#harlow monkey experiment

[givehimthemedicine]

who wants to sob with me about how El in the lab is basically living in a Harlow monkey experiment?

[info below the cut if you're unfamiliar. tl;dr very sad and unethical contact comfort and maternal deprivation experiments on baby monkeys]

El being torn from her mother and raised in a sterile environment full of cold hard surfaces with probably no loving contact ever -> El clinging to her stuffed animal in the lab because it's literally the only soft object available to her -> El spending her lab recovery phase (s1-2) swaddling herself in big warm clothes and blankets and soft textures ->

El reacting emotionally to Brenner's touch because it's the closest thing she's ever known to the contact comfort and parental love she craves innately even though she hates and fears him ->

El with irreparable social deficits due to isolation -> El not being very good at interacting with her peers and tending to stay apart from the group -> El getting bullied ->

El being in the fetal position in so many lab scenes -> El continuing to curl up in a ball when stressed even outside the lab because she's never had anywhere to turn for safety or comfort ->

El craving touch and clinging to her friends and parental figures for the love and comfort and reassurance she never got as a child -> me sobbing forever

Using methods of isolation and maternal deprivation, Harlow showed the impact of contact comfort on primate development with his ethically controversial experiments in the 1960s.

Infant monkeys were taken from their mothers and raised in a laboratory setting, with some infants placed in separate cages away from peers. In isolation, the monkeys showed disturbed behavior, staring blankly, circling their cages, and engaging in self-mutilation. When the isolated infants were re-introduced to the group, they were unsure of how to interact, and did not stand up for themselves when bullied.

Even without complete isolation, the monkeys raised without mothers developed social deficits, showing reclusive tendencies and clinging to their cloth diapers. Harlow was interested in the infants’ attachment to the cloth, speculating that the soft material may simulate the comfort provided by a mother’s touch.

Harlow took infant monkeys from their biological mothers and gave them two inanimate surrogate mothers: one made of wire, and the other covered in soft terry cloth. Harlow found that the infants spent significantly more time with the terry cloth mother than they did with the wire mother, even if the wire mother provided food and the cloth one did not.

Infants also turned to inanimate surrogate mothers for comfort when they were faced with new and scary situations. If an alarming noise-making toy was placed in the cage, infants with surrogate mothers would retreat and cling to them for comfort before exploring; infants without surrogate mothers were paralyzed with fear, huddled in a ball sucking their thumbs, rocking, or screaming.

#I know it doesn't exactly fit the analogy but duffers if that's why you named her mom Terry i'll be there soon #eleven #gifs #mine #harlow monkey experiment #angst #lab feels #lizlemon[crowdbooing].jpg #the alarming toy / clinging to surrogate mother part -> elmike and dustin's hammer thing #I'm gonna have to do a whole other post about that instead of writing a novel in the tags #anyway: I'm crying #and this has been on my mind since the first time I watched s1 years ago #I didn't realize until making this post how often she's curled up in a ball in the lab #brenner i'm reanimating your corpse so I can kill you again #btw i'm carrying el around in one of those front baby sling things. yes at her current age. it's a workout but it's necessary

[foxyfalcon27]

Logan: A Surrogate made of Wood and Soft Fur

Trigger Warnings: Animal abuse, Unethical Experimentation, Angst (with a happy ending)

Pairing: Logan and Virgil (Platonic)

~~~

Subject 010 screeched and writhed in Logan’s hand, effectively making it difficult to put it in the testing cage. His throat tight, he looked up at the ceiling, wishing that the awful sounds would stop. He needed to believe that the Subject wouldn’t be permanently harmed. After the experiment was over, it would readjust into a typical life. Or at least, that’s what he’d been told numerous times, but with each day that he visited the lab, which stunk of sweat and fear, it was becoming increasingly more difficult to believe.

The Subject’s silky fur was slippery, and it was delicate, so he couldn’t get a good grip with the risk of crushing it. With two factors combined, he nearly dropped it multiple times.

After much struggle, he finally managed to gently place the monkey into the cage with the surrogates, but he wasn’t able to take his arm back fast enough, and thus, quicker than the speed of light, the monkey scrambled up his arm. It pressed its small face into his chest. Logan cursed. He stood rigid as the subject clung to him. The urge to stroke its fur was tantalizing. He resisted. If he gave the monkey the affection it needed, then he’d compromise the subject, and he couldn’t imagine that Doctor Harlow would be particularly thrilled about that.

Reluctantly, he gently peeled the monkey off his chest. It protested. Looking deep into Logan’s eyes with innocent terror, it gripped his white lab coat. Begging. He looked away and hooked his index finger on the Subject’s hand, and ripped away its grip. In response, it curled its entire palm around his finger.

His heart shattered, but he shook away the broken shards, forcing himself to remain stoic, and grabbed the monkey by the scruff. He placed it into the metal wire cage. It was empty save for the two surrogates: one made of wire and the other wooden with soft fur. Once the Subject realized Logan had abandoned it, it ran to the mother of cloth. Logan watched the monkey, blinking rapidly. He covered his face, ashamed. He couldn’t help but compare himself to the wire surrogate: cold and distant.

He turned away, too weak to look the misery he contributed to in the face, and fled. Just as he cleared the two swinging doors, a voice called to him.

“Doctor Burry.”

Logan froze. He would have rather died, at that moment, but he collected himself with a carefully blank expression and turned. He dipped his head. “Doctor Harlow,” he greeted. “How are you?”

“I’m well,” he replied, smiling. “But, rather, I’d prefer to know: how are you?”

Logan jolted, pondering the question carefully, wondering what the safest answer would be. Eventually, he threw caution to the wind, and settled on the truth. “I’m conflicted.” Harlow raised his brow. “The mon- subjects… they’re suffering. I’m starting to doubt the integrity of this experiment. Are you certain we should continue it? We’ve gathered enough data, and we’ve proven without a doubt that the biggest influence on human behavior is a nurturing parent, so is there really cause to-”

“Cause to continue?” Harlow finished, appalled. “You can’t mean that Doctor?”

“Well… well, I do.”

“Doctor,” Harlow began, his voice rumbling agreeably. “Our cause to continue: Science!” He was quiet for a moment, before continuing. “Aren’t you curious? To see how the specimen will react once reunited with monkeys that have developed normally? Don’t you wish to observe the behaviors of the female specimen. How do you think they’ll react once paired with male specimen?”

“Well it’s intriguing, yes,” Logan admitted, “but-”

“And what about pregnancy? Do you think the female will care for their offspring?”

“I- I’m not sure.”

“And you never will be if you give up now,” chided Harlow, wiggling his finger pointedly. “Doctor, don’t forget, there will be no long term harm to these creatures. They’ll adapt normally after their work has been done.”

Logan didn’t feel quite as certain, but he couldn’t bear to argue anymore, so he dipped his head submissively. “If you say so.”

“I do,” Harlow said. Logan excused himself, walking away as fast as he could, without making it obvious that he was trying to escape. Harlow’s voice rang out once more. “Doctor.”

“Yes?” Logan froze, teeth clenched, not even bothering to face the doctor.

“I’m the lead on this project, I know what I’m doing. If you continue to question that, there will be consequences. You understand?”

“Of course.”

His conversation with Doctor Harlow did little to ease Logan, and over the course of the next few days, he avoided the doctor at all costs. Additionally, his experience in the lab continued to look bleak. He developed a slouch, buckling under the weight of his guilt, most likely, or from exhaustion. He was so tired. Even in the comfort of his apartment, miles away from the research facility, he was haunted by the chilling echoes of the monkeys’ hollering and screaming. Even his colleagues, who usually paid him no mind, noticed his distress. As he passed them in the halls, he caught them casting him concerned glances from his peripheral.

Sighing, he squatted to peer into Subject 010’s cage. It was small. There were hundreds of cages lining the walls of the lab, equally small and equally uncomfortable. He wondered how the monkeys were capable of sleeping in such a dreary place. He sighed again. If he could get just an hour of restful sleep, he supposed he could have fallen asleep in there too. He brushed a finger along the apathetic metal. He sighed for a third time, and unlocked the cage. Instantly, Subject 010 woke up and charged towards him, desperately trying to climb his arm again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I can’t.”

Logan had always been fascinated by science. Answers. He could ask all the questions he wanted, and as a scientist, he could pursue answers. In his regular life, his questions were cumbersome and frowned upon, but in science, they were welcomed with open arms. He wasn’t an obnoxious child asking “Why?” after everything his mother said anymore. He was a man. An investigator of science. A detective.

He looked at Subject 010, thrashing as usual, and suddenly he didn’t feel like any of those things. He opened the door to the testing cage, meaning to quickly place the Subject into it, but he hesitated.

People always intrigued him. He could never understand them, and they confused him. As a child, he had trouble making friends, and that habit followed him into adulthood. He knew what it was like to be isolated. He just wanted to understand. So psychology, the science that could finally, finally help him understand, glimmered with the most valuable of answers. Naturally it drew him in. When Harry Harlow approached him and invited him onto the project, he jumped at the opportunity.

But this…

Logan put the Subject into the cage and swiftly snapped the door shut. Immediately, it fled to the clothed surrogate, mewling pitifully. Logan grabbed a bottle, placed it inside the wire surrogate, and waited, clipboard in hand. Just as expected, the monkey reluctantly left the cloth surrogate in pursuit of food. It climbed onto the wire surrogate and sucked from the bottle. And, painfully predictable, the second the Subject was nourished, if ran straight back into the embrace of the cloth surrogate. He narrowed his eyes, looking at nothing in particular, then wrote on his clipboard. He essentially stabbed the clipboard as he dotted his last ‘i’, sour at reporting the latest supporting data for Doctor Harlow’s claim.

This was, without a doubt, a massive victory for those inclined towards the Nurture argument, in the long disputed debate between Nature. Vs. Nurture.

Subject 010, as if sensing the rebellion sprouting in him, looked at Logan with hope. The subject’s eyes were large, brown and innocent. Despite his indifference towards its suffering, the monkey’s eyes were not accusing.

It was more than he deserved.

A win. A win for Science. Logan narrowed his eyes. It didn’t feel like a win. In his opinion, Doctor Harlow could shove his ‘claim’ right up his ass.

He looked at the subject and this time he didn’t look away.

“Doctor Burry, I see you’re looking alert today.”

“Yes,” said Logan. “I heard we’re introducing a subject into an environment with other Rhesus Macaques that have developed naturally?”

“Indeed. I’m pleased that you were so quick to volunteer as my assistant today.” Harlow chucked. “I assume you’ve gotten past your previous concerns?”

Logan stiffened, but forced himself to nod. “Of course, Doctor,” he mustered.

Truthfully, he wasn’t doing this because of Harlow’s threats. He was doing this because he felt he had an obligation to make sure that the Subject would unquestionably recover.

“Grab the specimen.”

Logan obeyed. Similar to the Subject, subject 273 struggled. He gritted his teeth, hoping with all his heart he wouldn’t drop it, especially in front of Doctor Harlow.

“Alright, put it in the cage.” Harlow watched intently, clipboard and pen in hand. Logan opened the cage, plopped the subject into it, and immediately removed his hand. The healthy monkeys looked at their newcomer with interest, but then they turned away and resumed their activities, ignoring it completely.

“What-”

“Silence.”

The subject looked around, terrified, and howled. It ran around the cage before settling in a corner. It made pained noises. To Logan’s complete and utter horror it bruised its face into its knees and began to rock. He was stunned. It looked like it was experiencing something akin to a panic attack.

He looked at Harlow, desperate for answers.

“This is… this is merely the first day of experimentation. The subject will adapt eventually. We just need to be patient.”

“Of… of course.”

That night Logan was restless. Sleep didn’t come for hours.

Logan couldn’t stop replaying the scene in his mind. He grieved for subject 273, wishing he could give it the gift of death. He felt certain, there was no way the monkeys were going to mentally recover. Trauma. He shook his head, feeling foolish. Irreversible trauma. This wasn’t a new discovery; he’d heard many stories of children suffering well into their adulthood from the trauma of neglect. He had been completely and utterly blind to even consider that monkeys would react any differently.

He kicked open the doors to the lab and bee lined for the Subject’s cage. He looked at it, sleeping, and smiled.

The moment he woke up, he knew. It was too late for subject 273, but with some luck, perhaps the Subject would adapt. He prayed it wasn’t too late. He unlocked the Subject’s cage, and just as he expected it climbed his arm.

He didn’t stop it.

He stood there, relaxed. The monkey was trembling, and Logan murmured comforting words to it. He took a nervous breath, then did what he had been waiting to do: he stroked it. He almost burst into tears. It felt so natural. So right. He hated himself for waiting so long.

“It’s okay, I’m here for you. I’ll be your mother.” He felt a rush of affection for the monkey, and smiled. “Virgil,” he whispered, naming the monkey in a single breath. “You’re safe now.”

He tucked Virgil into his pocket, hoping he could escape unnoticed. He walked down the hall, forcing his shoulders to relax and nodded at each colleague he had the displeasure of walking past. Disgusting. He couldn’t comprehend how they labeled themselves human beings. Have they no empathy? He wondered how they slept at night.

“Doctor.”

Logan groaned, wanting nothing more to break into a run, but he turned around and dipped his head. “Doctor Harlow. It’s wonderful to see you again. Has there been any progress with subject 273?”

Harlow sighed, walking closer. Logan’s heart jumped and Virgil began to shift in his pocket.

“Unfortunately the changes were too sudden for the specimen.”

Virgil writhed. Logan put a firm hand on his pocket, gritting his teeth. Just a little longer. Virgil just needed to hold on for a little longer.

“Subject 273 three is dead.”

Logan froze, forgetting about Virgil for a moment to look at Harlow, shocked. “W-what did you say?”

“It’s unfortunate, but it was merely a trial run, if we continu-”

Finally, to Logan’s horror, Virgil began screaming. It was at that moment that Logan realized the monkey was reacting to Harlow’s voice.

“What the hell?”

Logan didn’t hesitate. He turned on his heel and fled.

“Doctor Burry! Doctor! Stop!”

For a brief moment he wondered if Harlow would forgive him and allow him to return if he did stop, grovel, and dedicate his heart and soul to the cause, but then he felt Virgil thump against his leg in his pocket, and ignored all prospects of returning. He was doing the right thing.

“Security! He’s stealing property from the facility! Stop him at once!”

He heard the ominous footsteps of the security hot on his feet, but that only inspired him to pump his legs hard. He dodged anyone he encountered in the hallway, shamelessly shoving them at security to gain any distance he could. A stitch soon formed in his side and he cursed himself for not exercising more. He was a scientist, god damnit, he knew exactly the consequences of an inactive lifestyle.

As if god himself graced him, Logan soon spotted the front entrance loom into sight. He was suffocating and his vision was starting to blur, but he was… so… close.

He bulldozed through the front doors, yelping at that sharp pain that flashed through his arm, and bolted for the parking lot. In seconds, he found his car. He ran, putting all his energy into his legs, and jumped over the car door straight into the driver’s seat of his 1957 Ford Thunderbird. He slammed the keys into the ignition, and sped out of there like a bat out of hell.

He looked into his rearview and laughed as the facility dipped below the horizon. He shouted into the sky, high off his adrenaline.

“We did it, Virgil! We escaped!”

Logan woke up with a weight on his chest. He blinked, gazing at the ceiling, breathing with effort. He frowned and looked at his chest. “Virgil,” he muttered. “You’re so clingy.” He sat up, careful not to accidentally fling to monkey off him. He cradled the sleepy monkey against his chest, humming with an affectionate smile.

It had been three months since Logan had taken Virgil and escaped from the facility, and honestly, he couldn’t have been happier. Sometimes he missed Science, but not as much as he expected. It discovered that it had lost its sparkle.

He cracked his neck, and pulled himself out of bed. He sat Virgil down on the mattress, hoping to give him some extra sleep. He made himself some coffee and chopped up some breakfast for Virgil. He rubbed sleep from his eyes and sipped his coffee, then crossed the room to nudge his monkey awake.

“Time to get up, sleepyhead.”

Virgil mewled in protest, but when Logan shrugged and walked away, he was quick to follow. He smiled at the ground as Virgil circled his foot excitedly.

“It’s your favorite.” He picked up the dried pieces of fruit and showed them to Virgil. “Come on,” he urged, nudging the monkey with his foot. “Climb up here and eat.” He frowned when Virgil just looked at him with his big, brown eyes. “I know you can do it,” he said. “You’ve done it plenty of times before.”

Still nothing.

Finally he sighed. “You big baby.” He leaned down and picked up Virgil, cradling him in his arms. Although he pretended to hate it, he actually loved it when Virgil did that. He hand fed him the fruit, laughing as the monkey tried to inhale it whole.

After Virgil was finished, Logan focused his energy on getting ready for work. He quickly changed out of his pajamas and into something less casual.

“Alright.” He crouched down and held his palm to Virgil. “Let’s go.” The monkey climbed up his arm and nestled himself into Logan’s shoulder.

It was difficult to find a job that would allow a monkey into the premises, but he wasn’t going to compromise. Virgil, poor thing, had unfortunately developed separation anxiety, and Logan just couldn’t bear to abandon him. He’d done that enough already. Thankfully, he had found work as a librarian assistant, and Patton, the librarian, was more than happy to welcome Virgil with open arms.

“Hiya, Logan!”

“Greeti-”

“VIRGIL!” Patton exclaimed. “I missed you!” He quickly dashed across the library and stopped short of Logan, looking at him hopefully.

“Just don’t drop him.” He nudged Virgil into Patton’s hands.

“I would never!”

He let out an amused breath, and walked to a book cart and began to sort the assorted books. He glanced at Patton, feeling a pang of worry for Virgil. He hated to admit it, but the separation anxiety was mutual. Everytime Virgil was out of his sight, was panicked that a retrieval team had come and abducted him to return him to the facility.

He shook the thought off. He breathed in the calming scent of books. That would never happen, so long as Logan was there to prevent it. He looked around the library and felt bittersweet. It was humble, honest work, and while it wasn’t nearly as… insightful as Science, he still found it enjoyable. He stared at Patton playing with Virgil, and sighed, content.

He may have left behind all the answers he could have ever wanted, but he didn’t regret it for a second.

#logan sanders #virgil sanders #sanders sides fanfiction #fanfic #monkeys #Angst #Happy ending #Sanders Sides #Animal Experimentation #Harlow Monkey Experiment #historical fanfiction #Psychology #nature vs nurture #Virgil has a hard time

[dynamoe]

Happy Cloth Mothers Day/Happy Wire Mothers Day

#cloth mother #wire mother #harry harlow #psychology #experiment #psychological experiment #animal cruelty #monkey #baby monkey #mothers day

[gillianthecat]

Feeling heartbroken over the Harlows' baby monkeys and their unresponsive artificial mothers.

#not that i necessarily think they shouldn't have done those experiments #just that it is very sad #gillianthecat goes back to school #psychology #harlows' monkeys

[backrooms-princess]

#me #psychology memes #Harlow monkey experiments

[taxi-davis]

#harry harlow #monkey love experiments #cloth mother #rhesus macaque #monkey #baby monkey

[tenth-sentence]

In four of the cages, the cloth mother contained a bottle of milk and a teat to drink from.

"Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human" - Matt Ridley

#book quote #nature via nurture #matt ridley #nonfiction #experiment #monkey #baby monkey #robert zinmerman #harry harlow #harry israel #cloth #wire

[agoraphobiaismyname]

WAIT- I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING

There were a series of experiments performed 1958 (because Psychological studies used to be FUN back in the day before MORALS and NOT FUCKING YOUR TEST SUBJECTS UP became important to people) by Harry Harlow. The experiments are commonly known as the Wire Mother vs Cloth Mother.

In experiment #1:

They would separate infant Rhesus monkeys at birth from their mothers.

And place them in a cage with two surrogate mothers.

A wire mother who provided nourishment.

And a cloth mother who provided physical contact.

The monkey would spend the majority of the time with the Cloth Mother even if they didn't provide anything meaningful beyond contact. They would be braver with the Cloth Mother present, they would explore more. When confronted with a frightening object they would take refuge with the Cloth Mother.

I love the Murder Family concept as much as the next deranged autistic weirdo on this website but let's be honest. Will was never going to make a good Father. As much as he wanted a connection he couldn't bring himself to form one with the kid served up on a silver platter to him.

Will was the Wire Mother. He would have provided for Abigail, taught her appropriately but never be there for her emotionally like she would have needed.

Hannibal was the Cloth Mother. He didn't really care about Abigail. She was a means to an end. He provided comfort but nothing else, not at least what we would consider as appropriate nourishment.

#hannibal #will graham #nbc hannibal #hannigram #hannibal nbc #hannibal lecter #murder husbands #murder family #abigail hobbs

[suzukiblu]

anxious

"Okay," 105 says before crying a little more. A decent person would have hugged him a good dozen times by now or maybe just picked him up first thing and then never put him down again, but a decent person also wouldn't have made him to begin with.

Tim thinks about Harry Harlow and the wire mother monkeys.

And the cloth ones.

He steps around the side of the kitchen island and very carefully wraps his arms around 105.

105 holds himself very, very still.

"I'm sorry," Tim says quietly. "I'm so sorry. I'm not going to put you back in a tube. You don't have to be Kon. I never should've tried to make you think that you were."

"But I'm too little to do anything," 105 says, glancing up at him nervously. "And if I'm not gonna be Kon, then what am I gonna be?"

Tim's capacity for self-loathing could power every Gotham in the entire goddamn multiverse at this point.

"I don't know," he says carefully, doing his best to look the kid in the eye even with as much as the sight of his face hurts. "But that's up to you, okay? Not me. And I'll make sure . . . I'll make sure someone takes care of you, alright? You're not going to be–alone. Or anything like that. And no one's going to make you be anything you're not. Or . . . anyone you're not. Not if I can help it."

105 stares up at him for a long moment. Blinks a few times. Then he hunches his shoulders and ducks his head and cries some more.

Tim keeps his arms around him, because it's the only thing he can think to do.

He has really, really fucked up here.

"Do you want a name?" he asks quietly, because Kon didn't have one of those for way too long and the kid is already gonna go through enough without having to deal with being called "105" all the time. And–and also, because whatever happens, he wants the kid to know the selfish bastard who made him at least understands that he's a person–understands that he's his own person. At least understands he's not just . . . "A real name, I mean. Not one of Kon's or an alias or an experiment number."

"I don't know," 105 says, his small little voice just a bit too close to broken. "I'm not . . . I don't know what I am if I'm not gonna be Kon. I don't know what else to be."

"You don't have to know that yet, okay? You're a kid. It's fine not to know who you want to be yet," Tim tells him less in an attempt to not be the total bastard that he so very clearly is and more just to try and give the kid something not fucked up to hold onto. Just . . . something.

Pretty much anything would do, he thinks, as long as it's not the idea of having to be anyone he's not.

"I'm not supposed to be a kid, though," 105 says. "You wanted me to be big like Kon."

"Kon was still a kid too," Tim says tiredly, shaking his head. "And I mean–all he ever knew how to want to be was Superman, and Superman . . . isn't actually a real person. Superman's like–I don't know. An ideal. And trying to live up to something like that is very painful. I don't want you to feel like you need to do that."

"But you made me to do that," 105 says in confusion, and Tim tightens his jaw and lets go of him. Takes a step back.

"I did," he agrees quietly as he catches 105's eyes again. The sight of his face doesn't hurt any less. "But that was wrong of me."

". . . making me was–?" 105 starts nervously, and Tim's chest fucking hurts.

"There's nothing wrong with you," he cuts him off with. "I did bad things, but that's not your fault, and it doesn't mean you're bad."

"But I only exist because you did something bad," 105 says, staring at the floor again.

Tim wants to throw himself in a fucking dumpster and just rot there.

"That's true," he says as evenly as he can. "That's me, though. Not you. I did something bad, but you're not bad."

"I think I am," 105 says, blinking quickly, and Tim fists his hands behind the fall of his cape.

"You're not," he says. "Not at all. It's fine if you don't understand that yet, but I still want you to know it. Okay?"

". . . okay," 105 murmurs, still staring at the floor. His hair is all in his eyes, all tangled curls that should be windswept but aren't, and those eyes are still bluer than anything and much, much too sad.

It's bad enough that Tim put this look on a kid's face, but worse because that kid's face is so undeniably Kon's face.

Not that Kon ever got to be this young.

Tim takes a moment to hate himself just a little bit more for feeling guiltier about all this just because of a physical resemblance that he deliberately designed, then just . . . deals.

105 needs him to deal.

So he's going to.

So–a name, then. A name is somewhere to start. A name that isn't "Kon" or "Conner" or anything even remotely similar, for all the obvious reasons. So . . . Jack, maybe? Or Stephen? Or . . .

No, Tim thinks, shaking his head. He can't name a kid that he cloned to be a dead person after another dead person. Or after anyone else at all, in fact. That's just–no, he's not doing that. 105 has enough on his shoulders right now, he doesn't need anything else that he might see as some kind of expectation or demand.

Especially not for his fucking name.

Tim tries to think of names without any horrible legacies or unpleasant connotations attached. It's . . . a little harder than it should be, maybe.

Just . . . names. Any names. First ones that come to mind and don't belong to a dead person.

Noah. Adam. Ben. Eli. Caleb. Emmett–

"Tobias," is what actually comes out of his mouth, and honestly it's completely random but it also sounds absolutely nothing like "Conner" and he can't think of a single person with the name who isn't a fictional character. "Does that sound like a good name?"

"Who's Tobias?" 105 asks timidly, and Tim is very, very fucking glad that he didn't pick a dead person for this.

"Nobody," he replies. "Unless you want to be, that is."

"Oh," 105 says, blinking rapidly. "I, uh–okay. I can . . . I'll be Tobias. Okay."

"Okay," Tim says. "Then hi, Tobias."

". . . hi, Tim," Tobias mumbles back, then puts a hand over his mouth and looks worried. "I–sorry, should I not call you that? Since I'm not . . ."

"You can call me Tim," Tim says, because that's the goddamn least he owes this kid. "Just, you know, not in front of anyone not in the know if I'm masked up."

Admittedly, Bruce might either fire him for this or just throw him in Arkham himself, so the chances of him masking up too many more times are probably slim to none. This might already be the last time he ever wears Robin, in fact.

That's . . . well, a consequence that he might have to deal with. Will more than likely have to deal with.

But again: Tobias needs him to deal, so he will.

"Okay," Tobias says, shifting anxiously in his seat. "Um . . . Tim? Where am I gonna . . . go? After this?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't know yet," Tim admits, because he can't make him any actual promises. He should be able to, except he's still a minor for another six months and he has no real legal claim on the kid anyway, except maybe as intellectual property. So maybe he could technically . . . well, no, he'd need Bruce to enforce said IP if something legal were a concern, probably. And Bruce, again, might throw him in Arkham for this and would definitely be right to. "But I'm going to do everything I can to see you taken care of. To make sure you're not alone. Okay?"

Not that there's any damn reason for Tobias to ever trust him, but Tim is the only person the kid has right now and he has to at least try to reassure him.

". . . Superman wouldn't want me," Tobias says in a small voice, looking away. "He didn't even want Kon, and Kon was big and could do stuff and was really strong and cool and brave and–and I don't want Lex Luthor to want me, but . . . but I don't have anybody else's DNA, do I?"

"You don't," Tim confirms. "But it doesn't matter whose DNA you have, Tobias. That's not important."

"But you only even made me because you wanted Kon back," Tobias says, frowning up at him in wet-eyed distress. "You only wanted me for that. So it's . . . so it is important, right?"

Tim is fairly certain that he is the literal scum of the earth. Like . . . literally just the worst.

#tim drake #dc robin #teen titans #anonymous #rinfic #long post #wip: baby clone and all associated trauma

[glimmeringtwilight]

Can you write a Part 2 of the pantalone and dottore oneshot where dottore finds the reader and brings them back?

Oh boy CAN I. This isn't super well edited because I've taken much longer than anticipated writing this, but it's 4k words and editing it properly would take maybe another 1-2 days fhjghjkghjkg also excuse any inaccuracies with the Harlow's monkey experiment, I'm rolling mostly off my recollection and a quick skim of a wiki page.

Cut Me Open, Bleed Me Dry

Continuation to Gilded Cage, which can be read here.

Pairing(s): Dottore/Reader, Pantalone/Reader(implied)

Word Count: 4.2k

CW: NSFW, torture, mild gore, drugging, kidnapping/captivity, yandere themes, threats of mutilation, noncon, implied somnophilia, AFAB READER (I know I usually do gn but being nondescript didn't fit the writing this time, sorry!)

It’s cold. 

That’s the first thing your mind registers when you come to. The second, is the throbbing and insistent pain behind your temples as consciousness slowly comes back to you. 

There’s a sour taste in your mouth. Your tongue feels like cotton, your fingers tingle with pins and needles as numbness slowly fades from them, and you immediately know you’ve been drugged. Even with the fog of sleep and the drug still clinging to your mind; even as your thoughts are waterlogged and you’re treading water just to piece them together, you know where you are.

Dottore always did like to use the same drug every time he sedated you. 

There’s a blindfold covering your eyes, pressing uncomfortably against your lashes when you try to open them, but there’s no gag to accompany it. That must mean he wants you to talk. 

You decide to stall. If you thrash, beg, or scream, he’ll know you’re awake. And you’ll be subjected to whatever it is he’s going to do to you a lot sooner. So… you don’t do that. Instead, you keep your breathing steady, holding still against the cold metal table you’re strapped to. 

Sure, it’s only just delaying the inevitable, but you’ve gotten good at drifting away whenever you wake up on his operating table. It’s the only thing you can do to cling to the frayed threads left of your sanity. 

In a way, the blindfold helps. Dottore usually doesn’t blindfold you, but Pantalone… 

You close your eyes, focusing on the pressure of the fabric covering your eyes to distract yourself from the bite of cold metal against bare skin, and you drift. 

You’re in bed. It’s warm, if only under the sheets. You’re not… home, but if you’re being honest with yourself (you rarely are, these days), you don’t really remember what home was like, anymore. So you settle for the empty imitations of it; the dreary and beautiful halls of Pantalone’s mansions– he had to move you around, a few times, but never told you why, when you’d asked. You know now. 

You’re… in bed. It’s cold. You’re shivering. You can hear Pantalone across the room; he’s saying something, but you can’t– you can’t hear him. Why can’t you…?

You’re in bed, and you feel gloved hands tracing up your arms, fingers pausing to tap playfully against your pulse, and then your head is being lifted so deft fingers can untie the knot holding the blindfold. 

The fabric is pulled away, and red eyes meet your own. 

You’re not in bed. You’re with Dottore, strapped to an operating table. Reality crashes into you like a bucket of icewater, and your trembling increases tenfold. 

“Enjoy your rest?” He asks, monotone. He’s not smiling, and it’s the first time, you realize, that he hasn’t smiled when he’s had you on his exam table. 

You don’t respond, and Dottore’s face stays carefully blank as he regards you. “...Hm.” 

The Doctor steps away, out of sight, but you don’t try to follow him with your gaze, listening instead to his receding footsteps. 

It still doesn’t feel real. Undoubtedly, part of you knew that, as tightly as Pantalone held on, it was only a matter of time before Dottore sunk his claws into you once more. 

But part of you wanted to hope that it wouldn’t happen, that Pantalone would be able to shield you from him forever. Because though Pantalone treated you more like a beloved pet than a person, it was still better than this: pinned under the microscope and picked apart piece by sinewy piece by Dottore. 

Dottore returns to your side, and you count ceiling tiles, willing the ground to open up and swallow you into the abyss. Or better yet, to swallow him, so he can be surrounded by darkness as deep as the pitch of his soul. 

You’d pray if there were any gods to hear you. But you know better. The prick of a needle, chased by the burn of whatever he’s injecting into you, and you know that the gods– or perhaps just the blasphemous parody of gods that had sunk their teeth into Teyvat long ago– had abandoned you. 

Gloved fingers trace a slow path down your sternum, pausing just below your diaphragm and pressing down until you wince in discomfort, stopping when you do but not yet easing up. 

“Comfortable?”

“No,” Comes your hoarse whisper. Your eyes stay pinned on the ceiling tiles overhead. There’s specks of blood you can barely see from where you lie. You wonder how much of it is yours. 

“Pity.” 

The hands continue their slow descent over bare skin, raising goosebumps in their wake. He pauses again once he reaches your pelvic bone, drumming his fingers there before pulling away entirely. Glass clinks against glass when he steps away again, and you feel a hand grabbing your chin before the narrow mouth of a test tube is pressed against your lips. 

“Open,” He says, grip tightening on your chin, and you do. You know better by now than to fight him.

The liquid inside of the tube sloshes out as he pours it a little too quickly, and the rest of it burns the whole way down your throat, sickly-sweet. Dottore pulls the tube away when he’s sure you’ve swallowed it all, wiping the excess dribbling down your chin with his thumb before dipping into your mouth to smear it against your tongue. 

It doesn’t take long for you to figure out what it was he gave you. You think he injected you with a muscle relaxant– you realize too late when your fingers stop responding to your attempts to twitch them (not that you could do much to struggle otherwise. The straps pinning you to the table hold firm).

As for what he poured down your throat… 

Dottore is across the room washing his hands when you begin to sweat. You can hear the sound of running water, and while you’re sure it’s only for a minute, it feels like an eternity as the chill of the room begins to hurt, turning sharp and biting. 

He comes back over when you whimper, with a fresh set of gloves and a scalpel. You regret looking, forcing your gaze back to the ceiling and breathing through your teeth. You try to count the blood specks on the ceiling, the cracks, the tiles– anything and everything to distract yourself. 

The blade of his scalpel grazes your wrist, leaving what you’re sure is no bigger than a papercut, but it burns so much more than it should, ripping a muted whine from your throat. 

Dottore hushes you, continuing to cut through the straps. You know he could just undo them, instead of ruining them by cutting through the leather, but he wants to see you squirm. 

He doesn’t nick you again, but it doesn’t matter. The pain of the cut on your wrist stings so insistently you can’t manage to drift, to distance yourself, away from him and from what he’s doing to you. 

When he finishes with the last strap, he sets the scalpel down on a tray beside the table– one you refuse to look at, not wanting to see the tools laid out there; to see what he intends to do to you. Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is bliss, you tell yourself, and you try to believe it. 

You’re lifted and positioned so you’re lying on your stomach now on the table, and he has the barest amount of mercy left in him to turn your head to the side so your nose doesn’t smash against the metal surface. 

“Now, this is going to sting a bit, dear,” He starts, once you’re positioned how he wants you, “But you’ve suffered worse, hm? Bear with it.”

It’s detached, the way he speaks to you; so unlike the usual underlying excitement that drips from his voice whenever he’s laid you out on this table in the past. It’s.. horrifying. The safety net of his obsession that’s saved you from worse in the past no longer feels safe, anymore. If ever it did. 

Cool metal ghosts over your spine, the flat of the scalpel dragging over skin before stopping to rest below your shoulder blade. He pulls away and you hope that’s it, that he’s just going to toy with the threat of hurting you instead of actually doing so, but then cold metal returns and it’s the only warning you get before sharp pain bursts from just below your shoulder blade as he begins to cut. 

It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, and you can’t focus on anything but the white-hot pain as it spreads from the tip of your scapula to the tail. 

It hurts. You think you must be sobbing something similar, but if your cries are coherent, Dottore doesn’t pay them any mind. There’s a ringing in your ears that drowns everything out, your vision blurs, and you’re still reeling from the pain of the first incision when Dottore moves to your other shoulder.

You taste copper and you realize you must have bitten your tongue at some point, but the pain doesn’t compare to the sensation of fire lapping at your back– to the nerves firing off, overloading your senses with undiluted agony. 

Something is forced between your teeth and you bite down immediately out of instinct. He’s saying something to you, now, but his voice is muffled, like your head is underwater. You’re drowning. You can’t breathe, swallowed up by the capsizing waves of sensation.

Pain traces a blazing trail down your spine. Your head is swimming, black spots dancing in your vision, and you close your eyes to succumb to the mercy of unconsciousness.

You’re not granted that mercy. 

Instead, the sensation of ice chases away the heat, the fiery agony dimming as a freezing numbness settles in. 

A voice cuts through the fog. “Open your eyes before I decide to remove them.”

You open your eyes, looking back towards Dottore through the film of tears over your eyes, the blur of pain. Dimly, you can feel his hand gripping your jaw again, but the feeling is distant, disjointed. 

“Good.” Red eyes scan over your form, less cold, this time, as he appraises his work. “I’d like you present for this.”

You mumble a slurred “Where elsh would I be?” around the gag stuffed in your mouth.

“This-” There’s a harsh pinch to your arm that you can hardly muster a wince for, too exhausted from the pain he’d already put you through. From the corner of your eye you can see the glint of amusement in his eyes fade at your lack of reaction, “-is here. But this-” Gloved fingers tap at your temple, “-is not. Stay present. I’m being gentle with you.”

He’s not. He’s really not, but you know he could be doing so much worse, so you nod and make him a promise you can’t keep, like you’ve done a thousand times before. 

Dottore stares at you for a long moment, and you resist the urge to let your eyes glaze over, to stare off into the distance. You level your unsteady gaze at him instead, forcing yourself to maintain eye contact. Your efforts are rewarded with a dispassionate simper, and Dottore picks back up the knife. 

You stop looking. 

The pain ignites anew, duller now, no longer white-hot. It’s still insistent, inescapable, and you wish you could crawl out of your own skin.

A line drawn down your back with the knife, like your body is a canvas, your blood the ink, and Dottore the persevering composer. 

There’s a study that comes to mind. You remember reading about it, one rainy afternoon as you took shelter from the rain in a quaint library in Sumeru, procrastinating your own studies. Before everything… before this. 

The study was done on monkeys. They were separated from their mothers young, placed in cages with a wire mother, which provided milk, and a cloth mother, which provided nothing but comfort. 

Survival or comfort. That was the study. The monkeys chose comfort, only going to the cloth mother for food when they were hungry and spending the rest of their time with the cloth mother. 

You’d always wondered, then, what you would choose. As Dottore pushes something into one of the incisions, gloves slick with your own blood, you think you know. 

Dottore stops. “Say again?”

It’s hard to get the words out around the gag, but Dottore seems to understand you regardless. 

“Oh. Poor thing,” It’s a cold comfort, the blood-slicked hand that pats your head. His voice is flat, not condescending or patronizing like when Pantalone simpers at you. But you can hear the amusement creeping into his tone, and it’s enough. “We’re almost done. I’ll give you something for the pain in a moment.”

Something for the pain, he says, as though he hadn’t already given you something, turning the low burning flame of shallow incisions into a raging inferno. 

There’s a cut to your arm, this time, deeper than the rest. It burns, but it’s overshadowed still by the throbbing and insistent agony in your back. Something else is pressed into your arm, and Dottore finally sets down the knife.

The room is spinning. 

A hand returns to pet your head once more, matting it further with your own blood. You slowly become aware of just how cold the room is, heightened by the sheen of sweat covering your bare skin. You want to go home. …You’re not sure where home is, anymore. 

There’s another needle, a sharp sting and then a dull ache settling in like a bruise at your nape. It doesn’t take long for the pain to dull, and you fight the wave of exhaustion that chases on the heels of relief, not wanting to aggravate him further by slipping into unconsciousness before he lets you. 

You try to stay awake. You really do. But with your heartbeat echoing in your ears, the warm hand resting atop your head, and the pain dulling, unhooking its claws from your consciousness, you drift. 

When you wake, you’re still in the nightmare. You’ve been moved to a stiff, sterile bed, lying on your stomach to not agitate the wounds on your back. It feels like Dottore must have cleaned and bandaged you up already– a small comfort.

The injuries ache dully, but more concerning is the feeling of fingers digging into your hips.

“Glad to see you’re finally awake, my dear.” A pause, then a lewd squelch as he pulls his other hand out from between your thighs. “I was starting to get bored.”

Dottore thumbs at the edge of the bandages encircling your back, humming. “That spoiled brat thought he could hide you from me forever.” He leans down, pressing his nose against the nape of your neck and causing the skin to prickle with goosebumps. You shiver at the contact and he smiles against your skin. 

“Oh, but don’t worry.” You cringe when his hand, still wet, taps you on the cheek. “I’ve already made something to keep him busy. You don’t mind that I took a bone and tissue sample while you slept, do you?”

It’s a rhetorical question– one that you don’t bother to answer and that he doesn’t care to hear the answer to, regardless. Instead, Dottore seems to be interested in the space between your legs once more, hand running down to smear the arousal he’d coaxed out of you in your sleep against your inner thighs. 

“Pity that you’ll have to be on your stomach for this,” He muses, chuckling quietly at the way you flinch when he slides two fingers back into you, “I do so love seeing your reactions.”

You bite your lip to stifle a groan when he curls his fingers against your walls, grinding his thumb against your clit. It aches, just a little bit. Like you’re sore. Like he’s been doing this for a while.

It’s almost mortifying, actually, how well he knows your body. The building pleasure drowns out the lingering ache of your injuries, and it’s hard to focus on the shame coiling in your gut when there’s something else coiling faster and brighter than the shame. 

“Mm, faster than I’d expected.” Dottore mutters from behind you, increasing the pace of his fingers as his other hand slips beneath you to press down on your stomach, right over where his fingers curl against your walls. 

Your thighs spasm, trying to close around his wrist, and he tsks, moving his other hand to hold one thigh against the bed as he presses a third finger around you. Your vision whites out, and Dottore doesn’t stop pumping his fingers inside you until you’re whimpering and twitching from overstimulation. 

“There. Good.” 

There’s a wet pat to your thigh, and you hear him walk off to grab something from the other end of the room. He returns with a jar of… something pink, some kind of salve, and dips his clean hand inside the jar to scoop out a generous amount of it. 

He applies it between your legs, over your clit, pressing some of it inside you and deliberately rubbing his fingers against your g-spot, eyes crinkling in delight at the oversensitive spasm that runs through you. It doesn’t take long for you to figure out what it does. 

It burns. Not in the same way as the pain did when you’d woken up on the operating table, but suddenly it feels like your cunt is on fire, all of your attention forced to the way Dottore’s hands feel as he rubs the excess off against your labia. 

You barely register the sound of Dottore unzipping his pants, but you do register the sheer, overwhelming relief you feel when he immediately presses inside of you, the head of his cock dragging against your walls before coming to a halt just below your cervix. 

He begins to thrust, mercifully not commenting on the keen you let out the second he starts moving. 

Dottore sets a brutal pace, snapping his hips against yours, grabbing one of your thighs and lifting it higher on the bed to get better leverage. You can feel his balls slap against your clit with each snap of his hips, the sound of it drowned out by your hiccuping moans. 

Your second orgasm is ripped out of you suddenly, embarrassingly fast. You choke on a moan and tighten around him, distantly hearing the doctor laugh as he fucks you through it. It’s getting hard to think, to focus on anything but his cock hammering into you. 

Unfortunately, Dottore seems keen to talk, while you’re still coherent enough to listen.  

“You know,” he begins conversationally, gloved fingers pressing against the inside of your thigh as he slows his pace to a slow, maddening grind inside you, “The femoral artery is right about-” he fumbles for a second, then his fingers are digging bruisingly into the flesh, “-here. If I were to cut you here,” You feel him lean down to breathe against the shell of your ear, “It would take about… Oh, I don’t know, three, four minutes for you to bleed out.”

You go still beneath him, holding your breath and he slows to a stop, relishing the way terror makes you tighten around him. It’s hard to focus, to think through the fog of lust, but the sudden, blatant threat still manages to cut through the haze like a knife. 

“I won’t, of course,” He tells you after a beat, laughing cruelly at the tentative sigh of relief you let out. “Not to you, that is. You’re my favorite test subject, after all.”

Dottore resumes his pace, loosening his grip on your leg and letting it drop limply back against the table. 

You think that’s the end of it, until he speaks up again, halting his thrusts briefly to tuck your legs under you and cant your hips up higher. “What wouldn’t kill you, however…”

One hand finds its way to your stomach again, tracing light circles around your navel. “I could remove most of your small intestine, and you would survive.”

“N-” You begin to protest, but another harsh thrust cuts you off.

“Not comfortably, of course, depending on how much I remove.” His hand floats down, pressing harshly against your clit and forcing another sudden orgasm from you. He waits for you to come back down before he speaks again. “If I take too much, we’d need to adjust your diet. But…” 

His breathing is picking up now, getting more labored. “I could, hah-” He leans down, breathing hotly against your neck and trapping you against the bed with his body. The movement drags against the bandages, agitating your injuries. “I could… Take just a little bit. A few feet.”

“No-” 

“Quiet.” He snaps his hips harder against yours and you bite your tongue, drawing blood again, to stifle the sob that bubbles up. “I could take a few feet, make a leather collar out of it… Make you wear it, sew it to your skin if I must-”

His fingers continue circling your clit and you blink back overstimulated and terrified tears, his hand on your hip tightening painfully. You can feel the next high approaching and you desperately hold it back. It’s hard to think. In the back of your mind you know you need to say something, do something to stop his train of thought before he decides to act on it-

Dottore growls against your shoulder. You can feel his scowl as he presses his weight harder against you, but it twists into a smile at your responding pained gasp when the bandages drag against the incisions. “Ah- hah, I won’t, of course,” He pants, nipping at your throat, “I could do that to just any test subject of mine, my dear, but you’re more than that now, aren’t you? Just tell me, again, that you love me.”

Again? 

“You’ve already said it before. Once more won’t kill you.”

It takes you several long moments, not helped at all by Dottore continuing to rut into you distractingly, but you remember. He’s right. When he was cutting into you, when you were desperate and delirious from the pain, you’d choked out the three damning words around the gag. 

It was done out of desperation. You’d wanted the pain to stop, and it had. Dottore had stopped after you’d said it, taking pity on you instead. 

One more time couldn’t hurt, right? It’s such a small price to pay, a white lie so he doesn’t hurt you further. 

“I- ah, nnnm-” He doesn’t slow down his pace for you to get the words out without stuttering, but you’re too exhausted to feel ashamed of the way that your voice cracks with pleasure. “I love- love you.”

“Yes,” Dottore’s cock twitches inside of you, and he snarls against your neck. “Good. You don’t have to mean it, yet. But you will. You will.”

It’s spoken like a promise; one you’re unable to dread as your mind starts to blank, focus drifting to your next orgasm as Dottore’s thrusts become wild, desperate.

The head of his cock batters against your g-spot with every stroke, pleasure and overstimulated pain lancing through you. Your thoughts are fuzzy from lust, unable to focus on anything but the heaving breaths against the shell of your ear, the wet slap of skin-on-skin, the hiccuping moans and noises of pleasure he pulls from your throat. 

Teeth sink into your shoulder at the same time Dottore pinches your clit, and your eyes roll back as white-hot pleasure lances through your veins. . 

He growls, the sound vibrating against your shoulder, and you shudder when you feel him cum after you, cock twitching as he shoots his load deep inside your cunt. 

The world comes back to you slowly, in jagged pieces. When you crack your eyes open once more, you’ve been moved so your legs are no longer tucked up under you, lying comfortably flat on your stomach once more. 

Dottore comes back from the other side of the room with a vial, and your face scrunches in revulsion as he presses it to your abused hole, collecting the cum that oozes out. A gloved hand pats your head affectionately before he pulls away. 

“Get some rest. I have something that I need to… attend to.” Sleep. You can do that, certainly.

He waves his hand, and you vaguely hear him speaking to the clone that immediately comes into view– who was probably stationed in the corner the whole time, taking notes or something. You wouldn’t put it past him, and from the way some of them stare at you a little too long, a little too intensely, you’re sure many of his clones would like to do a little bit more to you than just watch and take notes.

As Dottore leaves, and his clone wipes you down with a rag, knuckles brushing against the inside of your thighs a little too deliberately to be innocuous, you’re reminded of the cloth monkeys again. 

The clone moves to rest his hand atop your limp one once he’s sure Dottore has left, and you curl your fingers around his own. His hands are cold without the gloves, just like his progenitor’s. 

You choose comfort too.

#yandere #dottore #il dottore #dottore/reader #il dottore/reader #dottore x reader #il dottore x reader #yandere dottore #yandere il dottore #yandere dottore/reader #genshin #genshin impact #yandere genshin #yandere genshin impact #dead dove do not eat #cw: noncon #cw: drugging #cw: torture #i'm so sad the childe fic vanished from my top posts and the zhongli modern au was buried #it's JUST DOTTORE #LITERALLY NOTHING BUT HIM #WAAAGH #what have i become.... i have lost sight of myself.... of my noble journey..... #my writing #one day i'll format these prettily. not today though. i'm lazy #enjoy the meal xoxo #smut #not sfw

[frozenjokes]

hi um. can i ask what the cloth mother/wire mother chart means? me and my friends have been trying to break it down for like half an hour of back and forth constant debate and external sources. we understand the experiment, but could you explain each point separately as an axis?

we think that the monkey/mother is what mother they prefer.. but then what is the object? the object cant prefer a mother as an object, so then does that mean that they /are/ the mother? it.. has been a topic of much debate please explain your research i am fascinated and need to know more

let it be known, this is the best ask I’ve ever gotten. you are in for it. For reference, here is the blank graph.

short answer: this is a personality chart. The measure is How Much ____ person is Monkey/Diabolical Object vs Cloth/Wire Mother

long answer: AUTISM. let’s talk about autism shall we? yes… I think we will. Autism. I do not choose the inanimate objects I identify with. The autism chooses. And if you are a psych major in college you may know that every professor on the face of the earth talks about harlow’s monkeys. They are everywhere. I’ve been lectured on the monkeys MANY a time. Now when you’ve seen these videos about this experiment over and over again (as well as watching them on your own time because as established, your ass is not normal) you start to.. identify with them. SPECIFICALLY when you are a blunt, outwardly colder kind of person. Someone with sharper edges. Someone who has a hard time making friends and fitting in and finding people who YADDA YADDA YADDA THIS IS TUMBLR YOU (reader) GET IT. Now we see wire mother yes? Do you see a similarity? Do you see all those memes about her, DISRESPECTING HER, MISUNDERSTANDING HER, SHE’S TRYING HER FUCJING BEST AND YET SHE IS OUTCAST, SHE IS DISCOUNTED.

she also looks like this. actually, let’s take a look at all of them, shall we?

no further comment. this is peak design. diabolical object in particular is ?!!??!!!?? great. more pictures now.

NEEDLESS TO SAY. I am wire mother. I am a wire mother (on the graph I fall between wire mother and diabolical object) and I am so abnormal about it, if any person that vaguely knows me sees any post on any platform that so much as mentions this experiment it goes Directly to me.

Maybe this isn’t important. But maybe it is. Maybe you need to get to know them, to know them like I do. But now for what you’re really here for. What does it mean.

Let’s begin

THE X AXIS: Cloth/Wire Mother is primarily about Warmth. It’s about Affect. (psych term for the way people emote, simply. You can have a positive affect, a negative affect, a neutral affect, it’s used often in the context of neurodivergence. For example a person with schizoid personality disorder expresses an extremely low range of emotion, and therefore, often shows neutral or negative affect. It’s a useful descriptor for autism as well.) Do people feel comfortable around you upon first meetings? Do people feel comfortable around you upon first meetings when you AREN’T masking? How easy/difficult is it for you to mask? Do you feel the need to mask at all? Sociability is big here. It should be noted the x axis has nothing to do with someone being a ‘nice’ or ‘mean’ person. This entire graph isn’t about Nice or Mean, it’s about perception, it’s about how people hold themselves.

Cloth Mother: Cloth Mothers are warm, they are approachable. These are the type of people you’re drawn to, the type of people that make others laugh. Cloth mothers do not have to be socially adept, but they often are, or at the very least they’re outgoing enough to provide the illusion of adeptness. For example, one of my good friends is very socially outgoing, very extroverted, but at the same time, struggles with social cues in the ADHD way of not always knowing when to stop or start talking, etc etc. Cloth mothers typically have a more positive affect. They can be passionate and excitable, you take one look at them and you just know they’re so happy to be here! :D

Wire Mother: Wire Mothers tend to be colder, not as approachable. They often struggle to reach out, especially among neurotypical friend groups, and may often be perceived by other people as sad or unhappy due to a neutral or negative affect. Other people think Wire Mothers don’t like them, or that they’re mad at them, when in reality, Wire Mothers just look like that. Wire Mothers can make people who don’t know them uncomfortable, but they’re literally just vibing, I’d try not to worry about it. There’s so much joy stored in the Wire Mother, it just doesn’t always touch the surface like it does for more expressive people. It does come out though; you get a Wire Mother going and you’ll be there all day. Cat coded.

THE Y AXIS: Diabolical Object/The Monkey is definitely a bit harder to describe. I think this relies more on personal identification, as a lot of it Is Vibes. The Y Axis is about personality, but it isn’t to be taken too seriously. But put simply. Do you air on the softer side of insanity, or do you bite with teeth. Are you a little more sensitive to the world or is your typical approach BITING RIPPING TEARING GGRRBBARKKABRKABRKABKR KILL KILL KILL KILL. Do you feel a little bit bad/aren’t very good at (MUTUALLY) making fun of your friends or are you engaging in gorilla warfare, claws, teeth, kicking and screaming, all of it. It’s sopping wet and pathetic vs LITERALLY EVIL. :) vs >:) The most important thing about the Y Axis is that Being Soft versus Complete Bastard is that both sides can go completely apeshit about literally anything. Being soft does not mean you any less crazy than the Diabolical Object. You may have a little more chill But You Are Still A Monkey.

The Monkey: You take things a little slower. You are not (outwardly) as intense as your other friends. People look at you and wonder if you were raised by two inanimate objects, periodically having your pants shit by The Embodiment Of Pure Evil, and then afterwards were unable to reintegrate into regular monkey society. (Harlow’s monkey reference) You’re 15lbs sopping wet. If you have a bigger build or any muscle at all, the fandom would probably draw you as a twink. They’d probably do that anyway if you were evil, but it’s just a little more baffling in your case. This is about TangoTek. There’s more to be said about The Monkey, but like. Idk man. You’re a monkey. Everyone does a little 🥺 from time to time, but for some reason people associate it more with you.

Diabolical Object: You have zero chill all of the time. You take things way too far, you’re running at 1000% constantly and you are Going to crash and burn in a fiery explosion, but dude it will be SO SICK. You couldn’t give less of a fuck. You REALLY want people to think you couldn’t give less of a fuck. You are a devious, evil little creature. Rats, We’re Rats, We’re The Rats <- YOU. People think you’re evil. They’re right. You are the bane of your friends’ existence, and proudly at that. Part of you needs to see how far you can push everyone else’s patience because GOD you just want them to Snap. Sometimes this is with love. Sometimes you’re just bored and want to see how much of a nuisance you can be before getting kicked from the voice call. You are the cat that starts the fights.

And so here we have it again. Further questions are welcomed and encouraged. Maybe I’ll spend another hour answering them! I hope someone reads this entire thing without realizing it was, in fact, a Minecraft post. Who cares. This shit is so much fun, I highly recommend throwing your own ocs on it or other fandom stuff who cares, it’s a good time. Maybe it’s Just me.

#hermitcraft #long post #harlows monkeys #wire mother #cloth mother #psychology #psych #autism #neurodivergence #life series smp #diabolical object #the monkey

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Fics Written in 2020 (2) Masterlist

part one

a different side of me (ao3) - dizzy

Summary: Dan's early 2010 struggle with his home life, his future, and how Phil fits into everything.

A whale of a time - (ao3) - lazyphannie

Summary: Dan's horny and Phil's still sleeping.

Advent Calendar 2020 (ao3) - Phantje

Summary: Dan is a single father to his son Mes. When Mes does not go to Dan's best friend Meggie's nursery, he tags along to Dan's photography studio. With Mes, the studio, and his film-review-blog, Dan is certainly busy, and yet finds time to be a little lonely - he is skilled like that. Dan's life seems to suddenly start spinning when he rescues a client from a malicious photo booth.

Phil is the co-founder of the IRL store, but wants to start working to meet new people and to fill his days. That has nothing to do whatsoever with him pining after the mysterious blogger, and he isn't even really all that lonely, actually.

Phil starts working at a nursery, makes a new friend, and gets more than he bargained for in falling in love with the photographer.

All Signs Point to Us (ao3) - RyRyCaptain

Summary: When the queen and king gives birth to Daniel, they soon learn that their son is deaf. In order to let Dan express his opinions to those who haven't learned sign language, they find him a translator who happens to be the son of the King’s advisor, Phil. Soon enough, Phil starts to realize thAt he fallen in love with the younger boy.

All We Seem to Do Is Talk About Sex (ao3) - truerequitedlove

Summary: In which Dan’s got a boyfriend and a tongue piercing, and Phil’s got a weed hookup and an anxiety disorder. In high school, they were labeled “bad influences on each other,” maybe that would never go away.

Arrangements (ao3) - intoapuddle

Summary: One night stands have worn out their welcome, but Dan isn't ready for a relationship. Thankfully, other arrangements can be made.

attachment (ao3) - dnovep

Summary: Harlow’s monkey experiments, love, & Phil wrapping Dan in blankets.

baby can't you see? (i'm calling) (ao3) - danfanciesphil (thejigsawtimess)

Summary: Two years after Dan's ill-advised stint up a mountain, and Phil's escape from a Royal psychopath, their dramatic flying off into the horizon hasn't had such a steady landing. Phil is consumed by his new venture in giving back to the world, but Dan is receiving none of this graciousness. Their living situation remains unstable, and they're barely in the same room long enough to hold hands.

It's all about to break apart, when the pandemic hits them where it hurts. Once again, Dan and Phil find themselves thrown into isolation with one another, back up where it all began. The memories of The Secret of the Alps are both fond and traumatic; being there again, trapped and in a bitter feud, is worryingly familiar. Can they make it out together a second time around? Or is this cycle doomed to repeat itself forever, until one of them calls it quits?

(TW) Break Me (ao3) - MySecretsX

Summary: In this world, you're marked with black. That's if you have a soulmate at least. Everyone is destined to cross paths with the one who is meant for them, at least once in their lives.

When you and your soulmate meet, you will touch, if only briefly, and the exact area of skin you touch with the other turns from black to white, with streaks of blue, purple, yellow, all marbled in with each other.

Daniel Howell is well-known in town. People cross the street if they're approaching him and newcomers to the neighbourhood are warned about his presence. Exactly like the Lester's were. But Phil Lester has other ideas, he saw the pain within the boy, how bad can he really be?

chaos in bloom (ao3) - vvelna

Summary: The adventures of Dan and Phyl, ghost removal experts.

closer than before (ao3) - graydar

Summary: Maybe he’ll just take this one chance. It might be fun, might be something to do, might be more than that. He’s fine with not knowing. All anyone is doing right now is not knowing. It’s the new trend.

Cold, Empty Mattresses and Falling Stars (ao3) - conshellation

Summary: 2009 au where phil and his family own a campground/cabins in an area that is known for stargazing and phil has lived his entire life there, therefore knowing a lot about stars. dan and his family come from the city to said campground because dan is a nerd and asked to come there for his birthday.

Covet (ao3) - americanphancakes

Summary: The only thing making Dan feel alive is his all-consuming crush on the new deacon.

Crossing the line (ao3) - dakogutin

Summary: After billionaire Phil Lester meets an unfortunate incident that ends him up in hospital with no memories, Dan Howell— a mistreated employee convinces Phil that he is Dan's working-class husband to get back at him with the many hardships he faced as an employee. What could go wrong?

Dead! (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: Phil is a zombie living in the abandoned Luton airport, Dan is a human survivor. Bound together by the fear of what hides in the dark, they choose not to kill each other, and begin the long journey to Manchester and (hopefully) to new colonies

doppelt. (ao3) - schnaf

Summary: The big wheel in Manchester. The big wheel in another Manchester. Phil's disappearance. Finding Phil - twice. Dealing with Doppelgängers. That's not exactly what Dan expected from their first meeting. But in the end, being with Phil is all that matters.

for the first time in such a long time (I know I'll be okay) (ao3) - possumdnp

Summary: Three conversations in Phil’s bedroom in 2009.

grind to the rhythm (as we wine and dine) (ao3) - kishere

Summary: God, everyone was going to think him a harlot, Phil thought as they walked out of the maze in silence. Being left alone with an alpha he wasn’t mated to was cause for gossip.

Hot As Hell (ao3) - Spring_Haze

Summary: Dan and Phil take advantage of a few minutes of unexpected privacy while in a dry sauna. Phil can't resist his boyfriend on account of his well-established sweat kink.

I Will Be Loving You (ao3) - phantasticworks (steddieworks)

Summary: Dan and Phil spend their first Valentine's Day out of the closet.

it's a church of burnt romances (ao3) - phanetixs

Summary: Dan backs into the car and the driver asks where he’s heading. His head swims with thoughts of Phil, and of guilt and embarrassment at how he’s subconsciously treating his friend. Whose life centres around virtues like chastity. And non-objectification goes both ways. Dan takes a few deep breaths, pressing a palm to his insistent bulge to quell his arousal. As always, it doesn’t work.

Well, he resolves, if he can’t get Phil out of his head, he’s got to get someone else into it. Or onto him, preferably.

Or, a Fleabag AU.

Lonely in Conflict, Cast as a Convict (ao3) - andthenshesaid-write (ladyknight1512)

Summary: Dan is a vampire who can’t remember how it feels not to be lonely. Phil is a vampire hunter living in his brother’s shadow.

When they meet, they find acceptance in each other that they don’t find anywhere else, but there are secrets and other forces at play trying to keep them apart.

married at first sight (ao3) - nothingbutniall

Summary: Dan and Phil get matched together on the new season of Married At First Sight.

Midnight Garden (ao3) - silentdescant

Summary: In which Phil is a gardener at the palace and Dan is a reclusive prince.

Mirror Mirror (ao3) - dont-tell-them-i-write-phan (QueenJunoTheGreat)

Summary: Dan and Phil get invited to stay at a historical castle with Martyn and Cornelia. Contrariwise, Daniel and Philip aren’t invited anywhere, but not many people can say no to a highly trained thief and a dragon. But that’s totally unrelated

My Spirit Love (ao3) - MySecretsX

Summary: If you fall in love with a spirit who drains you both away, do you live together for twenty years, or stay alone each day?

Phil has lived in his house since he was born, but it was when he turned seven he met Dan for the first time. It's all childish games and the muse of a naïve brain until your fifteen-year-old son claims to have fallen in love with the boy you've never seen.

Is anything possible for love?

oh you got me shaking (ao3) - chickenfree

Summary: Usually if the models talk to him, it’s just – them asking questions, Phil joking about how he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, even as he directs them.

They don’t try to argue with him, usually.

One Thousand Midnights or More (ao3) - JudeAraya

Summary: A decade of love told in moments.

Our House (ao3) - sierraadeux

Summary: Enemy is a harsh word. Rival sounds so immature, like Dan’s the star of some teen drama on Netflix. Competition is close, but not quite there.

In simple terms, Dan has a distaste for Phil Lester. Otherwise known as AmazingPhil in their line of business, for some reason that’s beyond Dan. What makes him so amazing anyway?

There’s a reason the network wanted Daniel Howell and Phil Lester for this specific series, and Dan guesses there’s really only one way to find out that answer.

or

And they were co-hosts. Oh my god they were co-hosts.

pastry chef attempts to steal phil's heart (ao3) - sierraadeux

Summary: If anyone asks, Prince Philip's sneaky morning journeys down to the royal pastry kitchen are for nothing more than the perfect cup of coffee.

The Secluded Glade (ao3) - palomeheart

Summary: Phil Lester has always been acutely aware of the ways he and his daemon Adra are different from others. Namely that Adra is male, hasn’t settled yet, and they share second sight that causes them to have dreams that show them glimpses of the future. Now, as a consequence of one of his prophetic dreams, he’s forced to go on a rescue mission to find a group of children that have gone missing from his town. He may have signed up for more than he bargained for, however, when they find another man who’s been captured with some differences of his own.

The Wanting Comes In Waves (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: After moving to the tiny Welsh coastal village of Rhagfyr, Phil struggles to find a new way of living, what with his new school and the decision of his future still on the table. Dan is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, but perhaps there’s beauty inside destruction.

they grew up so nicely, didn't they? (ao3) - natigail

Summary: Cornelia doesn’t just get a boyfriend when she starts dating Martyn, she gets a whole second family too. Kath and Nigel welcome her with open arms and she becomes a pseudo older sister to Phil.

She is there watching from the sidelines as a boy bolts right into Phil’s heart and sets up camp. She gets to watch as Dan and Phil build careers and an internet community and all the trials and tribulations, as well as the pride and happiness, it brings along.

When the Weather Breaks (ao3) - sierraadeux

Summary: Sitting across from Phil on that worn out velvet Starbucks sofa, sharing sickeningly sweet coffees and what they would like to think were hushed giggles, was the first time Dan felt a glimpse at what real love could feel like.

or

Perception checks, pining, and peppermint mochas.

with a bullet (ao3) - waveydnp

Summary: phil returns to his room after a party thrown by his housemates only to discover that there’s already someone in his bed

#phanfictioncatalogue #phan #phanfic #phanfiction #masterlists #dan and phil #2020fics masterlist #2020fics

[nyaskitten]

yo wait i didnt realise we were beating u up lemme get in on this.. and fuck i can only send asks from my main blog. life is so cruel or whatever. [places you in harry harlow's rhesus monkey experiment to see if comfort or resources matter more in your personal relationships]

i'm actually killing you with my fists right now you effing animal !!! YOU MONSTER !!!! GRRHRGRGRGRR

#asks #raine's shitposting #wyrmrrow

[kerryweaverlesbian]

Uhmmm excuse me prominent psychologist Dr H Harlow I think we have a problem in the monkey experiment, we can't put those baby monkeys in there right now. It's- it's the cloth mother and the wire mother. They. They're. The thing is, they're...well...

🙈

#they're stationary objects I KNOW I KKOW #is there a particular name for a baby monkey. #i couldn't quickly determine whether he was a dr but i THINK he got a doctorate #is this funny. maybe I should have run it by book club. OH WELL. POST!!! #cawis creates

[charlesoberonn]

Cloth mother/wire mother refers to Harlow’s experiments with monkeys, and found they preferred fake mothers who were covered in cloth over wire mothers who had food

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow

Thank you. That's fascinating.

[bewaretheidesofmarchyall]

what the fuck is the Wire Mother book. Sociology has lore now?

oh boy okay

so you remember the Divergent books? the YA boom of the early 2010's? The Wire Mother was one of those series. they turned the Harlow's monkey experiments into dystopia factions.

yeah. i know. bear with me

The first book, The Wire Mother (2010) is pretty standard YA dystopia fare. There's this girl named Leo Groves (the Leo's short for Leonore) who lives in the court of the Cloth Mother, a city where people live in comfort and camaraderie and a general vibe of hold hands around the campfire and sing, except for the people who die at random. This is accepted with unsettling what-can-you-do calm from the main characters. (Eventually, it's revealed that's happening because only a 1/5th of the food served in the city is real, so most of the people are dropping dead of starvation but their bodies are quickly hurried away as to not kill the vibe, so no one worries all that much about it).

Which could have been cool speculative fiction! A handy story about desensitization to violence or complacency or something. Unfortunately, this was 2010 YA, so the concept is quickly kicked under the bed in favor of. yeah. A love triangle. Leo, being a special little narratively significant thing, finds her way to the mysterious other city on the other side of her hometown, the court of the Wire Mother. And when she's there, she meets a boy. Coil 54810.

Coil goddamn 54810.

That brooding son of a bitch. His last name is 54810 because the concept of last names and family doesn't exist in the court of the Wire Mother, only functionality, so 54810 is just the number of Coils there's been in the city. He's not a clone or anything, it's just the amount of people who've had that name. It's like being named Jeremy 54810. Killer of plot pacing. Swoopy of hair. He would have deserved to be named Jeremy.

God, anyway, I'm talking a lot about this. Anyway: The Wire Mother is exactly as good as the average YA dystopia book from the time period. It has some high points (the Cloth and Wire mother are cool ominously looming entities, and the main antagonist Jane-Mary has a level of batshit mad science energy to her that makes her the most fun villain in the series) and some low points (the forced Romeo and Juliet references. the forced romance. It is so clear that Benjamin St. Jobs, the other guy in the love triangle, doesn't stand a chance, but we have to keep who-will-it-be-ing for so long anyway. And Coil's a dick), but it mostly just balances out.

There were three more books in the series. There was supposed to be four, but. Well

Anyway. Book Two, The Wire Mother: Hounds' Toll (2012), actually kind of slapped. It went to more tragic and horror-influenced places than the original book. One thing I'll give Angela Lee (the author) credit for: I don't think this was a sequel for the sake of having a sequel. I think that the series was always supposed to be a pentalogy.

Some of the stuff in this book has still stuck with me to this day- I have to hold myself back from adding ominously ringing church bells in so many of my projects. Also, it really filled out Leo Groves as a protagonist- I could take or leave her in the first book, but I started to genuinely like her by the second. And the stuff they do with Stellarose Ardent, her best friend turned rival... God, I could make a whole post about Stellarose Ardent.

this book series is good, readers thought. surely the third book will be as good if not better

THE THIRD BOOK WAS HELL. The Wire Mother: Ordained Voltage (2013)...I think it did everything wrong. There was a reason that there was a two year break between the first two books, and book three being out only a year after Hounds' Toll really shows.

It's incredibly rushed. Leo barely gets to do anything. Stellarose is killed off in the most unsatisfying way possible. And while it seemed like Book Two had neatly put the love triangle to bed, no! It claws its way out of its grave!! To torment me specifically!

The only good thing we got out of this car wreck is Anesthesia 3, lab rat girl and apocalypse maiden extraordinaire. I adore her. She's got real Fish Inside A Birdcage vibes. Everything else, though? Horrors.

But readers held out hope. At least the characters ended up trapped in an interesting setting at the end of book three. The merciless, multi-layered prison of Tithonus, the central antagonist of the series. It seemed like that was a good set-up for a prison escape storyline. Those have to be entertaining, right?

Somehow, some way, no. Book Four, The Wire Mother: Endless Sentence (2014) is not just bad. I could forgive bad. But it is bad, and it is boring.

so boring that I'm not even going to waste my words on it. It's a school night. I'm not staying up to describe that thing. The only interesting thing about it is how it could manage to be boring while being an homage to the fucking Stanford Prison experiments.

And that was the end of a lot of people's hopes for the Wire Mother series. Only one good book out of four isn't a great track record, you know? A lot of readers were willing to put Hounds' Toll down as a one-off.

Then, in November of 2014, the preview for Book Five, The Wire Mother: Quantum Claws came out. It was three chapters long. And people lost their shit.

First of all, it was good. Maybe as good as Hounds' Toll. Maybe better.

But more than that, it was a break from the relatively grounded, safe, company standard dystopia of the series. Because this bad boy was going to be about time travel. Tithonus, in his evil plans to live forever, had built a time machine and activated it just at the right moment when the plucky heroes were about to kill him once and for all.

Which seems like something that would be a train wreck, right? If this author can't handle the easy-to-please tropes of prison breaks and romance, what business does she have trying to handle a time travel story without completely fucking up the series?

And maybe that would have been true. But the first three chapters were insanely promising. They were refreshing, original- they got time travel. We were able to get characters like Stellarose and Jane-Mary and Turpentine back after the story cast them aside so soon. And it promised to really examine what Leo Groves meant for the book's world. So, hopes rose again.

Unfortunately, we'll never know if it would have been good or bad. The fifth book was never published. We don't know why. It was just promised, for months and months, and then. Poof. The updates stopped. It was gone.

And it haunts me. If you haven't stopped reading by now, you can probably tell that. The fandom was like a fraction of the size of the Divergent fandom, and I don't know anyone IRL who's read these things. I don't even know if I can or should recommend them.

But sometimes something doesn't have to be a literary masterpiece to burrow into your brain and not let go, I guess ASJSJS

#the wire mother #unreality #misinfo #leonore groves