#delphiki

[snigepippi]

Finished the Danish version of Murderbot Dairies - En Dræberbots Dagbog.

It's fun. It's an enjoyable few hours. But you can feel it's made by a small publisher, Delphiki, who likely don't have much help. There some grammar and three or four formatting mistakes, but not anything I haven't seen from larger publishers.

I love the choices in describing genders. Danish, Swedish and most Norwegian, have two grammatical genders: common gender and neutral. And we have 5 to 6 pronouns depending how you count. (Han, hun, den, det, de and some will also use hen).

Danish is a hard language. One small-talk topic among Danes is do discuss our language and grammar, because even we are uncertain on how we should say something. It is very much a context language. Plenty words have different meaning depending on the rest of the sentence. (for instance "overse" means both "missed noticing" and "being in charge of", and in this book additionally a name). And we use a lot of figures of speech.

So not to be to critical and acknowledging that translation is hard and it has to be more interpretation. I do not agree with all the choices. For instance not translating/explaining "hub" (though how to make "netværksknudepunkt" short is also hard) but they do call it SecEnhed and explain its a mishmash of word. (Sorry @oneiriad it was not translated by mashing sikkerhed and enhed) And they use Ond (evil) for hostiles rather than Fjendtlig(enemy like). I think my experience is affected by my background. It seems like the translator is not fluent in Danish tech language, because I have been trained to use other words and phrases in a scientific context. It does remove some of the fluidity for me, but I don't think people without my background will notice.

But no matter what. I would be happy to recommend it to a friend and I believe they will get the same experience and the same story as reading it in English.

When I posted the front page before, plenty said they liked the artwork. The artist is just called Guilio with no more details. But on the publishers blog they say it's an Italian comic book artist, and after doing some art comparison, I believe its Giulio Macaione (Facebook) who do a lot of queer art.

I hope they will translate more books. But the Publisher's facebook, blog and other update sites, have been silent since August 2023- So I don't know. (Maybe I should e-mail them.)

[endearingwiggin]

UNFINISHED WIP!! of my bean hc guys do we like or no 🙏🏻 planning on turning this into a reference portrait so it’s easier to draw his face in the future bc i’ve had a problem w continuity 😭

also making several outfits treating this like love nikki dress up

[theonlyendersgamefan]

No spoilers

SHADOWS IN FLIGHT IS ACTUALLY GOOD??

I genuinely forgot that Orson Scott Card is a competent sci-fi author. Every other shadow book has me like “please let this be a normal feild trip” and then you get 100k words of the slowest Mormon manifesto disguised as political thriller. (Except for shadow of the giant (they could never make me hate you, shadow of the giant))

Shadows in flight is classic 80s sci-fi and relative to the rest of OSC’s library it only has a little bit of sudo-incest. But even outside of that I’m also just really engaged with the story and junk. And even if the story was entirely non existent Cards distinct writing style from Enders game and speaker for the dead, which was lacking in the first half of the shadow saga imo, returns here which is a breath of fresh air.

I feel I should mention this early on just for transparency sake but, a positive book review by me is entirely useless because I will rate a book 5 starts purely based on my own ability to creat fun mental visualization out of it.

Let me explain. Delving truely a tiny bit into spoiler territory.

At some point a group is in a hallway in 0g and they’re all geard up. My own interpretation of this scene has this group, who is not usually especially discreet, be as disciplined as a highly trained swat team. In reality, text on paper, their gear is no more then rudimentary. Just as a consequence of not needing anything more. They are probably moving as instinct guides them. In my mind, however, they are fully bravo 6 going dark. No wasted movement, swift and efficient. The entire atmosphere of the story changes, they are having conversations through coms and I will mentally add in radio chatter even if it doesn’t make sense. Or I’ll make up a whole dramatic sequence for them opening a hatch or turning a corner. It’s fun as a little brain exercise but it’s not black on white text so my review of the book, which is based partly on the above, is biased because I imagined it in a way that I would like best.

What I can say is that this book is much less intrusive than the rest of the shadow saga. Orson Scott Card still can’t help but tell us directly what we’re supposed to think and HIS interpretation but in this book I feel that he’s taking a similar approach as speaker for the dead. Each character is written strongly enough that they can disagree on a conclusion based on the same information and neither is pitted to be explicitly wrong by the book (like a couple other shadow books I could name (I HATE SHADOW PUPPETS (Why waste such a goo name on such a boring book))).

Overall the book does give you more space to breath and more time in between receiving information and the characters declaring their own opinions. I actually several times got to the conclusion of one of the characters before they did because they all think their conclusions out. Instead of starting with the answer and condescending to everyone about how obvious the reasoning is later.

I’m also a big fan of the tech in this book. It’s much more grounded then in say xenocide. Advanced but based in concepts of physics and chemistry and biology that are common enough knowledge. You don’t feel overwhelmed or like you just have to accept that this is true and not gibberish.

Anyway SHADOWS IN PEAK.

I definitely didn’t write out all my thoughts here partially because I’m trying to stay as far from spoilers as I can and partially because I’m just writing down ideas as they come to me (is that obvious. I’ll write more about this book for the foreseeable future actually, it’s becoming my favourite shadow book (shadow of the giant in a close second but it’s becoming a more distant second which each page of shadows in flight)

I also haven’t actually finished the book.. I’m half way through and had to talk about it, soz.

[kenonade]

he would never do such a thing 🥺

[transrevolutions]

ender and bean are both autistic but the difference lies in that ender has hyperempathy and bean is like 'what the fuck is an empathy what do you mean you feel other people's emotions damn bitch you live like this?'

[eversnark]

I cannot believe no one is talking about the body horror of Bean in the Ender's Shadow series. It scratches a very specific itch in my brain.

[jodjuya]

One of the things that happens some times with ebooks is that the original text's kerning will be slightly off enough to fuck up the OCR and you end up with minor typos. "rn" will become "m" or vice versa, for instance.

This is the funniest fucking typo I've ever seen in my life:

[ehhgg-art]

ender and bean and wash and tucker

[spectreoflothalsmoons]

I think animation would serve this series well in the sense that it would save on live action stunts and effects budget. I have this thought that being able to show scenarios in 0G in the battle room would be easier/interesting to follow from an animation perspective. Idk.

Couldn’t stand the idea of OSC getting paid off this though. It’s a nice thought

It’s always been unfortunate to me that in the film adaption of Ender’s Game, they seem to have chosen to fit the entire story into one movie at the expense of character development because, in my opinion, Card’s characters are what make him a good story teller. The actual story is the least interesting part.

I think a book like Ender’s game would be much better suited to a high end TV series. You could combine Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow, tell the stories of how everything went down, and when you’re done adapting that, you can follow both tracks: You can do Shadow of the Hegemon AND Ender in Exile and get two separate and distinct series basically for the price of one, one near future Sci-fi, and one high Sci-fi by the time you get to Speaker for the Dead.

It’s just sad for me, in this age of media renaissance, to see two good series go untouched because of a okay to middling movie. 

[formic-hive]

CANONICALLY: doctors gave Julian Delphiki estrogen.

Transfem bean

[ao3feed-crimeboys]

Crow's Oneshots

by Crow_Inkorporated

for mcc event!!! gotta get that ao3 bonus. I am also doing fic fight so you Will Be Seeing More Of Me. Hi.

Words: 3410, Chapters: 6/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Dream SMP, OC Universe, Ender's Game - All Media Types

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: Gen

Characters: Gorgug Thistlespring, Fabian Aramais Seacaster, Riz Gukgak, Adaine Abernant, Kristen Applebees, Figueroth Faeth, Tommy Innit, Toby Smith | Tubbo, Isa Solano, Austry Hilvad, Julian "Bean" Delphiki II, Peter Wiggin, Other Character Tags to Be Added, Wilbur Soot

Relationships: Riz Gukgak & Fabian Aramais Seacaster, Figueroth Faeth & Fabian Aramais Seacaster, Adaine Abernant & Fabian Aramais Seacaster, Kristen Applebees & Fabian Aramais Seacaster, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Isa Solano & Austry Hilvad, Julian "Bean" Delphiki II & Peter Wiggin, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit

Additional Tags: Campaign 01 Season 01: Fantasy High Freshman Year (Dimension 20), it hath consumed me o7, The Writer's Block MCC Cyan Creepers, the first fic I posted witht hat even though ive written over 100, The Writer's Block MCC Event Battle Box, clingyduo!!! woo, I don't know if there even is a screwdriver I think it was a stick, Vampires, Fae & Fairies, I might want to put the useless vampire tag on here because austry is nonbinary first, vampire second, child of the yaks and rabbits how fun, Locke and demosthenes, Litol guys, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Spiderman AU, i guess

[endearingwiggin]

Hello endernation I’m alive again sorry! Here is art I made last month or so? Idk

Brief tbhk ref bc i hfx on it for like two seconds and gave up

Also the peterachilles was moved to a new canvas and is being worked on as a separate project fyi and like guys so honest it all started as stupid recreation of the vocaloid butterfly headphone yuri like look

Ender’s hair made me mad just remembered I didn’t finish it but wtvr I’ll post his full design later plus updated ones of these bc this is so OLDDDDDD I’m sick really someone hit me repeatedly so I’ll draw them again

Wait I lied one more thing actually

Rotterdam design of Achilles, unpopular opinion I fear but I really liked his stupid shirt in the comics

okay the end bye for an unforeseeable amount of time

[dannieboy594]

Bean’s story didn’t start with love. It didn’t start with a family, with warmth, with anything that made a person whole.

It started in a lab. In cold steel and artificial design, in the hands of men who saw him not as a child, but as an experiment.

Julian Delphiki should have never existed. His DNA was altered before he ever took his first breath, rewritten to make him something more—something faster, sharper, beyond human. A mind that could outthink the world, a body that would never stop growing until it failed under its own weight.

They called it an advancement. They called it science.

But to Bean, it was a curse.

He didn’t know about the lab at first. He didn’t know he was anything different. All he knew was hunger—gnawing, endless, all-consuming. The streets of Rotterdam became his home before he was even old enough to understand what “home” should be. He was small, so small that the others didn’t even see him at first. But he was smart, too, and that was what kept him alive.

Poke’s gang took him in—barely, reluctantly. They saw him as weak, something pitiful, until he proved them wrong. Until he showed them that small didn’t mean helpless, that weak didn’t mean useless.

But survival wasn’t enough. Not for Bean. He didn’t just want to live—he wanted to understand.

And that was what led him to Sister Carlotta.

She was the first person who saw him for what he really was—not just a street kid, not just a mistake, but something more. She was the one who dug through the past, who found the truth hidden in medical files and classified documents. She was the one who told him what he was.

A genetic experiment. A product of stolen DNA, of men who wanted to play God.

But knowing the truth didn’t change anything. He was still him. Still hungry. Still fighting. Still searching for something that had always been just out of reach.

And then—Battle School.

For the first time, Bean wasn’t just the smartest person in the room. There were others, others like him, others who had minds that worked at impossible speeds. And above them all, there was Ender.

Ender, who wasn’t like him. Ender, who wasn’t an experiment, wasn’t built to be something unnatural—but was still the one who carried the weight of all of them.

Bean should have hated him. Should have envied him. But instead, he followed him.

Because for the first time, Bean saw something he had never seen before.

Not intelligence. Not strategy.

Compassion. Love.

[koroleva-nazyalensky]

I’m trying to stay calm, but Aramis Knight and Hailee Steinfeld are both in the MCU now, and it’s taking everything in me not to start cooking up Enders Game AU’s

[lusilly]

ppb

some little pieces here and there of and ot3 which is practically canon because osc, noted homophobe, hilariously writes the GAYEST characters

peter: nerdy academic and kinda president of the free world, petra: angry commander-in-chief whose competitive streak is so strong it's pathological, bean: big, big, big man with a sword hanging over him at every moment who is just now discovering that he is not incapable of love. now that's how to do a real co-parenting situation

---

In Araraquara, after the little pauper’s service they had for Achilles, who did not deserve it except that Bean insisted, Peter called them four times in the first week.

“Petra,” called Bean, as she was in the kitchen shredding ginger root with a spoon for tea. Poking his head into the room, hair still wet from a shower, Bean held out the phone and said, “Ender’s brother wants to speak to you.”

Even though the phone was not at either of their ears, they both still audibly heard Peter say, “Ouch.” Petra sighed and took the call, tucking it between her shoulder and cheek. “He must be really mad,” Peter continued, without skipping a beat. “I didn’t interrupt you in bed, did I?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Petra replied, dropping ginger into a pot of water. “What do you want Peter?”

“I’m sorry Petra, is it a bad time? Hold on, I’ll hang up and call the spiritual leader of a billion people directly - it’s really just the fate of the free world on ours hands-”

“What do you want, Peter?”

What he wanted, evidently, was for her to return his banter. There had been a strangeness to Peter’s tone lately, an odd falseness that she and Bean spoke about sometimes at night when discussing the fate of the Hegemony, and indeed, the fate of the free world, but which they could not quite place. It was sharper, yes, but more familiar. 

“Bean,” Petra had said, late at night, when he laid his head against her belly, imagining he could hear a heartbeat, “you don’t think Peter thinks we’re his friends, do you?” She sounded half-horrified at the thought.

Bean did not reply right away. “I don’t know,” he said. “You don’t think he’s earned it?”

“How? By being an idiot?”

“He stayed in the compound with me that night, Petra. Me and Peter against Achilles and half an army.”

“Yes, but he didn’t do anything.”

“Well, he stayed.”

Petra didn’t say anything in response to this. Troubled, she ran her fingers through Bean’s hair, where wiry curls had begun to grow now that Petra no longer shaved his head weekly. They were not soldiers anymore, after all.

She asked, “Does he ever remind you of Ender?”

“No,” said Bean. “Never.”

Petra made a face. “Me neither. I wish he did. I think that would make this easier.”

“Make what easier?”

“Being his friend.”

Bean laughed, and he kissed her belly, traveling up past her collarbone to her lips. “I’m not sure he’s ever had a friend in his life,” he told her. When he held her, his hands felt so big against her body, his palm splayed out across the width of her ribs. “I can sympathize.”

“Mm. As someone else who never had a friend in his life. Not to this day.”

“Not once.”

She kissed him. “He has his parents.”

Bean wanted to say, “I hope you never say that of our children,” but he couldn’t, partly because he did not know if he would live long enough to be a friend to his child, and partly because he couldn’t yet bring himself to say the word children. Child, yes, the one growing inside of Petra. But the others, for his sanity, for the moment, he could not yet begin to hope.

In the kitchen in Araraquara, waiting for the tea to boil, Peter had moved on to whatever qualified as business in his own mind. “I don’t suppose you could get in touch with Dink Meeker, could you? Our odds at reaching Alai are better with every member of the jeesh we can get in touch with, and he’s being a bit of a pain to reach at the moment. Is it true that you and he used to be-?”

“If Dink doesn’t want to be found, leave him alone.”

“But Alai-”

“You’ll get to Alai sooner or later. Dink never liked playing the game, so leave him out of this.”

Peter didn’t like this answer, which he indicated by hesitating before he spoke once more. “It might not matter anyway. We’re already at critical mass, if I can count you and Bean.”

“What do you mean, if you can count me and Bean?”

“Well, you two are away honeymooning-”

There was a bang as Petra nearly broke the tea cups she was pulling out of the cabinet. At that moment Bean entered the kitchen, half-dressed, and kissed her on the cheek. “What was it this time?” he asked. ��Barefoot and pregnant or housewife?”

Petra held the phone out to him, which he took dutifully. On the other end, Peter said, “Just honeymoon. Is that so bad? You are honeymooning, aren’t you?”

“Sure,” answered Bean, getting to work on a mango at the kitchen table. “If you consider regrouping after an execution and investigating leads on our stolen genetic material a honeymoon.”

“Stolen genetic material,” Petra echoed, pouring the tea. “So romantic.”

To Bean, Peter said, “You have got to get her to stop calling those embryos children, Bean - I know Sister Carlotta was Catholic, but come on.”

Bean thought it should bother him more that Peter had the nerve to evoke Carlotta’s name to him, but for some reason it came gently, more of a touch than a blow. “What do you need, Peter?”

“I was hoping your wife could get me in touch with a certain Dutch Battle School graduate.”

“I’m Greek.”

“No, the other one.”

“Peter, we just killed him, remember?”

“I’m talking about Dink Meeker, smartass. And Achilles was Belgian.”

Bean did not know Dink well, except as the boy who held Petra when she cried after the final battle. But he trusted Petra’s judgment. “You heard what the lady said.”

“Sure. Hey,” he began, “when are you two going to come back? You know you have access to all of my resources here, and the IF’s.”

Bean highly doubted this. Peter wildly underestimated the Fleet’s capabilities. “We’re in touch with Ferreira. Once we turn up a lead, we’ll be back within reach of your grasping ambition. Promise.”

Annoyed, Peter asked, “What are you even doing out there? Eating papayas with the locals?”

“Papayas,” said Bean, cocking his head. “And other things.”

If Peter caught the innuendo, which Bean was not confident he did given the fact that Peter had very clearly never known the touch of a woman in his sad little life, he ignored it. “Well, hurry up and come back to where you can be useful.”

“Peter,” said Bean. Something about this amused him, and good-naturedly, he asked, “Sweetheart, you’re not getting lonely, are you?”

To which Peter let out a frustrated sigh, and hung up the phone.

---

“I’m not saying I need her to like me,” said Peter, pointedly buttering a roll. “All I’m looking for is some kind of mutual respect. No, not respect. Just acknowledgement. If the two of you would give me just a touch of the benefit of the doubt, I promise I’ll be a good boy and won’t throw it back in your faces.”

Bean was not hungry; he had been grazing all day, as he did more and more as he kept growing, up and out. Peter had not eaten since coffee that morning, and so whenever he stopped by the Arkanian-Delphiki household on the Hegemony compound, he helped himself to the contents of their fridge.

“She likes you,” said Bean.

Mouth full, Peter let out a bark of laughter. “She barely puts up with me.”

“She likes you,” Bean said again, firmly. “She grew up in Battle School, remember? The only way she knows how to show affection is through bullying.”

Skeptically, Peter asked, “Oh, is that the only way? So that’s what the baby in her belly is, you call that bullying?”

Bean grinned at him. “Yes, actually. I didn’t want my genes to continue on to the next generation. She’s the one who wore me down.”

Peter ate his bread. Well, Bean’s bread. “So romantic, getting a turkey baster stuffed up inside of you.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Despite himself, in the very childish way that told Bean that Peter had both grown up privileged, and grown up with siblings - no matter how he treated them - Peter tore an edge off his bread roll and tossed it at Bean. “Gross.”

“Petra was always like that,” Bean continued. “She didn’t like me when we first met. I was a snot-nosed kid, not many people did.”

“I didn’t,” offered Peter helpfully.

“By the time I met you I at least looked like a normal-sized child,” Bean said. “Imagine waking up in Battle School and finding a walking, talking infant talking back to you.”

“Frankly, I can’t believe you survived and other boys didn’t.”

“Just the one other boy,” said Bean.

“Two,” corrected Peter. He waved his hand, as if to say, Well of course you don’t know. “The other was before your time.”

Bean didn’t ask what happened to whoever the other one was. He could imagine. “Petra likes you,” he repeated, with some finality. “Anyway, she has a record of warming up to sad little boys who only have about one redeeming trait, so you’re in good company.”

“You think I have a redeeming trait? Why, Bean, I’m charmed.”

“That trait being, of course, that you kind of resemble your brother in the right light.”

“Boo,” said Peter. “You can do better than that.”

“You’re right, I can do better. Your one redeeming trait is that you’re so small and frail that you make me look especially good in the bedroom.”

“That’s all you, Bean. If the growth is, ah, proportional, you certainly don’t need my help.”

Fair enough. And a compliment to boot. Peter was getting better at this. 

---

Petra was one of precisely six girls at Battle School. She was never shy about using the toilet or changing into her battle suit with the other. If she felt the need to run for some privacy every time they geared up for battle, Bonzo would’ve beat the shit out of her, and she wouldn’t have had it in her to beat him back like Ender did. She got her first period when she bled onto a seat in class, and had to walk with a teacher to the nurse’s - the blood on her pants she could’ve dealt with, but no one ever let her live down being accompanied by a teacher. 

Phoenix Army was the first time she’d ever had quarters to herself, and she had found it uncomfortable. But it was a sign of a frightened commander to sleep in the barracks with the rest of the army, and she had only been in Dink’s room for twenty minutes after lights out before they went and got her.

The point was, she wasn’t shy about her privates. When the nurses asked if she wanted anyone in the room with her, her response was to point out that she was much more concerned, at the moment, with getting this creature in her belly out of her, and her mother, who was just behind the door, burst into tears when she heard Petra call the baby a creature.

It was both mothers in the end, Petra’s and Bean’s. They tried to hold her hands, but she kept pulling her hands away; she found it patronizing, somehow, even as she screamed on that hospital bed.

But the screaming didn’t last long. Labor barely lasted two hours, and the baby cried when he was born, lungs tiny but fully-formed. Before they took him to the NICU - only for monitoring, as he seemed otherwise healthy - they let Petra hold him.

Peter was the first to visit. He held balloons and flowers, but immediately disabused her of the notion that he was being thoughtful by saying, “My mother told me to give you these.”

“Ah,” said Petra. “She didn’t want to give them herself?”

“She says women who just gave birth should have as few visitors as possible until the first time they pee. She says it’s less intimidating to deal with guests once you know everything still works down there.”

“You get your charm from her,” said Petra, as Peter placed the flowers and balloons on a table by the bed. 

“Definitely not from my father,” Peter agreed. He went to her bedside, leaning slightly over her, looking at the baby. “Wow,” he murmured. “He’s tiny.”

Petra brushed her thumb across the baby’s little face. She did not want to think about his size, and what that meant about his life. “He’s beautiful.”

“He takes after Bean.” Petra glanced up at him severely, and he quickly amended, “Look, I meant he’s got his father’s nose. And so much hair, huh?”

“That’s an Armenian thing,” Petra confirmed. “And his nose is just squashed because he just squeezed his way through my pelvis. Give him a week to decompress and we’ll see what he actually looks like.”

Peter looked down at the baby. “Hello,” he said, his voice softer than Petra was accustomed to. “Hello, baby. God, he’s little.”

Petra watched Peter looking. “Do you want to hold him?”

“Absolutely not,” said Peter. “He’s like an hour old, Petra, give him time to breathe.”

The baby nuzzled against her chest, and she pulled out a breast to feed him. Peter didn’t even blink. “When is Julian getting in?” she asked.

“Oh, he’s still half a day away. You popped this little guy out way too fast.”

“Did he tell you we’re going to baptize him?”

“Yes,” answered Peter. “He said Catholic. Aren’t both of you Orthodox?”

“Sister Carlotta was Catholic,” said Petra.

“Yes,” said Peter, again. “But ethnically, you two are Orthodox.”

“We’re barely anything. But it’s a boy, so we can’t name him after her, so this is the best we can do.”

“If you were really committed, you’d name him Carlos.”

Petra chuckled, looking down at her baby. “We already picked a name.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“You can pick the next one I give birth to,” said Petra.

“Ha-ha,” said Peter grimly, but the next time she asked if he wanted to hold Ender, he said yes.

---

Next to Bean, Petra and Peter both felt small. The difference between the two of them - an inch or two, at that - was nothing compared to the full head he towered above them both. When he kissed Petra, Bean would lean down, hunching over. When he kissed Peter, he made Peter get up on his tiptoes and come to him.

Pressed between them, Peter felt his heart pounding so hard in his chest it was a wonder they couldn’t hear it. One of Bean’s hands held Petra’s, her fingers tiny between his, and the other hand was splayed across Peter’s ribs. If he didn’t find it so insanely hot, he might have found the hugeness of Bean’s hand and the power in his arms almost frightening.

“Look at this,” breathed Peter, rocking back slightly into Petra. “My parents would be horrified.”

“Oh, please,” Petra said. “They forgave Ender for killing a boy, Peter, they can forgive you for kissing one.”

“They’re religious, Petra, not medieval.” Bean’s hand went from Peter’s ribs to the small of his back, pulling him in, and for half a second he felt faint. “Kissing a man? Fine. Kissing a married man?” Over his shoulder, a smile on their lips, Bean and Petra kissed. “I’m going to hell,” breathed Peter.

[gisgo]

The enderverse has such a good story but the stupid live action movie makes it look like Spy Kids.