NONNY YOU'RE MAKING ME WANT TO BE THE CHANGE. I mean I have a long way to go before I'm "in" this fandom. But god, my Drou/Kareen feelings alone just keep growing.
MINE TOO! Gosh, just talking about them with you is making me want to write fic so badly. I normally am a pretty exchange-focused writer so I've been hoping someone would request some Vorkosigan ships for femslashex so I could treat them, but if not I may just have to try and see if I can write Drou/Kareen even without the exchange boost!
Ooh, I love your thoughts on Droushnakovi pining for Kareen and that underpinning the Drou/Koudelka stuff! I have no problem with Koudelka or Drou/Koudelka as a ship (honestly I can't offhand think of a single canon ship in this fandom I actively dislike) but I'm not invested in it on more than a superficial level, and I can clearly no longer say that about Drou/Kareen! So I'd be super into a fic about that.
And yes yes yes to your wanting to see post-Barrayar getting-to-know-each-other-for-real fic. So much happens to both of them between the start of Barrayar and the end of it and a canon divergence story about, you know, shifting relationships and who you are after [insert traumatic event here] and learning each other again would be so fucking good.
Oh man, I absolutely love everything you said there about Drou's training and how it's different with Kareen vs. Cordelia. (And I think you expressed yourself perfectly, don't worry!) Like everything being all tangled up together, her familial love for Gregor and less-familial love for Kareen and her role as their protector and the general loyalty-to-the-imperium thing that's been ingrained in her since birth and even more since Negri got his hands on her... and then most of those things are gone and she's been handed off to Cordelia and, like you said, Cordelia is amazing! But it's really not the same. Damn, I bet someone (someone who has more writing stamina than me, anyway) could get a fantastic longfic out of that alone.
My Kareen is a ways off from where you are yet but I hope you enjoy her when you meet her! And Tej (who is even FURTHER off from you), and all the other women who get introduced later in the series. There's never an abundance of them, much to my regret, but I genuinely do think they're all great. Like you said, characterization is definitely one of LMB's strengths.
Re: Ships that pass in the night
MINE TOO! Gosh, just talking about them with you is making me want to write fic so badly. I normally am a pretty exchange-focused writer so I've been hoping someone would request some Vorkosigan ships for femslashex so I could treat them, but if not I may just have to try and see if I can write Drou/Kareen even without the exchange boost!
Ooh, I love your thoughts on Droushnakovi pining for Kareen and that underpinning the Drou/Koudelka stuff! I have no problem with Koudelka or Drou/Koudelka as a ship (honestly I can't offhand think of a single canon ship in this fandom I actively dislike) but I'm not invested in it on more than a superficial level, and I can clearly no longer say that about Drou/Kareen! So I'd be super into a fic about that.
And yes yes yes to your wanting to see post-Barrayar getting-to-know-each-other-for-real fic. So much happens to both of them between the start of Barrayar and the end of it and a canon divergence story about, you know, shifting relationships and who you are after [insert traumatic event here] and learning each other again would be so fucking good.
Oh man, I absolutely love everything you said there about Drou's training and how it's different with Kareen vs. Cordelia. (And I think you expressed yourself perfectly, don't worry!) Like everything being all tangled up together, her familial love for Gregor and less-familial love for Kareen and her role as their protector and the general loyalty-to-the-imperium thing that's been ingrained in her since birth and even more since Negri got his hands on her... and then most of those things are gone and she's been handed off to Cordelia and, like you said, Cordelia is amazing! But it's really not the same. Damn, I bet someone (someone who has more writing stamina than me, anyway) could get a fantastic longfic out of that alone.
My Kareen is a ways off from where you are yet but I hope you enjoy her when you meet her! And Tej (who is even FURTHER off from you), and all the other women who get introduced later in the series. There's never an abundance of them, much to my regret, but I genuinely do think they're all great. Like you said, characterization is definitely one of LMB's strengths.