Character, book, and author names under the cut

🌙 spaceborndrifter Follow its so funny when people are like "you can read me, i'm not lying" and you read them and they are lying. baby why did you ask me to do that then

(175 replies, 678 reblogs, 2457 likes) -

🟪 remenemenants just got my application results sent to my wristband and im too scared to look lol

#if i don't get this scholarship im gonna jettison myself out of the airlock #i have to get out of this sector @ the Resolution PLEASE please please please #i prommy my thesis will be so good

(1 reply, 5 likes) -

🦋 sanurasun does anybody think any synced architect-reader pair got a little freaky with it

🛰 orshans-might Follow This is honestly disgusting and I can't believe so many of you actually think this is acceptable to joke about. Genuinely so disrespectful to the people who put their lives on the line to protect Orshan's planets and citizens. You should be ashamed.

🦋 sanurasun sorry just to clarify your problem with me sexualizing a permanent mind meld that allows one person to directly puppeteer someone else's body is that it's disrespectful to the orshan military???

#you are not a serious person. guidance lights. #and since when has anybody in the orshan miliary done anything for me lol #ohhhhh thank u so much for the 57th almost civil war of the year. i feel so protected

(93 replies, 3289 reblogs, 8765 likes) -

Anonymous asked: we have an attempted coup like every ten minutes so stopping one is not that special. and you were only in a position to stop the coup because you are the legislator's nephew so L + ratio + nepotism baby

🎇 tennalhalkana answered: "every ten minutes" is such an exaggeration. there's at least thirty minutes between them

(15 reblogs, 104 likes) -

🐊 fanguard-blue new episode of empire's court was so ass they are really running out of ideas

#hate to say it but this show has gone to shit ever since iskat became a federation #i mean it was always obvious they were ripping ideas from actual events #but damnnnn you really have NOTHING without the newslogs? #ec critical

(2 replies, 10 likes) -

🪺 keepitglassy Follow it is so fucking annoying that basically any post that mentions reading abilities attracts some chud who gets all faux concerned about consent. notice how nobody ever does that to architects despite writing without consent also being illegal.

(64 replies, 459 reblogs, 1095 likes) -

❇️ arch-her-link-station Follow me whenever i have to do anything difficult: ugh can someone just write me to do it

🌌 orshan2cool Follow #i wonder if architects can write themselves? <- prev sadly no. if this were possible life would be a lot easier but self-discipline cannot be genetically enhanced

🌠 meetmeinchaoticspace Follow what you need is another architect and then you both just write each other to do it #lifehack

(24 replies, 20578 reblogs, 21456 likes) -

🚀 author-in-orbit Follow I mean, I obviously think everyone should write (in the non-neuromod sense) whatever they want. But I think if you are going to wade into politically fraught issues, especially military syncs, you should at least know a little bit about the current state of affairs and the issues reader's rights groups are discussing around it. Syncing isn't a metaphorical plot device, it's something that happens to real people, and I often feel like people are forgetting that and being somewhat thoughtless in how they approach writing about it.

🧬 here-comes-the-cavalry Follow I see where you're coming from but I just feel it's a little ridiculous to hold fiction writers on a microblogging log to higher standards than actual studios. Like Love in the Reader War is far more problematic in its presentation of military syncs and reader's rights than basically any shit you'd find on here.

🚀 author-in-orbit Follow No offense, but what does that have to do with anything? Love in the Reader War came out almost a decade ago, in a very different political landscape. Of course LitRW is "problematic"; should I not ever have criticisms of contemporary works because something else was worse before?

🟧 exxxana Follow lights everyone is always making a big deal out of nothing. who fucking cares if you write a romance where the mcs are synced. fiction is not real and you will not set back reader rights via smut. its actually literally fine do not listen to people like op

🚀 author-in-orbit Follow Okay I really feel like you're putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about sync romances as a concept, I don't think it's inherently bad to write one, and I certainly wouldn't make claims about setting rights back. The literal only thing I am saying is that I wish people took a little more care in approaching the subject and did a little research.

🎇 tennalhalkana as someone who was conscripted and forced into a military sync, i just want to say that if any of you need any writing advice or insight into what being written or synced is like, you can DM me for hourly consulting services at very reasonable rates

🧲 readit-andweep Follow me reading this post: oh haha funny bit— LEGISLATOR'S NEPHEW SEN TENNALHIN HALKANA???

🎇 tennalhalkana what can i do to get you to not list my relation to my aunt before mentioning that i stopped a coup. does anyone remember the coup that i helped stop??

Re-Reading...

Winter's Orbit and Ocean's Echo

by Everina Maxwell (edit: she's on tumblr! @avoliot)

SciFi : Politics : Romance : Queer

I recently needed a pick-me-up and decided to reread the Ocean's Echo books by Everina Maxwell. These political and queer romance - focused Sci Fi books are so much fun, and they immediately made Maxwell an auto-read author for me! First thing's first- these two books are technically set in the same universe but they are both complete standalones and can be read in any order.

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Winter's Orbit follows Kiem, an outgoing imperial prince with a bit of a reputation, who is unexpectedly thrust into an arranged marriage with quiet and secretive Jainan, the widower of his recently deceased cousin. While Kiem and Jainan try to adjust to their sudden and uncomfortable partnership, political intrigue starts to arise regarding the suspicious death of Jainan's first husband and a mysterious military engineering project he was involved with before his death.

I just instantly fell in love with Maxwell's storytelling, and especially the endearing and compelling characters. Not only is this a fun sci-fi adventure, but it also broaches important topics surrounding mental health (I don't want to give away too much, but check trigger warnings if you're sensitive about things like emotional abuse). I will say that this book leans heavily on miscommunication- Kiem and Jainan often make (wrong) assumptions about what the other is thinking, and while there are legitimate reasons for their behavior, it can be frustrating if you are not a fan of this as a narrative device.

Ocean's Echo takes place in a different corner of space, where "neuromodifications" were tested by the military and have been passed down to the second generation. Tennalhin is a "reader" who can read minds, and Surit is an "architect" who can impose his will on others. While Surit is a responsible and respected military lieutenant, Tennal is a suave and disreputable nepo-baby who has gotten in trouble with the law and been forcibly conscripted in to the military. Surit is ordered to "sync" their minds, the only way leash Tennal's strong and valuable reader abilities. However, once Surit realizes that Tennal is not submitting by choice, he refuses to take control, and the two unlikely allies must fake the bond in order to arrange for Tennal's escape. Things get complicated though, when they manage to stumble in to the beginning of a war, and they need to take advantage of their powerful partnership in order to protect those they love and oppose an enormously powerful adversary.

I think I liked Ocean's Echo even better than the first book! The neuromod powers gave an extra interesting element to the setting, and the characters were equally as enchanting! It's perfectly fast-paced and offers some really intriguing background to the "alien remnants" which are mentioned in the first book, and which are the source of the neuromodifications.

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Overall, these books are well-written, easily binged, and satisfying. Both the first and second times I read them, I finished each book in about a day a piece! The characters are compelling and, importantly, dynamic! They grow and change and learn from eachother througout their stories! The romances are sweet and heartfelt- not spicy but there is very good yearning in both! The elements of the setting- galactic governments, military factions, ships, planets, mind powers and all- are also really unique and well-executed. I will be coming back to these stories again and again, and I'm hoping to see much more from Everina Maxwell in the future!