All Comments on 'Shards Ch. 04B'

In my own humble opinion, I actually liked the made-up pronouns better. This was not the first story I've read where the author created new pronouns for genderless beings - using the plural pronouns grated on my internal grammar-checker. As you are the author, please move forward with whatever method you like best. If others are bothered so much by your usage, they don't have to continue reading.

That was my impression in creating this variant of the chapter, too. But I thought it would be fair to give readers a chance to see what that looks like. Lower ratings compared to the original tells me a lot. The mind simply wants they/them/their to be plural. But, the only other singular pronoun in English is it/its, which we associate with objects, dehumanizing in the process.

Honestly, before I read these two A/B chapters, I was all gung-ho for ze/zim, but... no. They/them is better, because at least I'm familiar with those words. We do need a set of pronouns for third gender individuals, but nothing truly satisfies.

And before you ask, I was named Zeechromosome long before I read your story, so I've actually given this matter some thought for exactly the reasons spelled out in the story. The Z chromosome is a real thing in certain species, some of which can flip genders during development based on environmental factors such as food supply, gender imbalances, etc. I'm not trans or anything remotely like that, I just think it's a really cool science fiction concept.

Zee