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#speaker for the dead

thebrandonross · 7 months

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Yet to not marry him would be like murdering herself, for if she was not with Libo she could not think of who she would be then.

“How clever of me. I have found such a pathway into hell that I can never get back out.”

She pressed her face against Libo’s shoulder, and her tears skittered across his chest.

- Speaker for the Dead, Chapter 3

Orson Scott Card

#speaker for the dead #enderverse #enders game #book quotes #orson scott card #osc #quotes #I really like the path to hell part of this quote #it’s why I pulled it tbh #trm personal #had to do with an intrusive thought I had #such a pathway into hell that I can never get back out #that about sums it up #I said I would stop tagging stuff #maybe next time #maybe this time #I guess I won’t do it #maybe we’re both just monsters

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haveyoureadthisscifibook · 6 days

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vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

#scifi #books #Speaker for the Dead #Orson Scott Card #Ender's Saga #poll #l: English

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thebaddestbean · 1 year

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Click on it!

(Edit: fixed it to make the transparency effect work)

Thank you to all of my friends who have put up with me while I read the enders game series. Here's Jane / Val

#enders game #jane #val #valentine wiggin #enderverse #speaker for the dead #xenocide #children of the mind #art #illustration #transparent #digital art #described in alt text #obligatory fuck orson scott card

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seasidesapphix · 7 months

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the pequeninos from speaker for the dead are some of my favourite alien designs ever. just little guinea pigs who look constantly amazed by everything around them

#🎏#orson scott #ender's game #speaker for the dead

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possiblesword · 1 year

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Orson Scott Card is fascinating to me. On one hand, his books are filled with deeply resonant messages about accepting other cultures, the danger of “otherness,” forgiveness and atonement. On the other hand, there are the Mormonisms.

#notably every character settling down and having children #even when it seems out of character #enderverse #ender's game #speaker for the dead

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maybevalentine · 1 year

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i am so far gone in the ender's game brainrot. that like. i can't think anymore.

i guess i've always loved the series but now it's just hitting me. especially speaker for the dead. ender, who felt unworthy, dirty, and unlovable found people who adored him (miro and olhado specifically). this really scratches that found family itch. as someone who's on the aro/ace spectrum and hcs ender to also be on the aro/ace spectrum (i hc him as demiromantic sex positive asexual) for him to find that kind of love and appreciation? and understanding when for so long the only other person who understood him in the whole hundred worlds was valentine? idk. amazing. wonderful. i haven't heard much about novhinia on here and i think she's also such an interesting character. she is so deeply scarred by the fates of the people who loved her before that she has a hard time letting ender love her. and eventually, she lets him in. i just love this book and these characters so so so much. they've become such a big part of my life.

#obligatory fuck osc but also this book has been the last eight years of my life #valentine is obv my favorite #i love her #would anyone be interested in my fanart?#actually idc i'm gonna post it anyways #because the last ten pages of my sketchbook have been ender's game related #mostly speaker for the dead because i love that ender straight up adopts all of novhinia's kids #esp miro!!#also they're not fucking white because they're apparently all fucking white in the god awful comics #ender's game #enderverse #ender wiggin #valentine wiggin #peter wiggin #speaker for the dead #xenocide #scifi #sci fi #found family

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litandlifequotes · 5 months

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No one’s life is nothing.

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

#orson scott card #speaker for the dead #book #book quote #quote #words #reading

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hollowwhisperings · 10 months

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"Speaker For The Dead": Bran Stark as a Reference to Ender Wiggin.

I read the first two Ender books when FAR too young to handle their themes of, y'know, the intimacy of xenocide when you're a child soldier. Scary stuff for a kid of age with the protagonist.

So colour me Unsurprised upon relearning that the language the aliens of SFTD's aliens to speak with humans... is named "Stark".

Because of course GRRM would find joy in a conveniently horrifying-by-implication Pun.

The Premise of "Speaker For The Dead" (the sequel to "Ender's Game", a Differently Horrifying inspiration for some of my childhood nightmares) is this: human colonists and the local alien species had been more-or-less at peace until a human is Suddenly & Inexplicably Murdered by the aliens who considered him a Friend.

Due to [the Plot of Ender's Game], Humans are wary of Jumping To Conclusions as to this seemingly Senseless Violence and Ender Wiggin (of Ender's Game) stops at the planet to Speak at some Funerals. To properly Speak for the Deceased, Ender investigates the Murders and because of [the plot of Ender's Game] feels certain that there has been a Fatal Translation Error.

Spoilers for SFTD & comparisons to Bran's POV Arc under cut.

He's Right.

The Piqueninos (the aliens) are still learning to communicate with the humans they're sharing a planet with, using a language named "Stark". The deceased men were both held in great esteem by the Piqueninos, one of the primary reasons why [A Xenologist Expert] was sought after: why kill someone who was their Friend?

It turns out that Ritualistically Vivisecting respected males of their society is how the Piqueninons Evolve: they had spent the entire book calling Trees their "Fathers" and they had meant that literally.

The gratuitously violent murders of their human friends were efforts by the Piqueninos to honour these men by making them Fathers, using the same method of Deification on the human men as they would to their own kind.

Cue the Horrific Revelation that, no, Humans Do Not Transistion From Life Phases via being Ritualistically Killed to Become Trees: the Piqueninos efforts to "honour" their Human Friends actually Killed Them. Permanently.

Now let's reevaluate what Bran Stark's been up with the Singers in ASOIAF.

Brynden Rivers has been sending Dreams to kids with Greenseer Potential and directing them North.

Jojen & Bran, inspired by such Dreams, go Beyond The Wall to seek out this "Three-Eyed Crow" who will teach Bran how to "fly".

Bran & Company end up in a magically warded Cave populated by the mythic "Children of the Forest" (Singers) and someone they call "The Last Greenseer", a man who has a weirwood tree growing through him & introduces himself as a Man Formerly Known as Brynden.

contextual clues identify him as "Brynden Rivers": one of three Great Bastards of Aegon IV had with Lady Melissa Blackwood*, Hand & Spymaster to Kings Aerys I & Maekar I, a Disappeared Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

the Singers confirm the religious beliefs shared with the First Men as being Literal: the trees are gods and the gods are trees. Incidentally, Jojen brings up how Revered Greenseers are by those who worship the Old Gods.

Jojen has Greensight and Bran, as someone who can both Skinchange AND Greendream, qualifies for "Greenseer" status. Except... the Singers Very Consistently call Brynden "the Last Greenseer" even with Bran Stark right there contradicting that There Can Be Only One (the Singers also mention greenseers as existing in Plural, historically, & that those of their Own Species have "died out/[faded?]").

Brynden "The Last Greenseer" takes Bran as his [apprentice]. Part of this Training is going into the Weirwood Tree [Hivemind], a network that transcends Time & Space (because Roots, i guess?) and allows Bran to see all sorts of varyingly traumatising Visions.

Bran's lessons require his sitting on a Weirwood Throne beside Brynden who is, incidentally, a body horror Weirwood Tree-Human hybrid now.

BTW, Bran's "training diet" features an Ominously Described "Paste" fed to him by the Singers. It's made from Weirwood Seeds, apparently.

(hey isn't everyone stuck in this spooky underground cave because leaving it means getting eaten by zombies? whete are they getting these Weirwood Seeds from- oh. Hi there, Brynden the Tree-Man Abomination)

wait, if Bran's a Greenseet now then how come the Singers still call Brynden the "Last" Greenseer? is this, perhaps, an instance of, say... interspecies life phase transitions being Poorly Translated to humans due to Trees Being Gods and Trees Transcending Time & Death?

has Jojen, perhaps, Made An Assumption about "when" that Title of "Greenseer" is gained? He had said that Greenseers were Deified as Weirwood Trees, implying they were entombed upon death...

...but what if Dying is part of the deification process?

(well, for a given value of "dying"... *looks at Brynden The Tree-Abomination Rivers*)

...the Cave Singers are totally going to ritualistically vivisect Bran and make him their new Tree God, aren't they.

(and, from the looks of Brynden, some decades into HIS initiation... this process will Not Be Quick nor "Pretty")

Brynden is probably complicit in the Singers' Scheme to Make Bran A Tree, if only due to Brynden being the "Weirwood" Bran's Paste Training Diet is made from.

Brynden might also want Out from the whole "Unnaturally Alive & Conscious This Whole Time" thing because WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE ALIVE AS YOU ARE TURNED INTO A TREE.

let us Not Recall the descriptions of: Brynden's current appearance, the many non-peaceful expressions carved as Faces for Heart Trees, the states of humans "honoured" by the Piqueninos in SFTD, any descriptions of what Becoming A Tree involves...

...and any investigation into what, exactly, a Weirwood's "seeds" may be. I stop at "Horus in Set's Salad" and THAT WAS ENOUGH.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG, when Not Being A Tree Hivemind, Brynden & thus Bran seem to fulfil a role not dissimilar to that of "Speakers For The Dead": they examine historic events as Outside parties. Brynden instructs Bran on evaluating his Visions objectively, without reverance nor judgement. At least, I think he did. Again: preservation of own sanity > exact visuak descriptions of events in ASOIAF.

Interestingly, being an effective Speaker for the Dead requires much of the same skillset as a Competent Kingmaker (or, at least, a King UnMaker).

To Conclude, the Similarities*** between Bran's interactions with the Cave Singers and those of Human Friends & Piqueninos in "Speaker For The Dead" are Multiple &, knowing GRRM, probably Deliberate. Let's just hope Meera and Jojen have gone AWOL because Meera is Plotting Arson, not because they're of Interest to the Cave Singers' reproductive purposes too. Both series do enjoy subjecting female characters to Grim Maternity &/or Horrific Relationship Revelations.

Arson is my Ideal Plotline for Meera, Grand Elk Larceny as a distant second. All those "Last Hero" parallels Bran Stark has going on should be Recognised (by Meera) and AVOIDED (by Meera) WITH FIRE. I'm lowkey convinced Brynden would actually prefer being burned alive to "indefinitely trapped in rotting human flesh as he slowly becomes a Tree (potentially for the purposes of interspecies repropogation)".

Footnotes

*Lady Melissa Blackwoof was likely an aunt or sister of Lady Melantha Blackwood of Winterfell, Bran's great-great grandmother: there is almost certainly at least one other Blackwood in Bran's family tree, likely as one of his 4 unnamed great-grandmothers through Grandpa Hoster Tully & Grandma Minisa Whent.

It's also possible that all the Movement at the end of Brynden's reign as Hand (the Lords going to KL for the Great Council that made Betha** Blackwood Queen of Westeros & Grand Escort from KL to The Wall to send off Maester Aemon & Ser Brynden) was how Lord Beron Stark's Heir, Edwyle, ended up married to a Riverlander like Melantha Blackwood.

**Queen Betha & Lady Melantha were almost certaingly "cousins" of some sort to Brynden through his mother, Melissa Blackwood. The exact degree of relation is unknown but It's There.

The degrees of relation from "Lady Melissa, Paramour of Aegon IV" to "Lady Melantha of Winterfell" connect Brynden (through his Blackwood mother) to EVERY living Stark, courtesy of their one unanimously agreed shared Grandpa (Lord Rickard Stark, of "murdered by Aerys II & Part 3 of 4 Extremely Valid Reasons for Ned's Rebellion").

Lady Catelyn's being a Riverlander, specifically a Tully & a Whent of Harrenhal, make it likely that Brynden's related to HER too.

Jon, of course, has Black Betha as all 4 of his paternal great-great grandmothers AND Lady Melantha as one of his maternal ones (the others being Marna Locke, Arya Flint, & Lorra Royce): Jon's somehow being "5/8ths Blackwood" is how I got distracted by the blood ties of Brynden & Bran in the first place!

#valyrianscrolls #asoiaf theories #brynden rivers #the last greenseer #bran stark theories #cw body horror #cw cannibalism #speaker for the dead #greenseers #arsonist meera #piqueninos #ender wiggin #house blackwood #i kept getting distracted by how contemporary to brynden all these blackwood grandmums are #i would like 1 family tree for catelyn please #i forget whether house blackwood is legit plot relevant or just fans getting progressively more excited by river witches #it all comes back to the riverlands #jojen is fine actually #weirwood paste

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shadowbrightshine · 5 months

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Gosh I love having tumblr. I'm gonna list some crack ships I came up with while thinking about my first crack crossover fic which I haven't written much of yet.

Tell me your crackships cowards.

Bonnie from Bonnie's Bakery x Parsnip Bunner. One kills people for pastries. The others pastries kill people. I pictured masochism but that doesn't need to be there.

Jane (speaker for the dead series) x AIDAN (illuminae files) I love these books and their nontraditional living machine AIs, I wanna see Jane roll her eyes at AIDAN as he waxes poetic about death and her beauty.

Monika (doki doki) x chiaki (danganronpa) Two living game characters rescue each other from death, ironic since she's bad at dating games.

Tommie (T-gachi) x Chihiro (danganronpa) I just think they would treat each other right.

I have more but I'll save them for later.

#shine post #parsnip game #bonnies bakery #danganronpa 2 #danganronpa #t-gochi #speaker for the dead #the illuminae files #ddlc monika #tell me your crackships #and i dare you to explain them

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helloliriels · 2 years

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SPEAK FOR ME

.........by helloliriels for @flashfictionfridayofficial

Sherlock looked out across the sea of stars.

Small pins of light in the endless darkness he was now crossing. Fighting. To get back to him.

John.

He had asked for a speaker.

Someone to tell the story of a loved ones' death.

He had sent for Sherlock.

Speaker for the dead.

Sherlock pulled up the file to review Mary's history. To research and uncover what had happened? ... Before and after he had left John Watson behind on an alien planet to live a 'normal' life with her ... his dream life ... until she had suffered her untimely death.

He found instead, that John Watson -

. had gone through hell.

Had Mary been the cause?

The file contained so little. Most of it redacted.

Even as he scanned through the federations records, he watched the layers peeling away - no doubt Mycroft's hand at work - revealing more ... and more atrocities.

Mycroft was ensuring Sherlock had the full picture.

But ... did John know? This side of Mary?

No.

He could not have known. She would have ensured it.

Sherlock swallowed against the bile rising in his throat ... Looking at these bloody, gruesome clinical trials. Experimental murder.

Not to mention the history of assassination and genocide she had supported and assisted in throughout the years before she knew John …

If John had known, he would not have called for Sherlock. He would have killed her himself. To stop her.

To stop the war.

The knot in his stomach grew, at that thought.

What if?

He swiped back through to the request in haste. Reading it more closely this time:

. Speaker Request: specific

. Reference: 221BXNB SH URGENT

. Speaking for: John Watson

John Watson.

Not Mary Watson.

Sherlock drew in a gasping breath. Shaking as he tried to suppress the rising hysteria within himself, the adrenaline now rushing unimpeded through his veins …

He was an idiot!

It wasn't Mary he was speaking for … it was John. His. John?

Was he on trial then? For her murder? Why didn't it say???

Sherlock imagined - for the first time - being in someone else's place. John's place. Weaving the tale the public needed told. The happy family. The intrepid researcher. The close-knit village devastated by their great loss …

The accident that caused her death.

How grieved he was by seeing his wife, this way.

How his little child would grow up without a mother.

Not the horror they should be shielded from …

The inevitable war now brewing …

John's bravery knew no bounds.

And he deserved someone to stand by his side! If only Sherlock was not too late!!!

He sent an urgent message to Mycroft. Hoping-beyond-hope that Mycroft could stay the order in time! To prevent the local authorities from accepting John's coming confession, and buy Sherlock enough time to make the journey and solve the case!

This was no longer a speaking. It was a rescue.

Sherlock closed the file. Closed his eyes. And made his plan.

Far from perfect.

Far from home.

But

So near

To something he thought he'd lost ...

Something

Called …

. Hope.

Speaker for the Dead /// Ender AU /// Johnlock /// 500 words

SORRY! Had to re-write this one. Immediately saw the flaw in it once I posted!

@johnlocky @ohlooktheresabee @fluffbyday-smutbynight @gaylilsherlock @myriath @arwamachine @7-percent @shelleysprometheus @simplyclockwork @discordantwords @fawnhickory @janetm74 @topsyturvy-turtely if you want to join in! 100-1000 words, every Friday there's a prompt!

#johnlock #sherlock #sherlock fanfic #johnlock ficlet #fff154 #far from perfect #speaker for the dead #ender au #john watson #sherlock holmes #rewritten

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therewillbebeauty · 2 years

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A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. (There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine, a speaker for the dead, has told me of two other rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.)

The rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears, and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. "Is there anyone here," he says to them, "who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?"

They murmur and say, "We all know the desire. But, Rabbi, none of us has acted on it."

The rabbi says, "Then kneel down and give thanks that God made you strong." He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, "Tell the lord magistrate who saved his mistress. Then he'll know I am his loyal servant."

So the woman lives, because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.

Another rabbi, another city. He goes to her and stops the mob, as in the other story, and says, "Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone."

The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I'll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I wish to be treated.

As they open their hands and let the stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman's head, and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brains onto the cobblestones.

"Nor am I without sin," he says to the people. "But if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our city with it."

So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance.

The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him.

--San Angelo, Letteres to an Incipient Heretic, trans. Amai a Tudomundo Para Que Deus Vos Ame Cristão, 103:72:54:2

[Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead, pgs 277-278]

#beauty txt #orson scott card #speaker for the dead #ender's game #i have not stopped thinking about this part of the book since i read it #also please read the ender quartet it's so good

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macbethz · 2 years

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