#ititsantagonism

[rjalker]

"It's confusing to read if a character uses it/its though!!!" not if it's actually written with a bare minimum level of skill.

There are tons of times when authors throwing around he/him pronouns makes it impossible to tell who's talking or who's doing what, but when this happens, you blame the writer, not the pronouns. It's no different for it/its pronouns. People just need to learn how to write properly.

Saying you shouldn't use it/its pronouns because it might be hard to understand what's happening in the story when you don't say that for he/him or she/her despite the millions more examples of badly written scenes with those pronouns is a blatantly exorsexist double-standard.

If your scene is hard to follow using just the character's pronouns...that's literally what their names are for. Character A is doing something? Just say its name at the start. Then you switch to character B? Say it's name now to specify! It's not difficult! This is how writing works for any pronouns! If a new character is doing something, say their name to make it clear who you're referring to!

This is one of the most basic rules of writing! And if you can't do it, that's a personal problem, and if you're reading something by someone who can't do it, then criticize that! Point that out!

It's literally not any more difficult to use it/its pronouns in writing than any other set of personal pronouns. And if you think insist that it is inherently and insurmountably more difficult, then you're just admitting you're bad at writing and don't want to improve.

[your-fave-uses-it-its-pronouns]

alright so. not to be a little antsy about the it/its flag but

the agender, neutrois, etc flags are all options for it/its as well!! just saying! not that i don't like your flag (although the colours are. fine), but just that there's more options!!

have a nice day person/people who own this blog :3

What's the point of this ask? This blog is about it/its pronouns. It's not about being agender or neutrois. People with those identities can use it/its pronouns, but that doesn't mean they should be equated with using it/its pronouns any more than being nonbinary should be equated with using they/them.

I think you're aware that saying "the colors are. fine" is a clear insult, so like, what was the purpose of this ask?

Are you asking me to use the neutrois or agender flags for characters that use it/its pronouns? Because that's not how this works. People who are agender or neutrois can use any pronouns, not just it/its.

You are clearly "a little antsy" about the it/its flag. You can just not send rude asks that don't make any sense. You could have just said "could you do this character with X flag" instead of clearly saying you think this flag is ugly lol. It would have been less insulting.

Like, are you saying there shouldn't be a flag for it/its pronouns at all? What is the purpose of this ask?

Using the agender or neutrois flags to represent it/its pronoun users would just be exorsexist as hell. Not all people who use it/its pronouns are genderless or have neutral genders, and probably most people who are agender or neutrois don't use it/its pronouns.

If you don't like this version of the it/its flag, there's other ones out there. But don't go around sending rude asks like this equating it/its pronouns with specific genders that have no more to do with it/its pronouns than any other gender.

Saying "have a nice day" at the end does not make any of the contents of your ask, which you clearly know is insulting, any less insulting.

[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?

[it-its-archive]

Pinned post

[ID: Two images. The first is the icon for this blog. The second is the header of this blog.

The icon is a set of teeth against a black background in the colrs of the it/its pride flag, with more white text between them that reads, "Fuck you".

The it/its pride flag has stripes of: yellow, green, light grey, grey, light grey, green, and blue. The yellow and blue stripes are wide, the green and light grey are narrow.

The header is white text against a black background that reads, "You have two options: 1. Use my pronouns, 2. Fuck off". The text is in the font "anti hero", which is in all caps, italicized, and made to look like it has been angrily painted.

End ID.]

I'm creating this blog to just start a fucking archive of posts about it/its pronouns, whether positive or combatting bigotry, or just fucking archiving the bigotry so people can't pretend in five years that it never happened.

I will be reblogging posts about it/its pronouns, as well as saving them on the web archive and adding the link to the archived version in each reblog.

All posts will have image descriptions.

This blog is being run by @rjalker.

[it-its-culture-is]

It-its culture is creating and using the tags "ititspronouns" and "ititsantagonism" so that posts about it-its pronouns can actually be searched properly instead of showing every single post that contains the word "it"

[rjalker]

things I realize while tying a ribbon to a shovel: Oh, the reason so many people misgender Murderbot and assign it a binary gender (almost always male, with he/him pronouns, because they're blatant and unapologetic misogynists ontop of the exorsexism), is because binary people view being nonbinary as a punishment.

Binary people view not being one of the binary genders as degrading.

They think that being one of the binary genders is a reward you get for being a person. They think it's something Murderbot should graduate to to overcome being treated like a mindless automaton.

That's why so many people insist that Murderbot is actually a man, or a woman.

Because they think being a "he" or a "she" is the only way to have any value as a person. Their entire worldview is constructed so that men and women, boys and girls, hes and shes, are the only ones with any value.

So when you ask them to respect someone who is an it, someone who is nonbinary, someone who is genderless, they have no fucking framework available to do that without it being an insult. Because they see our existence as an existential insult.

Binary people hate nonbinary people so much that they view our entire existence as a punishment. As a hate crime. As degrading.`

They think they're doing Murderbot, and the real people it represents, a favor by "rewarding" it with a binary gender because in their worldview, that is the only way to have any value.

To these people, if you aren't one of the binary genders, then you're worth less than dirt.

Binary people insist Murderbot is actually a man or actually a woman because they think anything else is the world insult you can come up with.

They insist they're doing it/its users in specific, and nonbinary people in general a favor by misgendering this explicitly nonbinary character, by insisting that they're giving it back its autonomy and "de-dehumanizing" it.

Even though by insisting that to be nonbinary is to be worthless and insulting, they're literally the ones doing the dehumanizing. They are literally the ones degrading this character, and the real people it represents, by insisting that our literal existence is a hate crime against ourselves.

It's disgusting. If you're reading this post and you do this crap, this is your sign to stop. And learn how to respect nonbinary people. And learn how to respect people even if you don't understand or relate to their experiences.

Murderbot is not a man. It is not a woman. Its pronouns are not he/him or she/her or even they/them.

Murderbot is nonbinary, and genderless, and its pronouns are it/its.

If you can't bring yourself to correctly and respectfully gender the nonbinary, it/its using protagonist of a series whose theme is "respect people even when they're different from you" then there is something deeply broken about your morals and you need to fix that ASAP.

[rjalker]

At least 2 people are trying to pull the "you can't correct people who misgender Murderbot in English, because some of the translations into other languages use binary terms because the translator's exorsexist and lazy!!! Yes I know these people know its English pronouns are it/its, but you're still not allowed to correct them when they use binary language!!!"

Congrats, that's not how language works. I don't care what binary pronouns the translator misgenders Murderbot with in German isntead of consulting with nonbinary Germans, we're speaking English. You don't get a free pass to misgender Murderbot in English just because it gets referred to with binary terms in other languages.

They're also claiming that no gendered language has any nonbinary or even neutral terms, which just shows they don't actually give a single shit about nonbinary people, because if they'd take five minutes do to research, they'd see all the options people have been coming up with for decades.

You people do not get a free pass to misgender Murderbot in English just because you can get away with misgendering it in other languages. That's not how this works. You're just very blatantly looking for an excuse for your blatant exorsexism and transmisia.

[rjalker]

Stop misgendering maia arson crimew. Its pronouns are, and I quote, "it(/she)". Neither of these options are they/them.

There's no excuse for misgendering when the post you're making literally includes a screenshot of its bio.

[ID: A screenshot from twitter showing maia arson crimew's profile, which has a background of grafiti reading, "be gay, do crime" spray painted on a wall, and an icon of a curcled up brown and grey spotted kitten that smiles at the camera.

The bio reads:

maia arson crimew @nyancrimew

indicted hacktivist/security researcher, artist, mentally ill enby polyam trans lesbian anarchist kitten (θΔ), 23 years old, pfp: @vai5000

it(/she), maia.crimew.gay, Born August 7, 1999, Joined February 2022

A red box has been drawn around "it(/she)", with a red line pointed to a zoomed in version of the same text, now enlarged for emphasis.

End ID.]

also be warned if you go to its website above (maia.crimew.gay), it does have a bright background and some flashing icons.

[rjalker]

Allos in this year, 2023, still don't see aspec orientations as genuine orientations. they see it as an empty space where the orientation is inexplicably missing, so they see a character who is cannonically aroace and viscerally repulsed by all forms of relationships and touch, and think that, because this is a "lack of orientation" rather than an orientation directed at, explicitly, no one, they think it's perfectly fine and not bigoted at all for them to shove their orientations onto the explicitly Queer character, erasing the aroace representation in favor of turning it into another Cis Gay Man who uses he/him...even though the character is literally nonbinary, and uses it/its pronouns.

Because they also see being nonbinary as a "fill in the missing parts" puzzle. They think the character describing its gender as "not applicable" and "indeterminate" means that, really, it's a guy! it's a man! Because it's funny and relatable and only Men™ are relatable! Only Male Characters™ can be funny and well-written!

In 2023!

Fully grown adults are fucking pulling this shit in 2023 and think they're the perfect Queer Allies™

Because they don't see aroace or nonbinary people as actually existing, and actually having meaningful identities. They think we're walking fucking ad-libs and they can fill in the "blanks" with whatever's most palatable to their tastes.

And that means misgendering the canonnically nonbinary character who uses it/its pronouns, erasing literally every single aspect of its identity that gets in the way of shipping it (removing its aceness, its aroness, or just straight up pretending it's not aroace to begin with, and erasing its solitaremit touch averseion), and then pretending their actions are completely harmless when they're called out for it.

Because according to them, it's not bigotry if the canon Queer identities they're erasing are the ones they think don't exist in the first place. Being aroace isn't an orientation for them, it just means you're broken and need to be fixed. Being nonbinary and using it/its with them isn't a real gender identity and presentation, it means they're something wrong with you and you need to be fixed. Being touch averse isn't a real disability, it just means there's something wrong with you, and you need to be fixed.

They don't fucking see Murderbot as representation for real Queer disabled trans people. They see it as something broken that needs to be fixed, by taking away everything that makes it who it is, so that they can fill in all the now gaping wounds with their own much less stigmatized identities instead.

Even though the literal entire theme of The Murderbot Diaries is that you should treat people with respect even if you don't understand their experiences.

[rjalker]

this person was using it/its but then "corrected themselves" to they/them because I assume people were yelling at them for using Murderbot's correct pronouns.

[rjalker]

I'm not even going to bring up the fact that I've spent over a week now fighting not to be misgendered on what was my favorite fucking website because that isn't even relevant to the fact that every single post about it/its has at least a dozen nonits repeating the exact same fucking exorsexist bullshit about how it's soo difficult to use it/its pronouns and why are you being so mean to people who are learning English for the first time?????

Zyg, literally fucking no one who uses it/its pronouns, and no one who is making positivity posts for it/its pronouns, is getting mad at people who are learning English for not speaking it fluently yet. Literally no one.

Coming onto a positivity post for it/its pronouns to pretend that we are getting pissed off at people for trying to learn a new language and not knowing the rules yet and getting mixed up is literally just further demonizing us when we are literally already demonized by everyone else in society including other trans people.

If you wouldn't make the comment you're planning to make about it/its pronouns on a post about she/her or he/him pronouns, instead of commenting, shut the fuck up and learn to actually respect it/its users for real instead of just doing it performatively.

Leaving comments on positivity for it/its users about how hard and uncomfortable our pronouns are to use and how icky they make you feel and demand that no one ever ever ever use them for someone who doesn't ask you to, you are being exorsexist. You are demonizing us. You need to shut the fuck up and actually support us. Literally no one on this fucking Earth thinkgs calling someone who does not use it/its pronouns is okay. The reasons bigots do that is because they know, specifically, that it's not okay.

Stop fucking swarming onto every post by someone who uses it/its to go, "Oh!!! but make sure you never ever ever call someone this if they don't ask you to or I'll set you on fire and chop your legs off!!!!!"

No one would fucking think it's okay to swam trans men or trans women's posts with comments like "Oh but if someone called me she/her I'd kill them and then myself" or "He/him pronouns are valid but you can never ever ever use them for someone who hasn't told you it's okay!!! They make me want to throw up!!!"

But because we're talking about a majority nonbinary people, and especially a majority of fucking nonhumans, well now all of a sudden, being a horrible fucking person and ruining every speck of positivity we create for ourselves is fair game!!! It's totally fine!!! Why should we get to have any posts that just genuinely support us, anyways? Don't you know nonits opinions on our pronouns are more important than showing us the most basic respect???

[rjalker]

"saying people's pronouns are unprofessional and shouldn't be used in professional settings isn't misgendering!"

-person who has no clue what the word misgendering means.

[rjalker]

Pro tip everyone. Tell your family. Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Tell your coworkers. Tell random people on the bus. Anyone who will listen.

If you misgender someone online and refuse to edit the posts where you misgender that person, even after being explicitly asked to, you are a fucking bigot. You are fucking transmisic. And no, for fuck's sake, you being trans does not make purposefully misgendering someone magically okay, and neither does being nonbinary or using neopronouns. For fuck's sake. No, not even if you also use the same pronouns as the person you're misgendering!

If you misgender someone online, edit the fucking post to use the correct pronouns! If you're meant to be an ally to trans people, this is not fucking optional, it is literally a gods damned requirement!

[rjalker]

Flat out refusing to use someone's pronouns and only calling the person by name is also fucking misgendering, which no one would be disputing if the ones usually targeted by the argument that this is okay were people who use it/its pronouns -.-

If you bend over backwards to avoid using someone's pronouns because you don't like their pronouns, you're still misgendering them just as you would be if you were using the wrong pronouns.

This isn't a difficult concept, and no, it's not okay for you to misgender people this way even if they use it/its pronouns, no, not even if it makes you uncomfortable!

You think conservatives aren't uncomfortable with calling binary people by their fucking pronouns??? Why do you think it's suddenly okay to misgender people when it's nonbinary people, huh? Let me spell it out for you: it's because you're exorsexist and don't actually respect nonbinary people.

[rjalker]

"this would be such great representation for trans people if only the evil colonizing brainwashing aliens' third reproductive sex used they/them pronouns instead of it/its."

are you sure about that

People really will just see it/its pronouns being used for people in literally any context and go "is this a hate crime against trans people?"

the answer is no. it's not. That's not how this works. Sometimes it's not about you. The ooloi are not trans. they're not supposed to be representative of trans people. That's not how this works. And it's especially absurd to insist that they are while you misgender one of them on purpose!

[rjalker]

Anyways I've literally seen people in this fandom argue that once Murderbot learns to love itself more, it'll change its pronouns to something more healing. And that it will figure out that it needs to change its pronouns to something other than it/its so people will have less of an excuse to hatecrime it.

No, I'm not joking.

People in this fandom genuinely think that using it/its pronouns is just asking to be hatecrimed. Because victim blaming is fine and dandy as long as it's against someone who uses it/its pronouns, apparently.