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Re: Ships that pass in the night
Date: 2018-08-10 05:44 am (UTC)NGL I'm still stuck on the "Betan sex therapists with totally different backgrounds" thing, most of all, though. Like, the potential. Holy shit.
Ahhhhhh, your thoughts on Drou/Princess Kareen are making me so yearny. I haven't looked at AO3 much yet, out of spoiler avoidance, but now I'm going to be gutted if there's no loyalty kink fic for them. With furtive affairs and hurt/comfort during (or in the recovery after) Serg and god. Princess Kareen's whole story makes me so sad but her and Drou co-parenting Gregor and having this special bond where saving her is the only thing Drou would ask of Cordelia before going renegade with her is the best. It killed me how Cordelia could read the studiously unreadable princess better than Drou, who has known her so long, could, and could see through her "selling out" to Vidal when Drou could not, expected perfection instead of survival from her admired princess... but Drou is still the one who wanted to save her no matter what.
Now this just became a novel, haha, but seriously. Good stuff. And !!! I kind of assumed I'd seen all of Cordelia/Alys I would in Barrayar, so the idea that there actually is going to be more of them to come has made me beam so hugely! Thank you nonny, you've made my night!
Re: Ships that pass in the night
Date: 2018-08-10 01:51 pm (UTC)I started these books expecting super scifi space opera soapiness, but have found myself totally absorbed by the politics and world-building
These books are so good for that! They cycle through so many different genres that there's always some books any given person is going to love more than the rest, but the worldbuilding and universe are so interesting throughout (at least IMO!) and there's always room to explore the politics, the different cultures, etc. It's so fun! The fandom's pretty good at exploring those things, too, in my limited experience, but I sure wish they'd do it more with f/f in particular. (I should warn you: there's VERY LITTLE femslash in this fandom.)
Also, yeah, again: porn. I want so much femslash porn from this non-femslash-writing, non-porn-writing fandom. :'(
I haven't looked at the Drou/Kareen fic that's out there much myself yet (though I think I'm going to change that today!) so I can't tell you if there's any loyalty kink fic, but like you I am SURE HOPING SO. And god, yes, hurt/comfort re: Serg would be so, so good, and now I desperately want a canon divergence AU where Gregor gets to grow up with Kareen and Drou as his parents (with bonus recovery plotline after Serg and after the Pretendership).
I know from a Doylist perspective the stuff about Cordelia reading Kareen better than Drou could was just because LMB seems to love having Cordelia be preternaturally good at other people's emotions and psychology and stuff so that she can explicate those emotions/that psychology for the reader, but I'm also loving thinking about that as a result of Drou being in way too deep, emotionally, to have her head on straight about Kareen's potential motivations when it looked like she was, as you said, "selling out." I've never really thought in depth before about the potential that Drou is, like, desperately in love with Kareen throughout the whole of Barrayar and that as a motivation for some of her behaviours, but it makes a lot of sense now that I am thinking about it!!
Re: Ships that pass in the night
Date: 2018-08-10 06:44 pm (UTC)They cycle through so many different genres that there's always some books any given person is going to love more than the rest, but the worldbuilding and universe are so interesting throughout (at least IMO!) and there's always room to explore the politics, the different cultures, etc. It's so fun!
Yes! That's so nifty, about the genre-cycling, I got that impression from an interview snippet I read but I haven't read enough of the books yet to see how it manifests. I'm honestly enjoying myself so much and very excited to see this universe continue to expand in details and layers and scope. LMB seems to have a really strong command of character in general, too, so it's easy for me to imagine the massive array of characters staying compelling af, separately or together, for 13 more books.
Honestly, I wouldn't have expected fandom to be f/f heavy (which is why I was so excited to see Vorkosigan femslash mentioned on here!), but 1) I'm glad to hear the fic is still high quality and good at delving into some of those themes I find so interesting 2) 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.
I desperately want a canon divergence AU where Gregor gets to grow up with Kareen and Drou as his parents (with bonus recovery plotline after Serg and after the Pretendership).
I WANT THIS SO MUCH. The happy ending these three deserve together.
I know from a Doylist perspective the stuff about Cordelia reading Kareen better than Drou could was just because LMB seems to love having Cordelia be preternaturally good at other people's emotions and psychology and stuff so that she can explicate those emotions/that psychology for the reader
Hahaha. Cordelia is amazing at everything. For the sake of the story and the reader, and also just because she's Cordelia. I love her so much. :D
But yes! She's the best at people because she's the narrative POV (and because she's the best at everything), but also Droushnakovi is closer to the subject in a much different way. I loveee the idea of her being in love with Kareen all through the book. It makes her fumbling relationship with Koudelka more interesting to me too, because there's that layer of "I miss my girlfriend... is she my girlfriend? She can never be my girlfriend. But I miss the woman I want to be my girlfriend... she would never do [name stupid thing 1/1000 Koudelka did here]! She's the ideal in a way he will never be :'(" frustration that she then does turn on Kareen when Kareen's pedestal breaks. I would love that canon divergence fic so much just to see the shift from the devoted loyalty kinky puppy love days, to post-Barrayar Drou getting to know Kareen as a person after it all, and realizing she loves and admires her even more. (And gets to feel that reciprocated for the amazing woman she's grown into, too.)
I just started thinking about how her entire intensive training at the hands of Captain Negri was focused around devotion to Kareen and Gregor, the way Negri was devoted to Ezar. How this born-to-be-a-warrior-on-a-world-that-excludes-women girl was primed from the start of this lifelong job, to place her charges as the most important people in the world, spending so much time at their sides helping raise Gregor but always with this readiness to kill for them or do anything for them at the back of her mind. I am not expressing this well haha but I am just imagining the seed of love being planted in the form of this intense loyalty-based role, and Drou having to unpack what her feelings mean when that's not her job anymore. When she's just as intently competent and warrior-ready defending Cordelia, and she's so in awe of her and her soldierly greatness!, but it feels different with her, what does it mean.
Lol I'll cut myself off here, but yeah. I can't wait to meet your Kareen, nonny! The women in this series have been intensely fantastic so far.
Re: Ships that pass in the night
Date: 2018-08-11 04:10 pm (UTC)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.