#enderseries

[jesslivesau]

Happy birthday Jack. The grief IS the joy!

The grief IS the joy

[lusilly]

osc builds rapport with the reader by creating so many like. inside jokes or memes (enemy's gate is down, battle school slang, correct pronunciation of bonzo, achilles) and i think that's part of why the enderseries has been such a cult classic like. it feels like you're an In Group if you understand it. this feels connected to mormonism somehow

[suriyawongsknife]

speaker for the dead/xenocide/children of the mind ain’t shit for so many reasons but the piggies..... the piggies are The reason

           Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide both explore the pequeninos – “the Little Ones” – as aliens who are a parallel to native peoples, who provide a fulfillment for the selfishly sentimental needs of the human colonists, and who represent an explicitly racialized minority. In neither novel are the piggies given any kind of post-colonial catharsis, which may allow them to rise beyond the colonization of humans and form their own independent communities which, although cannot return to the pre-contact world, would provide them with a means to take back their culture and dignity and define both on their own terms – not those of the humans. [...] These books tell a familiar, worn narrative of colonization and domination. The piggies, as they are not actual rational beings functioning in the real world, are deliberately stripped of autonomy and choice by the author, who chose instead to consciously write these native allegories as passive participants weak and defenseless, virtually begging for their redemption at the hands of Ender and the colonists. There are many keen, poignant statements about humanity in the forefront of these novels, unfortunately the depth and weight of which are marred by the background noise of the piggies, always there, but never quite: not present in the novel except for in their proximity to humans.

and reminder that ender is, no holds barred, a LITERAL white savior lmfao

The planet is a colony of dark-skinned Brazilians, and the young xenobiologist, Ela, even explicitly identifies Ender as “shockingly white,” remarking that “even the few Lusos who were light-complected enough to be called loiros [blonde] were much darker-skinned” (151). He arrives as a Speaker, a semi-religious role, not a scientist, and by the time he comes to Lusitania, local xenologers had been working with the piggies for decades. Even so, when xenologers Miro and Ouanda allow him to see the piggies in a clear violation of Starways Congress code, he so instantly and effectively understands piggy culture and convinces them to share secrets they had been holding back for years that Miro tells him, in awe: “You’ve caused more excitement here in half an hour than I’ve seen in years of coming here” (179).

REREADING THIS ESSAY ITS ALL SO GOOD I FORGOT HUMANITY AS A WHOLE WAS USING THE PIGGIES TO “REDEEM THEMSELVES” FOR THE BUGGERS............... and quim literally goes off to evangelicise to the Rebellious Violent Piggies bc god will Civilize them...... how did osc write this. like how did this get written. how willfully ignorant and straight up deliberately racist do u have to BE

[jainajacenanakin]

Zonama Sekot’s ecosystem really reminds me of the limited ecosystem of lusitania from the Enderseries

[sooho]

If the purpose of life was just to continue into the future, then none of it would have meaning, because it would be all anticipation and preparation. There's fruition, Grego. There's the happiness we've already had. The happiness of each moment. The end of our lives, even if there is no forward continuation, no progeny at all, the end of our lives doesn't erase the beginning.

Orson Scott Card. Children of the Mind. 289.

[jordanamazinxx]

Books make you think. #OrsonScottCard #Ender #EnderSeries #EnderInExile #Buggers #SciFi

[bartman]

High hopes for the movie #endersgame #enderseries #endersgamemovie #orsonscottcard

[lusilly]

voidkraken replied to your post: unrelated to anything but i know achilles de...

idk what this is referring to but ur right thats a magnificent motivation, make him the protagonist

achilles is the primary villain in the shadowseries, which are the sequels to ender’s game that happen on earth (as opposed to the enderseries, which follows ender into space where he White Saviors both a planet full of brown people and a whole ass alien race). frankly both series have Incredible writing and characters that rend me to my core but the shadowseries is my Fav. highly recommend if you’re interested in scifi with geopolitical intrigue centered in south asia and a lot of characters who feel badly about themselves

[lusilly]

If we're going full Ender's Game what about Val or Peter for the ask meme?

ok! it is morningtime i’m going to answer this

i feel half called out by this question cuz val and peter are both names of characters from my rp (i play val and peter is AU Vampire Version of damian’s dad). incidentally, valentine collins (my character) has absolutely nothing to do with valentine wiggin.

now here i go for both:

why i like them: i’m no longer drunk enough to be as soul-bearingly honest as i was about the kids last night, but long story short, peter wiggin was insecure and jealous and angry, and he was told that he was a Bad Kid so he had to be Careful or he’d be Bad For Life. he put so much WORK and EFFORT into being Good and making people think he was Good when to him he thought this whole entire thing was a facade, he thought he was Bad Bad Bad on the inside. i love peter cuz he taught me it’s ok to do the right thing for the wrong reasons; it’s ok to have all that anger inside of you for so long, stewing. he thought his loneliness was absolutely his own self because that’s the way he’s Made. he was self-loathing but also like. ok. i gotta get the fuck up and do this. and of course when JP and theresa eventually broke the news to him about the REAL reason he didn’t get into battle school, it was like the floor dropped out from under his feet. and he had to scramble to remake his sense of self, cuz for so long he’d centered his ego around the careful knowledge that if he pushes too far he’d be too BAD too AGGRESSIVE too EVIL - but that wasn’t it at all. he finds out he’s not fundamentally bad, and keeps going, tho that damage is already done.

as for val, i love val cuz she’s some great sneaky characterization. most of EG the front she puts up is that peter manipulated her and cornered her into doing this and frightened her, but the reality is that val, as i say in this fic, “liked playing the game, but didn’t like getting played by [peter].” she enjoyed the Power of playing his lil game, demosthenes and locke, but always made it sound like it was about her fear of peter and love of ender. val was more complex than that. i also like how she grows in the enderseries and her sort of fun relationship with ender much much later on - and how offended she is when soul!val shows up lmao, cuz that’s a fair reason to be offended tbh, cuz ender had somehow created this Perfect Canonized version of her in his heart. she wasn’t as perfect as ender imagined, and she knew that, and i think she was injured by that reminder.

why i don’t: the parts i don’t like about peter are that he’s a skinny lame ass white boy from the US but tbh i’ve always thought that’s why he rends me to the bone more than, say, damian, who is hypercompetent and a Trained Killer/Superhero. peter’s physical weakness and general shitty lameness is like #me ha ha. i guess i have some beef with how he unites the world cuz again it’s the White Guy ruling over the entire world then somehow reaching world peace in such a way that ends the need for a hegemon ever again but [shrug emoji]

as for val, i guess i always wished she would be more of a Player in the game and not so passive. i blame orson scott card’s raging misogyny for that, though.

favorite scene: i have two fav peter scenes; one is in shadow of the hegemon, when he’s in the library with an apology letter from the admiral of the IF and his hands are shaking and he wants to SCREAM cuz he’s just some dumbass college kid and he has enough clout and power to get a groveling APOLOGY letter from the highest ranking officer in the IF and he can’t stand keeping it to himself but he also of course can’t tell anyone. i also love the scene in, shadow puppets i think? when he’s been forced to evacuate the brazilian compound cuz achilles infiltrated it and he’s in the hotel room and briefly considers #suicide but in a very matter-of-fact way, and comes to the conclusion that would just be way too embarrassing. then he goes out and dutifully makes the announcement for the media. a sort of watershed moment for young lucy tbh. i think it’s also the moment when JP and theresa come in and tell him they’re proud of him, and “nobody mentioned ender’s name at all,” which hits peter like a ton of bricks.

honorable mention: when he insists on going in with bean and the Soldiers for the final confrontation with achilles in the compound. like peter you are a skinny kid with no field experience don’t do this!!!!!! but he feels so Responsible so he does anyway.

fav val scene is probably…………..well she gets fewer breakout scenes overall but i do love all her banter with peter cuz she’s pretending to hate him but really she Enjoys the game they’re playing. i was glancing thru children of the mind/xenocide and she admittedly has some funny moments with jakt, AND i love her bonding with miro (tho that gets weird when soul!val shows up). i’m not a huge fan of her scenes with ender cuz she always treats him with kid gloves. i think i really do like the Sharpness she had with peter. i think of that one particular conversation right after the bunnies thing? where val seems to be very performatively like “ugh peter’s scary” but in practice she’s really Into the power working with him is giving her

favorite book: my fav peter book is…… god this is hard lmao. i love him in shadow of the hegemon i LOVE him in shadow puppets and i love him in shadow of the giant. he has some of the best scenes in shadow puppets but his characterization in shadow of the giant is so fun and has Moved so much, but shadow of the hegemon is also super duper fun cuz it’s just when he’s gaining steam. idk lmao.

my fav val book is arguably EG itself because that has her moments with peter

favorite line: i have so many with peter but probably after he sees bean and petra (or maybe JP and theresa) share a kiss: “i’ll have that one day. someone who’ll kiss me goodbye. or maybe just someone who’ll tie a blindfold over my eyes before the execution.” he’s such a #romantic. oh also? the “i love you” after reading bean’s letter cuz it’s a gut punch every fucking time

fav val line? that’s hard. i love the “funny as a one-legged rabbit, val” / “of which there are no doubt several in the woods” / “hopping around in neat little circles” exchange, which has val’s iconic “peter, you’re twelve” in it lmao. so some of that fun banter probably

i looked up the locke and demosthenes chapter and am dying cuz i forgot how much i loved them both

otp: peter/petra/bean for sure, and for val, well, val should be a lesbian, even tho her husband’s ok. val/virlomi would’ve been dope as hell. ps peter’s first kiss was on the boat with virlomi pass it on

brotp: YALL peter and val are their OWN brotp, despite the way val demonized peter as soon as she was away from them. they loved playin the game together

headcanon: oh man uhhhhh. they’re both bi as hell. val started regular correspondence with peter when he was Older and she was still young cuz of space flight but it was too weird and peter was too kind and forgiving and unlike the sharp and dangerous peter she remembered, so she got weirded out and quit it. val loved peter more than ender but hated herself for it and could never bring herself to admit it, and spent her whole life trying to convince herself it’s not true

[lusilly]

complex sibling relationships are at the core of all fiction i’ve ever liked tbh..... the enderseries, fma, hp insofar as my favs are sirius & regulus, atla for as brief as i got into it, the batfam i suppose, certainly the Hale Sibs were the thing i focused on the most in my short-lived teen wolf phase, even my fic focuses in cm and glee......... also holy moly supernatural lmfao

anyway it’s no wonder star wars Got Me

[lusilly]

as soon as i type these words sarah will show up with her [x] days since graphic but a fundamental concept in the enderseries is “you are what you pretend to be”; that is,if you wear a mask for long enough, then that mask becomes who you are. and that’s been like a Core theme in my own writing for like my entire life since then lmfao

[lusilly]

darkstar1974 replied to your post: In comics and scifi, being a redhead is code for...

Poke in the Ender’s Shadow comic.

i never read the comics but this is absolutely true

[lusilly]

i miss all my Rude Beautiful OP girl OCs..... rebecca miethke, corinna bright and her daughter analiesa, Mary, lady jaderie, miss eliza.......... one day i’m going to write something populated entirely with forgotten OCs of the past

[lusilly]

on my massive post-civil war mcu fix it fic i once had somebody be like ‘hey could you provide the russian translations in the notes or something it really brings me out of it to have to go search for the translation’ and i know it’s extremely petty but the answer to that question is fucking No i want you to Work at enjoying my fiction

[lusilly]

Do u ever constantly wish u had better taste

[jainajacenanakin]

peter wiggin is one of my fav characters because the entire driving goal in his life was to do good because he had been told he was dangerous, and acted out as a child in ways which proved that to himself. the devastating weight of realizing that literally his entire construct of himself around which he had formed his identity wasn’t even true is still something that resonates with me deeply: being convinced of something, building your life around it, and later being told, apologetically, that it wasn’t even real.

i compare him to jacen solo a little, because they both were boys with lofty ideals and more than a lil bit of arrogance, but: peter was so afraid of going bad that he watched his every move, caught his every word, drew lines in the sand and gave up when he lost. in the end jacen didn’t have that self-awareness; he kind of fell into a caricature of a Bad Guy. but i think they both were remarkable similar, started out from similar places, and certainly john-paul and theresa wiggin failed to emotionally equip their son just as luke (and arguably han and leia) did with jacen. peter dealt with rage and jealousy and the ability to be cruel at a very young age, and he tortured his siblings with it, but he held such immense guilt over that that he hung over his head for the rest of his life. maybe it’s the fact that jacen never had that experience of being the Bad Guy which made him so susceptible to it in the end (which is an argument against the jedi code in a way; jacen was not equipped to deal with the anger and hatred and fear he felt, so he succumbed to it. peter was well-versed in those emotions, and had carefully learned how to make the most of them)

jacen will never mean as much to me as peter wiggin does (peter wiggin remains the fictional character i most identify with; i think of him in the hotel room feeling sorry for himself, wondering vaguely how to make a suicide attempt look like political assassination, then thinking that a botched assassination attempt would actually be kind of cool and dramatic, then thinking  it would be mortifying if he tried it and people found out, so figuring it’s probably best if he lays there in bed until the world just kind of ends)(and then the world does not end, and he goes out and makes a speech to the public that is collected and eloquent and you never would’ve known tbh)

but idk. i see the similarities, even if jacen is tbh a little flat and uncomplex compared to peter.