People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, “Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
holy shit
This… this is what lightning magic is supposed to be like.
I’m the “wow”
If Snow White literally had “lips red as a rose, hair black as ebony, and skin white as snow,” she’d look like a walking nightmare.
honestly this sounds like the description of a vampire. Which would also explain how she convinced seven dwarves to let her stay with them. How she could control some animals to do her bidding. How she could sleep for a long time without aging. Why the hunter betrayed the queen for her, and why the queen wanted her heart, so she could be sure she was killed properly.
Shit, THIS is a retelling I want to read.
“Are you as good as they say?” the queen asked the huntsmen.
“Good enough,” he said shortly. “I’ve been in the business of hunting vampires for a few years now, and I’m not undead yet. I catch more grief from false leads than from the real thing. So how do I know this vampire of yours isn’t just a bad cough that’s been going around?”
The queen quirked a smile. “A mirror told me.”
The huntsmen looked more interested now. “She has no reflection?”
“She has no reflection. So unless she’s too beautiful for even a looking glass to dare paint her, I don’t think you need to worry about a false lead.”
I CANNOT RECOMMEND “SNOW GLASS APPLES” BY NEIL GAIMAN ENOUGH IN THIS CASE.
Science wasn’t actually certain how fungi like cordyceps “hijacked” their host’s behavior, and we always kind of assumed it was causing some simplistic damage to the brain.
As it turns out, it works much more elaborately and much MORE like the dramatized sci-fi horror parasites constantly inspired by it.
These fungi integrate themselves on the cellular level with the host’s tissues, actually seem to send signals to the host’s muscles and even alter the host’s genes with their own.
All the while, THE BRAIN ISN’T INVADED AT ALL.
These fungi, all along, have been converting their hosts into animal-fungal hybrids they control while the host’s brain and consciousness remain helplessly alive and largely unaltered.
I love knowing how my deepest, darkest horrors have been proven a reality.
INCREDIBLE
ok i keep seeing this post on my dash and i have to wonder, what are we referring to when we talk about the brain of an ant?
ants are tiny. the don’t have spinal chords. the structure of their brains has gotta be pretty alien to our own. i can’t claim that ants definitely aren’t conscious just because they’re not built like us, but i think it’s safe to say that an ant experiences this takeover very differently from how a human would. and i’m curious about the specifics of that difference.
As animals, insect brains actually do work exactly like ours, with neurons delivering electrical pulses and neurotransmitters to one another.
It’s been demonstrated that insects as tiny as fruit flies make conscious decisions, which we first figured out by suspending them in tiny sensory deprivation chambers. Had they lacked any sentience they would have behaved on a mindless loop or just shut down like truly “brainless” organisms do, but instead, they behaved unpredictably, trying different actions to escape the predicament.
Later experiments presented fruit flies with confusing options and taught them patterns in mate choice to back up that they think before they act.
It’s actually been through the study of insect brains that we’re starting to confirm brain size is not linked to mental capacity; it’s the complexity of the neural paths that determine how much information can be processed and stores, and insect brains seem to be set up for extremely high efficiency, capable of using the same cells for different tasks at different times whereas our brains devote whole sections to only the same tasks at all times.
It’s like this computer:
Vs. this computer:
Morgan the Opossum assuring me she’s quite healthy and ready to run around outside again, but preferring the familiarity of my hoodies
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