hello from Yukari

I hope this is working...my first experience with Blog....
I uploaded a color version of Luthan (a rough copy). I don't like it too much, so I will be doing more work on Luthan when I get the time to. Your feedbacks will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Thanks and welcome!

Lynda

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Ditatt, in Cinema
I had a hunt around for photos of the delectable Belgian actor I thought would do as a model for Ditatt, but found nothing better than the photo on the very flash'd official site for Brotherhood of the Wolf. The actor is Jeremie Renier, and he plays Thomas D'Apcher. There's one photo that I saw under "Cast", though you have to scrub away at it a while with the cursor (no click needed, it's a mouseover) to bring his face out of the shadow-effect; he's better in the film. Renier has done some contemporary films but all the other stills he looked rather scruffy and contemporary-adolescent. Tatt's an aristocrat, even in his scruffy moments.
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Guidelines for New Design
I have some up, based on my research to date into usability issues (balanced with yen to do flash and graphics stuff). See our http://www.okalrel.org/new site, design 1 button. Might convert the design 1 and design 2 choices to be "guidelines" and "prototype" respectively as time marches on, depending on whether we have general agreement as to how to proceed. BTW Yukari has been invited to join the blog so she can work with you on getting an image for Erien et al and with us on the web site overhaul. She hasn't been in evidence yet because...well, she and Patryck had a close encounter of the Northern B.C. kind on a camping trip this weekend and they haven't quite got over the sleepless nights involved in being bear-bothered. :-)
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Yukari's Female Character

Looking at her again, I thought, mmm, very pretty but those eyes...what about Alivda?

That there's an empire out there, and it's mine look that makes her father and grandmother think she should have been drowned at birth. I have her walking around in my head, thinking dark thoughts about having her weird brother show up and be handed on a platter the job she thought ought to be hers. She'll figure it still can be hers if her brother screws up enough, or gets himself killed, and she won't be above encouraging that happy event, as long as Amel won't catch her at it. - A.

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Hail and off to Van

Thanks for the files. Marking tonight, unfortunately. I would like to see Yukari do Erien, too. I'll direct her to the plausible models. She's put up another picture -- a take on Ev'rel -- which is also very pretty but Ev'rel is a harder looking, more intellectual type I think. Maybe I can get her to do Luthan. :-) Off to Van tomorrow evening for an all day admin pro-d event Friday. Might get a little time on my sister's PC in the evening but otherwise won't be back online until Monday night at the earliest.

Thanks for the "spello" notification. trigger is one of my banes. Just highlighted it in my little PC-side Merriam-Webster's. Want to talk with you one night about the STIs, before we make any final decisions about the nitty gritty and make adjustments. The page is done in Dreamweaver (layers) with flash animation buttons (available in Dreamweaver) and the STI animation made separately in Flash and inserted using Dreamweaver. Only got half the layers converted to tables before I put it up. Maybe it's no longer necessary to do that, though. Seems most current browsers can do layers. Opera had no trouble with them either way. Except I need to tidy up the sizes of things. I'll do that when I've got the definitions down and we've all agreed on the categories. Trouble with graphics-oriented work is it is harder to fiddle with sans mess. :-)

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And now for something completely irrelevant
Discworld Quotes
Highlights (sic) from Terry Pratchett's Discworld trilogy. Some, you do have to know the people involved. But some are just plain hysterical.
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Files uploaded
I have just finished uploading a bunch of RTF files generated from Word and AppleWorks into the depot. I put them in a separate directory, within the Far Arena one; you can inspect and shift them into the main one. Have fun! I haven't done a fix on Perry saying "If they want the station, I'll take the challenge," since it was only the station she was talking about. The rules of challenge for demesnes are clear enough, but what about stations, which often are held by lesser sevolites in the name of others ... over to you, Lynda, as final arbiter of things Gelack.

I like the STI "articlet" very much. Is it flash or fireworks? Have you linked it to your Reetion political system article. We will search and make consistent all references to the STI system in Arena; fortunately, we did not use them in TP. Typo: trigger has an e. And Yukari's Amel is winsome and a elfin. Does she know her way around Illustrator or equivalent yet? If she wants to take a crack at Erien, the two faces that best fit my idea of Erien are Ioan Gruffudd (Welsh actor, plays Horatio Hornblower on A&E), for the young Erien, and Elrond as he is seen in the Lord of the Rings (the actor looks quite different from the character - for one, he's blonde!) for the grim, mature Erien. Minus the knotted brow. When I saw the first Horatio Hornblower series I could see the overstrung, edgy brilliance of Erien on Kali station, winging it on inspiration and adrenaline and the knowledge that he cannot live with failure.
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Reetion Social Transparency Indices

New article for ORU site at http://www.okalrel.org/ref/articles/riresti0.html, up as a draft for Alison and David's input. (David suggested I order the STI's on a 0-n scale of increasing publicness. I've tried to do that. It means some editing to fix references to STI 7 in Mekan'stan and Far Arena. It should now be STI 1. See what you think.

Inspired by Yukari's contribution to do something "flashy". :-) Next best thing to being able to draw. :-( We'll have to see if we can get her to illustrate some other characters!

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Yukari

See message below from Yukari. Wow! I'm amazed! And a bit speechless. The picture is lovely. Wish I could draw like that! Yukari is also learning Flash with me and her husband Patryck, this summer, and will contribute to our new design.

Hello Lynda, I uploaded a sketch of Amel (my version of "utterly gorgeous") to http://www.okalrel.org/yukari . Please let me know if that is even remotely close to Amel! :D Soon I will upload other things. Yukari

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update
New version of chapter 19 dated May 20, based on tinkering in the process of reading aloud to David. See notes re: STI 0 on first page. (An issue we should discuss on the phone, and would have to distribute throughout if we tackle it.)
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Will do
When I get back this evening.
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FA drafts
I have uploaded chapter 20a May 19 version. Please review. Also, can you provide RTF versions of earlier chapters (one of each, your most recent pass)?
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Added a bit ...
To Lynda's snippet below.

Ditto. Lynda.

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CH 19 Tough Assignment
Okay, this time I read the WHOLE thing. Uploaded in May 17 version. Old version now in previous.
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Amel and Exercise

A scrap of a scene that occurred to me as I was driving to work today.

Amel let himself down stiffly on the couch and laid his head back.    Mira pushed aside her screen. "Training?" she guessed, conversationally.    Amel closed his eyes. "I know Tatt means well." He rallied then, and sat up with a wince. "But the last two weeks confirm my original take on getting trained. All it amounts to is letting my friends beat me up regularly in the vain hope I'll embarrass them less dramatically when I screw up for real." His ill humor tipped into a successfully resisted urge to weep. "Why am I so utterly hopeless at this, Mira? I can read body language. Half the time, it's not even that I can't see what's coming. And when I'm dancing I don't lose my nerve, even with a novice who might hit me by mistake. But when I'm training--" He gestured abortively. "--when I ought to be responding I'm too busy anticipating getting hit." He signed again, dejectedly. "I flinch."    Amel blinked a few times, rapidly, scowling at himself for how close to the surface his emotions were. He lowered his head and pushed a splayed hand through his feathery black hair, but stopped halfway through the gesture in a way that betrayed his hand was tender, and muttered apologetically, "Have you got something for aches and pains that works on highborn physiology?" Mira's eyes glinted. "Well, actually, I do. Would it be any consolation to you if I told you you weren't my first customer today?" "Not ... Ditatt?" Amel said, dubiously. He doubted he'd landed anything that hard. "No, heir Gelion. Leige Nersal, it seems, is of like mind to Prince Ditatt." Amel looked blank a moment, then he laughed. And winced, regretting that. But he said, "Yes, actually." And smiled at her. "That is consoling, in fact." Suddenly he looked worried again. "Liege Nersal would never want to honor me like that?" He thought about it, biting a lip, then relaxed. "No, he doesn't think I'm worth it. Oh, Gods," he had another thought. "You don't think Ditatt's going to give Vretla ideas?" He considered that possibility with nearly equal dread a moment. "At least there's some hope of distracting Vretla. Failing that, maybe I can convince her that Erien is more likely to benefit from her tutelage." "Amel ... " Mira chided, "that's mean."

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New Site Planning
Book I am reading about site planning says ... do some. So decided to at least start on the ORU. Check out http://www.okalrel.org/new. Most of the links don't go anywhere yet, but I did set up a page for "inspirations" with some of our "this reminds me of" and experimental images. Too many of them on one page but didn't take to-o-o-o long for me on my shaw connection. Every planning guide tells you that you have to know the purpose of your web site, and be able to summarize it, like a mission statement, so I've taken a stab at that. See what you think.
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Scene Duplication
As in gene duplication. Lynda, Check chapter 19 - I think you may have intended to replace things, but have wound up with some things eg Nubia making a move on Amel, happening twice.

Oh oh. Thanks

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Names
Marking in WebCT I keep reading the same login names over and over and some of them grow on you. The way we do login ids produce things that look name-like but are not really anyone's exact name, but pieces of both last name and first name. I can envision a character named: jethar and maybe holobof, hofera or warkent.:-)

PS reverted to your suggestion we use dates in file names, in the upload directory. Trying to keep exactly ONE version of each chapter there as things evolve. Goal of the last edit noted on top of the first page. Previous version saved to the previous directory before current edit. I worked on chapter 19 yesterday. Also broke up chapter 20 as we'd discussed and named them 20a, 20b and 20c so as not to disrupt other names for now.
posted by Lynda at 19:57   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Looking at chapter 20

Getting back into the swing of it. :-)

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Ditatt knocking over glasses
I like that image. Also the business of fencing in the Okal Rel Universe being a sport and enthusiasm as well as a legal system; a cultural focus as definite as Canada's Hocky obsession or the U.S. interest in baseball, or maybe comparable to fascination with modern rock stars or historical divas. The only time I've actually spent in fencing gear is the time when you suited me up at MacMaster. Kept meaning to go and at least watch the UNBC Free Blades practice but failing that I sometimes look around on the HACA web site or read books like The Secret History of the Sword by J. Christoph Amberger which is explicitly about dueling. The notion of thigh and hand/forearm wounds being common consequences of a duel comes from articles in The Secret History. To get back to the "fencing as a social phenomenon" idea, I listen to sports talk that goes on around me to get ideas for things like Ses Nersal, in Second Contact, talking about Hendricks D'Astor and wishing she'd seen Di Mon fight him, and also the "feel" of the exchange between Prince H'Us and Di Mon about Hendricks in which H'Us awkwardly (tacitly acknowledging suspition that Vrellish swords are better) thanks Di Mon for not killing Hendricks and Di Mon tells him simply and gruffly that he didn't kill him because he couldn't. Di Mon is just being honorably honest, and Vrellishly blunt about facts. Von basing his "jokes" in the dance he adapts (Mekan'stan's Challenge) on recent court duels is another example. The roll of the duel as high entertainment, re-enacted for months in sword dances and talked about in dens, is part of the fabric of Gelack life. Ditatt is probably a bit of a Wayne Gretzky to many tournament goers and aspiring fencers Under Gelion. We should think about how fans express themselves. Let's see. There'd be sword dance tributes (established in Second Contact); souvenirs/good luck icons (est. in both U.B. and T.P.); re-hashing in dens...I wonder if people might "wear their hero's colors" by showing braid patches or wearing house crest pins or something the way we wear T-shirts. Interesting possibilities for clashes with the family allegiences. :-) I suggested a bit of that in Second Contact with Prince Taran, who is a D'Ander fan even though he last saw D'Ander fight in a duel against his uncle over financial interests bearing on Demora.
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The Fencing Master
I shouldn't delude myself I can go into a bookshop without coming out with a book. And the blog was an impetus towards the acquisition of this one - "I can blog about this," I thought. It's The Fencing Master, by Arturo Perez-Reverte, Spain's version of JK Rawlings, only he writes for grownups - literary thrillers. I had actually seen the film of this book in Leeds. It's set in Madrid, 1868, in a time of political upheaval, which the main character is doing his best to ignore. He's a 56-year-old fencing master, an aescetic dedicate at the end of his prime - skill and experience having carried him far beyond his physical peak. But he is aware of the nearness of old age, and aware that his skills, dedication and honour make him an anachronism. He is eking out a living teaching the scions of the nobility, and the occasional noble, such as the engaging, dissolute Luis de Ayala, and pursuing his own holy grail, the unstoppable thrust. He has devised a move that is - if not quite unstoppable, a highly effective attack - and is prepared to teach it to chosen people, for a sum of money. Enter Adela de Ortero, an accomplished fencer and a beautiful woman with a scar beside her mouth, and a glint of cruelty in her eyes. Initially resistant, he agrees to take her on as a pupil, and to teach her the move. And his arid, aescetic heart begins to soften. Then Luis de Ayala asks him for an introduction to her; the introduction is effected; Luis becomes troubled and asks the fencing master to keep some papers for him; and then he is murdered, and the fencing master recognizes the mark of his own technique.

The fencing is described in technical language. I sat gesticulating with a soup-spoon over lunch, working through the moves - once I had grasped that quarte and sixte needed to be reversed. I presume that was a reflection of the convention of the time rather than a mistranslation, since it would be a rather glaring error to make, rather like getting right and left switched. It made me think, though, about the challenges in writing a sport or a martial art: how technical does one get? While I appreciated the technical terminology, because it left me in no doubt what was happening, it would go right past a non-fencer. Dave Duncan took a different approach in his King's Blades series, by giving all the various moves their own, local names. So that nobody knows what he means! I enjoyed the King's Blades series for his wicked "take" on Henry VIII and his wives and chancellors in the first book, and the splendid Durandel, who matures from a blockheaded young blade to an elder statesman, quite believably. And the equally splendid Malinda in the third book (Sky of Swords), who is wrong-headed and error-prone and eventually facing defeat, but never, ever quits - I was reading it at the same time as I was reading another fantasy, which I never finished, because the powerful heroine spent the first third of the book in a coma and was just so inert that she never made any mistakes until she suddenly got it together at the end ... but I digress. I should think about how Gelacks talk about fencing. So far I have just approached it descriptively, but I might take a shot at a scene where 'Tatt is retelling a particularly exciting tournament, gesturing with the silverware and knocking over wineglasses.

The Fencing Master is not the best known of Perez-Reverte's novels. I've taken The Seville Communion out of the library: someone has hacked into the Vatican computer system and left a message on the Pope's own computer, asking the Pope to pay attention to a "church that kills to defend itself", a small church in Seville slated for demolition, with the property developers and bankers circling avidly. Two men have died "accidentally" in the church, one falling from scaffolding, one crushed by falling masonry. A career priest, Father Quart, a shrewd, ruthless, polished skeptic - not an innocent - is sent to investigate. I think you'd enjoy the hacker. I did.
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