Not so much a fic as a thinking aloud

[nineveh_uk]

Is there a giant archive of Vorkosigan fic (in English) out there that I don’t know about? There are a bare sixteen Ekaterin/Miles stories on AO3. Anyway, what I want is long fic detailing what happens when Ekaterin and Miles separate or divorce after some years of marriage. Since it isn’t there, I have had to write a very short one myself.

You might have been sorry for him—or bewitched by him—or even badgered to death by him

They had said practically everything that two people who still loved one another could say. The relief that some things were un-sayable, that Miles had not once even raised the possibility that he could keep her children from her, was almost enough to make her change her mind. But not quite.

Now even Miles was running out of arguments.

‘There hasn’t been an amicable separation in the Council of Counts since Lord Vorhallen and his wife, and that was only because his wife discovered she was also his sister. Actually,’ he continued, briefly distracted from his own distress, ‘I’m not certain they really did separate more than was necessary for appearances. She lived in the dower house and the second Lady Vorhallen just happened to die in childbirth only three years later.’

‘Then we’ll just have to make history again.’

Comments

[antisoppist]

Searching AO3 for Ekaterin is a disappointing exercise considering how much Vorkosigan fic there is.

You'd think Cordelia a much better giver of advice on women than Uncle Paul Delagardie but oddly the results don't bear this out.

[nineveh_uk]

There seems to be vast quantities of Gregor/Miles, and I'm just not interested.

I don’t know. If there’s one thing that Uncle Paul appears to be really sympathetic to it is the fragile young male ego. Having just re-read Mirror Dance with Cordelia wondering about the success of her ‘hands off’ approach, I wonder whether she later considers herself to have over-reacted to perhaps having expectations of her in adolescence that she felt pushed her in the wrong direction, by not providing any pushing at all. Uncle Paul would have said “sod this idealistic nonsense of mutual experimentation with peers, take lessons and offer a guarantee on the technical side and they’ll be queuing round the block.”

[antisoppist]

Uncle Paul is also right about the "ones who have been frightened and hurt" bit.

I hadn't realised Cordelia had a conscious policy followed by doubts. Must re-read. But there's a difference between hands-off on Beta and hands-off on Barrayar, where the state isn't going to help any and you've got centuries of Vor culture (male and female) to counteract.

[nineveh_uk]

Admittedly the context of Aral's being seriously ill, Miles missing, and there possibly no heir to the countship, is one of which one might think "maybe the concept of grandchildren is something I ought to have raised". And both Paul and Cordelia's methods end up with attempted suicide as a result of romantic/sexual rejection. Perhaps Peter needed Cordelia, and Miles needed Paul.

[legionseagle]

I'm now imagining Piotr conversations with Paul Delagardie (who I'm sure was a town clown carrying out the By Vorrutyer ImpSec role of his generation)

[nineveh_uk]

Paul tried to get Piotr and the Emperor to see what a total disaster Aral's first marriage would be, but they were all caught up with the girl's impeccable bloodline and the romance of it all.

[legionseagle]

There's an archive at dendarii.com but I can flatly guarantee you won't find anything much suggesting that everything wasn't rosy in the garden between those two (despite the fact that they go from Strong Poison to the final chapter of Gaudy Night without passing through Have His Carcase first) judging by the - distinctly hostile - reception my HP/Vorkosiverse crossover got for suggesting something similiar ("The one where Miles is the Devil..." was one of the minor comments)

[nineveh_uk]

Certainly HHC following GN doesn’t seem like the perfect recipe for a happy marriage. Honeymoon period, children, children a bit older, “What the hell happened to my plans for training in a professional that interested me and developing a sense of self that didn’t revolve around constantly putting other people before myself?”

[lannamichaels]

Oh, hey, so I'm not alone in getting weird things for Miles criticism! We should have a club.

[legionseagle]

I'm not sure I'd want to draw attention....

My personal view is that I read the Vorkosiverse for the women, mainly, which is why my favourites are Barrayar,Komarr and A Civil Campaign (in no particular order). I don't dislike Miles but I prefer him as a catalyst, to start things moving, rather than the entire focus of attention.

[antisoppist]

Ankaret got me into them by lending me Shards of Honor/Barrayar combined which I read for Cordelia but then I stalled for a long time on Warrior's Apprentice because Miles was so bouncy and irritating. It was Komarr that got me back in and then I went forwards for Ekaterin before going back and filling in the gap. I keep searching for fic that makes up for Ekaterin disappearing in post-marriage canon but have not had much luck.

[legionseagle]

I know what you mean about The Warrior's Apprentice. I like the idea of the scam that gets out of hand, but the details are a bit meh. Also, not enough Ivan until the end (though once he shows up, that's great.) I love the glimpses of the relationship between Ivan and Miles in later books (from Brothers in Arms onwards).

[nineveh_uk]

I rather liked TWA. The Vor Game, on the other hand, I find so dull that I still can't actually work out how the plot works, because I've only managed to read it in isolated sections, missing out much of Gregor's.

[antisoppist]

My reading of The Vor Game was coloured by knowing it was the only one I had left unread and it consequently had to be savoured.

I found Miles more bearable in TWA once I came back to it in the knowledge that he did get slightly less bouncy later on.

[lannamichaels]

I like this short bit. :) I really want that fic, too. Miles/Ekaterin hits me in a very terrible place in my head because Miles jumps up and down on abusive partner very very hard. And I do have some additional issues with the authorial choices made when it comes to Ekaterin's character and backstory. So I'm not sure I would actually read a long fic that actually dealt with the issues, but I would love to know one exists.

[nineveh_uk]

I don't necessarily imagine that the marriage would have to be abusive not to be a long-term success. I'd be happy with a growing apart fic, or a giant row, or even a separating and eventually getting back together on other terms. But there's NOTHING! Actually, though I don't care for Gregor/Miles, I quite like the idea of Ekaterin/Ivan in one of the fic series on AO3 in that it's a possible different pattern of a relationship for Ekaterin that has quite a lot going for it.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Now I'm imagining the Vorhallens as written by early-period Philippa Gregory.

I have not had massively good luck finding Vorkosigan fic by people I don't already know: some of it is excellent, but it seems to tilt heavily towards 'very long saga of an OC who I can't bring myself to find as interesting as the writer does'.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

So I am now you've put the idea in my head! Ahhh, Georgian incest historical romance, her other books all seem so tame after those ;)

Somewhere I have a list of Vorkosigan fic people have recommended to me, I'll get around to reading them some time!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Barrayar must have Gregory and Heyer equivalents!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

There do seem to be a lot of OCs about. I found myself skimming last night an enormously lengthy piece about the re-discovery of Barrayar, which had some really good ideas* in a pretty bog-standard plot (Vorkosgans good! rival Counts bad!), which I thought could have been used much more profitably, OCs and all, in a different sort of narrative.

*I don't know whether the author is correct, geologically, that Barrayar might have poor coal/oil reserves given its native ecology, but he certainly made me think about this as a fairly crucial point for the first time.

[(Anonymous)]

There's the bujold-fix community on LJ. Fanfiction.net also has some.

M