The Tradëscan Codex

Title: The Whipping Girl
Author: alixtii
Fandom: Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card
Pairing: Peter Wiggin/Valentine Wiggin (note that that is a sibling incest pairing)
Summary: He loves her for her martyrdom.
A/N: Set in an AU where Val didn't leave to go with Ender but stayed with Peter instead

Format: MP3
Length: 0:06:37
Size: 6.41 MB

Links
Original text at AO3.
Download or stream from Google.
Temporary download from Sendspace.

An Ender's Game story from Alixtii that's actually not an AU! Will wonders ever cease?

Title: Last Day on Earth
Fandom: Ender's Game
Characters: Valentine & Peter Wiggin
Summary: It's strange for Valentine knowing that it's her last day on Earth.

( Last Day on Earth )

I was catching up on the recent xkcd comics, and there's a Peter/Valentine strip! Okay, not particularly 'cesty in and of itself, but I love those two whenever they're together, so squee.

Pick up to 15 OTPs.
Describe them in 15 words or less.
Have your flist guess the OTP.

1. Pedal photography with an exhibition at the Tate; better bring a book. [RPF -- Joss/Summer -- guessed by wisdomeagle]
2. Nativity's transposition, two forked roads, meets again with money and mathematics. Jealousy ebbs, equilibrium restored. [Veronica Mars -- Mac/Madison -- guessed by wisdomeagle]
3. Sentences flow together, as do selves in bodies stripped bare to times, possibilities. Hook shop?
4. With harboring metal, OT3. Innocence heals old wounds, restores faith, likes to frak. [Firefly -- Mal/Kaylee(/Serenity) -- guessed by wisdomeagle]
5. Complements, conqueror and nurturer: all the world, save one brother, falls at their feet.
6. Omnipotence and omniscience, innocence and experience, cape and chair: both can self-destruct quite well. [DC Comics -- Supergirl/Oracle -- guessed by wisdomeagle]
7. Out of poetry fashioned she him; he remade himself; forever is a long time. [Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- Spike/Drusilla -- guessed by wisdomeagle]
8. Man and metal, not brother or sister, but still 'cesty enough for me. [Sarah Connor Chronicles -- John/Cameron -- guessed by wisdomeagle]
9. She'd do anything for her, but she's not alone. Never partner, just quirky assistant, alas. [Veronica Mars -- Veronica/Mac -- guessed by wisdomeagle]
10. A madwoman, irresistable, and her caretaker. The future underestimates their love.
11. Former hostage, employed: trusted to watch, kill on betrayal (but doesn't, out of spite). [Astonishing X-Men -- Kitty/Emma -- guessed by wisdomeagle]
12. New canon (boo!) wrecks old OTP, gives new one. No need for ursine ingestion, though.
13. Cooler than red-haired true love, but just a fling--'til David's star arrives in school?
14. Age too young for chaos, girl too young to dance; absence breeds madness.
15. School visit leads to playing hooky, and a return to brother's bed, broken. [Firefly -- Simon/River -- guessed by wisdomeagle]

This is how it works: Comment on this entry that you'd like to play, and I will give you a letter.Write ten words beginning with that letter in your journal, including an explanation what the word means to you and why, and then pass out letters to those who want to play along.

From wisdomeagle, the letter E:

( Read more... )

yuletide archive is up, and there's a delightful Ender's Game fic in the archive that's been written especially for me! It's Six Dances and the author just nails Valentine Wiggin: brillaint, politically conscious, conflicted, frustrated by hipocrisy and empty ritual, and above all devoted to her brothers. The Valentine/Peter relationship is the focus, just like I asked, and it's just like canon, gen but with the possibility of importing one's own subtext. I'm just so happy with it, because it's Valentine and I love her so much and she's being will-to-powery as she engineers Peter's rise to power and there's dancing and just squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

So seriously, if you like Ender's Game, or teenaged girls who take over the world, go read it.

(I've only begun to make my way through the archive, so that's my only rec for now.)

* * *

Christmas fics and ficlets to which I've been meaning to link all season:

Christmas Ghosts [Dawn, PG, 215 words] Christmas is a time for memories.

Undefeated [Lydia, PG, 100 words] Lydia celebrates the holiday alone but undefeated.

A Christmas Carol [Drusilla, PG-13, 383] Why would one need to be saved from Satan’s power? An ensouled Drusilla at Christmas.

The Adventure of the Stolen Heart [Simon/Kaylee, R, 3300+ words] Simon, Kaylee, and River run a mission together. In the midst of crime, they plan for Christmas.

Since everyone else is doing it (at least likeadeuce and penknife), I will too. There are two things which are almost certainly on the list:

X. The novels of Robert A. Heinlein (so I can request Lapuz Lazuli Long/Lorelai Lee Long twincest, probably, although there's plenty of other interesting pairings, as the multiverse is so rich).

X. The Parent Trap (1999), Hallie Parker/Annie James twincest. (And, hee!)

[ETA: The really sad thing is that, in my head, Laz and Lor are played by Lindsay Lohan.]

I don't really know how yuletide requests work. How specific a prompt does one provide? It couldn't be too specific, obviously, since just matching up fandoms is so much of a chore that they need to make computers do it. . . .

So, what else? (I'm assuming the fandom in my icon doesn't count as "rare," or else I'd try to get some more Rosalind/Celia. Which is definitely being put in my LJ interests, stat.)

X. The Truman Show, Truman/Sylvia.
X. My Summer of Love?
X. FHB? Previously years have had some really nice Little Princess and Secret Garden fics.
X. Shaw? I dunno, Violet/Anna or something? Or, I know--Eliza/Clara!
X. Stoppard? I need to reread Arcadia.
X. I really don't know!

ETA: ( And to keep a list of any new ideas )

This morning's Seven Days had me crying like a baby. Or perhaps more like me, when I am crying.

Anyway, bethbethbeth has a fascinating discussion going on over in her LJ. She's linked to this post in Neil Gaiman's blog on authors and morality. I know I'm not the only one who immediately thought of Orson Scott Card and his stances on, among other things, homosexuality and militancy. I know this because people who are not me mention him in the comments.

Most people seem to agree that the author's views shouldn't have an effect on the appreciation of the work, although a few point out that financially supporting someone who spouts hate by buying their book may be a morally questionable activity. But I think witchqueen is right in saying that she "think[s] Gaiman's questioner missed the really interesting question, which isn't, 'Do you enjoy the good work of people with questionable moral stance?' but, 'Do you enjoy high quality work espousing a morally deplorable view?'"

Having just finished an Ender's Game fanfic and having inhabited that world for a while, I can say that the novel is deeply problematic in so many ways. (Which doesn't change the fact that I love it deeply. Oh, Valentine.) The problem isn't just with Card, but with the novel itself. (Although admittedly understanding how Card thinks opens up elements of the novel that weren't obvious before; knowledge about the biographical author influences how we construct the author-function.) And the anti-abortion rhetoric in Shadow Puppets became so thick I felt like throwing up. Although there it was particularly disgusting because it was clear how he was warping and distorting his characters in order to preach his religious message.

But that's just the thing: we don't notice how problematic Ender's Game is at first because we read it with our moral perspective firmly in place. Card never comes out and says that what Colonel Graff does is good or bad, right or wrong; we're left free to judge for ourselves. Colonel Graff is just being Colonel Graff. Part of Bernard Shaw's genius is that he was never able to commit himself to the socialist message that he wanted to preach (and did preach in his prologues); his sense of drama and character always forced him to give the devil the best lines. As long as the author is true to their characters, it seems, texts don't really have moral voices, because they don't have morals. There's no clear right or wrong side, simply a sequence of events.

There is always the option of constructing an ironic or satiric author-function (regardless of the historical intent of the actual author) in our reading. I'm able to read Atlas Shrugged as a call for altruism and socialist healthcare. And anyone who thinks the Bible is unambiguously pro-Christian (or whatever relevant religion applies) simply hasn't read it. As shrewreader says on the second page of comments: "YMMV: It's not just for driving anymore!"

But still, there is the intuitive notion that these readings are against the grain, which implies that there is a grain. At least in this sociohistoric location, my intuition insists that there is something in the text which can strategically pass as an essence. (It's actual ontological nature isn't really the issue.) ( Spoiler for Ender's Game. ) Sure, we can read it as a satire and interpret these conclusions the same way we do ( spoiler for 1984 ) on the last page of Nineteen Eighty-Four, but is that really just as valid of a reading. And even if it is, the fact that we can doesn't disguise the fact that in most cases we don't and as a radical feminist I privilege praxis over theory.

I've often said that I don't think a literary work can be "feminist," in that concerns of character, narrative, etc. inevitably distract from that message and introduces thing which are problematizable from a radical feminist perspective. (But then again, what isn't problematizable from a radical feminist perspective?) But does that imply that a text can't be anti-feminist, either, because it is always potentially empowering to somebody? That texts can't be pro-militarism or pro-Nazi, anti-religion or anti-homosexual, that Triumph of the Will is just as much anti-fascist satire as it is pro-fascist propoganda? That the only that the moral message depends on is the moral commitments of the reader, and not any feature of the text itself? That was the conclusion to which I came in my thesis, but I'm still not completely comfortable with that radical a hermeneutic relativism.

After all, literary texts have the power to persuade and to convert, and it seems a castrated sort of text which could only provide that which one brings to it. (And yet I'm still reminded of Wittgenstein's statement that the Tractatus "will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it--or similar thoughts" and can't help wondering if maybe literature works the same way.) And I've already express my distaste with the "YMMV" doctrine when it is indicative of a radical relativism, because I don't think feminism is tenable under those conditions.

This is completely a theoretical question; I've already worked out the practical question ("Am I disempowering others, in this sociohistorical location, through my writing?") here. But still my intuitions are conflicting, which usually is a sign that something interesting is going on, theoretically.

So what do you think, flist? Can texts speak with moral voices? And if not, how do we respond to them when we see them disempowering people in a specific sociohistoric location?

Title: Richard the Third, Act Two, Scene Three, Line Sixteen (1/2)
Author: alixtii
Fandom: Ender’s Game
Rating: R
Pairings: Peter/Petra, Valentine/Petra, with overtones of Peter/Valentine and Ender/Valentine
Recipient: unrequitedangst in apocalyptothon
Request: "An AU -- remember Dink Meeker's theory? There really are no Buggers; it's all a giant conspiracy on the part of the International Fleet to control the world's population. Earth is somehow destroyed and the students are isolated on the Battle School station along with the few teachers that might be up there as well. (If you include slash or gen, go for it, but please nothing explicit -- the kids are kids, after all. Also, no chan.)"
Summary: If Valentine had to choose between world peace and her brother, she knew quite well which option she was going to choose.
Author’s Note: Passages in italics (and some dialogue elsewhere) are taken from the novel by Orson Scott Card. Thanks to frogfarm for the beta.

( R3 2.3.16 -- Part I: Earth )

Anyone interested in betaing an Ender's Game fic, Peter/Petra, Valentine/Petra, with the obligatory (albeit mostly mild) incestuous overtones of Peter/Valentine and Ender/Valentine? PG13-ish, I think. I think I've done a pretty good job of canon-checking it; I mainly need someone to give me feedback on the narrative issues, not to mention spelling and grammar.

Please?

It's times like this I am glad I have an incest icon.