#administrator celar

[summerday]

I love that every time Administrator Celar is mentioned it's:

Administrator Celar. Who was massive. And gorgeous. Everyone was in love with her. Because she was huge.

[blood-starved-beast]

Administrator Celar and Breq geeking out over their shared interest in songs like two fans in a fandom. Love that for them!

[daisukitoo]

Administrator Celar reigned over Athoek Station's daily routine. She was wide and heavy, and quite beautiful. No few of the residents of Athoek Station were half in love with her.

 -- Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

If you have not read Ancillary Justice or its sequels in the Imperial Radch series (and you totally should go read at least Ancillary Justice), it is a science fiction series in which one of the conventions is that its dominant language lacks gendered pronouns (like The Culture). The narrator refers to everyone with a gender neutral “she,” and it is rarely clear (or relevant) what someone’s gender is.

Administrator Celar is described as “wide and heavy, and quite beautiful.” It is not that Celar is wide and heavy and also beautiful, but rather that wideness and heaviness is a characteristic of that beauty. One interpretation of this is that the Radch has different standards of beauty than current Western society, where “big and beautiful” is a standard phrase just because “big” is often contrasted with “beautiful.” You would be more likely to read a magazine referring to someone as beautiful despite being “wide and heavy,” not because of it. Indeed, it should be more surprising if a space-faring, science fictional society just happens to have the exact same standards of beauty as the place where its author was born.

Another interpretation of this is that the Radch does have exactly the same standards of beauty and Administrator Celar should be played by Dwayne Johnson.