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etirabys · 7 months

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meandering post about reading Orson Scott Card again

I've been offline starting at 9pm every day (except once. I was drunk at karaoke and asked for anons at 8:30pm) for six weeks, with the result that in befuddled boredom two nights ago I picked up Orson Scott Card's Songmaster from the house bookshelf.

I read Ender's Game and three sequels when I was a teen thought the books were mid. Since those are OSC's best works I assumed he had nothing more interesting to offer me and didn't try more of him for fifteen years, but Songmaster was compelling enough that I immediately afterwards picked up The Memory of Earth, the first book of a pentalogy.

TMoE is extremely my jam: after humanity blows itself up on Earth, AIs monitor thriving human civilizations in the planets that survivors managed to escape to, and suppress any tech that enables large scale violence by exerting low key mind control via satellites. But forty million years pass, many of the satellites break down, and the AI needs help from humans to restore capabilities. Because as its control wanes, people are starting to e.g. conceive of airplanes or bombs again, and override the injunctions against entering military alliances more than two edges of connection away.

The AI is worshipped as a god all over the planet, but the fourteen year old protagonist that becomes one of the AI's agents tells the AI from the beginning that he'll break with it if its morality seems wrong to him. I like the fourteen year old – unlike Ender or Songmaster's protagonist (adult minds piloting ten year old bodies), he's a normal gifted kid who's unpopular 50% due to his ego and big mouth and 50% because he's socially inept and offends people even when he's trying to be nice.

Songmaster is also partly about a permanent solution to large-scale violence, albeit through one guy who establishes a monopoly on violence and sweeps in pax galactica. Both it and TMoE are preoccupied with the eradication of suffering from evil / human violence, which is closer to my resonant frequency than narratives about defeating particular people or ideologies. At the moment I can't think of any other book with such an insistent focus on the matter than T.H. White's The Once and Future King. It's hard to make a compelling story out of, and I don't think Songmaster really succeeds, but TMoE's premise is well suited to explore that. (I'm also enjoying the matriarchal culture where everyone is expected to have multiple serial-monogamous marriages.) After reading 70% of TMoE last night I wrote:

Usually when I read fiction there's a small part of me going, how can I use this as fodder for my own growth, how can I remix or improve or react against this, how do the author and I measure against each other? (If the quality and content are at an anti-sweet spot, the small part becomes quite large and I feel all teeth towards the author.) But on occasion I read something so close that the absence of that measuring-feeling is its own sensation – ego departs, or at least is split across two bodies. There's just amity and recognition

And it's pretty interesting to feel this way about Card for, well, the reasons.

(If you're familiar with Card drama none of the following will be new to you; I'm coming to it fresh so the rest of this post is me going "uh... wow")

I vaguely knew he was a homophobic Mormon who'd gotten into fights about gay stuff, but I couldn't tell from the Ender books I read. But in Songmaster his issues spring off the page in such a weird way. Every fifth Goodreads review of this book is "Card, u gay?" because, well,

(One review, possibly from a fellow Mormon, that went "Card, it's so sinful of you to be this gay in your novel". Why did he write this book that would predictably make everyone mad...)

it's full of gay male desire. The protagonist (Ansset) is approximately a castrato and characters notice him sexually a lot. The first and only time Ansset has sex it's with a Kinsey 4-5 male character he loves, who's married to a woman but has fallen in love with Ansset. It turns out the drugs Ansset took to prolong his singing career painfully and only-kinda-figuratively explode your balls when you have your first orgasm and you'll never feel sexual desire again. (You'd think his loving teachers would have warned him of that, but, whatever, they didn't.) The other guy is literally castrated in punishment for inadvertently torturing a highly valuable castrato. It's pretty bald: GAY SEX IS ALMOST IRRESISTIBLY TEMPTING BUT YOU SHOULDN'T DO IT.

(Sidenote: both Ansset and the guy's wife are very close and have a "there's enough love to go around" attitude about the gay sex initially, before they go "wait Josif is a SERIAL MONOGAMIST... he can only love one person at a time... the moment he had the gay sex his marriage was destroyed". It's funny in a mildly stupid way that Card would set up this parable of homosexuality destroying lives and a marriage but almost everyone involved is peacefully ready to sail into an open marriage. I guess it makes sense if you want to say very clearly that THE GAY PART IS THE BAD PART)

which is fascinating to me, because... why would you tell on yourself like that

(81k also told me secondhand of an essay? interview? where Card openly says "we have to stand against legalizing gay marriage because everyone will get gay married and society will collapse", so that's informing my read of Songmaster as well)

I am pretty dang open about my personal life online but if I had a lot of feelings I thought were disgusting and immoral I would not write a novel dripping with those feelings before pointedly castrating the leads for them. Especially if it wasn't relevant to the actually highbrow themes of (checks notes) winning over your adversaries with kindness and never relinquishing your monopoly on violence. I would be so so so so embarrassed to let this go to print, it's so psychologically transparent, what was he thinking

(Well, I assume he's a very different person with different social incentives. For all I know, people in his church went "hey Orson we read your book and it's clear that you're gay but signaling strongly that you won't give into the gay feelings, we're here for you, it was really brave of you to publish this".)

#rambl #orson scott card #eti reads stuff #eti reads the homecoming saga #songmaster #content note: homophobia

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crushribbons · 1 month

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𝖇𝖎𝖗𝖉𝖎𝖊, 𝖕𝖙. 𝖎𝖛

summary: Sebastian Sallow might be more stubborn than he is curious. (series masterlist)

cw: 3.6k words, light fluff, very suggestive content (18+ ONLY), brief male masturbation, alcohol ment, soooort of dubcon but quickly-established consent, god when will this thing end, probably never, fem reader/oc. requests.

a/n: y'all ever heard of this word, pentalogy? hmm xx laney

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered, babbling under her breath like a madman as she yanked a brush through her hair and stared at her tired and bloodshot reflection in the mirror. “Can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t do anything.” In desperation, she replaced the hairbrush with her wand and pointed it at her head. Nothing happened. She wasn’t sure she had expected anything to.

You know whose hair looked wild, as well? mused a very unwelcome voice inside her head. Sebastian’s, in that dream you had. She considered keeping the wand pointed at her head and igniting it if the voice kept up.

With a groan, she gave up on her appearance altogether and looked over toward her dormitory door. Dread clawed up her throat and her heart beat unnaturally fast as she considered the prospect of going to Hogsmeade with Sebastian, as he’d asked her that morning.

“Come on, I haven’t been in ages.”

“You were there on Tuesday.”

“Not with you,” he crooned, and any pretense of annoyance slipped away from her. “Come on, beautiful day for a stroll.” She felt like a weak little lamb that Sebastian had grabbed ahold of with his wolfish teeth.

She dangled, pathetic and miserable, from his mouth the entire walk to Hogsmeade. He was still none the wiser to her distress (or he was choosing to ignore it), chatting ad nauseam about the skirmish that had broken out in the Slytherin common room that morning. She didn’t catch a single word. Her hair was still frizzing out at her temples and getting caught in her lips as she walked, and she thought she might explode with frustration if she had to be around him for one more minute.

Dreams were usually a very viscous liquid, draining through her memory the second she woke up and tried to recall any details. So why was this particular one, this particularly Sallow-centric dream, etched so deep into her psyche? In the three days since her subconscious had betrayed her and showed her what a potential animal Sebastian could be in bed, her thoughts had been consumed by little else. She was sure all of her dreams from this point on would feature his naked and sweaty form again, so she was careful to sleep in short, awful bursts that did nothing to rejuvenate her for the following day. Maybe she was just losing her mind.

The slightest motion on his part was sending her into a tizzy. In the library yesterday, a huge waft of dust had hit him in the face when he pulled it off a shelf, and he had sneezed three times in rapid succession and yelled, “GOD!” Madam Scribner had been upon him in an instant with a swift whack to his unkempt head, but all his poor classmate could do was clutch the bottom of her skirt and whimper that she needed to step out for a moment. Everything was like this; a tap on her shoulder to get her attention at dinner, a wistful sigh as he gazed out the window and fantasized about never writing another essay ever again, everything was affecting her body more than it ever had. Her silly crush on Sebastian had snowballed, no, avalanched into something unholy that had her completely at the mercy of its icy grip.

And she was fairly certain he knew it, too.

Their flirtations and awkward exchanges since the now infamous “towel incident” (Imelda, after overhearing Sebastian and Ominis whispering on the topic, had taken it upon herself to disseminate the rumor among their class that the towel had actually fallen to the ground) had felt harmless until recently. Now, she could swear that he was torturing her on purpose. He pouted when she spent time with anyone other than him and kept saving a plate of dessert for her every day at dinner. Last night, he’d even muttered, “If this makes you any sweeter, I'll start losing my teeth,” in her ear while he passed her a piece of chocolate cake. She’d been so goddamned wet by the time she’d managed to choke down enough to satisfy him that she was done, it was humiliating.

Sebastian’s pinky brushed against hers, and she jumped out of her skin. “What?!” she shouted, jostled out of her sordid imagination by the very man she was imagining. His eyebrows rose.

“I said, let me hold your hand, it’s cold today,” he ordered, and without waiting for her to acquiesce, he laced his fingers between hers and she thought that might be the end of her. His warm hand dwarfed hers completely, long fingers that she could picture all-too-vividly twisting in and out of her cunt trapping her to his side. It was mid-April, and the sun was beating down on them. Desperate, she searched for anything normal to say.

“Does that line work often, Sallow?” she said, but there was none of the usual fight in her voice. It was deflated, a leaky balloon holding on for dear life to its last bit of air.

He grinned, his shining canines exposed. “It works when I need it to.” Her stomach flipped. The pent-up energy inside her was making her hands shake, and she prayed he didn’t notice.

They walked, hand-in-hand, the rest of the way to Hogsmeade while Sebastian continued rattling off the professional Quidditch teams he was confident he could coach better than their current managers and she stared at the ground. Every so often, they would come across a piece of moonstone, and she would absently cast at it with her wand. He never dropped her hand.

Part of her wondered, Why are we doing this dance? Why aren’t we talking about any of this? Why are we bothering? He wants me, I want him! End this!

The other part of her was as stubborn as Sebastian was.

She was so sick of this. Sick of feeling so stupid and lovelorn and driven to the breaking point by a boy whom, until about a month ago, she’d never thought of in any romantic capacity. No sleep, no peace from her own mind, it was really making her sick.

Something in her spine clicked and made her suddenly stand up straighter. Enough of this. If he was so keen to torture her senseless instead of just admitting that something was happening between them, then maybe she would be, too.

“Ugh, this walk is so long,” she sighed the next time there was a lull in the conversation. Sebastian hummed. “Can’t you just pick me up and fly me there, birdie?”

Ooh, but she’d seen less damage taken when someone got hit in the chest with depulso during dueling club. A delighted little thrill charged through her as she watched him twitch and stammer and squeeze her hand nervously. It was like he knew that she’d moaned the nickname out in the throes of subconscious passion. When he wasn’t able to form any sort of retort, she pressed on, starting to feel giddy.

“Come on, you’ve got these big, strong wings.” She dropped his hand and moved to stand behind him. Sebastian tripped over his own feet, and she placed her hands on his back and slid them up to his shoulders, then down the length of his arms. He was stiff, frozen solid in the middle of the dirt road. A patch of daffodils honked softly to their left. God, she was supposed to be taking back the power in this battle of the sexes, so why were her knees turning to goo as she ran her hands over his arms and lifted them from his sides in a little flapping motion? He was so fucking warm and tall. He’d left his robes back at the castle, so the only thing hiding his frame was his school uniform, the green plaid wrapping around every inch and she wanted nothing more than to tear it away. The unbidden image of him in the towel smirked at her, and she dropped his arms back down. “Let’s just pick up the pace a little,” she said meekly.

Sebastian said something unintelligible and nodded, and they walked the rest of the way to Hogsmeade in complete silence, both of their hands firmly inside their pockets. As they crossed the bridge into the hamlet, the smells and sounds floating towards them made their moods rise quite a bit, and Sebastian was his usual smiling self in no time. A fellow seventh-year waved at them as they passed and informed them that Honeydukes was putting on its end-of-term sale. They tried hard to keep their pace as they made their way to the candy store at a light jog.

“Fuck,” Sebastian groaned five minutes later around a mouthful of fudge, and she screwed up her face in disgust picking daintily at the small bun she’d opted for. Her stomach hadn’t stopped feeling strange. Especially due to the fact that her friend’s mouth was smeared with white chocolate and peanut butter and she still wanted to kiss it more than she could verbalize.

As much as she was loath to admit it, the day was wonderful. A bright and clear Saturday afternoon with a boy who seemed determined to keep a smile on her face at all times. They ran through the village, stopping at every store to ogle the window displays and point out what they would get if they had a million galleons. Sebastian would get the newest model of broom that Albie Weekes had just stocked (a surprise to no one), and she decided she would buy every last wand that the old and wizened Mr. Ollivander had to offer.

Sebastian laughed as she handed him the cloud of pink candy floss they were taking turns tearing chunks off of. “Wands?! Why the hell would you buy a bunch of wands?” She scooted closer to him on the bench they sat on so their legs were touching.

“More wands means more power, right?” She mimicked casting with several different wands at the same time. “I’d be unstoppable. Ranrok wouldn’t have even come near the witch with six-hundred and fifty wands.” He cackled, his face red when he finally came back up for air. His laugh made him so beautiful.

“God, I love the way your mind works! Oh, to sneak in there for just a day.” You’ve actually made permanent residence there, she thought as she watched him examine the enormous haul he’d bought from Honeydukes.

Stupid, God, you fucking idiot! “Oh, to sneak in there…” Do you want to just give yourself up?! Shut up, Sallow, and maybe you won’t completely bugger this to hell.

She wished she could read minds. The Hogsmeade square, which had been bustling during the day, was gradually emptying as the sun began to set. She ran her gaze over the shops and homes that were closing their shutters for the evening. Only the Three Broomsticks seemed to really hop after sundown, witches and wizards pouring in to have a butterbeer poured out after a long day of working. Sebastian was a chatty drunk, even more talkative than he was on the average day. He’d tell any stranger his darkest secrets with little to no hesitation. A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth.

“Fancy a drink before we head back?”

They went butterbeer for butterbeer, shot of firewhiskey for shot of firewhiskey, until she realized with a sudden jolt that she was teetering on the edge of very drunk, and that she wouldn’t be any good at extracting an admission of longing from him if she couldn’t form a coherent thought. When he raised his next shot glass to his mouth and tilted his head back, she tossed the contents of hers onto the ground and vanished it with a whisper, her wand poking out discreetly from her lap. Sebastian slammed the glass back down on the table and winced, rolling his neck on his shoulders. “Felt that one here,” he said with a slight slur, and pointed at his back molars.

“Ick, yeah,” she agreed. Time to deploy the not-so-secret weapon. “So, my little birdie,” she began, bumping his leg under the table with her foot. His pretty nose went bright red. Wonderful. She leaned across the table with her arms crossed. Sebastian’s eyes were shamelessly raking across her chest, as if he was hoping to remove the collared shirt covering it with some psychic power. It was sad, really, how easy this was going to be.

The light din from the other patrons in the bar seemed to soften as they stared into each other’s eyes. Firelight shadows cast from the hearth were casting his clear, greeny hazel gaze golden, and she pressed her thighs together, in spite of herself. “Y-yeah?” he asked. She almost felt bad, with how helpless and devoted to her he looked right now. Almost.

“Tell me. Have you made any…romantic conquests lately? Surely, the great and delicious Sebastian Sallow does not intend to graduate without the company of a fair maiden to look forward to.”

Ohfuckohfuckohfuck, she knows. But how on earth would she–Christ, I’m drunk–how could she know, I was so careful, well, not really, but–fuck, she’s still talking. Look at her face, her face, you idiot, not her tits. I don’t care if she undoes twenty more buttons, just look at her face. Shit, her face is just as fucking perfect.

“You’re squirming, baby bird! You are after someone–who is it?” She couldn’t have kept the grin off her face if she had tried to. “Come now, tell me!” Sebastian looked like he might vomit. He dug his hands into his hair and whimpered, and she knew she had won. She pulled her stool around the table until their legs were pressed together once more. His head was in his hands, elbows on the table, and he was pressing his lips together like something dangerous would slip out if he didn’t. His usual smug, self-assured demeanor a distant memory, she found herself pressing herself against the chair and circling her hips lightly, desperate for this tension to just end.

“I think I know who it is.” She let her lips brush against his ear while she whispered it, her hand resting on his back as she leaned into him. He went rigid under her touch again.

“M’sorry,” he moaned, still hiding his face from her.

“Oh, why are you sorry, baby?” she cooed. All posturing was gone. She was practically in his lap as she circled a lock of his chestnut hair in her fingers with absent-minded dexterity. It felt just as it had in the dream, just as soft and tuggable. His hands, not of his own accord, had begun sliding up her thighs. Her cunt practically begged for him, responsive to every one of his touches. He finally managed to look at her, and the mixture of pure lust and shame on his face made her want to push him down and take him right there, in front of all of the Three Broomsticks and God. The alcohol was searing courage into her entire being.

The two friends, although no one who observed them would have used that word to describe the two people groping at each other in a secluded corner of a bar, continued sizing each other up as they considered their next moves. Sebastian grasped at words. “I-I–I did something bad,” he eventually choked out, and she hummed in appreciation. “Awful.”

“And what did you do that was so horrible?” she murmured, fingers still tangled in his hair. He was going to admit it, admit that he’d been just as fucked up by the sight of her half-naked as she had been by him. That the visions and dreams and fantasies hadn’t stopped for even a second since, and that he was desperate to end this teasing and screw her stupid. Hell, she’d even respond in kind if she could just get him to say it first…

“I…” He bit his lip, and she almost came at the sight. She was sure that he could notice her grinding, both on the stool and as much of his leg as she could reasonably position herself against. Maybe courage wasn’t the only thing the alcohol was setting off inside her. But she would have made more of an effort to pull herself together if Sebastian hadn’t been fisting the lap of his trousers for the past twenty minutes, wrestling with an erection that seemed to be striking him dumb. Her hand slid down from his hair and palmed him over his pants, and his mouth dropped into a sweet, little “o” after a silky, “Shit, oh, shit,” leaked from it.

“Are you too drunk?” she muttered, and he shook his head emphatically and walked his fingers across the table in a straight line with a dazed expression, making her snort. He asked in a hoarse croak if she was, and she shook her head also. His cock was so hard in her hand that she mewled a little as she stroked it, friction from the rough fabric making Seb pant and grit his teeth. She could tell he was big; in fact, he felt just as thick and long as he had when she’d dreamt of him railing her just a few nights ago. The firewhiskey still dancing around her tongue asked her if she shouldn’t tell Sebastian about the dream, right now. He’d probably cum in his pants if he ever knew, she thought with a happy and tipsy little giggle. She stopped giggling when he dropped his head into the crook of her shoulder and whined into it,

“I just, fuck, I want y–”

“Sorry, folks. It’s about that time for last call. Gonna be closing up soon.” Sirona Ryan’s voice carried over to them, and they sprang apart from each other. Their stools rocked backward with the sudden jumps, and they quickly rose to their feet, brushing off their laps like they’d just shared a very average dinner. They did not look at each other as they swept past the bar. With two feeble mumbles of thanks to Sirona, they were back on the street.

She had done something horrible, she decided, something truly abhorrent in a past life to deserve this brand of torture in this one. Sebastian turned to face her, looking as strung out as she felt. “Look,” he began. Patrons were filing out the pub’s door behind them, paying no attention to the two students standing beside the door. The air had a sharp chill to it now that the sun had set, and she sheepishly wished that he would offer to take her hand now. Sober clarity was wiping the sweet fog of butterbeer away in her mind. It seemed Sebastian was experiencing the same.

“Let me just say this while I can still blame it on being drunk,” he said, although the slur was gone from his voice. He sounded like his old self. Like good, old, sweet, messy, rambling, whip-smart Sebastian Sallow. She watched him lean back against the wall and wondered if she loved him. He looked up at the sky, glittering diamond stars studding the velvet black. “I’ve been, sort of…I guess…I’ve had, well–um…”

“Seb,” she whispered, closing the distance between them until their hands were interlocked and their noses were centimeters apart. They looked in each other’s eyes, then at each other’s lips, then back to the eyes. Time had stopped, and he was going to kiss her, and then they were going to sprint back to the castle and rip each other’s clothes off. His nose bumped hers and he used it to knock her head back, just a bit, so their mouths slotted together and she shut her eyes. It wasn’t kissing, not yet, but it was something soft that fucked with her head just that little bit more. “Just…say it,” she ordered quietly.

But a level-headed Sebastian wasn’t just less suggestible; a level-headed Sebastian would move heaven and earth to play the devil’s advocate.

She felt his mouth crease into a frown and opened her eyes to see that his brow was low. For a moment, she thought he had no idea what she was talking about and that she’d just made a gigantic fool of herself, but she ought to have given the ever-perverse Slytherin some more credit. “You say it,” he suddenly balked, and pulled his neck away so their lips weren’t touching.

Indignation had her spluttering in disbelief. “What? No, you say it!”

“I won’t.”

“Sebastian!” She smacked him in the chest with both hands. He didn’t even sway. “Say it! Admit it!” She was so tightly wound, so desperate to have him finally, that her body seemed to be melting in the cool night breeze. “Admit what?” He adopted an air of total nonchalance, putting his hands in his pockets and began to meander up the path that led towards the Hogsmeade entrance as if he had all the time in the world. She watched him walk away for a few leisurely paces before she was following after him. She’d been so fucking close, too close to winning! Damn his tipsiness wearing off and being replaced by the mischievousness he loved to torture her with.

She snatched the back of his vest to try and force him to look at her, but he kept strolling. “Admit you want me! Just say it!”

“Haven’t the foggiest what you’re referring to, but if you do ever feel like admitting to me that you desire me carnally, I’ll be at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the next month, should you need to look me up,” he yawned.

Sallow, you bull-headed twat. Grab that woman and tell her what an angel she is and take her to bed right this instant!

In my own time, he responded to himself, then he took one last look at the angel in question, who was panting with eyes ablaze. Fuck, he wanted to toy with her like this for the rest of his life. With a crack, the stubborn bastard disapparated.

pt. 5

masterlist

#mwahehehe (evil but small laugh)#god we really got so close didn't we!!!#sebastian sallow x reader #sebastian sallow smut #sebastian sallow x oc #hogwarts legacy smut #hogwarts legacy x reader #laneywrites

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