I really love and enjoy your Hollow knight fic and try to leave a comment on every chapter. Your style is nothing if not a piece of art
Though I'm curious ‐- how do you feel about people misgendering vessels in the comments? It's just something a lot of people do in this fandom, and I'm not sure why lol. Is there any hint to it in the game?
Short answer: It frustrates me. I don't like it.
Long answer: Within the game, the Vessels are only referred to using it/its pronouns, because they are viewed as objects that are not actually alive. So, technically, there isn't really an instance that can be pointed to where they/them is used.
However, the Vessels are genderless. Like, the Void hollowed them out and stole the gender as well. Hornet is literally referred to as the 'Gendered Child' because she is the only child of the Pale King to actually have a defined gender.
As a result, I suppose that technically you could define whatever gender you want for the Vessels and use whatever pronouns, including he/him or she/her or whatever.
I have always viewed the genderless thing as a non-binary thing, and therefore use they/them for them. It feels kinda... wrong to me, to use any other pronoun for them? Like genuinely wrong. But I'm not gonna police people on it.
On the other hand, when we are talking about TSVR specifically? Yeah, it actively frustrates me when people misgender them in the comments. Because if you aren't using they/them in the comments of that story, you are misgendering them I fear. It's literally like the seventh tag I listed.
We are around 43,000 words into this story, and more than 2,000 of those words have been "They/Them/Their," and I guarantee that most of those are in reference to the Vessels lol.
I don't know. I write Ghost and the rest of the Vessels with they/them pronouns. I don't really understand how one can read those words so many times and still refer to them with he/him in the comments. I don't get it.
Like I said, I'm not gonna really police people on it? I'm not gonna respond to comments correcting people that misgender them.
But you should know this: I read every comment that I get. In fact, I have a document for every fic I write where I copy-paste in my favorite comments so that I never forget or lose them when I clear out my inbox.
Comments on TSVR that refer to Ghost or the other vessels with he/him, though? I actively struggle to read those with as much seriousness as others. Which is a shame, because I would like to! I appreciate every comment that is left! It just,,, As I said before, it feels genuinely wrong. In a skin-crawly kind of way. So I wish people wouldn't do it, if only to make it so that I was able to enjoy every comment from every lovely reader to its fullest potential.