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Three Things. Maybe four.
#1: The Sandman is very shiny. Still need to watch the back half of the season, but I am enjoying it more than I expected (mostly because it's been sweet forever since I could watch anything with a storyline and want more than one episode of it). Part of it is the flash-back to my late-90s flirtation with Goth, not gonna lie.
#2: DragonCon was, deliberately and consciously, less intense than usual. No cosplay! Wheelchair for Wife, walker for me (less because I'm having problems walking, and more so I have somewhere to sit down when I need it)! Still pretty intense for a pair of introverts, though - SO MANY PEOPLE. Favorite random panel: two paleontologists and one zoo consultant on Why Jurassic Park/World Is A Terrible Zoo, which was briefly crashed by a whole bunch of people in dinosaur costumes.
#3: Work continues very stressful! There may be an end in sight, but not counting on it! In the meanwhile, all students believe they should be my top priority and I am still effectively working two positions at once, which is bullshit.
#4: Story idea, free to good home!
So, standard sort of fantasy set-up, where Joe Warrior rose up and unified the known lands by diplomacy and by conquest - mostly conquest - into the Empire of Magia. Maybe he was beloved by the gods, or by the fae, or was just good at fighting. Honestly, doesn't matter, because the story is mostly not about him. That all was ages ago, and now Emperor Joe is dying.
First catch is: like a lot of emperors, most of the actual day-to-day ruling is handled by the bureaucracy. Sure, there are nobles who are the official Ambassador To The Elves, but when it comes to the less popular assignments, like the orcs? They get a random, not-titled bureaucrat. (And probably lots of societal prejudice.) The orcs were Joe Warrior's first great triumph, his first conquest, but nobody really cares about them beyond that.
Then comes the day when the word spreads: Emperor Joe is dead, long live his son Emperor Joe II. Except the bureaucrat stationed in the orc kingdom abruptly finds out the second catch: as far as the orcs are concerned, their oppressive ‘peace treaty’ was with Joe Warrior as a person, not the Emperor of Magia as a position. As far as the orcs are concerned, peace is now over - unless that hapless bureaucrat can pull a miracle out of her hat.
In my head, it’s the sort of story that involves lots of politics, and semi-deliberate real-world overtones which might make it a bad idea for a White American to write it, and a metric ton of It’s Complicated. Mostly I just like the idea of a hapless not-at-all-warrior bureaucrat, phone to her ear as she tells her superior that for fuck’s sake, the emperor is dead, the orcs are about to rebel, what is she supposed to do now? and her superior suggesting, unhelpfully, that she re-conquer the orcs.
(This is the result of seeing a few Tumblr posts about how Queen Elizabeth II was the first Head of the Commonwealth (? - apparently not true, that was her father) and now that she's passed, the Commonwealth could be dissolved now kthxbai.)
#2: DragonCon was, deliberately and consciously, less intense than usual. No cosplay! Wheelchair for Wife, walker for me (less because I'm having problems walking, and more so I have somewhere to sit down when I need it)! Still pretty intense for a pair of introverts, though - SO MANY PEOPLE. Favorite random panel: two paleontologists and one zoo consultant on Why Jurassic Park/World Is A Terrible Zoo, which was briefly crashed by a whole bunch of people in dinosaur costumes.
#3: Work continues very stressful! There may be an end in sight, but not counting on it! In the meanwhile, all students believe they should be my top priority and I am still effectively working two positions at once, which is bullshit.
#4: Story idea, free to good home!
So, standard sort of fantasy set-up, where Joe Warrior rose up and unified the known lands by diplomacy and by conquest - mostly conquest - into the Empire of Magia. Maybe he was beloved by the gods, or by the fae, or was just good at fighting. Honestly, doesn't matter, because the story is mostly not about him. That all was ages ago, and now Emperor Joe is dying.
First catch is: like a lot of emperors, most of the actual day-to-day ruling is handled by the bureaucracy. Sure, there are nobles who are the official Ambassador To The Elves, but when it comes to the less popular assignments, like the orcs? They get a random, not-titled bureaucrat. (And probably lots of societal prejudice.) The orcs were Joe Warrior's first great triumph, his first conquest, but nobody really cares about them beyond that.
Then comes the day when the word spreads: Emperor Joe is dead, long live his son Emperor Joe II. Except the bureaucrat stationed in the orc kingdom abruptly finds out the second catch: as far as the orcs are concerned, their oppressive ‘peace treaty’ was with Joe Warrior as a person, not the Emperor of Magia as a position. As far as the orcs are concerned, peace is now over - unless that hapless bureaucrat can pull a miracle out of her hat.
In my head, it’s the sort of story that involves lots of politics, and semi-deliberate real-world overtones which might make it a bad idea for a White American to write it, and a metric ton of It’s Complicated. Mostly I just like the idea of a hapless not-at-all-warrior bureaucrat, phone to her ear as she tells her superior that for fuck’s sake, the emperor is dead, the orcs are about to rebel, what is she supposed to do now? and her superior suggesting, unhelpfully, that she re-conquer the orcs.
(This is the result of seeing a few Tumblr posts about how Queen Elizabeth II was the first Head of the Commonwealth (? - apparently not true, that was her father) and now that she's passed, the Commonwealth could be dissolved now kthxbai.)
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