#Aral Vorkosigan

[call-me-rucy]

The reunion scene in The Vor Game will live in my mind forever.

(Shoutout to my sister who, when helping me make this comic better, accurately recognized the characters as "That's the guy who wanted to get into the army, right? And that's his dad, I guess?")

[bonaesperanza]

Okay, last headcanon and I'll stop harassing y'all after this.

So you know how Mark Vorkosigan has been trained to have the same body language as Miles Vorkosigan, whose body language is really a less effortless rendition of Aral's? And then Dono is told to just imitate Aral whenever he's scared he isn't passing well enough and, well, do you ever imagine these four men being somewhere together and just accidentally striking the exact same pose or making the exact same gesture at the same time?

Like someone is explaining something and they are listening attentively, brows elegantly furrowed, hands in their pockets and feet spread apart in a manly, assertive way, and when the particularly complicated part comes along they all rub their chins in contemplation and it goes from manly dignity to absolutely fucking ridiculous?

[thirdwifeofriversong]

y’all please pray for me i just finished cryoburn

[sylvanmigdal]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/58768081

Lunch at the Imperial Residence

[mytly4]

I'm currently rereading Barrayar, and flipped back to Shards to check on a bit of dialogue, and came across this little line:

"Why can't you just lose your temper with subordinates, like normal men, instead of with superiors, like a lunatic?"

This is said by Rulf Vorhalas to Aral, right after his conversation with Prince Serg in his cabin during the Escobar war. Now, there's a valid reason why Aral speaks to the Prince so disrepectfully - it's a part of the ruse to goad Serg to fight on the frontlines in the war and get annihilated. Nonethless, something tells me that this wasn't in the least bit out of character for Aral, especially as Vorhalas frames it as something that Aral has done before. Which of course, reminds me of this exchange, from The Vor Game:

Cecil flashed a grin. "Quite. Plus your rather irritating habit of treating your superior officers as your, ah . . ." Cecil paused, apparently groping again for just the right word.

"Equals?" Miles hazarded.

"Cattle," Cecil corrected judiciously. "To be driven to your will."

So looks like insubordination runs in the family. 😉 Granted, Miles would never think of "being disrespectful to superiors" as something he has in common with his father (especially as during his lifetime, his father had no superiors, except Gregor), but it's interesting to see that Miles follows in his Da's footsteps in a way that he never intended.

[cookie-nom-nom]

Reading Barrayar I felt trapped in Cordelia’s head. It’s incredibly effective for the dread of war as a civilian. Plans and machinations happening beyond you, with no input. Hearing of things happening that seem far off and like yeah that’s awful but then suddenly it dominoes in a way that destroy your life and it’s not your fault and you could've done nothing at all to prevent it. Especially the tension of being hunted in the Dendarii mountains with no idea how the war is going, if they’ve already lost, if it is already too late. Cordelia is doing actively important things in service of the war by sheltering Gregor, yet there's this pervasive feeling of helpless lack of control. She spends most of the book with this dread of not knowing when the next threat to their family will come, and I don’t think it could’ve been done so effectively if we had access to the information Aral had. I found it frustrating at times, since it felt like Cordelia was swept up in events with little agency (at first; obviously our dear captain didn’t remain there). I wanted so badly to be with Aral seeing and knowing and making the decisions.

But that’s the point! Most people have absolutely zero agency in those situations and little information and it’s terrifying. Barrayar captures the feeling of being a civilian in war where so many narratives narrow in upon the heroes and 'men of history' that control conflicts. That's what readers expect. I think that’s why I loved the ending so much. After so long trapped with Cordelia, just trying to survive the larger machinations of Barrayar’s bloody politics, it felt so, so good to finally be on the offensive, to have information the opponents don’t, to finally have power and the means to control what happens. It's a relief to the constant tension of having no agency in a giant conflict that frankly Cordelia had no business being affect by, yet was swept up in because of her love of Aral.

Which is the second thing I deeply enjoyed in Barrayar. I love how the war is made so human. A messy tangle of human relationships control it. I can’t stop thinking about the hostages. There are just so many children being used because the war holds the future hostage. Tiny precious Miles utterly incapable of comprehending how large a pawn he is. Young grieving Gregor vital to the plans of both sides whether dead or alive. Elena, who should be of no importance but she is because that's the kid of an unimportant soldier, just like every other hostage is another piece in the web of the war. I keep thinking about the relatives of Aral’s men caught in the capital. The hostages that Aral refuses to take. Everyone just trying to take care of those they love, and the points where they must put other priorities over their relationships are heart wrenching.

Barrayar looks dead on at how little people try to survive a civil war. From the mountains where the fighting seems so far, and information is slowed to a trickle of the singular mailman. The invasion of forces that disrupts people who may not even know there’s a war yet. The scientists and the genius lost in a single blast that goes unnoticed. The urban populations trying to sneak in food and people and keep their heads down. Random citizens debating who to sell out, weighing risks and bounties, if it will get them the favor with the occupiers that will help them survive. All so small in the grand scheme of things, and yet they are who Barrayar concerns itself with.

Cordelia’s uncertainty and fear would’ve been undermined if we were allowed to see in the heads of people driving the conflict, because Barrayar isn’t about those people. It is the desperation of two mothers, powerless and kept in the dark, that topples the regime.

Addendum: Cordelia’s relationship to Aral firmly places her in an upper class position that is important to note when discussing the role of civilians/‘little people’ within this analysis. But as a woman on Barrayar she is extremely limited in the power she is allocated, especially compared to someone like Aral, which would be the military leadership POV that novels more focused on the grander scope of war would utilize. Again not to say Cordelia has no agency or power, but it is not to the degree of the people in charge. Thus I place her alongside the average people swept up in a war outside their control. Still, her position as a Vor Lady gives her some access knowledge and connections that she turns into power, which while limited are far more than the average citizen. Her significance to Vordarrian is exclusively viewed as yet another hostage, an underestimation that Cordelia readily exploits, but still afforded only due to her status. Cordelia occupies a position of importance but not power beyond the scope of the people she’s formed direct relationships with, which only further ties into the essay's thesis.

[diane-nguyen-watches-cartoons]

I just need to be dumped on an uninhabited planet with the most emotionally intelligent woman in the universe who is also the first butch I've ever seen. It would fix me.

[phantasmawhoreia]

being a huge Vorkosigan saga fan but also only having listened to the audiobooks is so wild, I’ll be scrolling tumblr and have to stop to process ARAL VORKOSIGAN???? IT’S SPELLED ARAL????? ARE WE SURE?????? NOT ERROL?????

[ivan-you-himbo]

cordelia has bi wife energy and aral is the bi wife

[starfishlikestoread]

@palatial-monstrosity ... my hand slipped:

(shoutout to @dykeonysus for the original tags and @maykendehoutman for egging me on!)

[thesunlikehoney]

Re-reading Shards of Honor for the seventeenth time and honestly Aral proposing to the first woman he's ever been attracted to five days after meeting her would be really fucking pathetic if Cordelia was not super embarrassingly into it. She's sitting here heart fluttering blood rushing stomach turning in flip-flops like "You don't deal in small change, do you?" NO HE DOESN'T. AND NEITHER DO YOU.

[call-me-rucy]

Small Vorkosigang

(I have probably messed up someone's uniform's colours but shhhhh)

[bonaesperanza]

Okay, so you know how Barrayar is full of stories of evil mutants kidnapping innocent Vor maidens, just like we IRL have a bunch of story templates exploiting our societal fears of some exoticized evil Other stealing our women?

And you know how modern romance/erotica takes those stories and turns them into erotic fantasies? Like, women have been going mad over The Phantom of the Opera for centuries, we've had stories about innocent maidens being forced into arranged marriages with big dick sheikhs and Middle Eastern princes for decades, and in the past decade or so both monster romance and villain romance have become completely mainstream staples of the genre?

And you know how Miles allegedly killing Tien so he could court Ekaterin was Vorbarr Sultana's Scandal of the Year for a short while, before the whole affair was capped by Ekaterin's very memorable and very public proposal?

Now, imagine some repressed Vor housewives hearing about it and thinking, in a similar vein to what Mark thought, "NGL, that's kinda hot. I always did have those fantasies where I was ravished by the villain, and I really do sometimes wish my boring sexist husband were dead." Because now that they've caught up on galactic genetics the actual fear of mutant children is kinda low among the bored upper class housewives who can afford gene cleaning, so it's the perfectly zeitgeisty moment to exoticize and objectify the mutants instead.

So one of said bored housewives decides to anonymously write a pulpy gothic-esque dark romance/erotica novel about it. Except obviously the scrawny short guy doesn't make for an appealing romantic hero, so she makes him a Taura-esque tall, massively ripped fellow who growls all his lines a là ACOTAR's Rhysand and conveniently makes all his mutations sexy in the vein of, like, A/B/O novels or Ice Planet Barbarians.

Imagine "Ravished by the Billionaire Secret Agent Mutant Count" slowly becoming popular among the ladies and the main cast learning about it, Miles lamenting about it having come out now when he's happily married and not when he was fifteen and desperate to get laid, Ivan suddenly gaining a lot more traction with the girls because they've caught onto the real life inspiration for the novel and are wondering if the Big Dick Mutation comes from Ivan's side of the family, Cordelia shamelessly reading it at dinner (she's the only person who's read it without wrapping the cover) and annoyedly pointing out the biological inaccuracies as Aral begs her to stop, Mark seeing the opportunity for a cash grab and buying the holodrama rights...

[corrinalawson]

My first fanfic in (I think) a decade. Naturally, it’s Vorkosigans. However, I didn’t expect to pick this narrator. 

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aral Vorkosigan/Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, Ekaterin Vorsoisson Vorkosigan/Miles Vorkosigan, Oliver Jole/Aral Vorkosigan/Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan Characters: Miles Vorkosigan, Ekaterin Vorsoisson Vorkosigan Additional Tags: Book: Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen Summary:

An additional scene from "Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen," where Miles and Ekaterin discuss the unusual expansion of the family Vorkosigan, along with Miles pondering what he just discovered about his parents' marriage with Oliver Jole. Everything in Ekaterin's point of view.

Takes place near the end of the book.

[vorbarrsultana]

speaking of perfect but impossible fancasts: vyacheslav tikhonov as aral vorkosigan

[zahri-melitor]

“So . . . is this Ekaterin another passing fancy?" The Count hesitated, his eyes crinkling. "Or is she the one who will love my son forever and fiercely—hold his household and estates with integrity—stand beside him through danger, and dearth, and death—and guide my grandchildren's hands when they light my funeral offering?" Miles paused in momentary admiration of his father's ability to deliver lines like that. It put him in mind of the way a combat drop shuttle delivered pinpoint incendiaries. "That would be . . . that would be Column B, sir. All of the above." He swallowed. "I hope. If I don't fumble it again.”

Aral!

(And yes I just skipped reposting ALL of the Honour v Reputation speech just for this bit. The grandchild hunger. Aral has it)