#none of my tags are working so i'll add them in a few . tumblr hates me

[ptolemveamoved]

@fallenstcr sent [x] for my muse's favorite photo of theirs . . .

𝐑𝐎𝐗𝐈𝐄 & 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄 : summer days in wyoming get unbearably hot which resulted in both of them heading inside for a drink together . . . which further resulted in roxie being a huge distraction and refusing to let monte head back to work . she's a simple woman so a sweaty , beautiful man who removed his shirt to dry it off is an easy win but i'm picturing this as a video she took and she probably said something to make him laugh while he was taking a sip . i hate them .

𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐈 & 𝐏𝐀𝐋𝐌𝐄𝐑 : levi's a bit too shy to take real photos of palmer right now but he's saved nearly every selfie she's ever sent . his camera roll even has its own folder for her . this one's a favorite because his dog ( cooper ) is in the background too . . . his two best friends in one selfie ! it helps that she looks stunning — but in levi's world , that's nothing new or unusual .

𝐂𝐘𝐍𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐀 & 𝐃𝐄𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐍 : rest assured that cynthia's camera roll is full of declan every summer but this was one of the first she captured this summer . it was their first early morning on the beach together , cyn pestering declan for a photo to put on her stories . they eventually took one together but naturally , she likes looking at him . . . so this one is her current favorite . it'll probably change once a week knowing her .

𝐄𝐙𝐑𝐀 & 𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐄 : a very sneaky photo taken of ezra after some quality time together . . . likely on a hotel balcony while on tour in the name of being " discreet " . outside of their paparazzi photos , these intimate photos are all she has for now , secretly treasuring the memory behind each one — likely because of the flashbacks attached , too .

[rjalker]

Here’s how to make The Murderbot Diaries 80 percent less casually transmisic, for each book and short story published so far as of January 25th, 2023. (Main books 1-6, and 2 short stories)

This post will be updated to include any future books once I've read them.

(If this is the first post of mine you're seeing and you're thinking, aghast or maybe offended, "What??? The Murderbot Diaries is transmisic????? What are you talking about????" Here's a link to my tag for reading these books. It contains all my posts I've made about the series except for a few random unimportant ones. Skim through them until you come to the ones talking about the transmisia in the series. I'll add links to this post with the important ones tomorrow.)

This post is literally just me picking out a section from each book and adding in things to explicitly establish Murderbot’s pronouns, normalize the characters asking eachother what their pronouns are/listing them in their fucking brainchip social media profiles, and maybe even more importantly, making it so that sex is not equated with gender.

I'm trying not to make this post any longer than it already is, so here's the tiny version: Murderbot and all the other bots and constructs so far being agender because they're all robots (shut up if you're going to argue semantics) who don't have genitals is transmisic. There only being one explicitly nonbinary human so far is transmisic. Go search my blog for a more in-depth explanation or wait until I've added links to this.

Dialogue that was spoken though the feed is marked with :: as quotation marks, rather than being italicized, to make it easier to read.

Anyways as a reminder, even if it's not intentional, malicious transmisia, it's still transmisia. I like Martha Well's style of writing. But it has a lot of problems that I'm hoping she'll fix.

She especially has a problem with biological essentialism and gender essentialism, which is exemplified in her The Books of The Raksura.

So to demonstrate how Literally Easy it would be to fix most of the transmisia in The Murderbot Diaries, here's some sections from each book/short story where I've added in and changed things so that it's not transmisic and actually represents the way trans people (and their allies) live and interact.

also, when the characters ask what pronouns Murderbot would prefer rather than asking what its pronouns are, that is 100% intentional to fit the theme of this post. Which is that even people who have the best intentions can be unintentionally transmisic and that everyone always has room to learn more.

So.

Here you go:

___

Prequel: The Future of Work: Compulsory

Words added: 150.

(You can read this short story here. Archived version here. Just the text can be found on a tumblr post here. Be warned that the first two links have eye-straining neon art at the top that moves, which is why I made the tumblr post.) 

Asa took her arm gently. “They can’t talk,” he told her.

She shook her head as her friends steered her toward the access bridge. “No, it talked. I heard it.”

That still came as a pleasant surprise every time it happened. 

The Company had assigned me different pronouns when I was constructed, and I’d always hated them. And I hated the gender they’d assigned me, too. So the second thing I’d done after hacking my governer module (the first was downloading media) was hack into the Company’s systems to change my pronoun and gender assignments.

Now, my pronouns were listed as it/its/itself, and my gender was listed as “indeterminate”. None of the humans got paid enough to bother memorizing our assigned pronouns or genders, so none of them had noticed the change. And every time they rented me out, the humans doing the renting got a copy of my relevant info, including my assigned gender and pronouns.

Maybe someday the euphoria of being referred to the way I enjoyed would dissipate, but apparently that day was not today.

___

Book one: All Systems Red

Words added: 79

Then Mensah said quietly, “SecUnit, do you have a name? Pronouns you would prefer?”

 "My pronouns are what was listed on my contract when you rented me." I said, "It, its, itself."

I didn't explain how I'd gotten those pronouns. They didn't need to know that I'd hacked into the Company's system to overwrite the ones I'd originally been assigned. I'd changed my gender assignment at the same time. And they didn't need to know that either. I didn't want them to know that.

As for having a name, I wasn’t sure what she wanted. “No.”

___

Book two: Artificial Condition

Words added: 22

They had listed themselves as unaffiliated guest workers, but you could list yourself as anything, there was no identity check. Two had listed their gender as female, and they both used she/her/hers/herself pronouns. The other one had listed ter gender as tercera, which was a gender signifier used in the group of non-corporate political entities known as the Divarti Cluster. Ter pronouns were te/ter/ter/terself.

(To initiate the meeting, I’d had to make an entry on the social feed, too. The system was extremely vulnerable to hacking, so I had backdated my entry to look like I had come in on an earlier passenger transport, listed my job as “security consultant,” my pronouns as "it/its/itself", which was the format humans used, and listed my gender as "indeterminate". Posing as its own captain, ART gave me a prior employment reference.)

___

Book three: Rogue Protocol

Words added: 135

Her gaze went to Wilken’s back again, but on our private channel she said, ::I’ve never worked with a SecUnit before—I’ve never seen or interacted with a SecUnit before—so please tell me if you need any information or instruction from me. I know you already know my name, but I’m going to introduce myself properly anyways. My name is Don Abene, and my pronouns are she/her/hers/herself. You can call me Abene if you'd like. Do you have a name, or designation? What pronouns would you prefer?::

While I’d had several humans now ask me for my name and pronouns, I had never had a human ask me how to give me orders before. It was an interesting novelty. ::I have standing orders from Rin to assist you. I can do the rest.:: I said, answering the first part of her question, as for the second half... ::It is best if you refer to me as SecUnit, and my pronouns are it/its/itself.:: It wasn’t technically lying, since she’d asked ‘do you have a name’, not ‘what is your name’.

Not that it would matter if I was lying, anyways, considering all the other lies I was telling at the point, but still. Old habits die hard.

___

Book four: Exit Strategy

Words added: 36

I pulled a selection of video from the trip with Ayres and the others on the way to HaveRatton, mostly exchanges I’d tagged so I could critique my performance later. (A few times I’d broken up fights, been forced to give relationship advice, the infamous Cracker Wrapper in the Sink Incident, and the time near the start of the trip where I’d had to explain to a confused but enthusiastic group of depressingly young humans how to properly use it/its/itself pronouns when talking about me.) I cut it together, labeled it “Murderbot Impersonates an Augmented Human Security Consultant,” and sent it to Gurathin.

___

Book four and a half: Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

Words added: 347

(You can read this short story here. Archived version here. Don’t scroll down to the comments at the bottom unless you want to see people misgendering Murderbot.)

Instead Ephraim asks her, “Can you separate that person from the purpose they were created for?”

Anger flares automatically, despite her best efforts to stifle it. But this is not an insult she will let stand, she can’t.

Ephraim should know better. He does know better, and his motive is clear: Refer to it as ‘they’ rather than its actual pronouns, to make a show of being respectful, the way this whole thing is a show of him being respectful, while denying it the same rights that every other person, including bots, was given without question. It was a transparent farce, and that just made her all the madder.

“Its pronouns are it/its/itself.” She snapped, and the only reason she managed to stay seated instead of storming out of the room in a fury was because SecUnit was still pinging her with armament request forms, getting more absurd by the second. None of its anger leaked into the messages, even though she knew it had to be listening. She wasn’t the one being insulted, so that meant it was her responsibility to shut the idea that this was at all acceptable down forever.

She continued angrily, “You know this, and I know you wouldn’t even think to use the wrong pronouns for anyone else, not a human, not a bot. So why should a construct be the exception? You say SecUnit is ‘a product of surveillance capitalism and authoritarian enforcement’, but how is that any different from any other refugees we take in from the Corporation Rim? Why should we not extend the same rights we grant bots to constructs? Why do you think it’s okay to use the wrong pronouns for a construct when I know for a fact that it wouldn’t even occur to you to do this to any other person? Use its correct pronouns or do not dare to speak about it at all: it/its/itself.”

Ephraim, for his part, looked suitably ashamed and guilty. “You’re right, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

But not ashamed enough, apparently, because he simply repeated the question: “Can you separate that person from the purpose it was created for?”

___

Book five: Network Effect

Words added: 494

There was no planetary feed (stupid planet) but Stupid Boat had its own rudimentary feed that was heavy with games and pornography but light on anything that might be helpful for a security assessment, like who these people were and what they wanted. Even the individual humans’ feed signatures only contained info about their pronouns and sexual availability, which I didn’t give a damn about. 

...

She smiled. “Thank you.” Then she added, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m being rude, interrogating you before I’ve even introduced myself. Forgive me. My name is Farai, my pronouns are she/her/her/hers. What about you?”

I said, “Call me SecUnit. My pronouns are it/its/itself.”

She smiled again. “It’s nice to meet you, SecUnit. Thank you again.”

...

She yawned. “Okay, third mom.” I froze, confused and annoyed, and almost lost all the data I'd just finished tagging. I put that on pause and said firmly, "I'm not your third mom. I'm not anyone's mom. I'm not any kind of gender that can be called a mom. Don't call me that." Amena jolted a little and blinked, looking startled, then frowned, shaking her head slowly, clearly confused. "Wait, what? Don't call you what? What did I say?" Okay, so, she hadn't been deep in thought, she was literally falling asleep standing up. That made it a little less annoying. But only a little. "You called me your third mom." I said, trying to actively remove some of the anger from my voice but probably failing miserably. My emotions were shot, okay? And so were hers. I got confirmation that she hadn't meant to call me that when, a few seconds after I spoke--yes, it was taking way longer than normal for her to process information. She really needed to go to sleep--her eye got wide and her face flushed red. I didn't need to be an expert on human body language to know that meant she was embarrassed. This was further confirmed when she stammered out, "I--I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to say that, I don't--I mean I don't really see you as my third mom, or a mom, or--" She waved one hand in a frantic gesture. "I don't see you as any gender that's normally a mom. I know your gender is indeterminate, I'm sorry, I think I just fell asleep and was half dreaming, so when you told me to go to bed I thought 'oh that's what my moms are always telling me', but your voice was different from both of theirs so my brain sort of just said 'oh yeah that's your third mom telling you to go to sleep'. But it's not because I see you as a mom! I think I would have called anyone who told me to go to bed right then my third mom. But I'm really sorry it happened, and I promise it won't happen again..." Her voice started trailing off at the end despite starting out strong, and I could tell she was starting to fall asleep again. "I forgive you." I said, since it was true and I really didn't want to hurt her feelings, "Just--go to sleep. It's harder to keep you alive if you're sleep deprived." Instead of making another gendered comment, she gave me two sleepy thumbs up, then turned and trudged away down the corridor. I followed her with two drones, just in case.

___

Book six: Fugitive Telemetry

Words added: 5

Senior Indah said, “The feed ID doesn’t need to say anything other than what everyone else’s says, just name, pronouns, and…” She trailed off. She was looking at me and I was looking at her.

...

I posted a feed ID with the name = SecUnit, pronouns = it/its/itself, gender = not applicable, and no other information.

Indah had blinked, then said, “Well, I suppose that will have to do.”

___

And there you go. 80% of the transmisia has now been removed.

[chrxnxa-archieved]

Chrxnxa's Rules for the Mobile User

"Helloooooooo~!"

Not everyone has access to a computer, and being a user that primarily uses the Tumblr app, rules pages are almost impossible to see. So to be mobile-friendly, I decided to make a post for my rules! Just search #rules on my blog, and it'll bring this post up!

☆ What to Expect From Me, the Mun ☆

Hello! I like to be called Bun. :> Unfortunately, I'm selective, so I cannot rp with everyone. :c

-Shyness || Part of the reason why I'm selective is because reaching out to others that I don't know is anxiety-inducing. But I'm happy to talk if you approach me.

-Limited Availability || I'm also EXTREMELY busy at work, we're down to three people on a stocking team now. So I work around 50 hours a week (8 hours for a typical shift, plus up to 2 hours of overtime every day, for 5 days a week).

-Kinda Picky? || Admittedly, it's a huge pet-peeve of mine to see replies from others that have huge run-on sentences, as it's hard for me to read your reply. Also, one-sentence replies that don't give me anything to reply to. I don't care how long or short your replies are, so long as there's something to pick up on.

☆ What to Expect From Chronoa/SKoT, the Muse ☆

-Crack || She's a pretty immature character for her age, as to be expected of most characters with likeness kind of position in her series. All crack will be tagged with the [A Crack in Time] tag, for those who don't care for it.

-Seriousness and Angst || Even with the point atop, Chronoa has the heavy burden of guarding history. She has to deal with the woes of enforcing tradegies to keep time as it is meant to be, as messing with time will not come with a light price. She has to be serious when the situation calls for it.

-Godmodding || She is a god type of being, and most characters will under her in authority. I'll try to watch the godmodding, but that's kinda hard to do when you're rping a god of sorts.

-Little-to-No Romance || Aside from her comical crush on Bardock, none will get far with her in romance. Smut type of rps are out of the question (especially after what I had to witness in Google). Flirting with her would be considered crack only, unless I eventually discover some kind of romantic chemistry between her and another muse.

☆ What I Expect From You ☆

-Patience || As mentioned in the point above in the mun section, Bun-mun doesn't have a lot of time. I may only be able to reply to one rp per night. I promise I didn't drop yours, I will let you know if I have to for any reason.

-Respect || Everyone should deserve the bare minimum of respect for one another. Please respect my rules, myself, and my muse. Do not send me or Chronoa any kind of hate for any particular reason, or disregard my rules. Thank you!

-Reasonable Interactions || Chronoa would only interact with those who she has a reason to interact with. She may be willing to recruit those who are interested for the time patrol, but please don't approach her for any scenarios that would be out of her character (ex: casually meeting your muse on the beach).

After she's gotten to know your character well enough, then she can be more inclined to doing stuff like travelling away from the Time Nest, maybe. There are only a few types of characters that are allowed to act upon existing relations with her:

-Trunks (in a Xeno verse of sorts, if not already a Xeno!Trunks muse)

-Kais/Gods/Angels (I may allow angels or gods of other fandoms, but I have to be familiar with it and there has to be a reason why she's meeting with them)

-Time Patroller OCs, and Time Breakers (also TB OCs if they exist), and TP/TB verses of characters

-Characters that have a verse of being a mentor in Toki Toki City or Conton City

M'kay, I think that's all I have for rules, I will add more if needed. Thank you for reading!!