#Mercy of kalr

[winter2468]

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.

[a-side-character]

I am once again thinking about Breq and Mercy of Kalr.

Specifically, I'm thinking about how and why their relationship is so different from any other relationship in this series, and what that means for them as characters.

I'm thinking about Breq's response to being told by other people, often people she likes or respects, that they don't see her as an ancillary. Because they (for the most part) mean it as a compliment, a way of validating her and expressing that they care about or think highly of her. But she never takes it as such, and is always made uncomfortable by it.

Because she IS an ancillary, and by using "I don't think anyone here sees you as an ancillary" as a compliment, or as a reason why her life matters and she deserves to be taken care of, only furthers her belief that what she IS is wrong, is inherently less deserving.

I'm thinking about how the only time people use it/its pronouns - the identity she used for 2,000 years and continues to use to refer to her cousins and fellow AI - to refer to her is when they're trying to disrespect or demean her. How her crew looks at her, horrified, and says "sir, none of us would ever call you it" while continuing to use those same pronouns to refer to their own ship. It shows her that the only reason people think they care about her is because they're too caught up in the version of her she pretends to be (human, Radchaai, she), however wrong that viewpoint may be.

I'm thinking about how, in Ancillary Mercy when Breq breaks down and repeats the line "ships don't love other ships", Mercy of Kalr responds with "ships love people who could be captains." It doesn't say 'well that's okay, because I don't see you as a ship', it doesn't treat her as some exception to the supposed rule that ships and ancillaries aren't people worthy of love, it tells her 'you, Breq, Justice of Toren, One Esk Nineteen, YOU are my captain, and I can't help but love you.'

I'm just. thinking

[caprigender]

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

[endymiondreaming]

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

[mamoriken]

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

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

the best thing about breq and seivarden is they both end up with girlfriends/ships who will NOT put up with their unintentionally thoughtless bullshit, even if it means prompting them to have a full on mental breakdown as a result. Mercy of Kalr and Ekalu may not have been picked out by destiny to be main characters, but like HELL they're gonna let the mc's take them or their feelings for granted

like social hierarchy be damned- Fleet Captain Justice of Toren "Breq" One Esk Nineteen and very ''senior' officer Lieutenant Seivarden Vendaai will drink the "respect your partner" juice or perish and they both love their gfs/ships all the more for it <3

[guccigarantine]

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

[scribefindegil]

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.

[gideonisms]

I'm always thinking about how Breq & Seivarden started sleeping in the same bed because mercy of Kalr was like "I think you should" and then they just never questioned that. they were like whatever you say dear

[theygotbitchesinmedia]

I really was not expecting seivarden to be my favorite at the beginning but she absolutely is. She's got just the right amount of wretch happening. Sopping wet.

[coquelicoq]

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!!

[winter2468]

@she-commands-me-and-i-obey Amaat damn it

I get that Leckie is making a point about how even nice people have their own prejudices when she makes Ingray think of AIs as 'chilling', but I also can't not find it hilarious.

"the AIs are chilling" Miss Aughskold I watched an AI sing "peep peep peep a little chick is born". I watched an AI get into multiple situationships by accident.

[phagodyke]

ARURGRGRHHHHH

[klinefelterrible]

So who was male in imperial radch trilogy?

Let’s hear those theories!

[glitchlight]

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.

[withallmytove]

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*