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JBB: An Artblog!
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"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
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@sagestitches
Wendell has OCD and Emily has Autism. They serve cunt. They both have emotional-support animals. They kill people. They’re both absurdly unreliable narrators in completely different ways. They steal library books. Never before in the history of literature has such a fantastic couple graced the page.
Some dredgetober drawings I’ve been able to do so far (sporadically)
The book Record of a Spaceborn Few is about so many things. It’s about the unbroken human spirit. It’s about how humans fear change but also desperately want it. It’s about how humans are reluctant to accept help, and also feel left behind when none is offered. It’s about human nature’s wariness of outsiders against our better judgment, but also unending curiosity. It’s about human unending optimism and the drive to survive.
But also it’s about 4 protagonists ending up at funeral for a guy they didn’t even really know.
Mentally, I'm still here
It says so much about the thematics and worldbuilding of the Radch that the big in-universe media trope everyone knows isn't "You have to be careful because AIs can go mad with power" but rather "You have to be careful because AIs can go mad with grief."
As much as I adore conlangs, I really like how the Imperial Radch books handle language. The book is entirely in English but you're constantly aware that you're reading a "translation," both of the Radchaai language Breq speaks as default, and also the various other languages she encounters. We don't hear the words but we hear her fretting about terms of address (the beloathed gendering on Nilt) and concepts that do or don't translate (Awn switching out of Radchaai when she needs a language where "citizen," "civilized," and "Radchaai person" aren't all the same word) and noting people's registers and accents. The snatches of lyrics we hear don't scan or rhyme--even, and this is what sells it to me, the real-world songs with English lyrics, which get the same "literal translation" style as everything else--because we aren't hearing the actual words, we're hearing Breq's understanding of what they mean. I think it's a cool way to acknowledge linguistic complexity and some of the difficulties of multilingual/multicultural communication, which of course becomes a larger theme when we get to the plot with the Presgar Translators.
genuinely obsessed with the pride kalr five feels every time her set of dishes gets noticed or complimented
I described the imperial radch trilogy to my partner as "people passive aggressively drinking tea at each other in space (affectionate)" and I don't think that's technically wrong but on my re-read I am remembering how much of that is due to Kalr Five, who appears to primarily express admiration and affection via dish selection. I love her so much.
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
I think the Imperial Radch trilogy is so fascinating to read through an asexual/aromantic lens because...
One of the gradual things you realise is that Breq just doesn't really seem to have any desire for sex or romance. A bunch of characters keep expecting her to be, think that's part of her motivation, but it isn't. She notes if someone is traditionally attractive via Radchaii norms, but otherwise doesn't seem to eeally feel anything herself (with the possible edge case of Chelar, which she can't seem to mention without including how big and beautiful she is.)
So, you go, okay. Half human, half-robot. Or human body possessed by a super powerful AI. That's why she's like that. It's the traditional ace robot trope.
But then you find out... Nope. Ancillary bodies experience everything human bodies do, which for 'some' bodies, means libido and lust and all that jazz. "I made sure [my bodies] were... comfortable," Breq says, in a short exchange that suddenly implies a whole lot of ancillary orgasms/masturbation.
No. It's just Justice of Toren One Esk Nineteen, aka Breq, who doesn't feel that attraction.
It's left a little ambiguous if that's something inherent to her body's physiology, or if this is a result of the whole grief-fueled-revenge-quest Thing she has going on (I suspect it's a mix of both). But nonetheless, that's coming up 'null'.
At the same time, it's not ONLY a consequence of Breq being an AI. She mentions, off-handedly, that she suspects that Medic also doesn't feel sexual/romantic attraction. So it easily side-steps that pitfall too.
So okay. That's the ace part. What about the 'aro' part?
Romance does absolutely exist in Radchaii society, but it looks quite different than in our modern day one. For example, polyamory seems to be the default, and Breq comments on a song about someone pining after a crush who's in love with another that it's "not a very Radchai song". Indeed, romantic pairings seem secondary to the most lauded relationship ideal in Radchaii culture: clientage.
Clientage doesn't really... map, easily, to anything in modern cultural norms. I guess I'd say knight/liege? The idea that you pledge yourself to a wealthy client, aiding them in some way, and in turn they support you. This seems to exist across a lot of sectors-- military, mercantile, artistic, etc. Musicals and stories about clientage are very prominent in Radchaii culture, and when priests strike, people complaining about the lack of clientage contract registration is up there along with birth and death certificates.
Seivardan wants to have Breq's clientage. It seems she partly assumed that's what things were building to, in book 1; she outright states that most of the crew assume she's "kneeling to" Breq in book 2. Yes, she wants sex from her as well, and arguably romance too, but that's the main relationship mode she is pining for.
But Breq isn't interested. So even for this in universe default relationship system, Breq's defaulting on it.
no. by the end of the trilogy she's settled into something extremely weird by the standards of both our culture and Radchai culture:
a 'i guess we'll call it platonic' polyamourous trio between herself, an ancillary lacking a ship body, the ship she captains which lacks any ancillary bodies, and Seiverdan, roleplaying as their intermediary fake-ancillary between them. absolutely fascinating.
THAT'S what i want from constructed queer worldbuilding
this sucks so bad i need to (remembers suicide jokes only make my mental health worse) form a codependent bond with an artificial intelligence on a decades-long revenge quest who has hated me for centuries
newest hyperfixation lately has been the emily wilde books so anyway, kind of obsessed with how she's literally like
October 7th:
This is a purely scholarly journal dedicated to providing context and clarity to my research and I would not dare sully it with personal entanglements.
April 23rd:
So anyway, I fucked him
Part 1 of that DREDGE thing I talked about earlier. Full thing is here.
If Shadow dies I will find a way to burn my digital copy of the books
btw emily wilde is about the courage it takes to love something insensible that doesnt love you back or doesnt love you back in the right way until through the strength of your love and your patience in keeping the love extended you teach it how to love you back in the same way that you love
and it takes courage cause that means living in a period of lovelessness for a long time. getting used to enjoying giving for the sake of giving. pretending you dont want any love back even though secretly you know it would mean a lot
thats the same way in the book people were able to animate nature and turn it into fae - they told stories until it came alive. they spoke until it spoke back
but the courage is worth it because once it clicks, you get back all of the love you gave over a long period of time. all at once
which is why wendell is such a loud fucking presence in em's life. why hes characterised as annoyingly talkative, as boisterous and disruptive. cause poor em has to go through the pain of all of the love she has given to her study of fae all over her life suddenly erupting out of nowhere back at her all at once
which god bless her means she has to put up with wendell being annoying as hell. but like. also means he gets to be a romantic dream come true
honestly i see that as the key difference in their personalities, that means theyre always butting heads and means they complete each other - theyre the difference between love spread over a long period of time and love concentrated all at once in brilliant intensity (symbolised by wendell's brilliant intensity of his golden hair that em is always so captivated by?)
Lord Taran: You went WILLINGLY into the Veil and then managed to make it back OUT again????
Emily Wilde: What, like it's hard?
