*hands you a bug* *hands you a bug* *hands you a b

you don’t really… see nonbinary characters in media too often. least of all when their nonbinary-ness isn’t like.. a huge deal. the vessels being genderless and using the pronouns they do is super important to me and many other people who identify like me, because it’s so so rare to get that sort of representation at all, least of all without it being made into a whole social justice issue or commentary (which is all great ofc, but it’s nice to have something just casual once in a while). which we get in hollow knight! and i love that! so do many others in my position!

however when it comes to fandom, both for this game and others with nb characters and protagonists (COUGHundertale) there is somewhat of a problem with people who see a genderless character, explicitly said to be genderless by the source material and/or the creator, and go “oh cool! a blank slate to project whatever idea of gender i want onto!”. which is pretty textbook erasure. and usually that gender is male, from what i’ve seen, which is a whole other can of worms about male being the “standard” that i don’t want to open but sure is a thing too that i and many others have noticed

making gender headcanons for canon characters that aren’t canonly marginalised identities is naturally all fine n stuff, but think of it this way (purely theoretical scenario): say there’s a gay character in media, who is widely seen as good representation, and openly shown/said to be gay in the source material or by the creator. however, for whatever reason, a big chunk of the fandom just so decides that this character is instead straight, and only describes them as straight and ships them with the opposite gender, because “it doesn’t matter that much” or “it’s up to interpretation” or “people make straight characters gay all the time” or *insert excuse here*

can we all agree that that would be homophobic at worst and erasure at the very least? ok? cool. that’s how I feel when I see people downplaying the importance of nonbinary/genderless characters in media. especially considering they’re even rarer to see compared to gay characters. you could replace the above example with just about anything - trans characters being hc’d as cis, poc characters being hc’d as white, it’s all the same principle and proves the same point

at the same time, though, nonbinary people do exist who use binary pronouns! that’s incredibly valid, pronouns don’t define your gender etc etc, my problem is more with people who completely erase the fact the vessels are nonbinary at all. i’d be considerably less iffy with people who make binary pronoun headcanons keeping that in mind (though anything other than the canon they/them for them does make me eeehh a bit, it really isn’t my place to judge people who aren’t exactly crossing any lines, so yall keep going even if its not my thing) but sadly i don’t see that too often

tl;dr cis/binary people please keep in mind that the canon vessels’ gender and pronouns may not seem so important for you, but to others it’s a huge deal when it comes to representation that’s otherwise very few and far between. please be considerate and listen to nb people when we say it’s an issue!

Yes! It's not very in-your-face at all, but if you pay attention to dialogue and text in game, you'll find that not once in the game are any vessels including the player character referred to with gendered pronouns or language. Team Cherry indeed confirmed in an interview that this was deliberate on their part, as the vessels are intended to be genderless beings (and the fact Hornet is referred to specifically as The Gendered Child (of the king) makes this stand out even more).

You're right though, it's never openly stated in game - like a lot of other things aren't! Hollow Knight does an exceptionally good job at showing, not telling, when it comes to its story and details which is all part of the charm. And as such, not knowing that the vessels are supposed to be genderless isn't something I can really fault people for- that's not deliberate erasure, it's just being unaware, nothing malicious about it. Most of what this post was written in response to was people who were aware of but unsure about the situation, or didn't understand why nonbinary people are so concerned about cases like this.

After a long travel, Collector assesses all are here and safe.

I’m looking to get roughly 50-100 vessels for an upcoming post!

Here’s what I need:

A refrence of the vessel, just front is fine.

They need to be in baby mode, like ghost!

now if you’ll excuse us, unless you’ve some actual business here, you might want to consider moving along before anything... happens.

in the background you can faintly hear the sound of smashing glass and a few bugs swearing. that’s reassuring.

ok i’m doing this right now actually because i’m impatient and desperate! the best combination

I’ll draw your OC (or anything really) in this style: 

with cel shading and optional coloured lines for £18 (fullbody), half/bust like shown £12. will do humans, animals, anthro, etc

i am aware this is not that much of a sale but fillings are expensive, and if anything i’m really vibing with this style lately so i’ll probably get it done sooner rather than later

please dm me!! usual commissions rules apply