#TY for not making fun of my horrible typos I literally could not see the keyboard

[rjalker]

[ID: A screenshot of typo-filled tags that read:

"#ywah#relayer: pwoole keep making 'fantasy au's....and turb Murderbot into an anomal#bevaise theu go oh well ots not uhman thay thaeans ita an animal!!!!#no motherfucker youre just fuckint weord and avleisr (bc murserbots autostox)#lile you can have rovots ans androids on a fantaay srttibg.#so fuckibt eaaily. but no. these peoole go 'well this chatacters not human so that meana it has to be an anomal in his au'#forigve thr tyoos i husy has an eye ezam and theu out the stuoie droos on anf o cant see shot righr now#also o Broomally suck at tyoojg. on my phonr but its even worse mwo"

End Id.]

Translated tags since I'm on my laptop now and my vision is slightly more normal:

Yeah. Related: People making "fantasy aus"...and turn Murderbot into an animal. Because they go "oh, well if it's not human, that means it's an animal!!!" No, motherfuckers, you're just fucking weird and ableist (Because Murderbot's autistic). Like you can have robots and androids in a fantasy setting. So fuckng easily. But no. These people go "Well this character's not human so that means it has to be an animal in this AU!". Forgive my typos I just had an eye exam and they put the stupid drops in so I can't see shit right now. Also I normally suck at typing on my phone but it's even worse now."

Yes, and not just A main character, it is literally THE protagonist. it is THE main character. It is THE narrator for all of the books except one super short story that was from someone else's POV.

It's a robot designed to look like a human, but it's not human, and unlike some popular android characters in media *cough* Data from Star Trek *cough* it's 100% fine with this. It doesn't want to be human and it has no problems being nonhuman.

But the fandom. Dear god the fandom.

I've seen at least three "fantasy" AUs where Murderbot, the literal protagonist, gets turned into an animal, or in one case, part animal, and everyone else is still in their normal human forms.

As though robots have never existed in fantasy settings before. As though magical constructs (Androids in The Murderbot Diaries are literally referred to as constructs rather than androids) aren't a thing, as though it wouldn't be the simplest thing in the entire world to just have a line that says something along the lines of "yeah and I get all my power from this magical crystal that radiates energy" instead of like, probably a mini nuclear reactor or whatever.

the Murderbot Diaries fandom is terrible for many reasons, and this is actually one of the smaller reasons, since I've /only/ seen this happen four times.

(The rest of it? The fandom being transphobic as hell and constantly misgendering it, being ableist as fuck by erasing the fact that it's touch averse, claiming it secretly enjoys it but doesn't want to admit it, being aphobic by shipping it with people (including its legal owner!) despite it explicitly being aroace and /viscerally disgusted and horrified by the idea of being in any kind of Relationship™ with someone else, including a platonic/queerplatonic one/, and so much more.)

Yeah, anyone who tries to tell you The Murderbot Diaries fandom is awesome and welcoming and totally not transphobic or bigoted in any way...they're lying.

Can some people pls stop referring to non-humanoid sapient characters in fantasy as animals? 😑

I know that it isn't a big deal since we're talking about pure fiction without any relation to real world, but it's just... Weird? The characters can be written as people, framed as people, included in setting as people, but for some fans it still will be "animal" or "beast" or "another character's pet" or at best "almost like human". Dude, inside of the setting they aren't "almost like humans", they are equal to humans