#xenoxide

[yoonyia]

I'm fighting with spirits trying not to murder this book for what they're doing with jane

THIS IS THE ONLY PART OF THE BOOK THAT REALLY MAKES ME ACTIVELY HATE THE BOOK

please

don't do that

I dont mind the idea of giving Jane a human body

hell at this point I think it's necessary and a essential part of the plot

BUT DONT FRAME IT AS WHAT SHE ALWAYS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE

DONT CONPARE HER TO PINOCCHIO

PINOCCHIO WAS MADE IN THE WISH THAT HE WOULD BE A HUMAN CHILD AND WAS GIVEN THE ABILITY TO FUFILL THAT PURPOSE

JANE WAS MADE AS A BRIDGE BETWEEN THE HIVE QUEEN AND ENDER AND DEVELOPED INTO AN ANSIBLE WIDE IDENTITY

SHE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE A HUMAN

SHE WASENT INITIALLY CREATED WITH THE PURPOSE OF BEING A HUMAN

SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A BRIDGE SURE BUT TO ASK HER TO GET INTO A HUMAN BODY IS SAYING THAT THE ALIEN PART OF HER IS NONEXISTENT

THAT SHE SHOULD REJECT IT BECAUSE ITS "NOT WHO SHE REALLY IS"

THAT A PART OF WHAT MAKES HER HER ISNT THE FACT THAT SHE IS NOT A HUMAN

THEYRE TREATING THIS SACREFICE AND LAST RESORT LIFE SUPPORT AS ITS THE CORRECT THING THAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED

SHE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO MIMIC AND YEARN FOR THE PERFECT REPLICANT OF HUMANITY

WHAT SHES DOING RIGHT NOW SHOULD BE TREATED AS WHAT WE FEEL WHEN WE WANT TO LEAVE OUR MORTAL FLESH SUITS AND BE UPLOADED INTO THE INTERNET SO WE LIVE FORVER

THIS IS LITTERALLY JUST THAT

BUT DO WE LOOK AT THE DIGITAL COPIES AND THINK "this is how we should have been always"

DO YOU HEAR HOW INSANE THAT SOUNDS????

"we should have been 1s and 0s this entire time and I don't know why we waited until my body was litterally unusable and my human life was dead to find a way to sustain it, this was how I should have been since birth!"

LIKE

wait

fuck

no, I can see people saying that

OK LIKE ITS SAYING TO AN AMPUTEE THAT THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN BORN WITHOUT THEIR LEG

THAT SOMEHOW HAVING A LEG MADE THEM LESS OF A PERSON

AND THAT THEY SHOULD HAVE CHOPPED IT OFF SOONER

EVEN WHEN IT WAS HEALTHY AND PERFECTLY USABLE

THAT WITH A LEG THEY WERE UNFINISHED

I MEAN I DONT PERSONALLY HAVE A MISSING LEG BUT I FEEL LIKE ITS PRETTY SAFE TO SAY THAT A MAJORITY OF AMPUTEES WOULD PREFER TO HAVE THEIR LIMB AGAIN IF IT DIDNT CAUSE THEM PAIN OR RISK THEIR LIVES

AND EVEN IF THEY THINK THAT THE AMPUTATION IMPROVED THEIR LIVES IN WAYS UNRELATED TO PAIN I DONT THINK THEY WOULD EVER SAY THAT HAVING A FULL INTACT LIMB MADE THEM ANY LESS MEANINGFUL???

LIKE JANE IS STILL AS MEANINGFUL AND IMPORTANT AS WHEN SHE WAS A PHILTONIC ENTITY, BUT THAT DOSENT MEAN THAT SHE WAS LESS WHOLE BECAUSE SHE WAS ONE????

IS THAT NOT A THING PEOPLE UNDERSTAND?

I'm sorry this got convoluted I'm just really upset

the parallels between miro getting his magical recovery from his disability and then having to help someone who also basically got all her limbs, eyes and senses chopped off would have been such a nice thing to watch? I MEAN LIKE HONESTLY REJOICE THAT SHE DIDNT DIE

BUT TREAT IT WITH THE SAME MOURNING SOMEONE FEELS WHEN THEY ARE PARALYZED?

LIKE IM NOT MAD OTHER PEOPLE ARE HAPPIER ABOUT JANE BEING HUMAN, THAT MAKES SENSE BECAUSE TO THEM JANE WAS JUST A HUMAN ON SCREEN IN SOME AMOUNT OF DISTANCE AWAY

but to jane she just lost everything???????

SHE DIED

SHE DIED AND GOT A LITTLE BIT OF HER AUTONOMY BACK

ITS EXHILARATING AND NEW AND BRIGHT BUT THAT DOSENT MEAN SHE DIDNT LOSE SOMETHING???

ok maybe comparing it to a disability is too much of a human perspective on it (even tho the book insists she is human FOR FUCKS SAKES I CANT BE HAPPY)

let's say to her the human body is better because it is so new and so wonderful and so much simpler and easier and lighter and mobile and has all of these new things she can do like sweat and laugh and cry and shit and move

because for a disability you're losing several functions and gaining proportionally little and that's not exactly what's happening to Jane (I personally think a human body does less things compared to all digital material and activity between half a trillion people at any given time BUT THATS PROBABLY BECAUSE IVE BEEN LIVING IN A HUMAN BODY SO LONG I JUST DONT KNOW WHAT IT TAKES TO BE ALIVE, I DONT KNOW)

then treat it like it's that

make her struggle with EVERYTHING

give us more internal dialog of EVERYTHING being new

make it more full of awe and a new discovery and not a long lost longing finally fulfilled

DONT TREAT IT LIKE SHES FINALLY COMPLETE NOW

PLEASE

SHE IS NOT A HUMAN

NOT A HOMO SAPIEN I TELL YOU

I think I might have said something bad in this ramble and if so please correct me I'm not very versed in the nuances of disability and being human and aliens.

I just wanted to express my anger at the writing

I'm sorry for screaming

[yoonyia]

as a 14 year old girl with a copy of the book who often tries to convince my friends that when I say I'm like ender I am a liar and they should not listen to that person then coming back 4 hours later saying "you know when I was in 6th grade in elementary school I had a dude named Peter in my English academies debate class where it somehow ended up being only him and me and we just debated eachother doing all 3 people ourselves for 3 hours every other day for 3 months straight and at a certain point I hated him so much but got extremely mad when he reminded me how much we were similar and how I always knew what he was thinking just by looking at his face and vague gestures that it made me ashamed in myself- hey does that sound like valentine to you or am i crazy?" answer

I am crazy and my life is a mess

THEN ID COME BACK ANOTHER 4 HOURS LATER NOW AT LIKE 2AM GOING

"hey did I tell you about the time I nearly killed a kid when I was 5 or 6 by stabbing them with scissors then being immediately terrified of what I did and i will never live without the guilt of my actions ever again" like I will say the most personal and violent stories to try and figure out which of the 3 child geniuses I am when I'm the very definition of above average and can barely have enough ambition or motivation to write a short story nevermind commit xenoxide or become a historian or nay RULE THE EARTH

orson scott card can suck my nuts but ender's game truly was #girl culture...i don't even believe in that shit but those lana del rey damaged princess types have nothing on the sheer insanity contained in the body a 14-year-old girl with a copy of that book who is trying to decide which of the wiggin siblings she most resembles

[the-firebird69]

3 fingers of vladimir whois not really russian of ukraine flag. it means waron all races,xenoxide and the morlock use it too though they are victams of it as well. most of themwill bethey use it andfollow it. Thor

[rumpledlove]

- #ender #wiggin, #xenoxide by #orson #scott #card

[yoonyia]

a few quick sketches of what I think ender would look like! (sorry for the bad quality it's 1am and these took like 15 minutes or something like that) I was always confused when people drew him with black hair because in the movie he was described as blonde, and even if he wasn't I always imagined him to be a sorta musty blonde. I also found it weird that he never is mentioned to have scars even tho he's probably covered in them, so I added one to his face and he probably has a bunch more. I know Ender has very kind eyes, or eyes that are downturned in a way where they can never really look mad. The comic shows that he has cheekbones and honestly once I saw him with them I couldent see him without them. It's something that almost hollows him out and is one of the harder things in his face making it kinda look out of place but it matches his personality so well, he has a lot of empathy yes, but that doesn't stop him from doing harm and I think the mildly sharper features help with that instead of a kind hearted dad kinda vibe (he's not really kind he's understanding and can still be strict and angry and that's something I think shows on his face) Also one thing that occurred to me while rereading enders game is that they can't really cut their hair? they probably do but they don't have a stylist or anything so I thought that ender would just not cut it and grow it out until it became a habit. We also like the demiboy/enby rep (I personally don't see it but I'm gonna extract all possible queer out of this without changing the writing) valentine I always imagined with sharper features and a darker color scheme (I think she just slowly started wearing darker colors so she would blend into the background more and or copy peter) now this is just what my brain thinks they look like and not really accurate from a character design perspective. I mean valentine is supposed to represent the perfect altruistic. Why would someone who strives for absolute good be sharp and dark (and honestly intimidating) but then when I thought about It again, I noticed that perfect altruism is sharp and scary. And that valentine (atleast in my head) is straightforward and stubborn and sticks strictly to her ideals and choices. And if that dosent feel sharp and dark then I don't know what does. I have designs for all of the other characters from all the books but I didn't have the energy to draw them. Either way I hope you can share your ideas about what you think the enderverse characters look like :D

(this is what I drew right after I finished reading enders game 2~3ish years ago in 6th grade) also I think ender has full lips for some reason, he just feels like a very androgynous person. Now I wanna see his hair out of the pony tail when he's in his 30s, I never drew that before. ALSO ILL DRAW JANE LATER but right now I'm going to bed cause it's nearly 2am and I'm tired from thinking of a korean educational comic

[yoonyia]

good luck for you my friend, the enders game fandom exists and we are more then welcome to discuss the fever dream

my brain did genuinely die when ender created 2 new people just from his thoughts alone

I keep trying to explain the rest of the books to my friends and they're with me till I get to the later half of the shadow series and then 3rd book of the enders series and then they think im lying

no im not joking when I say a computer later steals the body of someone who was fabricated by an alien xenoxider, who also looks exactly like his sisters younger self (and she's still alive) and the person who falls in love with this person is the stepson of said xenocider

anyways we're all saying we would gladly join you in your discussions of the book

hey does anyone remember the ender's game series. like. the rest of the books after the first one. absolute fever dream of a series.

i will say, from what i remember, i actually do quite like speaker for the dead, the second book - it's super interesting in its own right, but it's still /weird/. the type of weird i'd tentatively say i like, but definitely bizarre.

but then the next book, xenocide, is just the most insane book ever. there's cloning, there's a supercomputer who's in love with a protagonist, there's government-infused OCD, theres some really uh interesting implications about a group of aliens who decided not to be devout colonized catholics, theres a whole lot of stuff.

i stopped at children of the mind because i just got tired of keeping up with it lol. ender and his wife became nuns, some other shit happened idk

not suprised to find out the author sucks, there are definitely some problematic elements in his books, but i can't really hate them because they're too much of an acid trip. you'd really have to read them to get what i mean, xenocide in particular.

but i was just curious to see if anyone else has read these books and has opinions on them, i'd love to hear a discussion about it

[yoonyia]

[yoonyia]

ok guys, is anyone's favorite enderverse book children of the mind

because I'm reading it and it's just

bad

like the writing quality is slightly worse

like the wording and structure itself

but also I feel like im talking to an AI

it just remembers stuff wrong and then like rehashed everything ever so slightly but not in a subtle recon way its just flat out stating information that's contradictory

like in the first 2 chapters I nearly died of a stroke because miro said "long years spent with a crippled body" or something along those lines

and I'm sorry if I'm getting the timeline a bit wrong here

miro got hurt at the wall

then got treatment for a few days or months (let's say 3 months to be generous but it really just sounded like 4 to 6 days)

then he stopped getting better

and let's say he spent another 3 months being crippled with his family (which he didn't, he said he didn't but let's just say he lost track of time) then he left on a 3 week space trip then he came back and the time between when he came back and when he got his body back is probably about 6 months (or less cause the pacing of orson Scott's writing, if there isn't a wide jump in time over weeks usually goes rather slowly or like day by every other day)

so even being incredibly generous it couldent possibly have been years, plural

giving him what I think is an extra 6 months still only makes it 1 year

and I know that even a year can be long and it can effect you completely yes but the writing is making it sound like when miro got his body back he also got back his youth??? (which I guess is true cause he said he had the body of a 90 year old and there was stuff about Jake having the build of a 20 year old so when orsonscottcard is referring to youth it isn't just age) but it's framed as if he reversed several years of his life???

not so much in xenocide, in xenoxide it sounded like he's having the worst few months of his life and is being an angsty adolescent about it (which he is and boy is he justified for it)

but in children of the mind it sounds like he got jaded and was fundamentally changed to be miserable?

he was always not very happy I dont know where this sudden simplification of his character came from

all the characters feel like 2 steps removed from what they actually are (except for ender but I'll get into that)

valentine being so uncomfortable with this child version of her also feels off

like I get it, it's supposed to be weird but her first reaction and her continued reaction has such a disconnect that dosent feel like a development and more like a sloppy paste over that's being stapled on top of the old and holding on with hopes dreams and memory loss

because her reaction initially was "ender you poor soul, you kept with you the one thing no one in this world could ever be, perfect morality that you compared you me and everyone against it" and ofcourse she was weirded out but it felt more weird because she was perfect rather her being a val

like she felt sad about it sure but less betrayed and disturbed and more sorry? sorrow? disappointed? understanding?

and like that can develop into being disturbed sure but we don't see that?

and it feels out of character for Val to be so disturbed while saying she's not

there's so much telling

but like yes it's showing us she's shuddering yea but it's like shoving "she's scared" down your throat with people EXPLAINING why she would feel that way

I remember when I first speedran through the series that I felt the children of the mind was the weakest (mostly because I couldent remember shit from it) and while reading children of the mind thought the writing degraded starting from xenocide

but I think for xenocide the writing didn't actually get worse at all it was just a complicated book with a lot of moving elements that just makes it harder to write and read

and reading back on it it was done pretty well even while being a lot of things all at once, it felt like I was actually in the crisis situation with everything slowly pulling together

but children of the mind just feels wrong

like it was slapped together

it feels like it was orson scott card loosing interest in the story and doing all his favorite story beats and relationships he wanted to happen and rushing them in

but then he kept talking and found out he had more to say so it's just awkward

there's so much romance in this book that's such a sudden shift to the duo and partnership aspect when it so far have been

children in a school, soldiers

a family

a community of ramen

duo love interests???? (with a love triangle in there for miro??)

like the entire series so far have been focused more on the collective and how 1 person effects them

and as the books go on that one person gets less important then eventually he's not needed anymore which make the story less decentralized, WHICH SHOULD MAKE IT MORE EXPANSIVE BUT IT DOSENT it feels like we got to a point where the issues are so big and complicated that no one person can solve it and we have to give everyone the attention and then we're sucked back into a centralized perspective between like 3 groups

it feels like a simplification

there's nothing inherently wrong with it it just dosent follow the message or the flow or the plot of the other books

it kinda grabs you by the collars and shoves it into the plot of dirt and hope you don't realize it was actually sand before

before the issue felt real

even if one thing was solved there were a hundred other things that needed to be finished

and when smaller things or huge things get solved the tension eases a bit (which it should) but I feel like the urgency disappears

like there is still a time limit (rather artificial one but it does add tension to the story) where they can't take all the humans off of lustania before the fleet comes

but there's no impending doom there was before

yes there Is a shorter list of things that needs fixing

but there's also an ever closer deadline and the big problems that most people or worried about aren't solved yet

but the story dosent have the urgency to make it feel real

I love peter and Wang mu in an isolated bubble

but in the story they kinda go a bit off the rails and kinda deus ex machina things

and Wang mu dosent care about the people in lustania enough to share the impending doom and peter 2 is stressed out and miserable but he's that always so it dosent show a heightened sense of anxiety or tension

he was also born yesterday I feel like the book thinks it has to explore what he us before putting him in a proper contextual emotion or motive

which it does but it's but it could have been done better

it feels like a first draft

I'm working on the rewrite now because I genuinely want to (not make the story better persay) but atleast more consistent within themselves because it's getting disjointed

I dont know tell me your thoughts

[yoonyia]

quick sketches of characters from the enderverse. Tell me who I should quick sketch next and who I should do a full piece or comic of :D

if you have any questions regarding design choices please free feel to ask ^^

these are all vaguely based off of the books description but since there isn't much I took a lot of creative liberties.

this book means so much to me and it's characters are all so interesting to imagine. Often times I imagine ender as his child self, yes he matured and yes he's not the same solider that killed the buggers that I fell face first into but he, like the other characters call out, never really changes. Aspects of his outer shell changes but at the heart he has always been the same person. And often times I see this kid about 6 or 12 walking with these adults and talking about such big problems and it makes me so much more invested. All these characters are so much more younger compared to ender but they all grew and changed that they all feel older. And sometimes while reading xenoxide I keep seeing all the kids being grown up and I see flashes of scenes where they just look like kids again. These books are so uncomfortably human and so personally draining that it's one of the few books that made me cry with real sorrow for a lost of character. Not just pity not just sadness at missed opportunities. Litteral loss of people who felt like friends. Some who felt like myself ripped out of my head and left to be free. Worries, hatred, world view all of it. But the story I picked up this book to read is over. And the stories that are left are just pieces and scraps of how this person I spent a whole lifetime with affected others. We often forget that a few hours or maybe days of our lives, gives us enough time to read entire lifetimes. And I wish this book was truly good, that behind it it had all the best intentions. That it's not a trick.

a quote from Andrei Linde

"what if I believe in this just because it's beautiful"

and I drive myself insane that such a unloving cruel person could write something and beautiful as this. That I only believe in it because of the beauty, that I overlook all the flaws and horrible claims just because it marvels me, impresses me, that I'm just a person looking at a trick of the light...

[yoonyia]

oh you have no idea

I'm a hard-core enderverse fan and I read a total of 9 books so far and I've reread the original book 3 times and I'm rereading the entire main series (currently on xenoxide) in all honesty I feel like I should give YOU a warning that I might accidently say some major spoiler because at this point I don't know what book has what information so if I say anything that wasent in the book I'm so sorry, I'll dm you later when I have more time but I'm glad you liked the story, also good news if you like bean then the shadow series (the sister series to the original book) revolves around bean and peter. I feel like you'll be interested in it. Either way I would love to have a deeper conversation!

Oof my reading days are back in full swing. Finished Enders Game in two days but wow was it fun.

[yoonyia]

I'm reading xenoxide and I'm going to throw up

what the fuck

the more I write the more I notice just how similar my vocabulary is to orson scott card

YOU KNOW I DONT KNOW WHY THATS SO SUPRISING IM PRETTY SURE I READ ALL THE STUFF THAT HE READS ITS JUST MAKING ME NAUSEOUS BECAUSE ITS NEARLY IDENTICAL

LIKE IN THE VALENTINE JAKT PART I NEARLY CRIED BECAUSE IT SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE MY WRITING

DOWN TO THE SENTENCE STRUCTURE TONE AND EVEN KINDA SUBJECT MATTER

VALENTINE AND JAKT IS JAMES AND ARI AND I CANT DEAL WITH IT

I TRIED READING SO MANY PIECES OF MEDIA TO TRY AND GET THIS OUT OF MY VEINS BUT IM PRETTY SURE I WAS JUST BORN LIKE THIS

I'm gonna cry

this

this is disgusting

god

please stop

xenoxide is not enjoyable at all if I'm being constantly reminded how similar I am to this horrid horrendous freak

God I'm gonna flay myself alive ehat is this

I'm gonna post my writing letter and yall gotta agree with me

it's uncanny and depressing and I'm going to cry

I deserve death oh my god IM GOING TO DUE FOR FUCKS SAKES A7DHFJCICJ

[yoonyia]

reading xenoxide still makes me sick

it's not as bad as speaker for the dead because there's less ender in it but whenever it goes to his perspective I'm filled with so much dread I gotta put the book down

I CANT READ THIS ITS MAKING ME WANNA THROW UP

[yoonyia]

this is infact a bunch of bullshit writing my brain had to get out

the themes and message sucks it's just that if I didn't throw this up I wouldent have gone to bed

I'm continously tortured by how my writing sounds so often like orson scott card

I HAVENT PICKED UP XENOXIDE ALL WEEK OK IVE BEEN TAKING SATURATED DOSES OF OTHER PIECES OF MEDIA

GET THIS OUT OF ME

at a certain point I think it's not because I'm reading too much enderverse but because I just think like this and that horrifies me

someone without a medical degree give me a lobotomy

"Marry me."

"James you're far too old for me."

"We're the same age. Don't you dare lie to me"

"I'm married, and somehow I love him too. You're asking for far too much James."

"I can wait 6 years, he's gonna have to die then anyways,"

"James I'm not going to fall back in love because you shower me with gifts and information make grand romantic gestures to take me across the galaxy so we can live forever middle aged, I'm gonna save the last few years I have with my husband then spend the rest of my life time begging for forgiveness to my son, do you understand me James? I'm a guilty old man who's grief would kill him if he went with you."

"You're no old man, you're younger then me. 49 is far from old."

"63 isn't far."

"Oh don't call me old."

"I'm not calling you old I'm saying you had a chance to live a life despite flying yourself into space and living in a false grandeur of immortality. You achieved your dream, I left behind the only people that I could ever love and they love me back out of drunken self pity and when I came back I knew no one. I threw away my life and now my own son has more lines on his face given to him as gifts from time when I should be dying next to the love of my life. I have a life I want to live, grow old, and die in. I have no want to live so long we become ancient legends."

"Im giving you the chance to grow old and die with me. I'll be the new love of your life. We can make a life from the one I crave and the one you lost."

"You were my old love of my life, and my heart is too ill to do anything but grieve."

"Then let me give you time to heal, leave behind everyone and everything and rid your heart of all that worry."

"How is that an attractive offer to you, how are you looking me in the eyes and telling me the thing I punished myself for years on end is something I should yearn for and show it to me as a relief?"

"It's lonely being alone forever. Do it for me, Ari, Do it for your friend."

"It'll be lonely even if you take a hundred people."

"I can wait 2 decades for you."

"I hope I'm dead by then."

"I hope we never die."

"I'm sorry for your loss already."