Reading roundup (kidlit edition), and memes
October was weird for me with fannish consumption, because I have in my hands two epic fantasy things that I think are actually good (one Hugo homework reading, one a rec off the Serpentcast), and some other things I've been curious about for a while, and I could've gone on to watch season 2 of The Expanse, but instead I've been: a) (re)reading
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Holiday headcanon
I think Gregor always gets tense around the holidays and doesn't enjoy them much. I'm sure the Emperor/Emperor's family is even more in the spotlight than usual when it's a big holiday on Barrayar or when celebrating what should be a personal holiday (birthday, wedding anniversary). When Gregor was small, he didn't necessarily know what the tension was from (the adults who were all on edge waiting to see if Serg was going to do something ill-advised that would require damage control?), but he felt it, and later holidays were always a time to show off the child Emperor to Barrayar, and later still he had all kinds of boring ceremonial duties. Cordelia and Aral tried to schedule things so that he got some actual enjoyable times in between the official pageantry, but he tended to focus on/remember the official parts more, and worrying whether he was doing them right.
When he marries Laisa, she introduces him to some Komarran holidays/holiday traditions, and he finds that he likes them a lot more, because there isn't any sort of burden of duty associated with them.
Cooking headcanon
When Gregor was 8 or 9, to the deep disapproval of everyone on Gregor's staff, Cordelia insisted on teaching him to cook some very simple things for himself -- I'm thinking the equivalent of scrambled eggs but not using animal protein, because I think Cordelia is still grossed out by handling things that came from animals. So, like, scrambled vat protein or something, or maybe buckwheat/groats. Gregor doesn't use those skills often, but at the time, but at the time, getting even that small measure of independence had been huge, and he's really grateful for it.
Sleeping headcanon
This is very random, but for some reason I see Gregor as someone who talks in his sleep, and voices these very mysterious but tantalizing snatches from his dreams, you know, like, "But where did the dinosaur go?" mumbled from out of the blue. But he can never remember what he was dreaming, so he can never explain them once he wakes up, which Laisa finds very disappointing, because if he's going to startle her by saying weird things in the middle of the night, she might at least get to enjoy the context, too.
Driving headcanon
Gregor learned to drive a groundcar and fly a lightflyer which was basically last line of defense to give the Emperor the best chance of survival / getting away from danger in case his groundcar is hijacked or he is kidnapped or all of his security is taken out. And even though it was under this very controlled, quadruple-verified-safe environment, it was actually pretty fun!
Bathing/showering headcanon
I see Gregor as one of those people who does some of his best thinking under running water, so he tends to linger in the shower, noodling over some thorny issue until things fall into place. Plus it's nice to have the privacy, even though he realizes the privacy is probably an illusion.
Hugging headcanon
General physical contact headcanon
I think Gregor was a very cuddly little boy, with his mother and with Drou. Like, when O was small, he used to do this thing where he would just come up to us and hug us tightly and silently for a long time -- we called it "recharging his batteries", because it really seemed like he was getting some kind of sustenance that way, and needed to be topped off whenever he ran low. And his expression was always very serious and intent when he did it, like this was an important process. That's the kind of thing I'm imagining with little Gregor. But once he became Emperor, he felt like it wasn't Manly to do that anymore, even though Cordelia and Drou and Aral (who also lost his mother at a young age) tried to give him as much physical affection as possible -- he didn't feel like he could really accept it. But he knew Laisa was the one when they embraced for the first time and he felt that sense of recharging from the touch of another person that he hadn't really permitted himself to feel since childhood.
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