what_ho_chaps | Member Posts

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The semi-attached bedchamber I mentioned before is assigned to the Chara To Be – that is, the heir to the Chara.

For centuries, no women except the Consort and the High Lord's wife have lived in the East Wing of the Chara's palace. Any children of the Chara and the High Lord have been raised elsewhere in the palace. The current High Lord visits his children daily, often spending entire evenings with them.

The one exception to the rule against families dwelling in the East Wing is that, upon reaching the age at which he can read, the Chara To Be is moved to the bedchamber directly next to his father's quarters, so that he can begin to learn the law. He is tended by servants and, in recent decades, by a tutor assigned to him. The tutor lives elsewhere in the East Wing; however, the Chara To Be may enter the Chara's quarters at any time, and he is permitted to spend time playing with the scribe-boys across the hall. He is thus less isolated than were earlier Charas To Be: young boys who were expected to quietly read law books all day.

The previous Chara To Be is now Chara. He is young enough that he has not yet married, but presumably he will do so and will install his own heir in the bedchamber.

The bedchamber is guarded by the same men who guard the Chara. Do not approach that door in the corridor.

[Translator's note: The Ambassador first came to know the Chara To Be's chamber during the period of Re-creation.]

dine

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kathmandu

Happy Birthday,

twistedchick!

Current Mood: cheerful

dine

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dine

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wembley

1. me: huh, i'll usually avoid anything Mark Millar writes like the plague, but Huck (2015) seems interesting.

a few pages in: wow, was Millar visited by three Christmas ghosts? This is so sweet. Just a secretly-superpowered sweet big lug cinnamon roll helping out his neighbors:

then: BOKO HARAM?!?!?!

2. Not to out myself and if you read this then iykyk, but I've been avoiding the real world news horrors by reading vintage wank on Fanlore. Guys, it's beautiful.

First: Barbara P. Gordon. She had beef with a lot of people! A lot of people had beef with her! Plus, people were mad she wrote kinky Kirk/Spock noncon slavefic fisting! Did you have beef with Barbara? If so, please tell me.

Second: 1978 Atlanta Schuster Star Trek_Convention: A Massive Fandom Rift

Emphasis mine:

... after that newscast on Saturday night, I was verbally assaulted by a mannerless fanatic in the hotel's restaurant, and she continued to harass me all day Sunday.

It should have ended at that point, however, in an editorial of another zine, I have been obliquely accused of taking this childish person to task - not because of the way she acted - but because she is strongly identified with the K/S gay experiment now being foisted on Fandom.

Another issue at the con, according to a different person:

... it was a shock when I read the following notice on the official convention program: "To prevent overcrowding, William Shatner will Autograph only copies of his record album, 'William Shatner Live'."

This upset fans because even the most obsessed Star Trek fans probably did not want to buy William Shatner Live. (I'll say it, though: that mid-2000s album produced by Ben Folds has my favorite version of "Common People". The Henry Rollins duet is also fun.) Also, everyone was already at the con when this was announced, it sounds like? So yeah, it really seemed like just a way to keep the autograph line as short as possible.

Anyway, a local news reporter asked a fan about the autograph situation and apparently the edited version came across like "a direct attack on Mr. Shatner — but it was not..."

Then [Carol F] entered the scene and proceeded to attack Rebecca verbally as well. The only way to describe the attack is to say it was an outpouring of hatred, hostility, and verbal acid. Among other things, Carol accused Rebecca of "washing dirty linen in public". ... to the extent that I finally spoke up and said: 'Oh, Carol, shut up!' Of course, that only made things worse.

Anyway, maybe my friends had a point when they recently said, "[Wembley], you love misery." I don't! I really don't! ...do I?

Third:

Sometimes, an actor writes a novel about the character he played on the sci-fi show he was on and the fans really like it! (See: A Stitch In Time)

And sometimes, they really, really don't: Avon: A Terrible Aspect

Stunning stuff.

dine

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duskpeterson

The place where you are standing or sitting is the Chara's sitting chamber. You are privileged to see it; most visitors only encounter the Chara in his court or at receptions. The primary purpose of the sitting chamber is to provide the Chara with a place to relax with his friends during his brief moments of leisure.

To your right is the hearth, and over it is carved the royal emblem. This was added during the reign of the previous Chara. Directly opposite is a doorway leading into a semi-separate bedchamber, of which we will speak later.

Directly in front of you is the law. This impressive display of books, in a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, constitutes the Emorian edition of the Chara's law. You must not touch the books, but if you admire them from afar, the Chara may unbend enough to talk of the law with you. By all means, take this opportunity to learn more about the law from Emor's High Judge.

A small window to the left of the bookcase offers a splendid view of the black border mountains.

Other objects and chambers in the quarters are entirely private. Do not touch anything in the Chara's quarters – I emphasize that. Over the centuries, the Chara's dungeon has been filled with many men who accidentally let their hands touch something forbidden that belonged to the Chara.

In a word, visiting the Chara – at least, the current Chara – is an intimidating experience. Let us leave here as quickly as possible.

[Translator's note: Due caution in these quarters is shown by the protagonist of Law of Vengeance.]

dine

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thisbluespirit

Before I had the cold (which is not entirely over, but is much better now) I had a few things I was going to put into a post. They are now extremely random, mostly belated, and not equal, so apologies for a motley post, but I did want to note:

1.

beccadg is having a lot of health issues and has a GoFundMe.

2. I saw two posts about Small Prophets, one talking about the influence of all the stopmotion children's animation in it, and another person saying that whatever you'd call the exact inverse of English folk horror, that's what Mackenzie Crook's work is. All of which smashed together in my head to make me go: OMG, he made Bagpuss for adults! (I mean, it's not, but also it is. And Bagpuss is also some sort of exact inverse of 70s folk horror, too. Artisanal children's TV in terms of being literally crafted by hand and its simple but beautiful storytelling structure.)

3. Before I got too ill to do such radical things as watch TV on my PC again, I managed to actually watch ep1 of Miami Medical (with Jeremy Northam and Lana Parrilla), and discovered that when you watch a full ep instead of just Lana clips, what's up with Jeremy Northam's accent is much clearer, in that it was never meant to be a US accent, just that his character had been working in Maryland for 10 years and the "I'm from Maryland, as you can tell by the accent" was actually ironic. Someone calls him "Mr Tea and Biscuits" in the next scene. (Most of the eps are there. Hopefully I shall be able to watch them sometime and all will become clearer than the random Lana snippets.)

4.

sovay pointed me to uploaded episodes of The Expert on YouTube, including 2 from 1971 that I had managed to miss featured... James Maxwell! \o/ I was even too ill to manage watching this on my tablet for ages, too.

In true JM form he was very nervy and awkward and also unfortunately too gentle and unmanly to survive a small push in the 1970s. Alas. He is such a delicate 6"3 baritone flower, lol. He fell over in the beginning of part 2 and next thing I knew they were doing an autopsy on him and now I'm too worried about where this is going to watch the rest (yet). (The channel also seems to have a lot of rare stuff - this is a never released on DVD or repeated item, so they must have a collection of their own, presumably.)

5. Bookending this, Michael Keating, better known to me as Vila from Blake's 7 died when I was too numbed from the cold to really comment on it - and then yesterday, the news broke about Anthony Head, too, and I was very sad to hear both & both by all accounts, lovely people too. Michael had apparently had dementia for some years and after B7 worked mainly in theatre, and also got very into rambling, but he didn't need to do more TV to leave an impact: Vila was iconic, someone he made a very likeable and relatable figure in the midst of all the rebels vs. Federation struggles. I'm watching Sesskasays react to B7 for the first time and, in these early stages, Vila is her favourite. Mine too. I love all the characters, and adored Jacqeline as Servalan, but Vila is my favourite. He's the 'small man' archetype out of a fantasy story, living in a snarky fascist space universe. How could he not be?

I was late to the party with Buffy (although I remember watching the Gold Blend ads as a child!) but as a newbie librarian, I borrowed the VHS tapes from our library, and Giles was of course immediately my favourite, and then Anthony Head was always marvellous in everything. I hadn't dreamed we weren't going to get a few more years yet of unexpected bonus ASH in random TV or radio. He was in DW (audio and visual), Jonathan Creek's pilot, Cabin Pressure, but 3 things other than Giles I'll remember him for, particularly:- his first TV appearance in Enemy at the Door, where he played the Martels' son Clive, trapped on the island after a misguided raid by the British army goes wrong; an outstanding performance in s1 of Spooks, where he played Tom Quinn's mentor, jaded and screwed up, in a tragic crash-and-burn guest turn (N.B. warning for all the things, this is Spooks); and at the other end of the scale, being absolutely marvellous and hilarious every episode of 5 series of Bleak Expectations as the villainous Mr Gently Benevolent, whether exercising his trademark evil laugh, reincarnated as a pigeon, reformed, unreformed, or cheeseboarding Pip (with a break for tea and biscuits). It got me through a rough summer in 2013. Washing up badly is not the same as washing up evilly.

dine

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duskpeterson

ONLINE E-BOOK (html, epub, mobi, pdf, and xhtml)

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The Motley Crew (The Thousand Nations). When a young man named Dolan flees from the north, he faces danger on all sides. The Northern Army wants him back. The Empire of Emor wants him dead. His native homeland of Koretia may not want him at all. And his only protection is a man with motives that are mysterious and possibly deadly.

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