#Breq

[arianwells]

My heart is a fish Hiding in the water-grass In the green, in the green.

[unbizzarre]

One-Esk and Murderbot meet in the waiting lobby for Robo-Therapy

(…specifically rage counseling )

Probably two of my favorite robot/ai/construct protagonists in literature! Though I have a lot. (What’s up Culture shipminds…)

Creation notes:

A pattern I’ve been noticing is that a lot of these robots are very traumatized, very angry, and don’t like talking about their feelings. I was gonna originally make this short comic about One-Esk (aka Breq) and Murderbot on the first day of group therapy for rage counseling and it would just be a bunch of shots of them sitting in silence cuz neither of them like talking about their feelings but, uh…. the shots were just a lot and the series of events wasn’t really flowing right so I scrapped that idea in favor of not having to draw a zillion backgrounds. Still wound up taking a stupidly long time to create a product that feels… underwhelming. I really like how Breq turned out but I just couldn’t get the hair or costume design on MB to really fit the corpo-futuristic spacer asthetic I was going for, while still capturing that social-anxiety-comfort-hoodie energy. (Was originally contemplating having a shot of MB pulling hoodie strings closed over their face in one shot but wound up scrapping that idea as well.) Cannonicallly, MB should probably be in all dark blues and blacks, but the colors just weren’t working so I went with yellow instead. Idk. Maybe it’s a loaner hoodie from one of MB’s humans.

Here’s a shot I never wound up using:

Anyways! I hope this made you smile if you like one or both of these series! 😊

Post script: if you like Martha Wells Murderbot Diaries, you should definitely check out Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice trilogy, or vice versa. More angry traumatized non-binary human-ai constructs for all! Mega-latestage-capitolist dystopia, or xenophobic -imperialist-socialist empire? Sentient space ships? C’mon. Just read both series u know you’ll love it.

[asaethiel]

fleet captain!! are you okay, you've been awake for an hour and you've been crying the whole time 😰

[friendamedes]

absolute nightmare trip

[laurelnose]

I am currently being oppressed by the Libby holds queue for Translation State >:( have this Breq speedpaint from back when I finished Ancillary Sword

[laatmaar]

"If that's what you're willing to do for someone you hate, what would you do for someone you loved?"

Again black and white version under the cut as well as some sketches I made of the characters in preperation for this piece!

[volpestarks]

Tea time with Breq

[startrekivthevoyagehome]

read ancillary justice

[mamoriken]

Yes she’s a 2000-year-old former warship who can kill several people in just a few seconds but she would hug me if I was sad.

[queercoldreviews]

I remember when I was reading Ancillary Justice all I could picture whenever Seivarden and Breq were bantering was this lol

[vehicularmotorcycle]

Seivarden just wanting Breq.

[unbizzarre]

Good Morning, One-Esk

Fanart of the moment Justice of Toren One Esk was woken up from cold storage.

REFERENCE IMAGES:

1) I came across this pose on Pinterest and screenshotted it right away, cuz like it’s such a kickass expressive I had to try drawing it. Sadly I know next to nothing about the original artist. Maybe a person named Kiera Paulsen? Idk I can’t find the original post and only have screenshot rn 😭.

—- edit: a kind soul in the comments found the artist!! Thank you! Artist is @saltweave on twitter https://twitter.com/saltweave/status/135964282496724976

2) a quick doodle I did years ago of a random weird photo I found that had a satisfying half-told-story feeling to it. No idea title of the photo I referenced for the doodle tho.

Even though I imagine the ancillary hookup process would be a lot more organized/less tangled wire-y than what I drew, the chaotic bony mass of wires and hookups is just such a fun look to draw, and I really wanted to put it on the frightened pose so… voila fan-art with artistic liberties taken.

[asaethiel]

1/2 of the messiest polycule in the queer housing facebook group AKA i just finished imperial radch

[friendamedes]

seivarden is living a much messier romance novel that breq has no idea exists. I’m convinced her inner monologue is 99% uncontrollable screaming.

[myheartisafish]

seivarden post-Bridge Incident: even the ships who knew me are dead ):

breq, Human From The Gerentate: well have you considered that ships have feelings and they have favorites and even if you knew they had favorites you werent one of them the ships didnt even like you you werent even their favorite

seivarden: …what