[ SECRET POST #5775 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5775 ⌋

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


01.



__________________________________________________



02.
[The Murderbot Chronicles]


__________________________________________________



03.
[Witchfinder General]


__________________________________________________



04.



__________________________________________________



05.
[The Mermaid Princess's Guilty Meal]


__________________________________________________



06.



__________________________________________________



07.
[Arknights]


__________________________________________________



08.



__________________________________________________



09.



__________________________________________________



10.



__________________________________________________



































11. [SPOILERS for The Rings of Power]




__________________________________________________



12. [SPOILERS for Person of Interest]




__________________________________________________



13. [SPOILERS for Mary Skelter 2]




__________________________________________________



14. [WARNING for discussion of abuse]




__________________________________________________



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

[(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.