I think you may enjoy the Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie. It's a far-future sci-fi series that focuses on Breq, an artificial intelligence who used to be a ship. She now occupies one single body, and is doing her utmost to take down the Lord of the Radch. The Radchaai culture is fascinating, and Leckie has done a fantastic job worldbuilding. The series focuses on themes of personhood and sapience, colonialism and empire, and anger/revenge. While some people have found it to have a slow start, the narrative is really compelling and (in my mind at least) has the kind of thrust to it that you've said you enjoy. The canon also plays with gender (in Radchaai language, there's only one pronoun, which Leckie renders as "she" -- the characters aren't necessarily women, but I know that a lot of queer/trans women or woman-adjacent people in the fandom have really related to them). In the fandom, there's about an equal amount of shipfic and genfic. Since it's a book series, there aren't a whole lot of vids, but there are some talented artists whose work is really stellar.
In terms of content warnings, there is ship-to-ship combat as well as a few instances of interpersonal violence, including a murder in book 2 and a couple instances of gun violence. I don't believe it's particularly gory or lingered upon, but I'm not sure the extent you'd like violence content warned.
If a trilogy is too much of a time commitment, Leckie has also written a standalone book set in the same universe. Provenance explores themes of imprisonment, identity, culture, and preservation. You don't need the context of the Radch trilogy to enjoy it, but there are some references and callbacks to worldbuilding elements from the trilogy. Again, there is some gun violence, a murder, and some blood, but like with the Radch books, it's not gory and Leckie doesn't revel in it. (I may be wrong, but I think the murder actually happens off the page.) I think this universe may be something you'd like to explore, and please feel free to message me if you want any further content warnings!
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2020-12-31 10:00 pm (UTC)I think you may enjoy the Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie. It's a far-future sci-fi series that focuses on Breq, an artificial intelligence who used to be a ship. She now occupies one single body, and is doing her utmost to take down the Lord of the Radch. The Radchaai culture is fascinating, and Leckie has done a fantastic job worldbuilding. The series focuses on themes of personhood and sapience, colonialism and empire, and anger/revenge. While some people have found it to have a slow start, the narrative is really compelling and (in my mind at least) has the kind of thrust to it that you've said you enjoy. The canon also plays with gender (in Radchaai language, there's only one pronoun, which Leckie renders as "she" -- the characters aren't necessarily women, but I know that a lot of queer/trans women or woman-adjacent people in the fandom have really related to them). In the fandom, there's about an equal amount of shipfic and genfic. Since it's a book series, there aren't a whole lot of vids, but there are some talented artists whose work is really stellar.
In terms of content warnings, there is ship-to-ship combat as well as a few instances of interpersonal violence, including a murder in book 2 and a couple instances of gun violence. I don't believe it's particularly gory or lingered upon, but I'm not sure the extent you'd like violence content warned.
If a trilogy is too much of a time commitment, Leckie has also written a standalone book set in the same universe. Provenance explores themes of imprisonment, identity, culture, and preservation. You don't need the context of the Radch trilogy to enjoy it, but there are some references and callbacks to worldbuilding elements from the trilogy. Again, there is some gun violence, a murder, and some blood, but like with the Radch books, it's not gory and Leckie doesn't revel in it. (I may be wrong, but I think the murder actually happens off the page.) I think this universe may be something you'd like to explore, and please feel free to message me if you want any further content warnings!