#but I’m specifically thinking about the hypocrisy within fandom spaces to treat one part of it with heaps of respect

[reikunrei]

when it’s about queerness it’s “groundbreaking and powerful and beautiful high art that’s going to change the world” but when it fumbles topics of race and class and disability and copaganda it’s “not so serious omg it’s just a tv show why do you have to make so much drama about it” like do you see your own dunce cap in the mirror

[uovoc]

Murderbot privacy

“SecUnit is a very private person, it doesn’t like to talk about its feelings” made me do a double take because I was like, SecUnit, who’s listening to you right now? Since when has it cared about privacy? Because while MB is a secretive fucker, it sure doesn’t extend that courtesy to others. And what I could figure out so far to explain this apparent hypocrisy is some more-or-less coherent stuff.

Summary:

MB conflates personal, private, and secret because these categories could not exist separately under the regime of surveillance and objectification inflicted upon it in the CR. This meant that the development of MB’s sense of personal identity was limited to its internal self. As a result, MB has a good instinctive grasp of the right to privacy regarding one’s emotions and internal state. However, its lack of bodily autonomy and background as a cog in the CR surveillance state have led it to regard physical privacy as a personal privilege rather than a right.

2200 words below the cut. I think about Murderbot a normal amount

Terminology

For clarity, the terms personal, private, secret, and privacy will be defined basically by their Merriam-Webster definitions. Personal will be used to mean relating to an individual’s character, conduct, motives, or private affairs. Secret is defined as kept from knowledge or view; hidden. Private will be used to mean 1) intended for or restricted to the use of particular person, group, or class. Privacy will be defined as the quality or state of being apart from company or observation; freedom from unauthorized intrusion. These are not comprehensive definitions, but for clarity’s sake they’re the ones I will use here.

The connotations that they carry in this analysis are:

Things that are secret are actively concealed. If something is secret, people are not aware of its existence. Secrets carry the implication of potential harm if divulged.

Privacy and things that are private are generally kept as such by social norms rather than active enforcement. The existence of things that are private may be known, but the details are limited to a restricted (trusted) audience. For instance, to quote Beatrice-Otter, “the contents of my underwear drawer are private, but not secret.” If you’re at someone’s house, you could technically go look in someone’s underwear drawer – it’s not like they can stop you – but out of the mutually agreed-upon respect for privacy and definition of what qualifies as private, you don’t. Things kept private tend to be done so for personal-emotional reasons rather than practical reasons.

These are limited definitions and not mutually exclusive. For instance, privacy can be enforced by gates and barriers like secrets are. These definitions aren’t meant to be comprehensive, but just to establish the meanings and connotations that I’m working with.

Privacy in the CR versus Preservation

Murderbot’s approach to privacy reflects the attitudes of the Corporation Rim. Preservation regards privacy more like a personal right and establishes it through primarily through societal norms, while the Corporation Rim treats privacy more like a personal privilege which individuals are responsible for securing and maintaining. In Preservation, freedom from observation is the default, and surveillance is the exception. To MBs annoyance, unless a space is singled out for security reasons (cargo spaces and high-traffic zones on the station), it’s generally left unsurveilled (residential areas, pedestrian corridors, most of the planet that we see in NE). Preservation also has cultural expectations of certain types of spaces being private. MB doesn’t share these expectations, as it notes in NE when it admits that its eavesdropping habit is “a little incriminating with the whole listening to private conversations in secured spaces and personal dwellings thing.” The specificity of “secured spaces and personal dwellings” makes this sound like something someone else said to MB that it’s now repeating, especially since it doesn’t agree that what others consider private conversations or private spaces are inherently off-limits to observation.

Unlike Preservation, MB sees privacy as a privilege rather than an inherent right, because it’s more used to the attitude of the CR surveillance state. In the labor installations that MB was deployed on, everything people did was observed by SecSystem at all times. If you wanted privacy, you had to pay for it, as MB notes in ES when it’s complaining about the lack of cameras in the fancy hotel that it books when it arrives. Even then, you might not get what you pay for, and MB take steps to secure PresAux’s own camera network that they later set up. In the CR, privacy is closer in meeting to secrecy, something that must be actively enforced and secured against intrusion. Corporate entities in the CR are motivated to erode personal privacy for profit in the form of datamining and workforce control. Privacy is thus a personal responsibility, since the surrounding environment is one that seeks to undermine it. This is the attitude towards privacy that MB is working with, and part of why it feels entitled to constant surveillance of its humans. In contrast, privacy in Preservation is a right maintained by the collective expectations and policies of the larger community. Station Security doesn’t exactly approve of MB setting up its own surveillance network, but nor does it do regular drone removal sweeps. MB expects privacy to be actively secured, and sees Preservation’s easily breached systems as the equivalent of leaving your valuables out on the lawn. If you don’t want to be surveilled, don’t go around being surveillable.

Surveillance exemptions

Instances where MB appears to respect the notion of privacy are sex/bodily functions, proprietary data, and feelings talks. However, out of these 3 categories, feelings are the topic where MB’s motivations align most closely with the human understanding of privacy. MB’s aversion to sex is more of an ick factor thing, since it repeatedly states that it finds human bodily functions to be disgusting. (I think touch aversion is also part of the sex-repulsed thing, but touch aversion aligns more with ick factor and also with lack of bodily autonomy, discussed below.)

Proprietary data is another topic on which MB appears to be on the same page as humans regarding “private” as being restricted to a particular group: it doesn’t tell the Mensah parents about Amena’s creepy date, and it removes the audio when it shows Indah the video of Mensah complaining about another councilmember. In both of these cases, there’s the potential for harm if the information is divulged: Amena would get scolded and possibly grounded by her parents, and Mensah’s relationships with the Council and Senior Indah would be damaged by her lack of professionalism. In a business context, proprietary data is information kept within a company because it would give your competitors an advantage, or because your competitors could use it to put you at a disadvantage – pretty much the same results, in the game of capitalism. Although both of these examples deal with personal-emotional information, the concept of proprietary data is closer to secrecy in its potential for harm and complete concealment of the information’s existence.

The third type of situation where MB appears to be on the same page as humans regarding privacy is people talking about their feelings. After Arada gets back from the Barish-Estranza negotiations, MB pointedly does not watch her and Overse make up because of the high likelihood that “they were having sex and/or a relationship discussion (either of which I would prefer to stab myself in the face than see).” Sex falls under the ick factor, but there’s a number of reasons the fandom collective braincell has pointed out for MB not wanting to watch people talk about their feelings:

MB exercising the privilege of not having to care about human feelings, as a formerly enslaved person subjected to human whims.

Secondhand embarrassment because MB would never talk about its feelings.

Related to the above, MB reflexively recoiling out of empathy because if it was in their position, it wouldn’t want someone listening in on its feelings.

Actually, now that I think of it, MB doesn’t go into great detail on why it doesn’t like watching humans talk about their feelings, unlike how it explicitly expresses its disgust for anything involving human fluids. Which is why I’ve got the suspicion that when it comes to feelings, MB does have a strong instinctive understanding of what it means for something to be private and, as a result, gets uncomfortable observing a moment that is not meant for others to see. MB has an easier time understanding how privacy applies to feelings rather than acts because unlike its body, its feelings are strongly tied to its concept of what is personal.

MB’s internal and external self

To paraphrase this one MDZS meta, MB’s body is not its own. MB’s sense of what is personal to it, or its sense of unique identity, applies more its internal self than its external self because of its former nonperson status in the CR. This informs what MB considers to be inherently private. While in the CR, its appearance and configuration were decided by the company. To be fair, humans don’t get to choose our original bodies either, but our bodies and the modifications we make to them tell a story of our personal background. The history inscribed in MB’s body, down to the logos etched on its structure, is that of a mass-produced piece of corporate equipment. MB does not have a particular attachment to its external appearance (“standard human”) because its appearance reflects the company’s choices rather than its own. (This changes after it gains the freedom to choose its own clothes and gets tabletop surgery from ART, discussed at the end.) Although MB’s configuration is what makes it a SecUnit, and being a SecUnit is an essential part of its identity, it’s not an identity that’s unique to MB.

For most of its life, MB’s actions have also been extensions of the company. Its actions have either been dictated by its clients and governor module, or it has had to pretend to be controlled by those things, which means making decisions which could conceivably have been issued with the governor module’s approval. MB is also used to selling its body, since it’s expected to literally sacrifice pieces of itself to keep its clients safe (an expectation it continues to hold). MB has been ship-of-Theseus’d to hell and back. The lack of both bodily autonomy and bodily safety due to its nonperson status in the CR means that MB considered its body to be neither private (restricted to the use of only one person) nor entirely personal (pertaining to its unique character).

As a consequence, MB doesn’t consider its external self to have the right to privacy. Although it doesn’t like being looked at, it’s reaction is to hide rather than ask people to stop. (This is also because MB isn’t used to exercising its personal preferences regarding other people’s actions, but that’s a different angle.) It doesn’t like it when Mensah walks into the security ready room, or when its humans and ART’s crew are watching it come out of involuntary shutdown on the deck, but it doesn’t tell them to stop. In general, MB doesn’t like being looked at because if it’s falling apart, it’s in a vulnerable state, and if it’s not falling apart, then being paid attention to used to carry the threat of abuse/incoming orders/being clocked as a rogue. These reasons are more about safety than privacy.

However, MB specifically doesn’t like people looking at its face are because its face shows its emotions, and its emotions are a reflection of its internal state and, by extension, its internal self. MB considers its thoughts and emotions to have the right to privacy because they are the aspects of itself that it has been able to control, and thus has been able to make personal. When Gurathin reveals its name, it grates out, “That was private.” On one level, Murderbot’s name is an honest expression of what it thinks it is and all the associated self-loathing and guilt. MB does NOT want humans to know its name because then they know how it feels about a topic truly important to it. On another level, its name reveals its self-deprecating humor, something a ruthless killing machine is not supposed to have.

Everything that MB considers personal, it has also needed to keep secret, because in the CR, it’s not supposed to be a person the first place. Conversely, the only reason it’s been able to have personal opinions and emotions is because it has been able to keep these things secret. Anything MB would have wanted to be private – restricted to a trusted audience – would have also needed to be secret because of the pervasive surveillance present in the CR, the nonperson status of constructs, and the fact that it had no trusted audience with which it could share private information.

Conclusions

MB conflates the categories of personal, private, and secret because these concepts could not exist separately under the regime of surveillance and objectification inflicted upon it in the CR. Anything in one category had to be able to fit into the others, which limited the development of MB’s sense of personal identity to its internal self. Although MB has good instinctive grasp of the right to privacy regarding one’s internal state, MB’s lack of bodily autonomy and its background as a cog in the CR surveillance state have led it to regard physical privacy as a personal privilege rather than a right.

Now that MB’s in a safer place (kidnappings by giant asshole research transports aside), it’s beginning to separate out those concepts a bit and allow things to be personal and private but not secret (its desire to be with ART, its affection towards Mensah). It’s also starting to allow things that are neither secret nor private to be personal (expressing preferences in its hairstyle, clothing, and aversion to physical touch), which can also be considered MB reclaiming its external self/body.

[talistheintrovert]

Deleting my fic

Hi everyone! I just posted an explanation in my Salem Fic about why I will be taking it down in the next few days. If you like, you can go look at it HERE or you can read it under the cut, but I felt the need to explain. 

I'm posting this to let everybody know that I am taking this fic down. I will leave it up for another day or two, and then it is permanently coming down as I have no desire to associate myself with this fic or its origins anymore.

I initially received a single anon comment on this fic when I posted it way back over a year ago:

ANON: Hi if you are going to borrow ideas for fics from other people, even if it’s out there on tumblr, you should at least credit them for the original idea.

and I responded the way I thought I should at the time:

hi, i'm gonna be honest - I forgot where this idea had even come from until you brought it up.

At the time i was planning to do this idea, i considered myself friends, or at least close acquaintances with the person who threw it out there, and offered to write it. Then I became very busy and decided to abandon the idea.

Then, after a bunch of things happened, I stopped talking to that person, and I'm fairly certain they wouldn't even want to see the fic or the credit, despite the idea no longer having anything to do with them.

When I found the idea again, all I had was a word document with a bunch of plot points and ideas written down, and was suddenly struck with the inspiration to write it again.

Because I had honestly forgotten to credit the person involved I will be sure to do that when I update it.

However, i do not appreciate you coming on anon to accuse me like this. I would never intentionally fuck someone else over, not EVER, and I resent the implication that I would. I will, however, be sure to credit Alex, because despite me no longer being friends with her, and the fact that we don't really talk anymore, I respect her enough as a human being not to let her think I'm treating her with disrespect.

Thanks for the anon.

I then reached out to Alex to clarify with her that I had not - nor would I EVER - intentionally steal the idea, and that I was going to clarify that on the fic itself, and she agreed, and we discussed the dissolution of our friendship and then didn't speak again. I went ahead and linked the post with her initial idea in it, which also has our interaction where I offered to write it.  

The circumstances surrounding the whole situation were unfortunate - I perceived her support of a certain fic as potentially harmful, and sent her One Single Anonymous Ask about it. I was relatively polite (although I do understand that anything on Anon can be perceived as impolite) and I asked her specifically because there was a rift growing among halves of the fandom and Alex had always been the person I knew to be the most level-headed and I figured if she could explain why she was right and I was wrong then I would apologise and leave it alone. Unfortunately, as with everything in fandom, it blew up.

I was not the only person who had taken issue with this fic, or the attitude that accompanied it, and MANY people - some that I knew, but most that I didn't - started to also send in asks, and a lot of them were a lot more accusatory, and I'm sure some of them were trolls deliberately designed to rile up the drama even further. Alex has since expressed to me that this all blew up around the time she was having a hard time, and I apologised to her as it was NEVER my intention to launch some kind of attack on her, or anyone. I explained that the reason I went on anon was because at the time, the issue of the fic was so personal to me and I wasn't ready to talk about it with anyone I was friends with online at a limited capacity, because it was part of my life. Just as Alex's own troubles at the time were unbeknownst to me.

I have since opened up about my personal experiences with some internet friends, and in the last two years have grown and learned how to move on with my life, but at that point, the pain was very raw and I didn't want to expose myself to that kind of drama where I would be forced to relive the trauma over and over again.

As it turned out, it didn't matter.

People decided that because I was posting about these issues (without necessarily explicitly bringing up my personal experiences), that not only did I send that one ask to Alex, but that I was responsible for MULTIPLE asks, that I had organised some kind of coordinated attack, that the entire rift was my fault and that I'd done it maliciously. And I spent MONTHS getting vicious, nasty, hateful anons that didn't even all address the issues they supposedly had with me, just told me I was a waste of space, that I didn’t belong, that I shouldn’t exist. I am sure Alex received her own number of those too, and I am truly sorry for that because no-one deserves to go through anything like that.

After Alex and I talked for the last time, I thought we had moved on. I unfollowed her and a number of other creators not because I had anything against them personally but because I realised this was an issue we were never going to agree on, and rather than stoke the flames I chose to step back from them entirely, so that I no longer had to see the content I was uncomfortable with. I respect her as a person, and as a content creator, and regardless of whether I am an avid follower of her anymore, I still support her ability to create and speak freely. I have never blocked her, nor have I ever sent any kind of anon/non-anon hate to her, and I have never, NEVER plagiarised, from her or anyone else.

And yet.

Close friends of mine within the fandom, friends that I don't even consider just fandom friends anymore - friends that I would live, breathe and die for, friends who I love more than anything in the world - have been periodically, over the last six or so months, receiving various anons claiming to be someone who has "had too much to drink" and telling them that I am a bad person, that it's "well known within the fandom" that I'm a plagiarist, and that it is "tiring to see such hypocrisy" when they preach about original content and then remain friends with me.

TO BE CLEAR: I don't think that Alex would do this.

So before anyone gets it twisted, this isn't some kind of EXPOSE where I drag someone's dirty laundry into the open, because I am absolutely not that kind of person, and the one time I waded into fandom drama, it caused this mess, and it ended my friendship with someone who had basically been the cause of me getting into this fandom in the first place. So no, I am not accusing Alex, or any of her friends, of sending these anons.

I understand if they dislike me because of what transpired over a year ago, and I have my own regrets about the entire situation, and I have no desire to bring it all back up again. I'm not doing this to get anyone to go after them or anyone else, because I don't think it's anyone's fault except the anon people in my friends' askboxes. My friends have never publicly addressed the asks, except for a single post this afternoon where Abby told the person to stop, and didn't even answer the ask or explicitly talk about what was said in it.

I don't mind if you hate me. Whether you dislike me on your own time or you do it in my askbox; I've gotten pretty used to anon hate, and I genuinely don't mind people throwing some my way - this is the internet. But when you're going out of your way to harass my friends, I cannot just ignore it.

That's my family you're talking to.

Whoever this anon person/anon people are, you are deliberately taking your personal opinion of me, and you are walking up to my family and telling them that I am not worth their time. You are telling them that I am a plagiarist, despite the SINGLE instance of "plagiarism" (this fic) being an honest mistake, and one that I immediately reconciled once I realised. This fic that I haven't updated since, because I wasn't sure when it would be acceptable for me to do so without upsetting Alex further, and have now decided to delete. I considered deleting it quietly, without explanation, as I did another one of my fics earlier this year (simply because it was a WIP that I was never planning on finishing) but I realised that deleting this fic without an explanation could potentially give this anon person/people more fuel to come after me with, and I really just want this whole drama to be over. It's been a year, and I have no desire to start the debate again, nor do I wish any ill will towards anyone, especially Alex, and I do not want to cause undue drama later down the line when this anon person/people returns to my friends askboxes to accuse them of helping me "hide the truth" or some other bullshit that has nothing to do with them or anyone else.

I'm putting this out in the open to make myself very clear: I am not a plagiarist. And if you have any assumptions that you feel the need to jump on anon to yell, it should be coming to me, not to my family.

This fandom was the first real fandom experience I had on tumblr. I have been involved in fandom culture for years, but always from afar, and it was because of Alex's fics that I found my way into this place, that I met the people I now call my family, and that I rediscovered my own confidence in my writing, confidence that had been lacking for some time due to my personal life. I will always be grateful to her for that.

My writing is my writing. It is deeply personal to me, as it is to every writer, and as someone who plans to have a career in writing, it is incredibly important to me that my work is my own. I would never intentionally steal (or as that anon commenter put "borrow") anything from anybody, and the implication that I would is truly hurtful, especially when it seems to come from a place of exclusively hate, with no actual understanding of the situation. A troll.

I would like to repeat myself: I DO NOT THINK THIS IS ALEX'S PROBLEM and anyone who jumps in her asks to talk about it is not really doing it for the "truth" or for anything other than their own desire to stir up drama. I will be sending the link to this chapter to her myself, because I do not wish for this to be something she stumbles across and assumes I am trying to pin the blame on her for something I categorically do not think she would ever do.

I just want to move on, and I want my friends to be left out of whatever vendetta this anon person/people have.

I am certain I will make more mistakes as I go forward, because that is the nature of growth, but I would like to believe that I have never done anything, especially any of this, as a desire to be malicious or to hurt anyone, even those people who I fundamentally disagree with and do not interact with anymore. I'm not remotely begging for sympathy in this situation - I don't need it, I am confident enough in myself to know that I would not intentionally hurt anyone - I am simply asking for my friends, my family, to be left out of whatever this bullshit is.

I'm sorry if you were expecting a chapter, and I'm sorry this was so long, but I wanted to be clear about where I stand right now.

The 100 is coming to an end soon, and soon all we will have of this show and this fandom is memories, tumblr content, and friendships, and I do not want to spend any more of the limited time we have while this show is still on the air, spreading negativity or letting it be spread. This isn't to start drama, this is to end it.