#actuallytouchaverse

If you know someone doesn't like being touched, for any reason, and you want to respect their boundaries? You want to actually show them you respect them and care about them?

Thank you for asking, you didn't word this rudely at all! Thank you for being willing to learn!

Transmisia

Transmisia is indeed ""transphobia" but minus the "-phobia" suffix, because hating trans people isn't an anxiety disorder like phobias are, and people who do have phobias get treated horribly because people think it means they're bigots when they're not.

The -misia suffix comes from the word "misos" for "hatred", which is also where the word misogyny comes from! Miso-hatred, gyn-women. Misogyny = hatred of women.

_____

Athiktomisia (link to coining post)

Athiktomisia is bigotry towards people who are touch averse, with athikto translating to, roughly, untouchable or thereabouts,and the -misia suffix like above indicating hatred. Athikto+misia = hatred of those who are untouchable.

_____

Solitaremit, soliteremity, etcetera (link to coining post)

Solitaremit is a specific form of touch aversion where the person is touch averse, and also does not get ""touch starved"" or have any desire for touch at all, specifically created because many touch averse people who do not get touch starved were being alienated even in touch averse spaces, because desiring touch and being touch starved was still behind held up as normal and universal.

Solitaremity is...uh, the state of being solitaremit. Example sentence: Most people, even those who are otherwise touch averse, don't even know that solitaremity exists.

Solitaremity was created specifically to be a unique word that is brand new, and thus (meant to be) easy to search for and find, combining the words "solitary" and "hermit" for maximum emphasis.

_____

Solitaremisia

Solitaremisia is, again, the -misia suffix, combined with solitaremit to specify hatred against people who are touch averse who specifically do not desire touch in any way, even with touch starvation. Which is unfortunately a common attitude even in other touch averse people :|

_____

Gregariable

Gregariable will probably be used at some point, it was created as the counterpart to solitaremit, it means someone who desires touch and gets touch starved, whether or not they're also touch-averse. Aka, 99.99% of people are gregariable. It combines the words "gregarious" and "sociable" to create a unique word so that it would be easy to search for.

_____

Aroacemisia

Aroacemisia is bigotry against aroace people in particular, again with the -misia suffix to indicate hatred.

Amisia, acemisia, and aromisia are hatred towards aspec people in general, hatred towards asexual people, and hatred towards aro people.

_____

Exorsexism

Exorsexism is the specific hatred of nonbinary and genderqueer people, which is separate from, but sometimes a part of, transmisia.

Murderbot is nonbinary, so any transmisia it faces is inherently exorsexist.

_____

It its antagonism

it its antagonism refers to hatred targeted specifically at people who use it/its pronouns, usually always combined with exorsexism. It its antagonism is a form of neopronomisia.

_____

Neopronomisia

Neopronomisia is hatred of pronouns other than she/her or he/him. This includes but is not limited to pronouns like it/its, te/ter, and they/them.

_____

"Athiktomisia" is a term for ableism specifically against touch averse people, because just calling it general "ableism" is too broad and just gives people excuses to ignore you.

It comes from the greek word that means pretty much "untouchable".

Solitaremit / solitaremity refer to a touch averse person who does not get touch starved and does not crave touch in any way.

Solitaremisia is athiktomisia specifically against touch averse people who do not want any kind of touch ever.

because even within the touch averse community there's still the idea that you must crave touch even if you don't enjoy it, or else there's something horribly inhumanely wrong with you -.-

[ID: Five versions of the Garfield, "Huh. I wonder who that's for". meme, with Garfield the cat standing in front of a poster.

In the first four versions, the poster has been replaced by a simple digital drawing of Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries books, wearing grey armour with its face hidden behind the helmet's dark faceplate.

Arrows have been drawn, pointing at Garfield and the poster. In the first four versions, the poster is labeled, "The Murderbot Diaries, repeatedly."

The first version has Garfield labeled, "

Ableists, aroacemisics, and abuse apologists in the Murderbot fandom". The poster reads, "Don't ship slaves with their owners.".

In the second version, Garfield is labeled, "Ableists in the Murderbot fandom". The poster reads, "Murderbot is touch-averse. It does not want to be touched.".

The third labels Garfield, "Aroacemisics in the Murderbot fandom", and the poster reads, "Murderbot is aroace and is repulsed by romance and sex. It is viscerally disgusted by the idea of being in any kind of relationship.".

The fourth labels Garfield, "Transmisics in the Murderbot fandom". The poster reads, "Murderbot's pronouns are it/its and the only time it's called anything else is when it's actively being oppressed.".

The last version labels Garfield, "Jackasses in the Murderbot fandom", and the poster no longer shows Murderbot, but instead just has text. The poster has been relabeled, "The literal Entire Point of The Murderbot Diaries", with the words "entire point" underlined for emphasis.

The poster reads, "People who are different from society's norm should not have to conform in order to be treated with respect.

Touch-averse people do not need to be 'fixed'. People who do not want romantic or sexual relationships do not need to be 'fixed'. Autistic people do not need to be 'fixed'. People who are harmlessly different deserve to be treated with respect even if you can't relate to them.".

End ID.]

If you don't do any of the shit this post is talking about, then don't make it about you 🔪 (A knife emoji).

I am once again asking The Murderbot Diaries fandom to actually support the people that Murderbot actually represents:

Those who are touch-averse

Those who are aroace

Those who do not want any kind of relationship

(Yes, that includes QPRs! I know this is a radical concept for allos to grasp, but literally no relationship is required to be happy in life! QPRs are not your free card to ship aroace characters who are repulsed by relationships of all kinds!)

Those who are nonbinary

Those who use it/its pronouns

Those who are autistic

Those who are neurodivergent

The list goes on.

If you force the people who Murderbot actually represents to be the only ones calling out the bigotry in this fandom, you are not making this fandom a safe or welcoming place for us. You cannot claim to love Murderbot and then erase or stand happily by while other erase everything that makes it who it is.

Erasing a character's touch-repulsion, or acting like it's something that can or should be fixed with romance, sex, or a QPR, is ableist as all fucking shit. If you are not touch-repulsed you have no fucking business writing about Murderbot being touched.

Erasing a characters aroace identity to pretend that it's "just" asexual or "just" aromantic depending on how you ship it is aroacemisia as shit. Murderbot is not "just" asexual or "just" aromantic. It is equally viscerally disgusted by both romance and sex. It is viscerally disgusted by the idea of being in a relationship of any kind -- literally including a platonic one. As everyone who has read the 5th book fucking well knows. If you erase Murderbot's aroness or aceness in order to create a flimsy justification for shipping it, you are literally just being an aroacemisia peice of shit.

Yes, even if you're ''shipping it queerplatonically'' when that fucking "queer platonic shipping" involves it being touched and the narrator being horny for it -.-

If you want this fandom to actually be welcoming to the people Murderbot actually represents, then yes, you do, in fucking fact, need to put in the effort of making it hostile to bigots.

You cannot tolerate bigotry and let it go by without comment and then pretend you're a safe person to be around.

This fandom cannot tolerate ableism, transmisia, exorsexism, aroacemisia, and athiktomisia (bigotry against people who are touch-averse) and then pretend that it's a safe space for the kinds of people that Murderbot actually represents.

The Murderbot Diaries actually treats aroace and touch-averse people with respect. The bar is in the fucking ground. There is no fucking excuse for being ableist or aroacemisia by erasing Murderbot's entire personality for the sake of shipping.

If you're tired of seeing my posts calling this shit out, then do fucking better, fandom. All of you are capable of making your own fucking posts condemning bigotry. So fucking do so.

Anonymous said:

Prompt idea: touch repulsed (unless iniciated themselves) aroace and touch starved aroace try and navegate a platonic relationship in a middleground

the post was tagged:

#writing prompt, #prompt, #aromantic, #aroace, #touch repulsed, #touch starved, #friendship, #vaguerel, #submitted

link to original post. Archived link, since I hope the original will be deleted at some point or at least edited to be educational >:(

I am attempting to make this post as short and simple as possible.

Here is the simplest way I can possibly explain why this is ableist as shit:

The only so-called "middleground" between someone who is touch averse and someone who is asking them for touch, is the touch averse person suffering.

There are no ifs, ands, or buts about this.

If you ask touch averse people to "negotiate a middleground" between respecting their boundaries and causing them harm, you are doing nothing but causing harm.

Why is it always touch averse people who are forced to "compromise" on their boundaries?

Why is it always touch averse people who are fucking demonized for having boundaries?

That's what this prompt is doing, intentionally or not. The entire premise of this prompt is "a touch averse person exists, and that causes problems for other people".

Why is it always touch averse people who must negotiate and compromise on their boundaries?

Why is it always the touch averse person who must suffer for the sake of others?

[Plain text: "Why is it always the touch averse person who must suffer for the sake of others?" End plain text.]

Stop writing stories like this. Stop asking others to create stories like this. Stop fucking perpetuating the same ableism touch averse people face their entire fucking lives.

Let touch averse people have boundaries that no one ever fucking asks them to compromise on.

Let's frame it this way:

Say you don't want to be thrown into lava, but someone asks you to "negotiate a middleground" on that boundary.

This compromise, you are told, will still literally involve you being thrown into lava, but apparently, it's okay now, because you're being shamed into agreeing to it. What are they compromising on, you ask? Well, nothing! Literally nothing. They get everything they want, you lose everything you need.

Would you be happy with this arrangement?

Would you feel happy and safe and respected by being thrown into lava, or shamed for refusing? Even shamed even when you are thrown in?

No?

Congratulations! Now you have an idea of the kind of shit touch averse people have to put up their whole life!

If you actually want to respect touch averse people, don't even fucking ask us to compromise on our boundaries. If you wouldn't demand a sex repulsed person have sex with you just because you're horny, don't demand a touch averse person to touch you just because you're touch starved.

[Plain text: "If you actually want to respect touch averse people, don't even fucking ask us to compromise on our boundaries. If you wouldn't demand a sex repulsed person have sex with you just because you're horny, don't demand a touch averse person to touch you just because you're touch starved.". End Plain Text.]

Then the whump community needs to figure out specific terms that will only be used for fiction so that the posts are not clogging up actual disability tags.

Figure out different ways of spelling things or create new acronyms.

The problem is not even that people are tagging their whump stories as disabilities, though that is also, obviously a major problem. It's that it doesn't matter how many whump related tags I filter, because every single person tags their things differently! Not even filtering the word "whump" lets me filter the posts! I literally just went through five pages of the touch averse tag and it's completely unusable, even though I'm filtering the word whump, and whumpee, and so many other things.

OH YOU MEAN A HORROR STORY???? YOU MEAN LIKE A HORROR STORY???? WHAT YOU'RE DESCRIBING IS A HORROR STORY!!! AND YOU ARE THE FUCKING VILLAIN!!!!

[Plain text: "Oh you mean a horror story???? You mean like a horror story???? What you're describing is a horror story!!! And you are the fucking villain!!!!" End plain text.]

but people want to pretend like Murderbot's actually getting more comfortable with letting people touch it, rather than getting more comfortable setting firm boundaries. Because they don't like the message the author is beating them over the head with.

Arada rubbed her eyes and her mouth pulled in at one side. “Are you trying to make me feel better?”

“No.” I actually wasn’t. I lie to humans a lot, but not to Arada, not about this. “I wouldn’t try to make you feel better. You know what I’m like.”

She made a snorting noise, an involuntary expression of amusement. “I do know what you’re like.”

Her expression had turned all melty and sentimental. “No hugging,” I warned her. It was in our contract. “Do you need emotional support? Do you want me to call someone?”

“I’m fine.” She smiled.

This is character development for everyone involved (Arada took the longest to figure out Murderbot didn't want to be touched because she wasn't picking up on its nonverbal cues the way Mensah did, Murderbot has been learning to TELL people it doesn't want to be touched rather than just bearing it in silence), but because solitaremisics don't like the fact that Murderbot is reaffirming and strengthening its boundaries instead of weakening and compromising on them, they pretend like this isn't what's actually happening.