Hot Head

If I asked you what the average body temperature is, you’d probably say around 37°C. The brain’s temperature is generally assumed to be the same, despite its much higher workload. Much like components of your phone heat up when working harder, researchers have found that the same can be said for our brains, which run hotter than previously thought. Using a technique called magnetic resonance spectroscopy, the team measured brain temperatures of people throughout the day. Average temperatures for different regions are shown using coloured blocks where dark purples are coolest and yellows are highest. Brain temperatures varied throughout the day being warmer in the morning (left) and afternoon (middle), and cooler at night (right). Female brains (top row) were warmer than male brains (bottom row), and the team also found differences with age and the menstrual cycle. This has major implications for how we diagnose and manage several brain disorders.

Written by Sophie Arthur

Image from work by Nina M Rzechorzek and colleagues

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Cambridge, UK

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Brain, June 2022

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Cat heaven is a winter greenhouse on a sunny day.

the long story short is that I have been having a Terrible Week plagued with Events and Problems, and ended up binge watching the entirety of Ultimate Note for a second time this year. and also did a re read of the novels I've been meaning to do. and also thumbnailed out a bunch of HeiHua comics because these two. ooooooh these two

anyway! it's some kind of. scene. it's not really set during anything or following any kind of adaption, but immediately following this, Xiao Hua gets to save Hei Yanjing from a trap because I believe in equal opportunity dramatics for them, I just,,, haven't finished drawing it yet because I realized I would have to: Design A Room and then Figure Out Some Kind of Equally Perilous Trap, so please use your imagination until then, thank you 🙏

uh-oh, it’s yet another “you are a monster, but you see me and love me for all my faults, and i can’t help but feel the same” dynamic, we have no choice but to go insane over it

My mental illness gets worse and worse as the temperatures get higher. I hate summer so much.

I frequently see people saying that the list of traits Jiang Cheng gave to the matchmaker are "impossible standards", ridiculous, unreasonable, outlandish, absurd, nobody could ever possibly meet them, etc.

Anyway the translation that's up on the wiki is:

His requirements in his partner are: naturally beautiful, graceful and obedient, hard-working and thrifty, coming from a respected family, cultivation level not too high, personality not too strong, not too talkative, voice not too loud and must treat Jin Ling nicely.

First off, the list comes from a random trivia answer MXTX gave in an interview, not the novel canon. So whether you even consider it canon at all is up for grabs to begin with. Though I think there was a scene in CQL with a similar list so it would be canon there, minus the Jin Ling point (due to the point in the story the scene was set)? (So I believe the matchmaker blacklisting point still wouldn't be CQL canon though, just the list?)

But if you do take it all as a Super Serious Canon Thing, well... to be honest I just don't think that list is at all unusual, given the setting? I believe many of the points in the list are just traits considered generally good for ladies of the time period (intentionally vague as that time period may be). (I am absolutely not an expert though so please correct me if I'm wrong about that.)

To me it seems that it's not that they're unusually high or unattainable standards, they're just so generic that they're sort of unhelpful. That he has like no idea what he wants at all outside what he's supposed to want.

The only points that actually seem to have any specificity are things like cultivation level not too high. Which some people could interpret negatively, and fair enough. But personally to me that seemed more like a flashing neon sign of 'please someone not like my mother', given her strength in cultivation was one of her defining traits (and something that he may have felt led to her disappointment in him). Even though Jiang Cheng may carry forward some of her traits himself (for better and for worse; this is not a YZY hate zone but there's... a lot there), he does seem to have at least given some thought to choosing a partner to counter some of the pain points of his own childhood and aim for something different (and we see him trying to do that himself in specific ways as well, like his staunch support of Jin Ling when he was crying after the Second Siege, even if he doesn't always fully succeed).

And, of course, 'must treat Jin Ling nicely'. Which seems obvious and not like a big deal at first, but I think actually could reasonably be a big sticking point in a potential marriage. My understanding is that he was wildly more involved in Jin Ling's life than a maternal uncle would normally be. Including this as a specific requirement seems to send a particular type of statement, as if it was important to him that any potential match would not take offense to him treating an orphaned child that wasn't his with a lot of attention and gifts and favor... hmmm, how could he have possibly decided that could be a problem in a marriage...?

(Obviously, the scenario would be very different than his parents' - none of the salacious rumors and the humiliation that came with them that really drove a deeper wedge between YZY and JFM - but he was obviously going to be doing a lot more for Jin Ling than an average uncle so it makes sense to have that be a specific point upfront.)

I'm ultimately in the 'it was MXTX making a joke and not meant to be taken nearly this seriously' with a side of 'the clan leaders of this generation aren't in a hurry to get married because MXTX just didn't feel like writing their wives in and also it was funny' camp so I think there's a limit to how much insight can be gleaned from this, you know? It is fun to play with it in-universe and explore the implications on the society and political system going forward in the decades post-canon, but I do try to keep myself from taking it too seriously when it's clearly not a well-thought-out plot point or anything, just a fun offhand jokey trivia bit.

But I like the vibes of it all well enough to accept it as 'semi-canon' or 'canon enough' for myself anyway because I think the 'must treat Jin Ling nicely' point is cute and the rest is just standard for the setting and the blacklisted by matchmakers part is funny, and I'm much more willing to subsume random bits from interviews into my brain's blorbo blob if it's something funny.

This was supposed to be posted later to say goodnight but IT WOULDN'T BE FAIR IF I KEPT THIS FOR LATER OR FOR MYSELF SOOO UNLEASH YOUR THOUGHTS AND IMAGINATION TOO 🤪💚🤭

📸:Jarmo Hänninen Photography on Facebook

moms at the sports game.....

need hannibal to create his own perfume line

I accidentally wrote Meth Knight instead of Meta Knight and didn't notice until finishing the drawing and died right then and there

Batman fic is fun because it's one of the handful of fandoms where it's gone through so many reboots while retaining the same characters that basically any interpretation is canon-compliant. Even if you go totally off the rails to complete a totally new universe, there is no practical difference between that and what the actual comics do with reboots.

Fundamentally, Batman is already a universe made of a lot of people tackling the same characters from a multitude of different viewpoints, and from this position, fanfiction becomes less of a newer phenomenon and more of merely a continuation of the conversation between authors that was already occuring, an expansion from merely those being paid from their work to anyone with a passion for the franchise. In this TED Talk, we will-

quite literally had a fever dream about xavier absolutely losing his shit because i‘m sick and panic-buying half the local pharmacy‘s stock with my gp on speed dial while he also records every little thing like it‘s a damn protocol

I am having a rather bad skin allergy reaction and not entirely rational

So I was hit by a terrible idea

Yeah people always pair Aredhel with Celegorm but in canon she seemed to get on well with both Celegorm and Curufin

So

What if Curufin’s “unnamed Noldor wife” was actually Aredhel

Like, Celegorm, Curufin, and Aredhel were in some casual secret poly relationship

Then Aredhel became kinslayer the same way Fingon did

Curufin and Celegorm helped Feanor to burn the ships because they did not want Aredhel (maybe also Celebrimbor) to follow them and be doomed

(Then Aredhel broke up with them because the Ice and hooked up with Eol. Who was a good smith and probably had silver hair.)

(Which explains Curufin’s extremely hostile attitude. Was even probably trying to provoke Eol to get killed by Gondolin guards.)

Yeah I know the issue with “how can Aredhel get pregnant without anyone noticing”

So

Maybe

Aredhel knocked up Curufin & Curufin gave birth himself & only a few people know the identity of the mother (because cousin incest was frowned upon by Noldor)

(Also YES this implies Aredhel knocked up Eol & Eol had vision of his son’s death after giving birth thus explains his hesitation over naming Maeglin and the obsession with not allowing Maeglin to visit Noldor)

(I love Aredhel so I want her to have messy interesting relationships)

(Sorry.)

Hi just wanted to let you know I’ve been absolute obsessed with ABoT the last couple weeks. I could go on and on about it, but I just quickly wanted to say thank you and also I love how each main character has like a death motif related to them.

Like for Reigen it’s knives/stabbing. He constantly gets in knife fights. His hand was shredded like by “razor blades.” He helps Mob cut food with the intent to teach him it is how you use a tool that matters. He tries killing himself and Mogami with the knife.

For Ritsu, it’s obviously drowning. He has dreams of drowning, he is drowning in a whole lot of emotional stuff, he tried to drown Reigen. And the fountain is very important to him.

Teru I feel would be hanging, for the obvious stuff like being choked with his tie and trying to choke ritsu (which that chapter broke me btw read it like eight times)

Mob I am about unsure, but I feel like fire would be his symbol. The Mogami household where all his suffering stemmed from ‘burned down’ (twice). I can’t remember what chapter, but after he was being scolded by Mogami about saving Teru, there was a line like ‘a flame of hope burned in him.”

Anyway I just love literary analysis and symbolism. and I cannot tell you how much I love your fanfic. Keep up the great work! Thanks for writing!

(ABoT)

yessssssssssssssss the motifs. It just feels so right to attach a Thing to a Character which communicates something deeply thematic and personal about them.

Reigen and knives!!! Of course it has its roots in canon, with his key speech to Mob about how psychic powers are like knives, and they're not to be pointed at people. It felt only right to extrapolate that in ABoT. His career-ending encounter, at the very start which made him quit Spirits and Such, was a possessed man with a knife who assaulted Reigen and sliced his cheek (leaving a scar which is something of a key identifier of ABoT!Reigen).

The knife comes into play again during the Tetsugami encounter, when Mogami uses a knife to threaten to kill Tetsuo, and ends up slicing Reigen's hand with it. (And that hand-slice, of course, was foreshadowing for the hand-shredding in Reigen's future). And the second time Mogami possesses Tetsuo and comes for Reigen, the knife weapon returns with him.

And then... his big moment in ch45. The knife he brought along to kill himself (and Mogami possessing him). In a grandiose "we both go out on my terms" manner. During earlier mental planning of that moment, I'd toyed with the idea that Reigen came to the Mogami house with Tetsuo's (well, Haruki's) gun. It would be a more effective weapon to try to kill both himself and Mogami with. But thematically, it didn't resonate with me. It had to be the knife. It always had to be the knife.

(And it absolutely had to be the knife because, even more importantly, Reigen's attempt at self-sacrifice was not the solution. Thematically, it never could be. After all the thematic talk about how self-sacrifice hurts the people you leave behind, and you can't simply make yourself not matter to them--Reigen killing himself with the knife to stop Mogami could never work. Do not point your knives at people. Do not use knives to hurt people. Do not use knives to hurt yourself.)

Ritsu and drowning. This ties in deeply with the emotional toll he suffers as the surviving child--he feels smothered, he feels suffocated, he feels pressure from all sides to behave exactly as everyone needs him to behave...and he feels like he's drowning, and cannot speak up, and cannot breathe.

And his relationship with water manifests from this. "The water trick" being the thing he internalized from his brother, and manifests when his powers awaken. The way he uses cold water in chapter 7 to soothe and numb himself from his parents' rejection. The control of water being about all he has to use against Teru in chapter 15. The use of water to drown Reigen during their fight. The drowning in the storm that happens in ch41. The fountain, and the way he throws off Mob's water cover when Mob was trying to shield Ritsu from the barrier.

Teru's symbolism is a bit varied! He gets to be the first to play out the "tie as a noose" symbolism, which comes in strong later for Reigen (the evolution of Reigen's tie color symbolizing his emotional journey -- blue when he was alone, switched for white when he first has Mob, switched for pink as that emotional attachment grows, switched for blood-covered stand-in of a noose when Mogami takes his body... Reigen's tie evolving into Mogami's noose was a piece of symbolism I was eager to get to). But back on Teru--Ritsu strangling him with his tie was an inversion of Teru's canon role of strangling Mob... ...and then, of course, in chapter 33 where Teru gets to play this straight against Ritsu ("I think maybe you forgot, Kageyama, that you don’t need powers to do terrible things.") and he strangles Ritsu with his bare hands.

Burning, I'd say, is Mogami's domain. First with the illusion of the house burning down, and now with Reigen having actually set the corpse on fire. That thing of such coldness (as Mob emphasizes how much Reigen, and Reigen's place, are warm) being culled by Reigen setting it alight and making it burn to the ground. The kinds of cruel life in Mogami's house are the sort which need to be killed with fire. And see the importance for Mob here is how fire is a good thing in him. "Flame" is hope, and energy, and passion in his which four years trapped in the Mogami basement had robbed from him, and now Mob is finding again. Finding that warmth and that flame is an important aspect to taking down Mogami, to being part of what makes Mogami, and the house, burn down once and for all.

dkjdbfbjdf thank you for indulging me on this!!! the symbolism in ABoT is so very important to me I love when people pick up on it!!!

I don't remember him to look THAT fruity

Also shout out to this screenshot I found. Nothing straight about this man:

recoloured this old warmup to repost cause I had it on my mind.

If Clark is going to be in earth 19 (gotham by gaslight universe) (they're publishing more gbg and clark is going to be there), then listen to me listen to me, he needs to be a cowboy. Superman needs to be a cowboy in the big city. I am SOO serious about this. I am on my knees, DC, let me write for you, I would add so many themes about modern technology versus traditional knowledge and sprinkle in some anticolonialism PLEASE.

You could have a cute little Daily Planet that has to struggle against yellow journalism in a smoky little backroom & setting their own type, a la The Truth. You could have gentlemen's clubs. You could have a brutal war against unions in the streets and one lone titan of industry giving into their demands. You could have the exact same 3 batkids from the movie, there's literally nothing to improve on there. You could have Clark tear down a barbed wire fence with his bare hands, in a futile attempt to unravel colonialist ideas of private land ownership. Imagine the alien knows more about the earth, the real earth, than the knight in his city does. Imagine the American dream failing Clark, who has to go back east to the big city, failing Bruce, who lost his parents, failing everyone over and over until they decide to build something without it. In an era of rampant exploitation, what do real heroes look like?

Or you can make the justice league fight big steampunk robots ig I'm excited either way.