[ SECRET POST #5775 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5775 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



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02.
[The Murderbot Chronicles]


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03.
[Witchfinder General]


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04.



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05.
[The Mermaid Princess's Guilty Meal]


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06.



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07.
[Arknights]


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08.



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09.



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10.



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11. [SPOILERS for The Rings of Power]




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12. [SPOILERS for Person of Interest]




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13. [SPOILERS for Mary Skelter 2]




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14. [WARNING for discussion of abuse]




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15. [WARNING for discussion of rape(-revenge films? this is here just in case)]































Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #826.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

02. https://i.imgur.com/z8cxbaL.png
[The Murderbot Chronicles]

[(Anonymous)]

That seems like a fair read.

[(Anonymous)]

OH This is the same understanding I had?
Are you telling me it's the intended one? I read just the first book and I havn't touched the fandom so ???

[(Anonymous)]

100%

[(Anonymous)]

Murderbot refuses to be a woobie in the books and instead is a BAMF. I much prefer the books to Tumblr’s interpretation.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, I agree with you Nonny.

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn’t say that the characters in the first book are trying to woobify Murderbot. They are certainly trying to offer help of a form that it doesn’t exactly want. And maybe one of them is kind of on the pitying side. But the crew leader and several others just seem earnestly trying to help and slowly come to understand Murderbot a bit better.

In the end of the first book (or the beginning of the second?), the assistance they provide does help Murderbot get into a situation it prefers (though not the situation the crew had expected).

I can’t speak to the rest of the series, I’ve only finished two books so far.

[(Anonymous)]

Have you seen the Discord? My friend goes there and from what she says that's not the atmosphere of the fandom there at all.

[meadowphoenix]

my side of tumblr is more into your reading OP. there are definitely people like that out there!

[(Anonymous)]

I gave up on trying to get fannishly involved when the group I was chatting with insisted you have to use they for Murderbot, even though it canonically prefers it*, because of course Murderbot just didn't know any better and they deserve to be recognized as a full person omg! Using it for someone is so mean and inappropriate!

Given how much of the plot of the novellas is explicitly Murderbot not wanting to perform personhood in the way people around it insist, I just think this fandom is not for me, no matter how much I liked the stories.


* admitting I didn't finish the most recent book(s?) so it's possible this changed, but at time of discussion this was the case.

[(Anonymous)]

Is it canon that Murderbot prefers "it" over "they"? I don't remember it being brought up. I'm not in the fandom, but when I tell people about the books I always find myself automatically calling Murderbot "they" even though I know that's not what it calls itself. But I had the impression Murderbot wouldn't care one way or another what pronouns anyone used.

[(Anonymous)]

It exclusively uses "it" when talking about itself, all of its friends use "it", and in a later book, it has an opportunity to make a community ID file and choose it/its. No one in the entire series refers to it as "they", and given that the series is from its POV (and it even "edits" the story, apparently), we can absolutely infer that it prefers it/its.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt - above anon covered it, but I just want to add: if we're really getting into it, I feel like Murderbot might not complain about 'they', but I think that's all the more reason to follow the context clues and respect the author's intentional choice to make 'it' the standard in narration.

Obviously Murderbot is fictional and we're not doing harm to anyone by using they, and that's not why it bothered me- but the fact that so much of Murderbot's deal is defining itself how it wants, and in a way that I think can challenge the reader (because generally speaking English doesn't use it for people, and many people will even default to a gendered pronoun for animals), that insisting on 'they' - especially when you explicitly admit it's because you think the character "deserves" better treatment, meaning to be humanized- feels like missing the point.

Murderbot is great and it deserves to make its own decisions about who and what it is.

[(Anonymous)]

Given the choice, it chose it/its. So yes, that's what it prefers. There's a lesson in here about respecting peoples' pronouns even when those pronouns make you uncomfortable.
With that said, Murderbot is a fictional person and you're not hurting its feelings by referring to it however you want when you're telling people about the series.

[(Anonymous)]

what the fuck. It is it's chosen pronouns why anyone needs to change it.
I am glad I haven't seen this shit.
But tbf my tumblr dash inspired me to listen this books but I am extremely not in the fandom

[(Anonymous)]

Same. Everyone calls it 'it' and since Murderbot is the kind of person who'd protest that at least inside its own mind and thus the narration, it's safe to say 'it' is its preferred pronoun.