually enthralling to observe how pre-schoolers learn to use language, mental descriptions and symbolic imaginations, tries to think about past and future events and also thinks about their well-being in a certain way. kids start to categorically express themselves and clutch to the mental activities, which includes emotions, motivation, intention and memory. As a Parent it’s my observation and experience that Keeping the interest of the pre-schoolers in mind the worksheets at Azotus offer a detailed overview of the cognitive development that takes place between the age group of 5-15.

Do you know how the brains of kids are Wired?

“Attention as cognitive skill is the process of choosing and focusing on a relevant stimulus”

Piaget the great psychologist believed that preschools are in a stage of development which is called as the preoperational thought. He described in detail how children in this stage showcase five characteristics that bound their ability to correctly interpret few information’s. He states that these characteristics are- perception-based thinking, unidimensional thought, irreversibility, transudative reasoning, and egocentrism

The children’s brains are simply like sponges, absorbing up the knowledge around. Actually, a better correspondence for the brain would be 3-D which connect-the-dots puzzle. According to the Nlp science, it’s important to know that the brain cells called neurons are represented by the dots. These neurons have “arms” called dendrites which make other neurons grow. These connections have a technical name called synapses. So, when a child interacts with his environment – learns something new- these synapses form bridges called neural pathways. The more the brain is activated through simulations, the more neural bridges are designed and the stronger the child’s intellect becomes thereby. If a child has an inclusive base of knowledge and information, he then has an increased ability to make the best use of his sense through his new experiences.

The kids Think/believe More Than What They Actually See?

“Memory plays a vital role in all cognitive processes”.

While Pre-schoolers still lack preoperational thinking, they are still making advancements in their cognitive abilities through symbolic thought. Symbolic thinking involves sign language, literacy and dramatic Role plays. Children strongly believe that sounds are linked together to make words and words represent ideas and develop certain kinds of beliefs. There are four main areas where progressions establish phonology/ pragmatics /syntax/ semantics. The Parents, teachers, caregivers can monitor kids' language development in these above areas where children struggle the most.

Pre-schoolers also learn that illustrations signify and symbolize events in a story narration. They develop to learn that the printed words are symbols for those ideas that crop up in their minds and thereby the meaning comes from the given text. When kids learn how to write, they eventually come to understand that letters are symbols for sounds and they try to derive a meaning through them.

“Any child could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain.”

It is said that within the cognitive processes, different cognitive skills are involved. Cognitive skills are the core skills the brain uses to think, learn, remember, reason and pay attention. These cognitive skills play a huge role in performing both big and complicated tasks as well as smaller and easier tasks such as reading/writing/learning/observing and experimenting. This is the reason why Azotus has come up with the interactive and cognitive based skill worksheets to develop and harness the logical ability of a child through a lot of visual information/quiz/puzzles/exercises/mental math games/grammar concepts /science quiz/reasoning skills brain games and much more.

Available at- https://www.amazon.in/s?k=azotus&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Written By-

Priyanka Ghosh

(Transformational Coach)

#math worksheets for kids #practice handwriting worksheets #preschool english worksheets #math worksheets preschool #Preschool science worksheet

0 notes

chocolatequeennk · 8 years ago

Text

To Make Much of Time recap

In the last four days before Forever and Never Apart begins, I’m going to do recap posts of each of the four main works in the series so far. Hopefully they’ll make you smile if you know the story, and possibly intrigue you if you haven’t read them. Each post will have a handful of crucial moments from the story, with a brief line of commentary on each scene about why it’s important to the series.

To Make Much of Time

AO3 | FF.net | Teaspoon | Tumblr

Summary: The Doctor thought he’d removed all traces of the Vortex from Rose, but there was still something of the Wolf about her. What would have changed if he’d been forced to face that–and if Rose had understood what she was becoming? Ten x Rose series 2 canon divergence and Doomsday fixit.

From chapter 2:

Once again, he saw himself kiss Rose. Then, as he laid her down on the floor, he noticed something he had failed to catch the first time around.

Rose wasn’t breathing.

The Doctor’s hearts stopped, and he stumbled over to an arm chair and sat down.

I am curious, Time Lord. You were the one who lowered her body to the floor. How did you fail to notice that she had died?

I was dying myself, he defended hotly.

And it didn’t occur to you that if the Vortex had killed you after only a minute, it must have killed a mere human? Rose Tyler held the Vortex within her for at least ten times the length of time you did.

The obviousness of it sank in. Of course the Vortex killed Rose. How could he have missed it? He groaned and tipped his head back, staring up at the blue ceiling.

Who are you?

I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself, and I cannot be uncreated.

This is one of my chief headcanons, and one of the reasons I believe so strongly in Bad Wolf!Rose. She should have died, and yet she didn’t. Eventually in this story, we learn that Rose’s biology was permanently altered during her time as Bad Wolf.

From chapter 3:

“But the TARDIS, she only communicates telepathically. So when you were Bad Wolf, together, she—or maybe the two of you, using the Vortex—strengthened those neural pathways. That’s how she could tell you how to fly her.”

Rose connected the dots. “The hum is the TARDIS.”

“Yep.”

“I can hear a ship that only communicates telepathically.”

“Yep.”

“Doctor, am I telepathic?”

“You are now, thanks to my interfering ship.”

From chapter 7:

“Rose, have you had any headaches, nausea, any discomfort since we learned about your telepathy?”

“No—well, except for the other night, when we were working on barriers.”

“That’s… that’s not… you should…” The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck.

Rose raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “Are you saying you want me to be sick?”

“Of course not, but Rose, developing the telepathic circuits of the brain is not a comfortable experience! You should at least be getting headaches. We all got headaches.”

The TARDIS hummed in the back of his mind, but he ignored her. He needed to figure this out.

“D’you think the TARDIS is helping?” Rose suggested.

[...]

The Doctor felt his ship’s confirmation and Rose’s answering gratitude, and a rock lodged itself in the pit of his stomach. “Oh, this is bad. This is… this is bad.”

“What’s so bad about it?”

“Well, I might have just realised why our attempts at blocking emotions gave you a headache.”

The Doctor glanced over at Rose, hoping she was already following along with what he was saying, but the little furrow in her brow told him he’d have to explain further.

“What’s that got to do with this?”

“Time Lords are bonded to their TARDISes, Rose. We call it a telepathic link, but really it’s more empathic.”

“Yeah, that’s why she couldn’t translate when you were sick, right?”

He nodded, rubbing at his temples. “And if she’s in your mind all the time, keeping you from getting sick, then you and I are already connected on a shallow level, just like I’m connected to her.”

[...]

“I still don’t quite get why this is bad.”

“My connection with her, and yours too I’d guess, they always stay open. She needs mine to function—hence the translation matrix not working, as you pointed out. And you… you need yours to hold the pain at bay.” His head dropped to the back of his chair and glared up at his interfering ship. “So we’re both constantly connected to the same TARDIS. It’s like a three-way conference call.”

The Doctor finally felt a hint of understanding from Rose. “A three-way conference call we can’t hang up on.”

“Exactly.”

“Guess you’ll just have to learn not to react to things emotionally,” Rose told him cheekily.

The Doctor tried to tamp down his anxiety. “I’m sorry, Rose,” he offered. “If I’d known this would happen, I never…”

“You never what?” she asked. “Never would have offered to go into my mind? Because we both know that’s why all this is happening. If you hadn’t looked to make sure the effects of Bad Wolf were still contained, I never…”

“Never would have fully developed your telepathic abilities,” he finished.

These two scenes together form another cornerstone of To Make Much of Time. Rose is telepathic, and because of the way that telepathy happened, she and the Doctor have a permanent empathic connection--they can sense each other’s emotions. And of course, for two people who are trying to pretend they aren’t in love, losing the ability to hide how they’re feeling has serious repercussions.

From chapter 16:

The words, “What you mean to me,” hung in the air, understood by both. “I said you could spend the rest of your life with me,” he said instead.

Rose laughed harshly. “Right, and you’ve been pulling back ever since. You even sent me to make tea so you could get rid of me after you got back from France.” She felt his guilt and knew she’d been right that night. “How was I supposed to know you didn’t regret that promise? Maybe you want to get rid of me. Maybe I should just stay here.”

The Doctor’s white hot agony took her by surprise, and she drew in a quick breath. “It’s not what I want,” she quickly continued, “but all this time, I’ve been keeping quiet because I was afraid you’d leave me behind if I said anything. Well, now I know I can take it if you do, so we’re going to talk. What do you need so desperately that you couldn’t even stay put for one night, Doctor?”

She could feel the fear and panic swirling within the Doctor as he struggled to answer her question. Before, she would have rushed to ease the awkward silence, not wanting the Doctor to feel pressured. Today, she calmly fixed both his tea and hers to their liking and then sat down across from him to wait.

“Distance,” he finally whispered. “You’re… you’re always there. You can see… I can’t hide from you, not in here,” he said, tapping the side of his head.

Rose handed him his cup and leaned against the cabinets. “You feel naked, exposed, like the deepest parts of yourself don’t belong just to you anymore?”

He started. “How did you… Oh.”

“Finally catching on, are we? And I thought Time Lords were supposed to have such big brains.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I never thought… didn’t realise…”

“We both know there’s something here that… that you’re not ready to talk about yet,” she said, choosing her words carefully. She wanted to be clear, but she didn’t want him to panic again. The Doctor’s chair squeaked a little as he shifted around, and Rose smiled at him. “I’m not gonna insist you do, or push the issue. I…” She bit her lip, then decided to put all her cards on the table. “I wanna be with you, Doctor, but not until you’re ready.”

Serious repercussions, such as the Doctor constantly pulling back from Rose. Rose eventually lays into him for it, after he accidentally leaves her in London for a day because he couldn’t just sit still. They form a tentative truce here, but it takes time for her to trust him again.

From chapter 22:

The Doctor stayed in the control room for a few minutes, wondering what exactly the night would hold. Before Krop Tor, Rose had still held him slightly at a distance. Maybe she finally trusted him again.

He stopped in his room to change into a pair of pyjama bottoms. He debated the vest for a moment and finally opted to leave it on.

Rose’s door was open a crack and he pushed through. She was already lying down on the far side of the bed, laying on her side facing away from him. He hesitated for a moment, but the covers on the near side of the bed were flipped up in invitation, so he slid in beside her.

He heard her exhalation and knew she hadn’t been certain he’d come. He looked over at her back. He couldn’t see her face, but he needed…

The Doctor rolled onto his side and pulled Rose close so her backside was flush with his front. She took his hand and kissed his palm, and he nuzzled into her neck. “We made it,” he whispered.

“Yeah, we did. We’re home.”

The moment wasn’t anything like he’d expected, but it was still perfect. “I love you.”

Rose sighed and turned over to snuggle into his side. She pressed a kiss to his jaw, then whispered in his ear, “I love you too, my Doctor.”

From chapter 28:

The Doctor stared at a spot over her shoulder. “We’ll form a telepathic connection, like we have the few times we’ve talked. Then I’ll ask you to bond with me. If you accept, the provisional bond is formed.”

Rose frowned. “Not if, Doctor,” she said firmly. “When. When I accept.”

His eyes met hers, and she could see the fear and wonder he was projecting over their empathic connection. “May I?” he asked, lifting his hand to her temple. She nodded. “You too, Rose,” he added, bringing her left hand up to his right temple.

They both sighed when the contact was formed, and Rose felt a sense of relief from the Doctor, like he’d been aching for this. You’ve been lonely for too long, Doctor, she told him.

I’d never been alone in my head before, not really. It was the worst part of the War. He gently redirected their conversation. But we aren’t here to talk about that.

The Doctor in Rose’s mind closed his eyes, and a moment later, they were standing in the canyon again. How’d you do that?

Inside your mind, you can be anywhere you want to be. He shifted so they were standing side by side holding hands again, clasped palm to palm with their fingers laced together. The Medusa Cascade was invisible, but Rose could still see the possibilities swirling in the air.

His fingers tightened in hers, and she glanced up at his face. How long are you going to stay with me?

Rose’s heart sped up. This was him, asking. She felt her own timeline and saw only one path forward. There was no universe in which she wouldn’t want the Doctor. Forever, she told him, never more sure of anything in her life.

The word carried the weight of authority, and they both shivered as it settled into their timelines, forming the provisional bond that would begin to tie their minds together. By mutual consent, they removed their fingers from each other’s temples, leaving the telepathic connection behind.

The first I love you, followed not long after by the formation of a telepathic bond. At this point, the Doctor and Rose are what we would consider engaged.

From chapter 37/38:

The Doctor focused on the bond, opening himself up to it so she could feel how much he loved her. Her answering love and sorrow reverberated back to him, then Pete hit the button on his hopper and they disappeared.

The suction slowly faded, and then for a few seconds he could actually see the breach weave itself back together before closing entirely. His bond with Rose pulled like it had before, but this time it tore completely, and he shuddered at the pain.

The Doctor’s breath came in heaving sobs. When his feet touched the ground again, he stared at the wall for a long moment, as if he could will Rose back into existence by focusing on the point from which she had disappeared. Then he walked toward it in a daze, not stopping until he was pressed against it, his hand splayed out flat.

The place in his mind where Rose was supposed to be was empty. His mind tried to reach across the Void to find her, but the breach was well and truly closed. There was nothing there; no answer from her, no brush of her warm, pink-gold mind against his. She was just gone, and the bone deep loss nearly brought him to his knees.

The emptiness in his head after the war had nearly driven him mad. Then he’d met Rose, and even before the Game Station, she’d filled some of the hollow places left by the loss of his people. Later, their empathic connection and bond had given him the telepathic communion he’d needed.

Losing her ripped open wounds that had barely begun to scab over. He stumbled back a few steps from the wall, his vision clouded. The TARDIS sang to him, and he turned around, letting her call him home.

The Doctor didn’t know how he made it back to the TARDIS; everything from the moment he’d walked away from the white wall—away from Rose—was a blur. But here he was, guided home by his ship and his time senses. He ran a hand over the door before turning the key and stepping inside.

The Doctor flinched away from the time ship’s comforting hum. Being comforted would mean he’d lost something. He hadn’t… she couldn’t… He pressed his fists against the edge of the console and leaned forward, breathing raggedly.

After a long moment, he straightened up and swallowed. He needed to be gone from here—Gone from everywhere, his mind suggested—and he slowly punched in the coordinates that would send them into the Vortex.

Yes, I’m so sorry I did this. But it was the only way to bring about the fix I wanted to write.

From chapter 39:

The beach was empty, save for one person coming toward him a fast pace. Runner, his mind supplied. Her hair caught in the wind, and he wondered how long it would be before he could look at a blonde and not see Rose.

It was more than her hair colour that was familiar, however. There was something in her gait, in the way she held herself… Then he noticed the runner’s blue cardigan and black trousers. His hearts clenched, and his own pace picked up, until he was running toward her flat out.

“Doctor!” Rose called out, and the sound of her voice gave him an extra burst of speed. He caught her in his arms only seconds later and lifted her up, twirling around while she laughed.

“Rose, oh Rose, you’re here,” he murmured as he set her back on her feet. He pulled her close and pressed his forehead to hers.

“I’m here, my Doctor,” she whispered, and he could feel her breath on his face.

He lifted a shaking hand and pressed his fingers to her temple without even asking. Rose mirrored him, and everything was almost perfect.

Forever, she said without being prompted, and their bond snapped back into place.

The Doctor’s knees nearly buckled, and the thought that he didn’t want the rest of their reunion to take place on a cold beach worked its way into his consciousness.

He took her hand and grinned down at her. “Run!”

I love this reunion so much.

From chapter 40:

Rose leaned her head against his shoulder, and the Doctor wrapped an arm around her, holding her close. He could feel her mind working, trying to figure something out, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“Do you think I saw this, when I was Bad Wolf?” she asked finally. “Did I make this happen?”

The Doctor considered. “You were Time, Rose. It wasn’t just something you were aware of, or that you marked your life with. For that half hour, Time was entwined with the essence of who you are. So yes, I think you saw this. And I think the place you held in Time probably will make key moments in your life... resonate more than they would for an ordinary person.”

He looked down at her and brushed his thumb along her cheek. “But I don’t think Bad Wolf made this happen. I think we did.”

Rose chewed on the inside of her mouth, then the slight tension around her eyes eased and she smiled. “You’re right, my Doctor,” she said. “And it all began right down there.”

Sitting in the Earthlight with his bond mate, the Doctor reached out tentatively for their timelines. The beauty of what he saw took his breath away, and he pressed his fingers to Rose’s temple so she could see it too. Two timelines entwined, stretching into the future as far as they could see.

And the last few lines of the story proper (excluding the epilogue). Maybe it’s unusual to share the last lines in a recap post, but it really shows how they changed and grew together over the six months or so of the story, and gives an idea of what their future will be like.

#tmmot #series: being to timelessness #timelessness recaps #ten x rose #my writing #doctor who

31 notes · View notes

apostateangela · 5 years ago

Text

Neurotheology Part 2

I’ve spent a lot of time since that session reading research about the brain.

Hey, would you look at me now, turning to science?!

In my reading, I came across two terms: neurotheology and neuroplasticity.

Neurotheology is the study of what the brain does during “spiritual experiences”, or the study of the brain in connection with religion.

I am now engaged in neurotheology, using my own brain and what other Mormons have described as case studies.

I suspect I will be about this form of analysis for quite a long time.

As someone who works in education, I’d heard of neuroplasticity. It is the action of the mind during learning and the subsequent structure created in the brain by said learning. From one article called The Mind, the Brain, and God by Dr. Rick Hanson, an indisputable expert on the brain with deep credentials gives the following definition and examples:

Mental activity also sculpts neural structure, so changes in your mind can lead to lasting changes in your brain. This is learning and memory (as well as lots of other alterations in neural structure below the waterline of conscious awareness): in other words, neuroplasticity, most of which is humdrum, like remembering what you had for breakfast, or getting more skillful at chopsticks with practice.

Dr. Hanson is referring to that learning which creates habits. The neural pathways become well traveled and therefore your brain reinforces your learning within the actions of your body as well as memory.

Hanson and other experts discuss how the constant repetition and conditioning of religion in connection with the neuroplasticity of the brain creates not only reinforced thought patterns but also physical responses in connection with what the mind perceives as spiritual or connected to God. Hence, the overcoming ecstasy, speaking in tongues, some types of faith healing, and personal revelation from god--or what could feel like answers to prayers can be explained scientifically.

Here’s what this has to do with my brain. In the same way I explained in my tithing post, actually even more so, I was taught from the time I was three years old what the ‘Holy Ghost’ was supposed to feel like and how he brought the messages from God to humans on Earth.

At eight years old I was baptized and confirmed, which is an ordinance in which priesthood authority blesses/bestows you with the ‘gift’ of the Holy Ghost--meaning if I’m righteous the Holy Ghost is always with me; warning me, comforting me, revealing spiritual truth to me, forgiving me, guiding me, and as my go between with God.

The conditioning was the same: scripture, instruction in classes, family night instruction, music/hymns and primary songs, and seminary classes.

Here is a description about the Holy Ghost from True to the Faith, one of the handbooks of doctrine for LDS church members:

The Holy Ghost, a member of the Godhead, bears witness of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. He is the source of personal testimony and revelation. He can guide us in our decisions and protect us from physical and spiritual danger. He is known as the Comforter, and He can calm our fears and fill us with hope. Through His power, we are sanctified as we repent, receive saving ordinances, and keep our covenants. It is through the influence of the Holy Ghost that we receive knowledge of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and feel Their power, goodness, and love.

What’s that supposed to feel like--this Holy Ghost?

Well, it initially is described as a “burning in your bosom.” But just in case that doesn’t happen, here are other ways described in Preach My Gospel, the LDS Missionary Handbook (Complete with back up in the scriptures):

“The spirit of revelation typically functions as thoughts and feelings that come into our minds and hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost. (See D&C 8:1–2; 100:5–8.)” The Holy Ghost can speak to you through:

Feelings of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faith, or meekness (see Galatians 5:22–23).

Thoughts that occupy the mind or press on your feelings (see D&C 128:1).

A desire to do good and obey the commandments (see Mosiah 5:2).

A feeling that something is right (see D&C 9:8).

Feelings of comfort (see John 14:26).

Feelings that “enlarge [your] soul” (Alma 32:28).

Thoughts that “enlighten [your] understanding” (Alma 32:28).

A hunger for more truth (see Alma 32:28).

Feeling constrained (encouraged) to take an action or restrained (held back) from doing something (see 1 Nephi 7:15; 2 Nephi 32:7).

Hmmm, I don’t know if you’re picking up on this.

Basically, feeling the Holy Ghost could be linked to just about ANYTHING!

And just so you know, in every instance in my life that could be connected to the feelings and/or objectives/jobs of the Holy Ghost there was someone close to me to point out that I was experiencing the Spirit communicating with me in my heart and mind.

There have been innumerable instances where this has happened to me. I supposedly have ‘felt’ the spirit of the Holy Ghost, or the spirit of God, had a physical response, and had that experience validated by people close to me.

I’ve felt it so often it became ‘mundane’.

NEUROPLASTICITY!!!!

*Sigh*

Let me attempt to connect all these dots now, name the revelation:

In exploring my accountability for my past life and destructive marriage, I conclude that the powerful ‘spiritual’ experience that led me to believe God wanted me to marry John and reinforced that decision for twenty five years of abuse within that marriage was a direct result of my forty six plus year Mormon religious and cultural entrenchment with its targeted and incessant choreographed brain programming.

I didn’t know any better?

Does this mean it wasn’t my fault?

Can I say that?

Can I believe that?

See, here’s the thing; the horrible, true thing.

I don’t want to admit that none of it was my fault.

Because that makes me a victim.

And I don’t want to be a victim anymore.

But, I was a victim.

Wasn’t I?

I was victimized in the name of God,

over and over and over again, in mind, brain, and subsequently body.

From the moment I was born,

the umbilical was cut,

and then my eyes and my mouth were sewn shut.

How can I hate such a pitiful creature?

If I met such a person, I would have only deep pity

and desired hope for such a tragic survivor.

I can’t hate my past self.

She is me.

It is beyond remarkable that I can,

at this time in my life,

strip away the stitching and shut down the pathways of my brain

that control and thereby betray me.

The pain I have now comes from being stripped by the sharp edge of clarity.

I embrace it, with as much courage as I can muster.

I must admire such a feat,

Especially in myself.

Because the key word here is ‘WAS’.

I was a victim.

I am NOT any longer.

-Angela

0 notes

viralhottopics · 8 years ago

Text

This British organization asked for beautiful science photos. Here are 13 finalists.

When David Linstead was about 9 or 10, he pestered his parents for a microscope.

It sparked a lifetime of scientific curiosity. David is now a retired research scientist with over 20 years of experience. In 2016, he captured an incredible slice of life in a microscopy photo that borders on fine art. The blue hues and fluorescent oranges and pinks burst through in a kaleidoscope of colors. To the uninformed eye, this image could be seen as evidence of alien life. But it’s actually a photo of cat skin with hair and whiskers.

The Wellcome Image Awards have been highlighting amazing images like this one for 20 years. This year’s 22 finalists were chosen from photographs, illustrations, and other visual renderings from the sciences that showcase the beauty in their fields.

Here are 12 more images from this year’s finalists that show the beauty behind science.

1. Hawaiian bobtail squid.

Native to the Pacific Ocean, Hawaiian bobtail squid are nocturnal predators that remain buried under the sand during the day and come out to hunt for shrimp near coral reefs at night. The squid have a light organ on their underside that houses a colony of glowing bacteria called Vibrio fischeri. The squid provide food and shelter for these bacteria in return for their bioluminescence.

2. Language pathways of the brain.

The brain is composed of two types of matter. Gray matter contains cells and is responsible for processing information. White matter connects these areas of grey matter, allowing information to be transferred between distant areas of the brain. Areas responsible for speech and language have been mapped to two different brain regions. This image shows a 3D-printed reconstruction of the white matter pathway connecting these two areas (here shown from the left), which is called the arcuate fasciculus.

3. Surface of a mouse retina.

The retina, located at the back of the eye, contains light-sensitive cells responsible for converting light into electrical nerve signals that the brain can process. As a result of aging or injury, the retina can lose this function, causing vision loss. This image was created by digitally stitching together over 400 images to form one large image, so as to show the entire surface of a mouse retina.

4. Vessels of a healthy mini-pig eye.

A 3D model of a healthy mini-pig eye. The dent on the right side of the image is the pupil, the opening that allows light into the eye. The blood vessels shown are bringing energy and food to the muscles surrounding the iris, which controls the amount of light entering the eye. The smallest vessels seen here are 2030 micrometers (0.020.03 millimeters) in diameter. The other large vessels are feeder vessels for the retina, the light-sensing region at the back of the eye.

5. The placenta rainbow.

The placenta rainbow highlights differences in mouse placental development that can result from manipulation of the mothers immune system. These placentas were investigated at day 12 of the 20-day gestation period the point at which a mouses placenta has gained its characteristic shape but is still developing.

6. Developing spinal cord.

Our spines allow us to stand and move, and they protect the spinal cord, which connects all the nerves in our body with our brain. The spinal cord is formed from a structure called the neural tube, which develops during the first month of pregnancy.

This series of three images shows the open end of a mouses neural tube, with each image highlighting (in blue) one of the three main embryonic tissue types. On the left is the neural tube itself, which develops into the brain, spine, and nerves. On the right is the surface ectoderm the word “ectoderm” comes from the Greek ektos meaning “outside” and derma meaning skin which will eventually form the skin, teeth, and hair. The middle image shows the mesoderm (also from Greek, meaning “middle skin”), which will form the organs.

7. Zebrafish eye and neuromasts.

This four-day-old zebrafish embryo has been modified using two mechanisms borrowed from the fascinating worlds of bacteria and yeast that are widely applied in genetics research. A DNA-editing technology called CRISPR/Cas9 was used to insert a gene called Gal4 next to the gene that the researchers wished to study. These Gal4 fish were then bred with special reporter fish to create fish where the gene of interest displays red whenever it is activated.

8. Intraocular lens “iris clip.”

This image shows how an “iris clip,” also known as an artificial intraocular lens, is fitted onto the eye. An iris clip is a small, thin lens made from silicone or acrylic material with plastic side supports to hold it in place. An iris clip is fixed to the iris through a three-millimeter surgical incision and is used to treat conditions such as myopia (nearsightedness) and cataracts (cloudiness of the lens). This particular patient, a 70-year-old man, regained almost full vision following his surgery.

9. #BreastCancer Twitter connections.

This is a graphical visualization of data extracted from tweets containing the hashtag #BreastCancer. Twitter users are represented by dots, called nodes, and lines connecting the nodes represent the relationships between the Twitter users. Nodes are sized differently according to the number and importance of other nodes they are connected with, and the thickness of each connecting line is determined by the number of times that a particular relationship is expressed within the data.

The “double yolk” structure at the top of the image indicates common mentions of two accounts. This area of the graph provides a graphical expression of trending data in Twitter, as it represents one tweet that was retweeted thousands of times.

10. Brain-on-a-chip.

Neural stem cells have the ability to form all the different cell types found in the nervous system. Here, researchers are investigating how neural stem cells grow on a synthetic gel called PEG. After just two weeks, the stem cells (magenta) produced nerve fibers (green). These fibers grew away from the cell due to chemical gradients in the gel, teaching researchers about how their environment affects their structural organization.

11. MicroRNA scaffold cancer therapy.

Researchers are investigating short genetic sequences called microRNAs, which control the proper function and growth of cells, as a possible cancer therapy. However, their potential use is limited by the lack of an efficient system to deliver these microRNAs specifically to cancerous cells. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed such a system, combining two microRNAs with a synthetic polymer to form a stable woven structure that is a bit like a net. This synthetic net can coat a tumor and deliver the two microRNAs locally to cancer cells.

12. Unravelled DNA in a human lung cell.

In order for plants and animals to grow and remain healthy, cells need to have the ability to replicate. During cell division, also known as mitosis, the entire DNA content of the cell is copied, with half going to each new cell. DNA is found in the nucleus, which acts a bit like the brain.

This picture shows the nucleus of one of two new daughter cells. The DNA in this cell has somehow become caught and is being pulled between the two cells. This has caused the DNA to unfold inside the nucleus, and DNA fibers can be seen running through it. As the new cells have moved apart, the tension distributed by the rope-like DNA has deformed the nucleus usually circular envelope.

There they are, in all their majesty.

Looking at the sheer brilliance of these images, it’s easy to see why funding for science is fundamentally important to society. They show the value of science to better understand our world by revealing the quiet beauty behind the universe’s veil. That’s the power of scientific exploration.

To learn more about the Wellcome Image Awards and see all of this year’s and previous years’ winners, visit their website. All caption info via Wellcome Image Awards.