#shivahdverse

[copperbadge]

I've been toying with the idea for a Shivadh novel, somewhere in the distant future, where a film company wants to shoot a movie in Fonz-Askaz. I thought it would be amusing to call it The Askazer-Shivadlakia Holiday Special.

I just realized the funniest possible version is one where Gregory is sent a copy of the script so he can make sure it's not weird or overly problematic, and the family realize that this cheap romcom about a chef and a prince falling in love is based on him and Eddie.

Except when they speak to the screenwriter it becomes clear that it's not, that "this is just a standard trope of the genre, you know, princes, commoners -- weird food, too. They're all very common to this kind of romance."

And Gregory and Eddie have a moment of "Are we...are we a Hallmark film?" while the rest of the family is all, "Did you not realize that?"

Bonus if people keep mistaking the actor playing the grouchy dad character for Michaelis.

#shivahdverse

[dysmantled]

I can't help but think that there may be some interest in this shirt from fans of @copperbadge . Printed in a union shop and my other shirts from there are super high quality.

And a portion of profits are donated to local non-profit organizations. A win all around.

#Chicago #chicago star #copperbadge #pride #shivahdverse

[copperbadge]

I just finished binge reading all the books in the Shivadverse and first off: these books are fantastic and I really enjoyed them and look forward to more! Second, does the monarchy of Askazer-Shivadlakia knight people? Or have they in the past? Also, as a queer Jewish person, I love that you’ve created a predominantly Jewish country that is super open and friendly towards queer people.

I'm so glad you're enjoying the books! I have a ton of fun with them.

The royals gave up some forms of power when the country democratized, but one of the odd quirks that remains is that the king can grant peerages and, indeed, knight people. There's a joke about it in the next novel -- Monday, Eddie's sister, is asked to be their surrogate for a royal baby, and she's excited to get to try all the weird folk recipes for having twins that she's picked up. Gregory jokes that if she manages twins he'll knight her. :D Mind you, he's planning to anyway, it's a pretty big deal to carry your brother's husband's baby for them.

(The other running joke is that Ceece, Eddie and Monday's mother, has a friends group that is doing fertility rituals to help Monday get pregnant, and nobody can decide if it's a coven or a book club.)

I imagine, given the Shivadh love of a good party, that Gregory finds an excuse to knight at least a few people a year. I'll have to come up with the formal title. "Knight of the [dramatic noun goes here]" or possibly "Sibling of the Order of the [scary medieval weapon]".

I bet Jerry has invented one to go with his fake medallion of office. Officer of the Vizier's Cavalry. (His drag queen friends get to be Dragoons.)

#shivahdverse

[copperbadge]

@bibliofran wrote (regarding King's Boon)

"Eddie is like 'Just herd anyone who wants to open a restaurant into my office....'" Are Boon-seekers sorted by the palace staff, or do they get someone mostly at random? You mentioned the person with the nightclub drawing Jerry, which sounds fairly random, but there might be more organization behind the scenes than most people think.

Little from column A, little from column B...

The way I had pictured it working was that you usually see the next available person, but the Royals can make general requests. (This is somewhat inspired by how jury selection began with some people being dismissed immediately based on their responses to a little two-page questionnaire we had to fill out determining our fitness to try the specific case we were there for.) So Eddie can ask for the chefs, Jerry can ask NOT to have people with mathematically complicated issues but to get as many farmers as possible, Alanna is best suited to handle bureaucracy, etc. So Eddie might see someone randomly, then a person wanting to open a kebab shop might need to wait ten extra minutes but get to see Eddie, who can provide more expertise than, say, Gregory would. Jerry would see Nightclub Guy and then skip someone with Parking Complaints to Alanna so that he could see a fellow olive farmer next.

And sometimes they'd hand off certain people to someone more appropriate after an initial talk, of course. Eddie and Gregory have adjoining offices, and Al and Jerry are both across the hall, so it's relatively easy to do. Michaelis takes over the family dining room as a makeshift office, so he gets to handle larger groups if any appear, which, you know, he's probably best for anyway. So for example Eddie could get someone struggling to export goods to Galia and knock on Gregory's door, find he's probably busy for the next half hour with a lively discussion about beach nudity codes, and then run across the hall to Alanna, who can call Milo and put the person on the phone with him so that they can get everything squared away.

Gregory has a policy of not making any requests, so your odds of getting the King over one of his family/staff is actually a bit higher than it otherwise would be. He enjoys the uh, diversity of challenges this presents to him. ("I'm not going to regulate nudity on the beach. If Americans feel weird about seeing someone with her nipples out, they can go to Florida.")

In theory Alanna would be in charge of the event but since she also has to participate, the execution of it falls to her assistant Darien, who thus haaaates King's Boon sessions. There's a line item in the budget for a spa day for him afterward. If I ever write Darien's novel, it'll open with him being such a fixture running the King's Boon that he ends up a Photogram celebrity via a meme, titled something like Hot Royal Secretary. ("I'm not a secretary!" "Dee, I think you may be missing a bigger picture here.")

#shivahdverse

[copperbadge]

Last night I dreamed that you had written an anthology of superhero slice of life vignettes, as a bonus story to a longer piece. They were all very fun little stories, and there was one i especially liked about a guy who could turn into a dragon being befriended and adopted by another hero like you would a feral cat. I know technically my brain wrote them instead of you, but please accept these kidos anyway. Dream!me had a delightful time reading them all.

Aw, that's so much fun! I'm flattered your subconscious decided to assign me to the best of your thoughts :D The idea of a superhero who is not very good at socializing being taken in like a feral cat and becoming the Pet Introvert of all the Superhero Extroverts is a very charming one.

(Given the long tradition of Jewish superhero creators in comics, really there should be SOME kind of superhero story in the Shivadh romances. Perhaps some kind of AU. There are canonical tiny dragons in the local mythology!)

#kingedmundsroyalmurder #shivahdverse #superheroes

[copperbadge]

I assume fanfic rules for shivahdverse are the same as other published works? (as in, you as the author can know they exist and be cool with that, but you can’t necessarily read them or whatever for copyright reasons)

I'm of two minds about it, to be frank. On the one hand, I've never bothered with that policy in the past; there's a handful of fanfic of some of my other novels, and I've always read and enjoyed it. I'm in a unique position because my work is self-published, so I don't have publishers or agents to be concerned with, and my work isn't lucrative enough for most people to bother suing me if they think I've nicked off them. I make perhaps a few thousand, if that, per book, and that's spread out over months or years. Besides, until the Shivadh novels, I'd never completed or published a sequel, so the point was moot.

On the other hand, most of the fanfic (not all) was written when I was younger and had a much smaller readership. I'm wondering if it isn't time to be a bit more professional about it. I don't love the idea; I like to be able to tell people I've enjoyed what they've done with my characters.

Probably the best policy would be to state that I don't/can't read fanfic of my work, but acknowledge that I'm delighted it exists and definitely don't ever go to AO3 in an incognito window while not logged in. :D

#shivadhverse #writing