Reading Ancillary Mercy rn and Seivarden has really been on the journey of all time. In a coma. Woke up. Whole family dead. Only person who recognises her is her former company car, who's decided to go and shoot the president. Not kill, just shoot. The car shoots the president several times. The president gives the company car her own company car. Seivarden can come along. Seivarden is in love with her former company car. The company car never liked her. Her company car is now in love with another company car. The company cars are openly discussing this in front of her, including Seivarden's own feelings for one of the company cars. Sequence of events of all time.

every time i reread the radch trilogy i am yearning to know when mercy of kalr fell in love with breq and when it knew that it was in love with breq which i feel like are possibly different points and i just wish i could see mok working through their theory that ships love people who could be captains and just

like they had one hell of a meetcute and kalr was willing to ask (demand?) that the tyrant give it breq for a captain can you believe?! Can you fucking imagine that conversation

It took me so long to work get to this design for Mercy of Kalr and I'm still not totally happy with it. Ah well, I'm sure I'll be painting my favorite character again soon enough to give it another try

I saw this image on twitter and my first thought was: this is Mercy of Kalr and Breq’s first meeting.

Breq: Ships don’t love ships. I understand that.

Mercy of Kalr: I specifically asked to have you, Justice of Toren, as my captain, before you were even made one of my officers, and you are currently ugly crying at the thought that you have hurt me, might not be my favorite, and that I would ever be happier without you. Which I would not be.

Mercy of Kalr: But go off I guess

a few years down the line, Kalrs also start giving Breq sass (“Honestly, fleet captain!”)

it takes Breq 24 years to figure out it’s not Ship speaking through them

Seivarden does not fail to remark “Really? It took me three quarters of an hour to figure that out.”

seivarden tripping and stumbling into having three girlfriends, one of which is a spaceship, is kind of incredible and something we should all admire and strive for

Obsessed with the POV choice in Imperial Radch as well, both because Leckie does some really wild stuff with how expansive the strict first-person is able to become due to the worldbuilding and who her narrator is, and because it's SO entangled with the central thematic concepts of identity. In the first book flashbacks when the narrator is still a warship, "I" can encompass so many things, and sometimes explicitly refers to different facets in the narration--is "I" Justice of Toren, or One Esk, or a specific segment, or Breq narrating from twenty years in the future? "I" isn't simple, isn't unified, and while this is most literal and obvious with Breq/One Esk/Justice of Toren and Anaander Mianaai's split factions it's true constantly throughout the work at every level of scope. Individual characters struggle with internal conflicts and hit their breaking points--what is it that makes someone decide they have to disobey orders and make a stand or they won't be themself anymore? How do you know who you are if you've been forcibly changed (Tisarwat) or if the world you knew has moved on and become unrecognizable (Seivarden)? How does a character on a colonized world navigate the split identity that comes from the pressure to assimilate to the dominant culture? And then there's the Radch writ large, all the Radchaai so deeply invested in the idea that there is only one true concept of Radchaai society, of civilization, but of course there isn't! It changes based on location and over time, and Breq muses that the Radchaai empire would be largely unrecognizable to the isolated sphere of the Radch itself. In these books, even if you aren't the last remnant of a destroyed spaceship and its legion of bodies, "I" is such a complicated concept and the narrative never lets you forget it.

no but it's so funny that breq and mercy of kalr seem to be working from the same first principles (ships love captains) but breq interprets the "i could be my own captain" thing (which it immediately follows up with "i don't want to be a captain. but i find i like the thought that i could be") as "i don't love you as my captain" instead of "i could be someone you (a former ship) could love…"

i also love the ambiguity of that later scene when ship says it likes seivarden mostly because she loves breq. which you could interpret either as ship liking that seivarden loves breq because ship loves breq (the main interpretation, given that ship loving breq is what the rest of ship's speech is about), or as ship liking that seivarden is a person who can love a ship (and ship is a ship…).

idk just like. mercy of kalr my beloved but also. hilarious breakdown of ship-to-ship communication here. breq is the first captain who used to be a ship, breq is the first (former) ship to have the undying devotion of its human (former) officer, ship is the first ship to have a captain who used to be a ship, ship is the first ship offered the chance to be its own captain, none of this has ever been done before. mercy of kalr is trying to go off-script but breq is still interpreting all its responses according to the figurative Intership Social Schemata and Communication Protocol even though none of the prompts are in the Intership Social Schemata and Communication Protocol! like come on babe YOU'RE the one who asked ship this brand-new question and opened up a whole new universe of existential possibility. meet ship halfway already!!

Shoutout to Kalr Five throughout Ancillary Sword. The most intense subterfuge and political drama is going down right in front of her and she’s getting her kicks from a) successfully convincing people that she’s an extension of an AI for the Prestige TM and b) being smug about her highly collectible dishes. Breq’s out here navigating ethnic tensions, coup de eats, and murder but she’s like “Well before you obliquely threaten someone, I see you’re very impressed by these dishes. Get absolutely wrecked - you do not have the class for these plates & stop talking shit about my captain”

ARURGRGRHHHHH

thinking about imperial radch today because leckie's continued spin off attempts have gotten advertised to me several times and man. i will go out defending justice as a solid 8 out of 10 sf book with some interesting things to say about empire, post-gender society, and how sentient ai inevitably shackled to war machines will view humanity. And sword and mercy are just way, way worse in every respect.

Breq never understood why she kept getting data from Ship of her crew members singing. It makes me so mad that Breq appreciated it all but couldn't understand the sentiment and care behind the constant connection. She never fully voiced that missing *that* was the same as missing *it*, at least she never directly communicated it to *Kalr*

having lots and many and a ton of emotions after finishing ancillary mercy

finished ancillary mercy. aughughuthguthgutghuthguthguthughuthguth

Gem of Sphene: I have to hand it to you cousin, your manipulation of the treaty with the Presger was a masterful stroke. I’ve never seen the Usurper so incensed!

Breq: Yes, it should at least save many lives in the short term

Mercy of Kalr: I hope you both realize that the treaty may also prevent either of you from ever again killing, or attempting to kill, or even slightly maiming, any more instances of Anaander Mianaai?

Breq: ….

Gem of Sphene: I hate you