Mothematician

Counting

And I realized I'd initially dismissed Seivarden's "you were going to hit me", just because the rest of what Seivarden was saying was so wrong. (About Breq being Special Missions and assigned to bring Seivarden home.) But Breq has hit Seivarden before, punched her hard enough to give her a concussion. Recently. With much less provocation than what Breq was currently experiencing. Being afraid Breq would hit her again was actually pretty rational. (Ignoring that her actual behavior in response to the perceived threat was to walk off a bridge.) Maybe Breq would have.

To the extent this is Breq's fault, it is a consequence of that earlier punch.

Perhaps.

Because Breq's narration is so dispassionate, and because she's technically not human, it's easy to fall into thinking of her as being emotionless, or easily able to control her emotions. But she isn't. Even as Justice of Torren, sometimes she got overwhelmed by emotion and parts of her couldn't function, eg when a new segment was about to be hooked up without sedation, One Esk's behavior or affect altered enough for Lieutenant Awn to notice, and One Esk warned Awn that she was going to be non-responsive for a bit.

So it's not that Breq doesn't feel things intensely, and in ways that affect what she is and is not able to do. It's that she's spent thousands of years in a context where nobody, or nearly nobody, treated her as though it was acceptable for her to have emotions, or that there was any value in avoiding causing her distress. So she learned to act as though she didn't have emotions, and if having them and responding to them was unavoidable, she learned to report it as a sort of malfunction. I'm running low on fuel. Such and such part needs to be checked. I may be temporarily unable to respond (due to excess of unpleasant feeling). This segment isn't adapting, I need a different segment.

No wonder she often doesn't know why she does things.

And she was trying to avoid the consequences of her having an emotional response by avoiding Seivarden, at significant personal cost -- she could walk to the next town in a day, she wasn't getting to the ribbon in a day, it would have presumably been faster (not to mention safer) to wait for the bus or the train. But she was hoping to avoid Seivarden. And she refrained from speaking to avoid a conflict. And trying to avoid the conflict only lead to having the conflict under much worse circumstances.

And I think one that goes well with all the gender of the story. It's in the title. Ancillary from, etymologically, ancilla, Latin for a servant/slave but specifically a female one, the masculine equivalent is completely different. This is a story about the intersection of the role of one who is forced into service and femaleness. And part of that's the lack of power to do anything other than decide whose tea you refill when (I really can't get enough of that scene, it is truly remarkable in its pettiness, Justice of Torren has clearly spent millennia figuring out precisely what she can and can't get away with) and part of that is that the feelings of the powerful are justified and supported and sympathized with -- Seivarden is fully convinced she has a right to complain, loudly, when she knows at least someone in the room speaks her language, over petty inconveniences like the food being unfamiliar, and I think she's genuinely surprised and put out that Breq isn't playing along -- and the feelings of the powerless are always wrong, excessive, an overreaction, inappropriate. For women, perhaps hysterical, or "you must be on your period", simultaneously not worthy of being taken seriously and also a quality that disqualifies the feelings-haver from serious responsibility or status. (And sure, not in the Radch. But the story isn't written for a Radchaai audience.)

And I'm going to bring in another angle, which is wow Breq sure acts and talks a lot like a neurodivergent person, and there's that too, right? Someone who's brain-weird who has enough social status might get some allowances made for being "eccentric" or having an "artistic temperament", but someone who's brain-weird who doesn't have status...well, it's easy from the outside to say that someone losing it over a clock ticking too loudly or a bad texture is blowing up over "nothing". And people in general learn what feelings to take seriously from the people around them: is this kind of physical pain worth going to the doctor over, or going to the ER right now over, or a thing that should be ignored? It's not based on the severity of the pain, it's based on whether it's the kind of pain that's likely to indicate something is wrong. And the pain is more bearable when you know nothing is wrong. And I think people work the same way with emotional pain, up to a point: if the people who seem to know think it's no big deal, you ignore it until it goes away. Which works great, unless it doesn't go away.

Cosmere characters flirting with Hoid requested by anon. :)

Sigzil: Now, I'm not saying I ever have or ever would flirt with Hoid...

Sigzil: But if I did, I'd ask him to tell me the tale of Salamander the Bold, a story about a Worldsinger apprentice who seduces his master and then there are 10-15 verses (depending on the version) of their lovemaking.

Sigzil: Very well-known seduction technique in the Worldsinger community.

Rock: That is so....suspiciously specific for someone who has never seduced Hoid.

Sigzil: Y-You're suspiciously specific!!

Rock: See me? I know that "Hoid" is one of the gods. And there is only one right way to seduce a god.

Rock: You don't.

Rock: Bad idea.

Harmony: ...

Harmony: Well anyway, I think it works to just keep asking Hoid to come around on various excuses.

Harmony: "Oh Hoid, I need your help saving the Cosmere." "Oh Hoid, I need your advice on something." "Hoid, can you help me get in touch with Valor?"

Harmony: That man LOVES to be asked for things.

Kelsier: That's not-- Look, NONE of you know what flirting even is!

Kelsier: I've successfully flirted with Hoid, and you know what works?

Kelsier: Punching. Him. In. The. Face.

Jasnah: ...

Jasnah: You are bold to claim that others do not know what flirting is.

Jansah: I find that all you need to do is tell Hoid what to do.

Jasnah: I tell him to "insult that man harder" and the next thing you know, we're in bed.

Jasnah: ...

Jasnah: Unfortunate, but it happens.

Design: Oh! I've flirted with Hod!

Design: I say things like "Hey! My boobs are down here!" and "Do you know why you made such a good coatrack? Because you're so hung."

Elhokar: Does he...like that?

Design: [giving two thumbs-ups]: He does NOT!

Elhokar: Well, I have a foolproof strategy that I may or may not have employed.

Elhokar: I would ask Wit to tell me tales of his verbal conquests.

Elhokar: This is happening in my room, by the way, and I'm on the couch.

Elhokar: And as he tells me about all of the wonderful insults he's doled out that day, I'm telling him how clever he is and I also happen to be gradually unbuttoning my jacket...

Elhokar: "Oh Hoid, you're so clever!" "What a smart thing to say!" "Wow, that man couldn't dream of going toe-to-toe with you!"

Elhokar: [noticing everyone staring at him]

Elhokar: Oh, you're all FOOLING yourselves if you think this wouldn't work!

Sadeas: One time Hoid was talking at me.

Sadeas: Saying something or other about how this rock he found on the ground should be the new Highprince of Information.

Sadeas: And I just looked at him and said, "Ooooh, insult me harder, daddy."

Sadeas: He just...walked away.

Sadeas: Flirting? Perfect way to get rid of him.

Shallan: I think Hoid would be seduced by puns.

Shallan: ...

Shallan: He just seems like the type.

Frost: All of you humans seem to believe that Hoid can be seduced by vulgar flirting and mediocre worldplay.

Shallan: Hey! My wordplay is never mediocre!

Frost (ignoring her): As a long-lived being who communicates with Hoid via letter, I would simply tell him to stop meddling in the Cosmere and start meddling with my dick.

Everybody stares

Frost: Obviously I'd dress it up more than that.

Kelsier: Ugh, all of you are so caught up on words when that man is only seduced by action!

Sigzil: He is literally a storyteller.

Shallan: Yeah, words are kind of his thing.

Elhokar: Which is why playing to his ego is the right call!

Jasnah: He has enough of an ego. He wants to be belittled.

Kelsier: Yes! Thank you!

Jasnah: Do not presume that I am agreeing with you.

Wax: ...

Wax: ....

Wax: ...

I make a dime

Ergo, I shit and I read

Like when the Radch shows up and calls somebody "she" when they're not, it's not just getting their gender wrong, it's a statement that this entire part of their society doesn't matter and is going to be erased. And even when they gender someone "correctly", it's not any better. Because it's just the word that they're using, not a recognition of identity. It's insulting in a different way, and it must sting for the women who hear it and know that it's just happenstance that they're not being misgendered.

And it's constant. We talk about other people constantly. There's no escaping that violence when talking to the Radchaai.

I rise from the dead to give you Project Hail Mary fanart (close ups snd version without text under the cut)