#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]

"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]

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]

*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]

"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.]

[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]

[ID: The "is this a pigeon" meme, edited so "The Murderbot Diaries fandom" is pointing at: "A character whose traits are stigmatized in our society, who is nevertheless treated with respect and dignity, offering the first postivie representation many people have ever seen of themselves", And asking, "Is this a blank slate for me to erase while I silence the very real people it represents?" End ID.]

So would you all be just as perfectly content to live and let live if I rewrote Mensah to be 100% straight and monogamous and whitewashed her? Would you all be perfectly fine if I changed all the female characters and characters of color to cis straight white men? Would you all be fine if I wrote a fic where Murderbot is sent to literal ABA and it's portrayed as a positive things?

Would you say those things are also innocently just "up to interpretation"?

[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]

[ID: one of the Penguins from the movie Madagascar first leaning forward and saying, "You call out aroacemisia in this incredibly aspec-hostile fandom. So doesn't that mean that the aromisia I, an aro person who refuses to stand up for myself or others, am subjected to by these same people you are calling out…doesn't that mean that aromisia that I face…"

Then screaming in all caps, "Is your fault?!".

End ID.]

IDK what to tell you. If you see someone calling out bigotry that also oppresses you, and you decide to blame that person for the bigotry you are subjected to...

you've got some serious problems you need to work out. Lol.

[rjalker]

This is not my first rodeo, and no, you cannot shut me up. Your respectability politics will not fucking work on me :)

[ID: The meme of a person in the desert crawling away from the safest path towards a more difficult one. The person has been edited to have sharp teeth and an evil smile. The smaller sign says, "1/4" mile," to the right, and reads: "Leave the bigoted fandom and abandon others to suffer from it alone".

The larger sign says, "100 miles", to the left, and reads: "Become the most insufferably obnoxious thorn in the side of bigots by refusing to shut up and refusing to stop calling out their bigotry no matter how hard they try to pretend they aren't doing anything wrong, so that the rest of the oppressed people will know that at least one person is willing to stand up for them". End ID.]

I will not stop calling out racism, exorsexism, transmisia, ableism, amisia, aroacemisia, or any other kind of bigotry in any fandom I fucking find, no matter how much you all hate me for it. I fucking hope bigots hate me. I hope I make your fandom experience even just a fraction of how miserable it your bigoted behavior makes oppressed people feel.

I have been called slurs for this, I've been sent death threats, I've been sexually harassed for calling out this shit. And guess what, motherfuckers? I'm not going to stop.

You want me to stop calling out the bigotry in this fandom?

Then do your part to make it less bigoted.

[rjalker]

no, actually you are not allowed to hide my fucking reblog telling you you're being a bigot. I'm not letting you people pretend you don't know you're being bigots.

Murdernot said:

One thing I love about Murderbot is that it is such a delightfully complex character that it can be so relatable to so many different people.

Like, I recently recommended the series to two friends who are very different. One I think will like it because of the aro/ace/agender-ness and the more existential "what defines a person" aspects of it. The other I think will like it for the exploration of trauma and the horrors of capitalism and the sense of humor.

Like any good story, it has some very specific things that only some people might relate to, but also some more general, more universal aspects, and we all like it for some combination of it.

And I think even more so since Murderbot is such an unreliable narrator when it comes to its own internal experience. We have to read between the lines to see how it really feels, and everyone reads between the lines slightly differently based on our own experiences and viewpoints.

And like, because Murderbot is on a character journey where it is discovering itself, we all interpret the steps on the journey differently. Like, a lot of it is Murderbot figuring out its boundaries. There are some parts where it pushes out of its comfort zone and widens its boundaries (being out of armor/being observed, which doesn't seem to bother it nearly as much in later books), and other parts where it asserts its boundaries (like with hugs). Both of those things are important for its character growth.

And someone who is trying to assert their own boundaries might latch onto the importance of Murderbot doing the same and enjoy discussions/fanart/fanfic of people respecting those boundaries. But someone who is trying to break out of a defensive, potentially maladaptive comfort zone might really appreciate the way that Murderbot becomes more comfortable with certain things over time and might enjoy discussions/fanart/fanfiction of it learning to enjoy some things it has expressed reflexive distaste for. Both are wonderful ways of interacting with the work.

The important thing for me is that Murderbot is a (beautifully written and complex) fictional character who means different things to different people. We all connect to Murderbot slightly differently and I think that's beautiful.

My response! Because you people do not get to fucking pretend you care about aroace and touch averse people and then silence us at every turn!

The problem is there are hundreds of stories where characters are touch averse and learn to enjoy being touched because they secretly enjoy it and didn't want to admit it to themselves.

Aside from The Murderbot Diaries, there are zero stories of characters who are touch averse and do not feel any desire for touch, and actually have these boundaries respected.

I don't think people who are not solitaremit understand how absurdly ludicrously rare it is that Murderbot has its boundaries with touch respected with this series.

It is in fact ableism for people to look at this character who is touch averse and has no desire for touch, whose boundaries are always respected, and to then insist that that has to change. That it has to open up and remove its boundaries and admit it secretly enjoys being touched.

We aren't talking about vague "Be more comfortable with yourself" things here. We are talking about touch aversion. We are talking about aroace.

Do I need to explain why erasing the fact that a character is aroace and repulsed by relationships is bigoted? Do I need to explain why erasing a character who's solitaremit and has that respected is bigoted?

Apparently I do, since everyone in this fandom keeps insisting on watering these issues down into just "differences in interpretation" and "learning to be more comfortable"

Would you be okay with people writing about Murderbot learning to accept and be normal about eye contact?

Do I have to explain that being touch averse is something adults try to beat out of autistic kids?

If the issues at hand here were anything but aroaceness and touch aversion, if they were more "serious" things being erased, like being gay or if people were removing all of Murderbot's other autistic traits, would you still say they're just a minor, beautiful different in opinion?

Aroace people who are repulsed by all forms of relationships have no representation. We are demonized even in our own communities, let alone the rest of society.

Solitaremit people aren't even given shelter in the rest of the touch averse community.

Erasing the fact that Murderbot is aroace and repulsed by relationships of all kinds is bigotry. Erasing the fact that Murderbot does not enjoy touch or have any desire for it is bigotry.

Listen to aroace people when we tell you something is bigoted. Listen to touch averse people when we tell you something is bigoted.

Just because it doesn't impact you personally does not mean it's not a problem and that people literally opppressed by it should just be fine with it and let everyone continue to erase our very existance.

These books are actually doing everything right in respecting aroace people and solitaremit people.

Why is it too much to expect the fandom, who claims to love this character, to do the same?

Do you actually care about people when their experiences are not the same as yours, or do you just see our existence as internet discourse that begins and ends on tumblr.com?

If you actually give a shit about aroace people and touch averse people, then stop making posts like this that coddle those who erase us. Actually pick a side instead of trying to play the middle.

This is literal real bigotry we are talking about here. You cannot create representation by taking it away from other people.

The whole main theme of this series is that you need to respect people even when they're different from you. Why is that so hard for people who claim to love this series to accept?

Why is it okay to erase people's sexualities when it's about aroace people?

Why is it okay to overstep and overwrite people's boundaries when it's about touch averse people?

Stop fucking pretending you care about nonpartnering aroace people and solitaremit touch averse people when you fucking hide our reblogs on your post. Either fucking actually support us and stand up against bigotry or stop pretending you care.

A character that is explicitly aroace and sex repulsed, touch repulsed, platonic repulsed, and nonpartnering and is nonbinary and uses it/its pronouns and touch averse and has no desire for touch at all is not a blank slate for you to erase. Murderbot represents real living breathing people. When you erase everything that makes Murderbot who it is, you are being a bigot to the real people it represents.

[Plain text: "A character that is explicitly aroace and sex repulsed, touch repulsed, platonic repulsed, and nonpartnering and is nonbinary and uses it/its pronouns and touch averse and has no desire for touch at all is not a blank slate for you to erase. Murderbot represents real living breathing people. When you erase everything that makes Murderbot who it is, you are being a bigot to the real people it represents.". End Plain text.]