#vorkosigan saga

[highladyluck]

Ok honestly I love Miles (of course I do, he’s a hyperactive little snot who got an army by accident) but Mark is my favorite (assigned evil at conception, brainwashed and tortured, working to be better faster harder stronger than a larger-than-life figure, gets even more fucked up, embraces self-knowledge & turns his vulnerabilities into strengths, and maintains a deliberately offputting image for personal survival reasons.)

#vorkosigan saga #he’s like if Tuon got her full character arc and also therapy

[burn-throughout-eternity]

"The real unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, without anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present - they are real."

Aral Vorkosigan, The Vorkosigan Saga, Lois Mcmaster Bujold

#the vorkosigan saga #vorkosigan saga #lois mcmaster bujold #quotes

[sleepycatmama]

#vorkosigan saga #science fiction #space opera #great book

[chell-sea-art]

It was not the dead Miles needed to talk to, in the dark, he realized. It was the living. Useless to confess to the dead; absolution was not in their power. But I'll trust your Speaking, Harra, as you once trusted mine.

Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold. A book that will never fail to grab me by the heart and twist.

#vorkosigan saga #memory #miles vorkosigan #harra csurik #lem csurik #miles naismith vorkosigan #Chell sea art #posting directly to the art blog instead of to the main as I usually do with vorkosigan stuff #dunno why

[agardenandlibrary]

"I'd have mistrusted my memory chip before I mistrusted you."

"God save me from another such victory."

Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold

#AAAAAAAAAAA #first time reader #cara reads the Vorkosigan Saga #memory #vorkosigan saga #lois mcmaster bujold

[cookie-nom-nom]

Lois McMaster Bujold: okay so the A plot is an intense political romance dealing with slander and healing from abuse

me: cool cool and the B plot?

Lois: bugs

me: sorry, what?

Lois: B U G S

#vorkosigan saga #a civil campaign #lois mcmaster bujold

[with-my-murder-flute]

I love that Aral and Cordelia Vorkosigan look from a distance like some flawless immensely competent power couple when like

They are ENTIRELY a HotMess4HotMess relationship

He saw her puking her guts out in the middle of a disaster and thought, "I'm going to marry that woman someday."

She got a cheering crowd and a fancy medal for her bravery and stole the mic to tell everyone to get his name out of their ill-informed mouths

The bedrock of their marriage is their separate and combined willingness to look the possibility of utter failure in the eye and say, "Might as well try anyway."

#vorkosigan saga

[three--rings]

Book 4 of Binderary

It's a typeset of Aral Vorkosigan's Dog. The typeset is by @teleportbooks from our Renegade Typeset Exchange this year. I love anything Vorkosigan so much and this typeset looks so great I had to bind it.

The style is simple but it was my first time using regular htv and I'm super happy with how it came out.

#my fanbinding #binderary2024 #vorkosigan saga

[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.

#vorkosigan saga #miles vorkosigan #aral vorkosigan #shards of honor #the vor game #vorkosigan #lois mcmaster bujold

[regallibellbright]

“It’s… not what Tante Cordelia is most famous for, on Barrayar,” Martya offered after a moment.

Cordelia: I’m a successful survey captain, but do they call me Captain Naismith, Betan explorer?

Cordelia: I was foster-mother to the Emperor and influenced his education, but do they call me Lady Vorkosigan, influencer of Barrayaran politics for a generation?

Cordelia: I was even a war hero, even though I didn’t do most of what I’m credited for.

Cordelia: But you bring home ONE SEVERED HEAD in a shopping bag -!

#i guess this is a vorkosigan saga liveblog now #cordelia naismith vorkosigan #a civil campaign #vorkosigan saga #decapitation mention

[unhelpfulfemme]

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...

#vorkosigan saga #miles naismith vorkosigan #ekaterin vorsoisson #vorkosigan #mark pierre vorkosigan #cordelia naismith vorkosigan #aral vorkosigan #ivan vorpatril

[haveyoureadthisscifibook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

#scifi #books #Shards of Honor #Lois McMaster Bujold #Vorkosigan Saga #poll #result: no

[horse-reviews]

Miles Vorkosigan (in the Vorkosiverse books) has a horse named Fat Ninny. I think he's mostly described in the novella 'the Mountains of Mourning' but he shows up in a couple of later books too

Vorkosigan horse Ninny

Rating: ƱƱƱƱƱ (perfect)

in the absence of a picture of this beautiful horse i make do with this description from the knowledge repository online

this horse sounds like a most excellent animal and it is clear that the author has the appropriate amount of love and respect for the humble horse. all good books should feature a horse like this

#horse review #vorkosigan saga

[starfishlikestoread]

I've seen this poll type for a couple different fandoms now, so I figured someone had to do it for the Vorkosigan saga - if you've read it, consider reblogging to help this get to more people that aren't familiar with the fandom for better results!

#vorkosigan saga #poll #vomit mention

[franticbindings]

Imagine you're a PHD candidate at Vorbar Sultana university and you’re nearly done with your dissertation on the effects the Vorkosigan family has had on galactic politics and they declassify Miles' service record right before you're done.

#vorkosigan saga

[unbizzarre]

Barrayaran Uniforms

My laptop’s still broken so it’s been a messing-around-with-gouache-paint weekend! I always draw too small so doing the deatails on this one was rough! 😫

Modern imperial dress greens on the left, and an attempt at vorkosigan house livery on the right (I don’t love how the vorkosigan house one turned out so I’m probably gonna rework it some more before adding anything to the ol’ headcannon)

NOTES ON IMPERIAL DRESS GREENS

-book mentions stiff high uncomfortable collars, forest green color, riding boots and side piping. There should also be two ceremonial swords but I got lazy

- I wanted to put an emphasis on embroidery and hand details in barrayaran fashion in general so I picked side piping a little more intricate and ornate than just a simple stripe

- originally I was put piping across the front like in the reference, but it got too busy and I wanted the chest to be a little simpler that way medals and other stuff would stand out better against the fabric. Plus having fewer fiddly bits helps it feel more sleek and less out of place in space.

Reference photos:

UNIFORM OVER TIME

- Barrayar as a setting has had to basically speedrun 600 years of fashion history as they make the leap from midieval to space-age in a single generation. In order to show the shift in eras I made a little timeline(ish) of the general changes in the uniform silhouette.

- biggest change in the general silhouette is the gradual shortening of the coat/shirt element from calf lengths tabards to thigh length coats to to waist height jackets

- armor and chainmail fall by the wayside, and guns are picked up. Early occupation uniforms eclectic and a hodgepodge of old midieval weaponry + stolen cetegandan ordenance. They are not uniform at all as the barrayaran military is mostly small gorilla outfits with each fighting force cobbled together from the resources at hand. New Uniformity would come with the return of central government and the implementation of infrastructure for mass production. The uniform would probably stay relatively consistant during the conquest of komarr through the pretendership. Another major shift in in uniform style would probably occur during the regency or Gregor’s coronation in reflection of the successful regime change and the continued push towards a more modern barrayar

Here’s some rough outlines:

Reference Collages from photocopies of a fashion history book I picked up from the library a while back. Don’t remember the title. Will edit post when I do Left is Russia (not sure which century). Right is references for occupation fighters pulled from various pages, time periods, and nationalities (Russia, Mongolia, Crete and turkey maybe? Idk) I wrote all the page numbers down on the collage but I returned the book so now they’re useless.

Thanks for reading!

#vorkosigan costume #vorkosigan saga #fanart #fashion history #headcanon #costume design #lois mcmaster bujold