I kind of briefly glanced over it, sorry :P It seems more or less well written. It has a couple of good lines. My only problem, and well, this is basically you're entire story, is that I'm searching for Ender's Game fanfiction since I just finished Xenocide and dying in anticipation of Children of the mind, and ALL ENDER'S GAME FANFICTION INVOLVES ROMANCE AND IT KILLS ME. One of my favourite things about Ender's game is the complete and finally realistic lack of romance. Anyway though, rant over, it was good. I liked the last line a lot.

I'm crying now...I love it.

*sniff*

This isn't crappy, it's really good. You're a better angst writer than I'll ever be. I don't really have any constructive criticism.

I LOVE ALAI! And I love this story; it's cool!

AH! ITS SO GOOD! poor alai, sniffs...

it did not suck. fabulous. :) no criticism required.

I could actually tell by the pen name and couldn't resist dropping a comment just for that. (hint mine. haha. the 'w's mean something. they're not just random gibberish) i'm obsessed with that plays. it's only slightly sad. 'cause my friends actually call me elphie. and i answer to it.

Elphie ~ (never elphaba. just elphie. ask why if you really want to know w/a possibly confusing explanation)

There's not much good Ender's Game fanfiction out there, but this is really nice. I like your characterization of Alai. I don't usually like songfics much, but the lyrics go with the story very well. Nice job!

Oh... and please don't apologize for Orson Scott Card's prejudice. That's *his* problem, not yours!

It always seemed to me that this was a relationship Card could have developed (not graphically, of course.) I had no idea he was homophobic! The world needs more Alai. Keep it up.

I personally like this very much. It's very outside the box, and looking at things from a different point of view. I think this shows a lot of maturity as a writer, to be able to write something rather depressing. Great writing.

First things first, I'm not going to coddle you about this being secretly a good peace of writing. It was broken up and monotonous at the same time, the monologue losing impact because it went around in the same circles too much and then was segmented into bite-size peices of Alai-angst by the lyrics of the song. An okay song for the story, but songfics in general make things very messy, break up any flow that the story might have had (not only because of it's presence, but because the author often has one idea per quote and sticks to that, so the segments are... segmented, often barely linked).

So, downside, songficness and a lack of flow - which also leads to a staleness of Alai's character and perspective.

I really liked the idea you played with, Alai's ideas, perspective and loss. The last line was brilliant, completely true about Ender throughout the series, and I can see it being true with not only Alai but with the rest of his jeesh. But the little sentimental Ender/Alai shipper inside me (who only appeared about an hour ago, a nice little ficlet idea which ended up as a remarkably disturbing cross between this idea of yours and Harry/Dudley chanslash) was crying out that Ender needs Alai! He does! He just doesn't know it because he's always put others before him, sacrificed himself to be their commander! Anyway, it was brilliant. Ender/Alai is such a wonderful little foray.

My cudos to you for writing Ender/Alai even though Card is religiously homophobic. Do you remember Anton in Shadow Puppets saying that he 'never looked on women with desire' - so is either homosexual or asexual - and then going off to marry and have kids like all the other pesudo-religious kids in the books. All that irritated me incredibly while reading SP, almost as much as Ender&Novinha's unexpected marriage when I first read Speaker at age 12.

Looking forward to anything else Enderlicious you might write,

~Blue Yeti

I really liked this. I cried. I loved it and it inspired me. thank you

gah now I'm going to cry! This was beautifully written, the emotions felt so real...I can so picture little Ender sleeping like a baby while tormented Alai sits beside him fighting that internal battle...beautiful. keep writing

Wow, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who read into the "Salaam" and kiss thing from Ender's Game. Great job, very angsty! Oh, I love Alai/Ender!