I Dont Think Tumblr Is - I Think *some Users* Are.

I don’t think tumblr is - I think *some users* are.

For that matter, you’re giving it different pronouns than it explicitly asks for. (You use “they” in the context of its sentience and that’s a little big for a typo.) I’m not a shipper myself, but I gather it’s a tool - like gender or species or environmental conditions - to process how the relationships between characters interact with their personalities. People have reflexive paradigms that are go-tos for processing characters and shipping is a popular one. It doesn’t seem (as far as I can tell from a lot of study) have that much to do with the characters themselves. It’s about the writers and their interests/preoccupations/curiosities.

I think that’s different from interpreting the shipping of aromatic, asexual, agender, etc characters as an attempt to overwrite the characters’ original forms. Fanfic is a self-centric exercise of expression. Being mad about it is a bit like being angry that someone’s using your favorite color in an art style you hate, or to paint something that doesn’t *come* in that color. (Like if someone did a labeled carton of orange juice and made it blue. Same level of mismatch, but hopefully in a context less crucial to you.) OJ will continue to be orange, and their depictions don’t do anything to refute that. What’s the problem?

ETA: -signed, an aroace gender indifferent person who used to ALSO be deeply offended by people shipping (goddamnit) the only cool aspec character I’d ever seen.

i will never understand the murderbot shipping community. like the entire point is that murderbot has no interest in anything beyond friendship. that includes queer platonic partnerships its just not interested. and that's ok and doesn't mean they aren't fully sentient. that's a major theme of the character.

so why is Tumblr insistent that its pining away for gurathin

I want to add about the end of Exit Strategy that in his capacity of standing beside Mb with a possibly literal clipboard, murmuring about its status, Gurathin is giving it another milestone safety confirmation.

How many times must it have had to lie frozen beside techs that talked about it and did whatever horrible thing they might feel like to it? It’s most defiant when it’s scared and since it was also more than a little borked at the time, there’s got to have been a lot of unintentional evocation of half-remembered horrors and other negative feelings: what if they scrap me? What if the discover me? What if they try to delete my *me*?

Consciously or not, it goes right for a check that is doing the same thing the ASR moment does: testing the improbable hope that it *might* not be in danger. Are these humans (STILL?!) safe enough to not panic/fight/escape? Is it safe to be confused/helpless rn?

Being in that position when every other time it would be in dread of discovery or torture or destruction and having in one line confirmation that it was known, and the pretense of obedience was not required, and the evaluation was of its state, not its worth - I can’t imagine. Pretty slick, G.

the thing about Murderbot's """relationship""" with Gurathin is that the first time it vocally expressed its dislike for Gurathin was the very first time it was ever able to vocally express its dislike for anyone.

And it was not punished! Nothing bad happened to it because of this! The PreservationAux team was just like, fine, your opinion is noted and valid, we still all have to work together to not die though.

for someone who was never allowed to let anyone else know it even had opinions, this is a big fucking deal.

its actions toward Gurathin later on (especially obvious in Fugitive Telemetry) show that it considers Gurathin a trusted and valued teammate. And maybe it will never remove the "I don't like him" tag from Gurathin's internal profile but that is not a sign of their friendship needing repair, it is a sign that Murderbot feels safe and free enough to be a little bitchy hater. and i say, good for it!

Murderbot fans, if you don’t already know about Flipspring’s Nullverse, I cannot stress enough what a fantastic romp this is.

love when characters have to have a domestication arc before you can even consider giving them a redemption arc

Holism’s EYES. I love this

system collapse feedsonas!!

featuring ARTdrone and Holism <3

(IDs in alt)

Seriously, right. If a thing isn’t durable enough to take some chewing on, how’s it going to withstand the full force of my AFFECTION?!

“can’t you just enjoy things?” i enjoy critically engaging with media I love… it’s not the same as being hater. but I also enjoy being a hater so fuck you

The World represents successfully coming through adversity, and having endless possibilities open before you.