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Definitely the best part of Translation State so far

Breq in Ancillary Mercy: "The Republic of Two Systems" is a provisional name, we'll think of a better one later

Translation State: it wasn't and they didn't

The Geck Ambassador saying "Ah good, Sphene is here" is me

zeiat: have you ever wondered what anaander mianaai looks like... on the inside

sphene: more than you can imagine

Sphene, stuck with human corpse soldiers for 3000 years: I want to be a whole bunch of fucked up mantis shrimp robots.

"Sphene had a really bad thing happen, and then it hid by itself for three thousand years."

"That's quite a sulk." said Enae, to the mech.

"I don't do things by half measures," said Sphene.

more posting than I've done in literal years, but I've been sitting on this one since I read the Translation State ARC weeks ago

I love how the radch fandom is just doing our best with the pronouns. 

wanna talk about breq? she’s an it sometimes if you’re gonna get into her themes

wanna talk about sphene? it’s a she sometimes if you wanna piss it off

wanna talk about zeiat? she’s a they depending on which books you’ve read

wanna talk about reet? that one’s easy, he’s a man WHOA SWERVE THEY’RE A THEY NOW

wanna talk about annander mianaai? that bitch loves her a she except whoops she’s they in the most literal definition

and the one constant, the one shining star compass point of stability, is that seivarden is babygirl

Definitely the best part of Translation State so far

Breq in Ancillary Mercy: "The Republic of Two Systems" is a provisional name, we'll think of a better one later

Translation State: it wasn't and they didn't

Breq why would you make SPHENE your ambassador 😭

"Radaachi cultural quirk number one: Their language only has one set of pronouns and as a collective they've decided that misgendering everyone was easier than figuring out how that shit works with foreigners" is such a great bit of worldbuilding.

ann leckie's imperial radch books ask such important questions as like "what does it mean to be a human" and "what is gender across language and cultural barriers" but more importantly, "what is the difference between tea people and coffee people," and i think that's more important

translation state has everything a girlguy could want in a sci-fi book. horrifying cannibalism puberty. horrifying cannibalism arranged marriage. horrifying cannibalism gender discovery. it has it all.

now having read both translation state and provenance I can firmly say that I LOVE when we see Radchaai thru non-radch narrators because they’re always like ‘the radchaai ambassador showed up. in the stereotypical villain voice she misgendered every non she/her in the room. then she was bad at her job. then she asked for tea. then she said something offensive. then she, still bad at her job, left.’ and it’s great every time.