#nonbinary robot stereotype

[rjalker]

If you lie to people about how The Murderbot Diaries "isn't" literally just the harmful, biologically essentialist nonbinary/aspec robot stereotype, you are literally going to accomplish nothing except making people hate you and this series because you've now lied to people about it being more progressive than it truly is, so when they spend money to read these books you've promised them actually care about nonbinary and aspec people beyond harmful, bioessentialist stereotypes, they're going to have to find out the hard way that Martha Wells does not in fact, have a single human aroace character or even aspec character of any type in this series of more than 7 books now.

They're going to find out the hard way that the only human nonbinary characters are literal tokens who are on screen for about 2 mintues before being shoved out of the story again, never to be seen again. Long enough to get people like you to lie and claim the series cares about nonbinary people who are not bioessentialist stereotypes, but not long enough to actually commit to doing so.

Stop telling people that The Murderbot Diaries' representation of nonbinary and aroace people is more than just harmful, tired, bioessentialist stereotypes. You are fucking lying, and you are only going to make people hate you and this series because now you've fucking betrayed them and lied to get them to read something that is exactly what they didn't want to see: More shitty old bioessentialist stereotypes that you pretend are okay this time because you like the character and don't give a fuck that there is LITERALLY NOTHING in more than seven whole books now to make the stereotypes anything more than shallow, cis-minded biological essentialism.

Murderbot and every other actual robot in this series is nonbinary and aroace because they don't have genitals. Because Martha Wells is many things, including an absolute worshipper of biological essentialism.

Stop fucking lying to people and pretending these books are more progressive or ""nuanced"" in their representation of nonbinary and aroace people than they actually are.

Just because you like Murderbot does not mean it is not literally the walking nonbinary / aroace robot stereotype.

(And no, just because Martha Wells is so incompetant that Murderbot is actually a cyborg but she keeps acting like it's a robot because she does not know or care about the differences between them despite bragging that she's been reading scifi since the 70s does not make this any better)

[rjalker]

This does absolutely nothing to refute the fact that Murderbot is only nonbinary and aroace because it has no genitals. Martha Wells has been doing this biologically essentialist crap long before she wrote The Murderbot Diaries.

There are no robots in this series that are not nonbinary, there are no human characters who are more than blatant tokenization that are nonbinary. There are no human characters even implied to be aroace.

This series is biologically essentially and people have the right to be disappointed and angry that the protagonist is literally only aroace and nonbinary because it literally has no genitals, and the author equates that to having no gender and sexuality.

Please do not lie to people about these books being more progressive about nonbinary and aspec people than they really are. It really, literally, is just the bigoted "nonbinary/aspec robot" stereotype again, with no redeeming qualities outside of "I like the characters so that means it's okay"

Martha Wells could have made it not just more biological essentialism by giving us named, important, reocurring characters who are also explicitly aroace and nonbinary, but she has not done that in over seven books now, because she is just another cis person who loves biological essentialism.

You can recommend these books to people but you cannot go around telling people it's not Actually the harmful bioessentialist stereotypes that it literally is. It is.

The only reason Murderbot or any of the robots in this series are nonbinary or aroce is because they don't have genitals and that makes Martha Wells think they can't have genders or sexualities either.

This is a *long established* pattern in her writing. She is a biological essentialist and telling people that the series ISN'T just the shallow harmful stereotypes will accomplish nothing except making people feel betrayed and hurt that you lied to them.

Do you know how many people have been driven in digust out of this fandom forever because of posts like this lying to them and telling them this series is more than the stereotypes that it has no intentions of ever fighting back against /because the author agrees with them?/

#it is not aro/ace and autistic bc it is a robot!#it is a robot that also happens to be aro/ace and autistic!!

I'm sorry but you are literally incorrect. Murderbot literally only is nonbinary and aroace because it has no genitals. That is the only reason Martha Wells wrote it this way, because that is the only way she can imagine an aroace or nonbinary character.

If this series were more than harmful shallow stereotypes, then half the Preservation Aux team would also be nonbinary and aroace despite having the genitals that Martha Wells thinks means Murderbot and any of the actual robot characters can't have sexuality or gender.

And yes, she has indeed confirmed that Murderbot is a cyborg, not an anthroid. That does not make the bioessentialism any better or less harmful.

broke: oh yay another asexual/aromantic and autistic character is a literal robot 🫩🫩🫩

woke: murderbot is a construct, part human part machine, grappling with what it means to be a person, knowing that much of it in part is the same as the humans around it (organic) and yet owing to the other different parts it was born with is unable to connect/understand so many things about humans, does it have the capacity for this and if so does it even want to be like the humans (a thinly veiled metaphor for neurodivergence and aro/aspec)?

[winged-void]

I'm having fun pushing my finger on the scale, but god that poll is some tme bullshit. the three different types of nonbinary character are: normal tme nonbinary person, creature or robot, and, most importantly, faggot effeminate failed man transmisogynist stereotype. and then there's testament, who's none of these.

[coupleofdays]

I think I've been temporarily posessed by the @astercontrol Pattern Recognizer. Or maybe the universe is just trying to tell me something, though I have no idea what it might be.

See, I have had this half-joking, half-serious headcanon for a while, about the character Allenby Beardsley from the anime Mobile Fighter G Gundam. For those of you not familiar with her, she's a mech pilot hailing from Sweden (or technically "Neo-Sweden" in the sci-fi future universe of the series), and she pilots a giant robot named the Nobel Gundam, which inexplicably is designed to look like Sailor Moon. This is especially weird in the context of the series, which contains multiple mech pilots from different countries, all piloting robots that are somehow based on national stereotypes. So while the name "Nobel Gundam" makes sense (named after Alfred Nobel and the Nobel Prize), I have no idea what a Japanese magical girl anime has to do with Sweden.

Anyways, my headcanon is based on the following aspects of the character:

The name “Allenby Beardsley” is definitely not a traditional Swedish name. In fact, it consists of two English surnames, and is thus gender neutral.

Allenby pilots a mech that looks very feminine, but is named after Alfred Nobel, a man.

The blue hair.

From this, I have decided that Allenby Beardsley is nonbinary, goes by they/them pronouns, and that they chose their name themself.

Now, here's where things get weird. I've had this half-joking headcanon for a while, but yesterday, I discovered that there's a comedian/actor who goes by they/them pronouns, named... Ally Beardsley. And I thought "haha, that's a funny coincidence"...

...but then, today, I discover "Alienby Comics" ( @alienbycomics ), by a they/she creator, who has explained that the name is a portmanteau of "Alien" and "Enby".

So now I'm basically like this:

[moss-sprouts]

i havent watched the show and im only on book 4 of Murderbot Diaries but theres something that feels insidious about the show picking a cishet white man to play murderbot

a completely genderless person that uses it/its pronouns, picks gender neutral names for itself and has no canonical physical description besides have a specific set height and hair length that we dont even get told what that specifically is

im sure other people have made this kind of post when the casting was announced, but i just hate that i started picturing a cis man now when i started the first book

like a trans or nonbinary person would have been perfect for this, especially if they werent white or they could even be a cis white woman if they wanted to avoid the whole "omg a murderbot is played by a queer person/poc obviously we know what theyre saying about queer people/poc" discourse that would arise which im sure would come from people who never read the books so of course, instead they just went with the default robot stereotype, based on a white guy

[sapphicrot]

? Transfem Chasing Wind?

actually hold on wait ok yeah Iterators and gender is a whole ‘nother fascinating thing both because ROBOTS and RELIGIOSITY (plus I mean what else are you going to do for 20 thousand cycles OTHER than remake your body over and over again….

I mean this is actually an interesting subject that I should think about deeper but I’m tireeeddd

iterators and gender !!! yesss!! i really love the possibilities of how iterators could express their gender identities. are they just programmed with certain pronouns? do they start as a blank slate and choose as their personality develops? honestly we could go as far as to ask if their creators even had a concept analogous to gender as we understand it considering the magenta shaded citadel pearl mentions how Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel was a “Mother, Father and Spouse,” (Or maybe they were just a genderfluid fashion legend). BUT for the sake of this analysis I’ll just act like their views on gender are at least somewhat similar to our own.

Okay funnily enough Chasing Wind is literally the most Cis Guy I have out of all of them LMAO. Like if you asked him his pronouns he’d look at you funny and go “he/him, duh??”.

But tbh I feel like it depends on the iterator, much like how I talked about them being attached to their puppet. When they’re being built their creators just use a certain pronoun to reference them (Pebbles’ creators using he/him to differentiate him from Moon, etc), and once the iterator comes into their own they can either choose to keep said identity or use different ones etc. Hell, some might switch them up every couple dynasties just because they get bored. There isn’t really a physical component to their gender, since they all wear featureless cloaks and are. well. yknow. immobile buildings and probably don’t have any stereotypically gendered components. Unless only girl iterators have an abstract convergence manifold or some shit /j. So really it just comes down to personal preference.

One of the main reasons I hc that Sig uses he/she/it is because of the scarf thing, actually. It shows some level of aesthetic decoration being added to his puppet, going out of its way to accessorize and express itself through clothing. Also I feel like Pebbles uses he/him because during the concept/construction process of him, his creators needed a different pronoun to use so they could differentiate him from Moon. However Pebbles is also just SO trans to me idk.

Also side tangent but I also fucking hate the idiotic argument around Suns’ pronouns, people seem to act that nonbinary people can’t use binary pronouns (COUGH LIKE ME COUGH), and that nonbinary people MUST use they/them, like congrats yall just created a third gender binary. Not to mention, I bet that if any other pronoun was being used (like if people were using strictly xe/xem or smth rather than he/him), no one would care because those are “nonbinary” pronouns, everyone knows that nonbinary people never use binary probouns !1!!1 /s. The whole thing just feels so fucking exorsexist and it pisses me off.

Anyways that was a tangent. Ngl I hate theorizing about gender cuz it just eventually devolves into me being like “hey why is any of this fucking real” LMFAO like it’s all so ridiculous. Honestly I barely really consider their genders while designing them, I feel like most of my designs could use any pronouns and still feel right (The cunty eyelashes I give everyone probably helps in that regard).

I’ve kinda lost the plot here so I’m just gonna say trans iterators go crazy hard there should be more of them.

[velvetvexations]

Some morrrrre enby takes, plus one about the concept of binary privilege, and as a reminder to be safe...

Disrespecting yourself is when you use the term you actively prefer apparently. It would be much more respectful of me to call myself words that actively make me uncomfortable.

"Grown ass adults should not be embracing immaturity" Wow, absolute dogshit take. Why not? Why are adults not allowed to embrace 'childish' things? Why does it matter how other people refer to themselves, it literally does not effect you if other adults use words or like things that you (general you) think are too childish. I myself am in my 30s and that just sounds to me like more of the same garbage that's always been shoved down everyone's throats about how fun stops at adulthood, no watching shows aimed at kids or having stuffed animals or wearing fun clothes because if you do no one with take you Seriously. No calling yourself a boy or a girl or an enby because those are baby words for babies and letting someone call you that is allowing yourself to be disrespected. Like I'm sorry but that's also the same logic others use to misgender me when I say I use it/it's pronouns, that to them it's disrespectful so I'm really the problem for preferring it. I cannot stress this enough, how other people define themselves and what words they feel comfortable with is none of your business and someone liking a word you don't is not a threat to you. Also like, some of us feel out of touch with our actual ages for one reason or another and may enjoy childish specifically because they're childish, and again, that isn't anyone's business but their own. You can hate being called something, you can want there to be more variety in what terms are commonly used to refer to nonbinaries as a group, you can tell people to not ever uses a specific word to refer to you, and you can be upset that a word you don't like is being used as a default, but you don't ever get to police how other people feel about it or what they call themselves. I am an adult who has never been able to really conceptualize myself as an adult or even a human due in large part to autism and ptsd, and I'm going to call myself an enby and an it regardless of other more Serious Adults are shaking their head and judging me for it, because my identity is for me, not for the approval of others. I didn't mean to go off quite that hard or get so worked up, sorry if that was too aggressive Velvet, I know you don't really have a horse in this race.

As a nonbinary man (as one of mnay mostly-fitting labels), I have deeply mixed feelings on the question of "is enby infantilizing as a default?" because, On the one hand, I understand the linguistic argument that it is on the grounds that many of the most common nouns that end in a long E sound are diminutives or otherwise "cutesy" (baby, puppy, kitty, cutie, mommy, daddy...) - even if the etymology isn't as infantilizing as some myths make it out to be, it doesn't exist in a vacuum with regards to existing language NOR with regards to common stereotypes of nonbinary people, and those things can DEFINITELY be argued to collide in a pretty unfortunate way, On the other hand, there are a lot of people - not everyone who makes the argument, but enough to be a derailing factor in the conversation - whose arguments against it DO come from exclusionist myths about etymology, or worse, "vibes" such that when you take even the slightest look under the surface you see that they've either internalized the stereotype that nonbinary people (other than themselves of course) are all just white teenage girls trying to be special, or at the very least they're letting that stereotype have WAY too much control over them, and often nearly get to the point of saying that ANYTHING other than the longform and almost clinical "nonbinary person" would be too infantilizing, But on the third, transhuman robot hand, well, isn't the line between "letting the stereotype have too much control" and "acknowledging the fact that the language doesn't exist in a vacuum and can have unfortunate implications due to how the sounds of English interact with that stereotype" kind of blurry in the first place? And on the fourth cyborg hand, we STILL haven't gotten the damned exclusionists who will argue for OR against it in bad faith to shut up! Personally I'm on board with the idea of "enban" and "enby" to have the same relationship as "woman" and "girl" + "man" and "boy" - references to the same category of genders, with the appropriate word chosen based on context and Vibes that are loosely but not entirely based on the age of the person in question - but I'm not super invested in the specifics; I like to study them more than direct them, so I'm not gonna be personally offended if that's not what takes off or anything.

i think enby is fine for the most part but as someone who has identified as genderqueer since before people started widely using nb it does bother me a little bit in the same way as a lot of language shifts around "other" genders that there's an assumption that everyone who uses them identifies with the term "nonbinary", which i honestly wouldn't mind as much as an umbrella term if it wasn't for the fact that a large driving force behind this shift was "you can't say genderqueer because queer is a slur and that's icky" (and also the most widely used nonbinary flag was created both because of this and because "too many afabs are genderqueer so it's not a welcoming label for transfems!!" (the person who coined genderqueer is transfem) and i know like nobody knows that anymore but it still stings)

As a black nonbinary person I never understood why nb had to just mean non black or non binary??? thats dumb. anything can be shorted to its starting/defining letters. thats like when people got mad at twitter/tiktok users for shortening white to yr to save space and they weee all like "thats youtube!!" its dumb and no one ever needed to act like they couldn't share a term when context will make it clear what youre talking about. enby is a perfectly grown up word that just fine to personally feel like it doesn't fit without implying that a term many adults comfortably use is infintalizing. just say you dont like it because its not accurate and ask people to use what works for you!

Yeah honestly the enby over NB conversation was... bad. And particularly galling as someone who is a) nonbinary and b) Australian Aboriginal because so much of the framing of it was this very American-centric, 'how fucking dare you not be aware of Black American conversations' vibe from the same people who scream and cry and piss themselves every time one of us calls ourselves Blak or says "hey if you're into omegaverse can you please not use the term a/b/o without the slashes, it's a pretty violent slur towards us" or rejects the term POC as not being relevant to our experience of racism on our own land or literally anything else about our oppression that doesn't centre American voices. It exposed a really ugly side to a lot of anti-racism advocates, many of whom *weren't even Black themselves but white 'allies'* and I really hope we're not about to rehash it just because some people don't like seeing 'enby'. I'm Australian. It's culturally impossible for me to spell out an entire word when there's a shortened nickname version available. Sorry.

“NB exclusively means nonblack” “enby came about as a result of black bloggers saying not to use it” wrong actually! It was a result of white saviors saying that black bloggers said not to use it: we never did ^-^ hope this helps!!

This whole discussion of 'binary privellege' has made me think more about my thoughts about the term privellege overall. I really think its about time we stop referring to marginalized groups as having privilege over one another. Like. I believe that transmisogyny, transandrophobia, and exorsexism are all real forms of oppression. Trans men, trans women, and nonbinary people experience oppression in forms that are often different from each other. But if two people each have privellege over the other in certain areas, doesn't that kind of just balance out to them being the same amount of privelleged? They should be able to talk about their own experiences and what makes them different, but trying to measure which marginalized group has privellege over another one just seems like a waste of time. As a nonbinary person, I face a lot of exorsexism. There's types of transphobia that I experience which the binary trans people around me generally don't. Does that mean they have binary privilege? Absolutely not! The oppression they face isn't better or worse, it's just different. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to talk about my experiences or have words to describe them. It doesn't mean my experiences aren't important or worth discussing. But I think framing the difference as 'privelege' inherently implies that my oppression is worse than theirs... and that's the problem. They aren't any better off than i am. We're both still facing bigotry, that bigotry just doesn't look exactly the same. Anyway sorry if this is rambly or doesn't make sense. Brain fog is fucking me up right now but hopefully I've managed to edit it enough to be somewhat coherent. This may or may not be my 5th attempt at writing this ask but at least I THINK it makes sense this time

[gatoraid]

Shelley Parker-Chan for Locus Magazine

Locus Magazine's March 2024 issue had a long interview with Shelley Parker-Chan! They talk about their inspirations, the writing process of The Radiant Emperor duology, exploring gender in their books and how writing fanfic has shaped their writing (among a lot of other things). I was finally able to get my hands on the magazine and wanted to share some favorite quotes.

Check out more quotes and how to buy the magazine to read the full interview: Shelley Parker-Chan: All the Others

On their origins with scifi/fantasy

My mother was such a stereotypical Chinese tiger parent: 'You have to study really hard, get great grades. But then she also loved Star Trek. So we’d spend a lot of time watching that together at home. That was a formative part of my childhood, to the point where I wanted to be an astrophysicist when I grew up. I was obsessed with the stars.

A lot of the themes in science fiction/fantasy really spoke to me. Robots! I love an awkward robot - Murderbot by Martha Wells is one of my favorites. As a slightly awkward, possibly on-the-spectrum child, I really identified with robots, and the Spocks of the world.

On writing and fanfiction

Action/adventure plus relationships has always really interested me. Obviously, back in the day, nothing was really queer, so in my teens I gravitated towards Japanese manga and anime, which had more queer themes. Especially in the online spaces, people were writing fanfic, so I started writing it, too.

I never did any formal writing classes outside of fandom and fanfic - that was where I learned to write. I think the number one Most Important Thing was that fanfic was a place where you could write and find acceptance and enthusiasm. […] You could express very upsetting desires, and really explore aspects of sexuality, personality, and problematic relationships in a way that other people would read with an open mind and greet very enthusiastically without judging. No one said, 'Well, this is not the correct moral lesson that we want in fiction!’ Which is a response that has increasingly popped up in traditional publishing.

On exploring themes of gender in The Radiant Emperor Duology

There’s a lot of trans issues and gender exploration in the books, but I didn't want to make it too close to contemporary life because then it’s not fun for me. I like exploring those issues from a step removed, allowing for people with many different identities, for instance, to project themselves onto a certain character. Like, a eunuch - no one has a eunuch identity these days. But any kind of gender nonconforming, nonbinary, trans person - I've had many trans women write to me and say they enjoyed reading a character like that. If I had written an actual trans man character in the book, that would have narrowed it down a bit.

I always think that my main goal as a writer is to explore characters. But I don't start with the characters. I start with a theme, and the theme was gender and being oneself in a system where a rigid gender binary is enforced. It’s about the performance of femininity and masculinity. Not that I put it in so many words- ‘I want to write a book about gender!’ Its about people exploring, expanding that, confronting that, battling the binary in their own ways. What does it mean to be yourself when that self is in opposition to what people say you should be?

About the characters of TRE

All of the characters are either queer or they are really engaged with the concept of how to be themselves when the world is pressing afainst that. I do have a straight female character, Madam Zhang, based on a famous nineteenth-century female pirate in Southern China, who ran rhis mercantile empire. […] It was said that her background was a courtesan. So I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll take that character – a woman in a very male world who uses femininity as a weapon. But, knowing she can never rule herself, she has to work through men.’ That’s one character who bounces off of gender in an interesting way, and then I could have her in dialogue with other characters.

There’s a genderfluid character, my main protagonist Zhu, who used the performance of gender kind of like a superpower. She can move in and out of identities and doesn’t feel particularly wedded to any of them.

Then we have a nongender-conforming – but straight, I guess – man, Wang Baoxiang, who does not conform to society’s standards of what it is to be a man, and that impacts his identity in a certain way. His self-esteem is very damaged, and he often feels like, ‘I was born in the wrong time. If I had been born in a different time, my version of masculinity would be recognized.’ Through that character, I was thinking fo the way in which Chinese traditional performance of masculinity, for instance, is not recognized here in Australia as masculine - it's seen as feminine. In Australia. we have a certain white, sports-playing, particular idea of masculinity - It looks like Chris Hemsworth. If you do not look like Hemsworth, it you're a little Asian guy, your’e inherently seen as feminine, no matter now masculine you feel.

I have a eunuch character, someone whose gender has literally been ripped away from them, and that kind of reflects a trans experience – someone who feels they are intensely masculine on the inside, but the entire world sees them in a different way. Then you feel the need to perform, in order to seen to be the way that you feel you are. But this character, in trying to be the most manly he can possibly be , starts to adopt all these toxic masculine traits, and, in a sense, kills a lot of his own honest desires in pursuit of performing this ideal of masculinity.

About their next book and future aspirations as an author

I'm going to write a secondary-world fantasy. I've never built a world from scratch before […] It will feel pre-industrial, historical. It will be very kinky and - what are the comps? So far l've been saying, 'It's Foucault's Discipline and Punish meets Simone Weil's Gravity & Grace with a side of of Kushiel’s Dart. There's a lot of kinky BDSM in a world like that. One of the joys of fan fiction was people were not afraid to create these worlds where society is completely based around kink concepts, so I'm building a world around kink concepts here, and that’ll be fun.

I'm a frustrated romance author, so I really want to write some romances in the future - straight up. None of that politics stuff. none of the adventure, only the relationships! I'm not fast enough to write category romance, though, that's for sure. I'll have to stick with fantasy romance so I can do one every two years.

[augmentedpolls]

*not saying it’s bad to be any of these!

[rjalker]

PSA: Making all of your nonhuman characters nonbinary, and making all your humans have "normal" binary genders, is in fact exorsexist as fucking hell. You are /literally/ dehumanizing nonbinary people by divorcing the possibility of being nonbinary from humanity.

Why does this need to be explained to people in July 2023.

If you want your nonhumans to be nonbinary, then great! Fucking go for it. But guess what. You also need to have some of those nonhumans be binary trans, identifying as a man or a woman even if it's not ""possible"" for their biology.

And you need to have human characters who are nonbinary and genderless.

If the only nonbinary people in your story aren't human, you are literally sending the message that nonbinary humans don't exist because biological essentialism says so.

And that's just straight up exorsexism. I shouldn't have to explain this in 2023, especially not to people who are running writing advice blogs for telling Queer stories.

[loyalhorror]

despite all my reservations about the show and the very obvious "this is an adaptation, a kind of poorly made one, and these are not the characters i know and love from the books," i AM enjoying the show and i'm excited for the next episode to drop!

so far i think my biggest issues are:

a) mensah being so... openly emotionally vulnerable all the time. she seems kind of constantly frazzled and that's just not how i pictured her at all. i do love her casting, just not how she's played. (also i pictured her with glasses--)

b) pretty much everything about ratthi. he's really annoying and i don't like the "quirky kind of dumb English Humour" thing that's going on with him - it's the same reason i didn't like steven in moon knight very much, except he grew on me because the acting was um. better. ksjndfnjksdf. plus what the fuck was the thing about naming a kid all about??? i don't really agree with some of the criticisms i've seen that they're making fun of polyamory or whatever, but i do feel that it's written pretty awkwardly.

c) some of the acting/writing for the crew just feels a bit... i don't know how to word this, exactly. but it feels very kind of... forced? like whenever they're doing their hippie shit or interacting with each other most of them come off like very young, amateur actors in a way i don't like. not all of them though. i think this goes along with another point i was going to make about how some of the "humour" is a bit... eh. like all the rise and fall of sanctuary moon stuff just feels super cringe and i get that that's kind of the point but ughhhhhhhhHHH you know? sdkfjnsdjkf

d) the visuals suck LOL but nothing was going to match up to my imagination so it's whatever. they don't have murderbot rely on its cameras nearly as much as i'd like, but i get that with a film adaptation there's only so much you can do there.

e) episode length. enough said.

and now for some things i originally disliked but eventually came around on:

a) murderbot itself. it's not canon murderbot to me, but the actor did grow on me despite my initial dislike of a) his face, b) his voice, and c) his constant emoting early on (he stops doing it later and murderbot starts seeming a lot more like itself). if this wasn't supposed to be murderbot and was instead just a different secunit or, hell, a non-adaptation tv show about robots, i'd really like the actor in this role. i mean i do anyway but you know what i mean. whatever.

b) gurathin. i still have some issues with him like his weird thing for mensah (really playing into the creepy loner autistic-coded guy stereotype here, ugh) and like the rest of the characters, he doesn't feel like gurathin - but i do like him. especially his interactions with lebebe.

c) pin-lee! i really like them. i think it's cool that they're nonbinary and played by a nonbinary actor, but also they're just kind of funny. again, not book pin-lee, not the same character at all, but i like them. tbh i like most of the crew even though they're not The Characters to me.

[generic-sonic-fan]

Why do I headcanon Omega as strongly identifying as male?

(NOTE: this post is by no means any sort of response to anyone, nor is it intended as any kind of argument. This is purely me musing over my own headcanon, and I hold absolutely no shade for anyone who headcanons any different! In fact, I love seeing interpretations of Omega that are nonbinary or with any other sort of gender fuckery. They brings me a ton of joy, even if they aren't my main headcanon.)

Doesn't that seem. . . stereotypical? After all, most big, violent robots are automatically gendered as male in media. Instead of using gender-neutral pronouns, killing machines are so often defaulted to 'he' and 'him'. For example, most recently in one of my old fandom, a character who had previously only been referred to with it/its pronouns got referred to with he/him pronouns in canon, thereby erasing its gender neutral identity. I was pissed beyond belief.

Why, then, would I take this gender neutral identity away from Omega?

Well, the problem is that it's become common now to assert that a robot is gender neutral, yet use he/him pronouns anyway. The Iron Giant displays no gender identity other than the fact that he emulates a human boy that he befriends. Transformers have long since been established to not have human sexes, yet most Transformers characters use male pronouns anyway. Bastion from Overwatch, the aforementioned character who was robbed of its gender neutral identity, often exhibits very feminine traits and even possesses a more neutral anatomy than any of the examples I have mentioned thus far.

All of these robots fall victim to the fact that "male" is considered to be "default". To be "female" is somehow something you must add to yourself, something othering. Masculinity is equated with normality, and in more recent times, with gender neutrality.

Omega is the same. No matter what canon writers state about his gender identity, he will always be referred to as he/him in any source material. He is referred to as male, and maybe as gender neutral, but never as female, because male or masculine-presenting androgyny is default, and you don't see any lipstick or eyelashes on him, do you, huh (/s)?

The thing is. . . looking at Omega's behavior, he's NOT that feminine. He exudes this machismo and bravado about him that, while not exclusive to, is heavily indicative of a more masculine gender. His penchant for violence and his passion for all the manners in which it can be created reads like a boy eager to get his hands on the next COD game.

This isn't default! This isn't normal! This feels like a gender to me. While these traits aren't exclusive to men, they are extremely masculine. I just think he'd identify with that once he learned more about it, y'know? I'm by no means saying that nonbinary people can't use masculine pronouns, or even that Omega isn't still nonbinary under my headcanon- he absolutely is because being a robot is an inherently transgender experience. But I'm trying to subvert the idea that his maleness is "default", and instead proposing that it's an intentional decision on his part. Kind of an exercise in autonomy, if you will.

All of this, of course, is based on my interpretation that there is more going on inside Omega's processor besides single-minded murder, which is not a common interpretation amongst canon or even most of the fanbase outside of my tiny corner of tumblr. My interpretation of his character is that his core drive is his ego- establishing himself as the coolest and most competent robot ever with an identity totally superior to anything Eggman ever planned for him, for example. (With the murder part being the main facilitator of that, of course.) Without this interpretation, the idea of Omega giving a flying fuck about gender kinda falls apart.

TL;DR: I propose Omega identifies as male to combat the perceived notion that a robot with no assigned gender at birth uses masculine pronouns as "default", arguing against the idea that masculinity is somehow default and femininity is weird and different, by making Omega's masculinity as something weird and different and worthy of note as well.

[hell3ater]

A.L.I.C.E

Artificial Life Interface Computer & Engine . realm Zenith

. sexuality pan, demiromantic

. gender nonbinary, they/she

. age 56 years (maturity of 26)

. career ship engine 816 . background Built as an experiment to test the abilities of how much AI could do to support crew, ALICE was meant to do it all- from run the ship to comfort lonely crew. They, by default, are closest to the captain, albeit now gone after a takeover of the ship had gone wrong. Both her and the ship are now lost astray, as ALICE is unable to navigate it without at least one person on board.

. appearance In the engine room, ALICE is seen as a mostly floating robotic head with some vague appearances of bright green eyes. She is suspended by a head of wires that lead throughout the entirety of the ship. They have a hologram that can walk throughout the ship as needed, with the appearance of wires for hair and a metallic skin. Her frame is tall and thin, standing at 6'5 and mostly a straight posture.

. personality ALICE is quiet not in the sense of the fact that she is the stereotype of a robot, but quiet because of the fact she is unsure how to socialize after 13 years of isolation. In the past, she was a much more controlled and outspoken person, almost obsessive with the hold she has over the crew. They loved their crew to death.

[startstatic]

For the ask game

All character/ship specific ones will be for Tw0F4ng (if it's character specific you can just do either Fl4k or Zer0 if you want. Or both if you want to do both)

3, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 19, 22, 24, 25

Obviously don't have to answer all of them bc it's a lot but idk I like your opinions they're neat

OF COURSE <3

3. NoTP? i dont really have one for fl4k but for zero...zerhys sorry. Im a known rhys disliker and i just dont see it 9. Write a recommendation of someone else's fic you enjoyed! THIS ONE...oh my god. i dont read fic much but this permanently rewired my brain. it influenced a lot how i interpret fl4k and zer0 and their relationship 10. What's your favourite piece of fanart for [character]? Ok im kind of just picking drawings that theyre included in because i really like them. These two 11. What's your favourite piece of fanart for [ship]? auuuug i have a hard time choosing but i think this one 12. What's the funniest or craziest AU idea you've ever come up with? I guess not funny or crazy (kind of tragic if im honest) but ive been thinking a little bit about a fl4k/zer0 au that takes place several decades in the future after most of their friends have. well. Died. (i think fl4k and zer0 would have a significantly longer lifespan than the rest of the raiders because robot and..alien(?) thing..Youve just gotta trust me on this one) Anyways i dont have any real like...plot or anything really for this au i kind of just like the concept (I am a sucker for tragedy) 19. What's your favourite thing about [the borderlands fandom] (the people in it, not the media you're all enjoying together)? So many creative people in this community...its the first real fandom space ive interacted with in a while and its nice. lots of cool people here 22. Give us a headcanon for [character] Ok normally i would answer this one but i spent all my creative energy on an essay earlier...consider this my IOU 24. What's your favourite thing about [character]? Fl4k was actually a character made in a lab for me i swear to god. An archivist bot developing sentience and deciding become a hunter to serve a personification of death... im sorry but is that not literally the coolest shit ever. Maybe it would be easier to stop falling into the stereotype of "every nonbinary character is nonhuman" if they would stop making them so fucking awesome as for zer0. their offputting demeanor and autistic swagger has captivated me

i answered as many as i could ^_^ enjoy yay

[skuntank]

Hot take that it's actually more interesting to headcanon Cyrus and Cyllene as either binary trans people or cis rather than nonbinary or agender because of how often you see nonbinary/agender headcanons being put up on characters who are emotionless/stoic/"robotic" (for all intents and purposes) and that stereotype gets really boring and kind of aggravating after a while

[donutboxers]

Me and my roommate are currently talking about gender and i'm coming to the conclusion that of the part of my gender that is not stereotypically male (which is 90% male and like 10% not) is based entirely on the aesthetic i'm currently into, i typically describe it as 90% male and 10% agender but what i feel like i mean is "not a human gender, or a vibe/ object"

i don't feel a connection to gender fluidity as a label but i guess that's what it is, right now the 10% of me that's not male feels like some kind of 90's computer

i also feel like i only use they because it's a pronoun people who are aware of nonbinary people can use if they aren't aware of or comfortable with neopronouns but i really only like he and it, i might get rid of that part. i just dont use "it" with people irl because if they aren't also a trans/nb peson using neopronouns they still seem to say it with the same disdain that a cis person using it to dehumanize me would

sorry if im rambling but this is a little helpful for me to discuss, right now the gender that my aesthtic gender(?) is feeling is computergender/computerkin

i can't say that that means i feel a lack of humanity or robotic in any way, it just means that the way i feel is like the look of 90's computers, not the way they act or the "emotionlessness" that some people who are robotgender may feel

edit: i think maybe the reason this feels agender sometimes is because sometimes i just dont have an aesthetic im into, im going to put the aesthetic that is currently [the 10% of] my gender into my bio with "core" after it :]