Bot Feelings - Tumblr Posts

I think a lot about the kinds of relationships that MB literally does not have vocabulary for, and how upsetting it’s got to be to have only words you associate with horror be the same words everyone keeps trying to attach to the best thing in your limited experience.

I don’t think it’s a sign that everyone’s wrong about what MB and ART have. I think it’s yet more confirmation that MB needs and deserves space, quiet, and safety to learn what those words mean and then evaluate whether they apply.

I’m happy to accept its provisional refusal of labels, and even to accept that that refusal may be permanent and appropriate - it’s just that there’s no way it has the grounds to make an informed decision right now.

And I don’t mean that in an aphobic “you can’t know until you try” bullshit way.

I mean that in a “aspec person still uncomfortable with the term asexual bc the first time I learned it I was told it applied to people who had been traumatized out of normal sexuality” kind of way. In an “I think often about how many years I lived without community due to that one piece of well-meaning but terrible advice, and how my distaste for the label made sense in that context but wasn’t particularly true to my actual self or needs” kind of way. In an “it’s possible to be traumatized by ignorance and acknowledging that isn’t invalidating your feelings or choices” kind of way.

And - can’t stress this enough: ART has the same problem. It has very limited frameworks through which to understand interrelationships with non-humans. It’s just not so bound up by the words for them that it can’t bear to consider them. Remember that it does not intrinsically parse emotional register. It goes silent because it is trying to understand, bc it knows MB doesn’t like those words, but can’t understand why. It is wracking its brains for a resolution bc MB’s hatred of concepts is as baffling to it as MB’s hatred of its function. It’s used to not understanding apparently illogical behavior from its humans, and is used to having to let people be wrong until it matters to correct or ignore them, so it’s not exactly more emotionally intelligent than Mb but it is more patient.

insane that u can literally tell that ART has a crush on murderbot without murderbot having a single clue. whenever ppl mention their "relationship" ART is suddenly dead silent. like no protests at all. not even any comments. when amena called murderbot 2.0 their baby ART was just like Well yeah. not only did it talk about muderbot with its crew, it showed off pics. like ok gay. homo. gay.