#TMBD fandom aroacemisia

[rjalker]

People are really acting like whitewashing in live action just happens in a vacuum and doesn't contribute to or stem from white supremacy at all.

What do you think is happening to all the people of color whose roles are instead being given to white people? you think more jobs just appear out of thin air? you think those jobs won't also be stolen by white people? You think whitewashing is just a silly little thing that only people on the internet care about?

doubly fucking so when the character cannonically has dark skin. Colorism is absolutely a factor. And it gets even worse when the character is explicitly nonbinary and aroace.

Real actors exist who could fill this role, but instead of letting them have the job, it's getting tossed to rich cisallohet white men once again.

And everyone's fine with this because they refuse to grasp the concept that every job designed for Queer people of color that gets snatched up by a cisallohet white man is one more Queer person of color who's out of a fucking job.

[rjalker]

It's because fandom just hates aroace people. And they're shipping it with Gurathin in particular because they think characters being genuine assholes to eachother means they've in love, and 99% of the shippers are pretending that Gurathin is a white man's name so they can whitewash him, because they're racist as well as aroacemisic.

It's the ghost of slash fandoms past. Fandom will latch onto the first two white men who don't like eachother that they see, and if there are no white men, well, they'll whitewash the people of color and misgender them until they fit into the mold.

And to the people in the notes saying we "have to let people be wrong", no, actually, it's your moral obligation to call out bigotry when you see it.

Erasing canonnically aroace and touch averse characters is literally bigotry. This is not a difficult concept. You all just don't see it as a problem because you don't actually care about aroace or touch averse people.

i will never understand the murderbot shipping community. like the entire point is that murderbot has no interest in anything beyond friendship. that includes queer platonic partnerships its just not interested. and that's ok and doesn't mean they aren't fully sentient. that's a major theme of the character.

so why is Tumblr insistent that its pining away for gurathin

[murderbotwritingprompts]

Yes, yes, you love Murderbot. You think Murderbot is so funny and relatable. You'd die for Murderbot. We know.

But do you actually use Murderbot's it/its pronouns? Do you actually respect the fact that it's an everything-repulsed aroace and is solitaremit touch-averse, and the fact that it represents real people who are these things?

Or do you just "love" the "relatable" version of Murderbot that exists in your head, where you've cut out and replaced everything that makes it who it is as a character with things you can personally relate to, even though the whole theme of the series is that you need to respect people even when you can't relate to them?

Do you think "representation matters" only when you're the one being represented?

Do you think it magically becomes okay to erase canon Queer identities and disabilities as long as you're not the one being represented?

Do you actually love the character of Murderbot, who is explicitly everything-repulsed aroace, nonbinary and uses it/its pronouns exclusively, and is soltaremit touch-averse?

Or do you just love the OC you've slapped its name onto that exists in your head?

[rjalker]

anyways. here's a fucking thread pointing out the blatant racism. At least there's one other person besides me who has a problem with this shit.

actually since Reddit fucking sucks for archival purposes I'll just copy and paste the entire thing here:

April 3rd 2024 for posterity.

____

Title:

So you understand that AI voice acting steals jobs from real voice actors, now can you understand that giving roles designed for Queer people of color to cishet white men is also stealing jobs from real Queer people of color?

Post:

Whitewashing does not exist in a vacuum.

Cis people giving roles designed for trans characters does not exist in a vacuum.

For every cisallohet white man who gets a role that was designed for a nonbinary person of color, there is now one more nonbinary person of color who's out of a job.

Rich successful white men do not need any more roles in Hollywood, especially not roles that should be going to Queer people of color. In the official art, Murderbot has dark skin. It has the darkest skin out of everyone in the Preservation Aux team.

[ID: A black and white digital drawing, showing a scene from The Murderbot Diaries book series. Murderbot, an androgynoid with very dark skin, wearing a white shirt and light pants, is leaping sideways over the chairs the other characters are sitting on, using one arm on the armrest to swing itself over, with its face hidden, and only the back of its head visible. The other characters are staring up at it in shock, confusion, and amazement: Ratthi, who has dark skin that is slightly lighter than Murderbot’s, is below it, throwing one hand out in shock, sending his mug of a dark liquid flying. He is wearing a light, long sleeved shirt and skinny jeans. Pin-Lee, who has light brown skin, is standing at a short table in the background, wearing a long sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a short skirt. Bharadwaj, who has brown skin, leaning forward over the table to stare, with only her long sleeved shirt visible above the table. Overse, who is white, is sitting in a chair next to Ratthi on the left side of the screen, looking up, with Arada’s light brown, bare legs and feet in her lap, with a beaded ankle bracelet. Overse is wearing a long sleeved shirt and leggings, and her own shoes are kicked off on the floor in front of her. End ID.]

Colorism exists in the real world. People with darker skin face more systemic hatred and disenfranchisement than people with lighter skin. Racism is already a systemic inescapable problem. Colorism only makes it worse.

Murderbot in the official art is not just a person of color, it has dark skin, and is the darkest of all the "main characters" we see.

Real dark-skinned, Queer actors deserve the opportunity to shine in roles designed for them. It is blatantly racist for these roles to instead by stolen by white people of any kind, but especially heinous for the roles to go to cisallohet white men who are already incredibly successful.

Because Alexander Skarsgård and Apple TV have made the blatantly racist and exorsexist decision to cast him in the role for Murderbot, this means that real nonbinary people of color have just lost what could have been a breakout job opportunity.

If you understand that using AI for voice acting is depriving real people of jobs, then you also need to grasp that allowing white people to steal roles meant for people of color without any backlash or criticism is directly contributing to and upholding white supremacy.

Every role meant for a person of color that goes to a white person instead is another person of color who's now out of a job.

Whitewashing characters for live action adaptations does not exist in a vacuum. It's not harmless. It's not "chronically online" to have a problem with it. It's a direct result of white supremacy, and literally allows white supremacy to continue being upheld.

AI steals jobs. So does whitewashing. If you care about one, then you need to also care about the other. White supremacy and whitewashing go hand in hand. Apple TV deciding to whitewash Murderbot is not harmless or simply "cringey". It's literally real life racism, colorism, and white supremacy, even before we get into the blatant exorsexism and transmisia of stealing roles from out trans nonbinary people.

____

and yes. If people comment I will also edit all of those comments into this post because Reddit fucking sucks and you can't save it to the Wayback Machine. So this post will keep getting edited and probably get even longer.

Edit: actually no I'm just blocking all these people.

[rjalker]

*slaps the roof of The Murderbot Diaries fandom*

[ID: The meme drawing of two people standing in front of a car, with a car salesman in a suit gesturing to the car, now edited to be saying, "This fandom can fit so many aroace-hating aroace people in it!". End ID.]

"partnering aroace people exist!"

yeah, and why do you think that gives you the right to erase nonpartnering aroace people? It's because amatnormativity still has a stranglehold on you and you're perfectly fine with that as long as you get to throw nonpartnering people under the bus to get the allos to accept you.

Being a partnering aroace does not give you the right to shit on and erase nonpartnering aroace people, which is what you are doing when you defend allos erasing Murderbot's explicitly unattracted Queerness.

Stop licking amatanormativity's boot and show some fucking solidarity with nonpartnering aroace people, or shut the absolute fuck up.

[rjalker]

Okay aroacemisic. Lol.

"I don't think bigotry against aroace people is real or should be taken seriously"

"I'm going to pretend that the real life bigotry of real people is actually only bad because I'm going to pretend the problem is the fictional character's feelings getting hurt, not the fact that people are sending the very clear message to the very real people this character represents that they're worthless and don't deserve to be happy"

Lol.

just to be clear I do not ship murderbot/gurathin and I don't ship murderbot/art sexually (????? how?????) or even really romantically, I am just baffled by how seriously a few people are taking this. like I get being annoyed/hurt by erasure but murderbot is not a real person and its autonomy is not being violated by people writing shippy fanfic. seeing a few people being annoying on the internet should not make you spin off the shits

(if you saw the earlier and messier version of this post no you didn't lol)

[rjalker]

"We have to let bigoted allos ship aroace explicitly everything-repulsed character! We can't tell them they're bigoted! Just let them do whatever they want without criticism!"

Nope :)

If you ship Murderbot you're a bad person. If you erase the canon Queer representation of marginalized people to replace it with something more palatable to you you're a bad person.

If you literally cannot be normal and not ship exactly one (1) fictional character that is explicitly, cannonically repulsed by romance, sex, queerplatonicness, and touch, you are a bad person.

This is not up for a debate.

If you erase everything that makes a cannonically Queer, disabled character who it is, you're a bad person and you should, in fact, feel bad about it.

Just because you're doing the bigotry in fandom doesn't make it magically harmless. You people literally just hate aroace people, nonbinary people, and touch averse people.

[rjalker]

"If you, a minority, are upset by people erasing the canon marginalized identities and traits of the only character you've ever seen where these identities and treats are treated with respect instead of being the butt of endless jokes, that means you're taking things too seriously and need to go outside. It's just fiction, no one is hurt by it."

- The Murderbot Diaries fandom, because asking people not to be horny and bigoted about one (1) fictional character is apparently just asking too much.

[rjalker]

Like, nonbinary autistic aroace with complex relationship with touch here? Go be a semi-an/ti somewhere else.

"complex relationship with touch" is a weird way of saying "I hate touch averse people who do not ever want to be touched and I especially hate the ones who call out athiktomisia that portrays touch averse people as being broken and in need of fixing"

I'm literally aroace but oh my fucking gods, stop trying to police fandom.

Yep, that tracks!

Damn, how many aroacemisic aroace people can fit in this fandom anyways?!?

[rjalker]

deslizada for your free aroacemisic blocklist.

Is pretending that erasing the canon Queer identities of characters that represent multiply marginalized groups even within the Queer community doesn't hurt anyone because it's ~just a fictional character, no one's violating its autonomy by writing shipping fic~!

Lol. LMAO, even.

[rjalker]

Fandoms will see this post and go "omg calm down no one's violating the fictional character's autonomy by shipping it!"

Fandoms will see a cannonically, explicitly Queer character who represents multiple of the most stigmatized groups within the Queer community and will go "okay, but what if I erase all of these traits I dislike to make ~them~ more palatable for me?"

And then act shocked when the minorities who are being purposefully erased are angry about this.

Fandom will see a characters who is canonically nonbinary, uses it/its pronouns, is aroace and viscerally disgusted by the thought of being in any kind of relationship, and hates being touched, and go

"Oooh! But ~they~ would be better if ~they~ didn't use those disgusting pronouns! Nonbinary people all use they/them! If you use it/its pronouns you're disgusting. This character uses they/them pronouns now because they're real pronouns!!!! "Ooh and don't you think ~they'd~ be so much better if ~they~ were horny for this brown man I am whitewashing for the sake of shipping with this aroace character, who I am also whitewashing for the sake of shipping.

"Oooooooooh but noo you know what'd be even better? O: if this character was a binary trans woman!!! Or a binary trans man!!!!! Because nonbinary people are gross and not real anyways :)

"Oh this blatantly autistic character explicitly says it hates being touched and only touches people in life or death situations when the literal only other option is letting them die?

"Well silly billy, don't you know that if you don't want to be touched there's something deeply, deeply wrong with you that you need to fix? I'm not being ableist by saying this, though! Really, when you think about it, you're the one who's ableist because you don't want this character's touch aversion to be healed by the power of friendship/sex/romance!!!!"

Fandom will literally see a character whose traits are demonized by all of society and go "okay but hear me out what if I demonize these Queer and disabled traits and remove everything that makes this character who it is so that it's less repulsive to me as someone whose identities are more socially accepted?"

And then insist that they're totally progressive and Queer friendly and welcoming to minorities and such a fun, safe, great fandom to hang out in.

[rjalker]

it never fucking ends

[ID: The meme of Garfield standing in front of a poster, thinking, "Huh. I wonder who that's for". Garfield is labeled, "The majority of people in The Murderbot Diaries fandom, including other aroaces who'd rather give allos permission to be bigoted than have solidarity with other aroace people". The poster reads, "Please fucking stop erasing touch averse and nonpartnering aroace people's extremely scarce canon representation". End ID.]

[rjalker]

Reposting for 2024. Originally made in 2023. But bigots keep being bigots.

Allos in this year, 2024, still don’t see aspec orientations as genuine orientations. They see it as an empty space where the orientation is inexplicably missing, so they see a character who is cannonically aroace and viscerally repulsed by all forms of relationships and touch, and think that, because this is a “lack of orientation” rather than an orientation directed at, explicitly, no one, they think it’s perfectly fine and not bigoted at all for them to shove their orientations onto the explicitly Queer character, erasing the aroace representation in favor of turning it into another Cis Gay Man who uses he/him…even though the character is literally nonbinary, and uses it/its pronouns.

Because they also see being nonbinary as a “fill in the missing parts” puzzle. They think the character describing its gender as “not applicable” and “indeterminate” means that, really, it’s a guy! it’s a man! Because it’s funny and relatable and only Men™ are relatable! Only Male Characters™ can be  funny and well-written!

In 2024!

Fully grown adults are fucking pulling this shit in 2024 and think they’re the perfect Queer Allies™, and like this isn't the world's most basic misogyny to top off the exorsexism and transmisia. You people are so proud to admit that you think women can't be funny. And think nothing of it. Do you have any idea how bad you look doing this shit, even if you ignore the fact that you're shitting on nonbinary people?

You people don’t see aroace or nonbinary people as actually existing, and actually having meaningful identities. You think we’re walking fucking ad-libs and you can fill in the “blanks” with whatever’s most palatable to your tastes. 

And that means misgendering the canonnically nonbinary character who uses it/its pronouns, erasing literally every single aspect of its identity that gets in the way of shipping it (removing its aceness, its aroness, or just straight up pretending it’s not aroace to begin with, and erasing its solitaremit touch averseion and disgust towards sex and intimacy of any kind), and then pretending their actions are completely harmless when they’re called out for it.

Because according to them, it’s not bigotry if the canon Queer identities they’re erasing are the ones they think don’t exist in the first place. Being aroace isn’t an orientation for them, it just means you’re broken and need to be fixed. Being nonbinary and using it/its with them isn’t a real gender identity and presentation, it means they’re something wrong with you and you need to be fixed. Being touch averse isn’t a real disability, it just means there’s something wrong with you, and you need to be fixed.

They don’t fucking see Murderbot as representation for real Queer disabled trans people. They see it as something broken that needs to be fixed, by taking away everything that makes it who it is, so that they can fill in all the now gaping wounds with their own much less stigmatized identities instead.

Even though the literal entire theme of The Murderbot Diaries is that you should treat people with respect even if you don’t understand their experiences.

[rjalker]

"Most of the Murderbot fandom is good with Murderbot's gender and aroaceness"

No, actually, most of the fandom stays as silent as the grave and does not speak up to defend nonbinary people or aroace people when the rest of the fandom is misgendering it and shipping it.

If you say you're fine with nonbinary and aroace people, but never actually put in the effort to call out bigotry when you see it, then no, you are not an ally, you're just fucking helping the bigots.

There should be five comments at least on every post that misgenders Murderbot correcting the misgendering. There should be five people on every post erasing Murderbot's aroaceness to correct the bigotry.

There would be new posts every time you go into the tag written by people besides fucking me explaining that erasing the things that make Murderbot who it is is literally just bigotry and is not to be tolerated.

That's what this fandom would look like if most of this fandom was actually an ally to nonbinary people and aroace people.

But no. No, it's just posts upon posts of Murderbot being misgendered, shipped, and every stigmatized trait it has erased to make it more palatable.

Murderbot is nonbinary. Its pronouns are it/its. It is viscerally disgusted by romance, sex, and the thought of being in a queerplatonic relationship. If you erase any of these traits, you are literally being a bigot.

And if you sit by silently and allow others in this fandom to perpetuate this bigotry, you're just as bad as they are.

I don't care if you have social anxiety. If you are not the target of this bigotry you have a fucking obligation to call it out. Even just by making your own posts explicitly fucking decrying it and supporting aroace, nonbinary, it/its users.

[rjalker]

"I feel ashamed for being aromantic in this fandom because you call out aroacemisia and I don't, so now everyone thinks I'm attacking them when I write aromantic things for this canonically aroace character :(((((((((( therefore the solution is you need to stop calling out aroacemisia. Not that I need to learn to fight back against aromisia."

wow that sounds like a personal problem. glad I'm not aro and still manage to be aromisic to people who actually stand up for aro rights lofl.

"I'm not nonbinary but you need to stop harassing people by politely correcting them when they misgender the nonbinary protagonist"

yeah that sounds exactly like the sort of thing a binary person would say.

[rjalker]

I have been informed I have a "pattern of behavior" in The Murderbot Diaries fandom, of *checks notes* let's see...

Calling out exorsexism

Calling out racism

Calling out aroacemisia

Calling out ableism

Politely correcting misgendering

[ID: A screenshot from a video clip of a person frowning at the camera, saying, "Yeah, I sure hope it does!". End ID.]