First con ever!
i am almost done my costume, I'll post it right before I go and put a picture or two here and some on facebook.
Going as Agatha Clay from "Girl Genius." As I am not a seamstress of any kind, I have gladly made the first costume she uses in the webcomic series. It is a knit vest and skirt, which I have been making quite quickly. A seamstress I am not but I am a very experienced knitter and crocheter. Which took a while since knit skirts are apparently very rare in patterns listed on the web.
I swear by http://www.knittingpatterncentral.com
which has a sister site: http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com
the patterns are free for personal use, but if anyone wants to sell what they make themselves they need permission from the pattern author. And some come out and say so in their pattern/website that people can do what they want with it.
this is the pattern I am using: http://www.caron.com/projects/ss/ss7_cami_skirt.html
I am creating this for myself with accommodations for my size (I'm not petite. at least Agatha isn't either). And there are eyelets in the camisole that are not in Agatha's costume, but I did not want to pass up the chance to do something fancy.
Really though, I did not want to play around with the dimensions after taking out the eyelets. I did not want to break it down I just wanted a green vest and skirt. Of which the skirt is nearly half done. Yay.
A fourth "Lecture" is to come and it will be written for a more modern context, since it will appear here first and I don't know when I will be transmitting the 3rd and 4th lectures at all yet.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
NWN Lecture Series: 3 The First Experiment
Why are we here? Why were we made? I can't answer that. I can only reason with the information I do have.
What are we? The product of some divine invention? Possibly.
Well, the Gods came from the Time Before Time, before they were Less than Nothing. Undefinable. What I do know is that we are each the centre of our own universe. and the gods are so to their's. We could be a shared dream of the gods, an illusion. Or maybe I am a figment of one of yours imagination's and the rest of us are not real at all. I cannot say for sure on that. But I can say that were are most likely the product of some divine involvement.
Something from nothing, so the gods came, so we came. But if we came from "nothing" then it seems fair that the gods also came from this less than "nothing." so something perhaps precedes them is they are the product if It as well. As so on back, the strings lead to a puppeteer that also has strings and so on repeating the pattern onto apparent infinity.
So don't be angry if you don't like the gods and the positions you have put them in. Surely the gods have some of the same reservations of their creators. Like children angry with the 'rules' imposed by their parents. And we are the 'grandchildren' though shunned, not spoiled, by our grandparents.
So again, why? some gods have a purpose or a niche for their creations, most-every mortal race other than humans has a patron or patron-pantheon to themselves, filling the needs of all of their peoples. But the humans have anything and everything to choose from and some of the more dedicated can worship the gods intended for non-humans. So who created the humans? No one god seems responsible, going by my research. And on the various worlds no one god seems to claim creating humans.
So what if they were all of the above? Created for a purpose to be decided by the individual? No specific god's purview yet all of their responsibilities once all the gods are chosen by various humans? Or perhaps the 'grandparent' is doting on it's children's creations. The ground on which life resides is also a creation of the gods so it too is a 'grandchild.' There are so many variables that it is hard to pin anyone theory down. That's the other thing, there are so many unknowns it seems impossible to have been done on purpose this way.
What if the humans had conquests for world domination and took over the land for themselves? On Faerun they are still picking up the pieces of that lost empire of Netheril. What if the humans greatly erred, nearly brought the destruction of their own world on all of it's inhabitants and the gods intervened before their creations shifted into oblivion, erasing all knowledge of that former time so that it may never happen again? On Giae, it was called the Cataclysm. And since the gods have taken an active role in preventing it from happening again, we have forgotten, but the gods have not. So many variables that there is possibly worlds out there where it's residents have passed to oblivion and Sigil will never see their like.
We are flawed, we mortals, we can bring down complete destruction on ourselves. My research has yet to cover such worlds as Greyhawk, or Oerth as scholar's call it, but no doubt a continent that large has had many ways that they have avoided destruction.
Now, I have many experiments on various topics, I had a very pronounced lab in my home on Giae. Where many theories were tested, some failed, some did not, some produced results, some did not. But both those variables mixed together. Just because something was a failure did not mean that it did not produce results. You see the pattern now? Albeit I have not found the answer, I have only drawn similarities. But there is a definable pattern there that is repeated by myself at home. Though, from what I have seen of gods, a world's destruction takes all their worshipers with it and possibly drag the gods down as well. Though there is most likely gods above them, and if they are so distant there might only be one or a few that travel from realm to realm, checking on their "experiments."
Why would they do this? Well, the purpose of most things is to grow and change and learn. Grow into something more so that they can learn more; change based in what they learn and change to better learn; and learn for the sake of learning. Once survival is well in hand, most things try to learn. When i say most I mean that there are individuals that do not drive to learn, not races as a whole. Even demons want to learn more ways to trap the purer souls. Though things that don't technically 'think' like slimes and oozes probably don't 'learn' in any way we can understand. So would that not drive the gods as well?
They want to learn that their niche has purpose and how to 'push' it better with mortals. Whatever the exact reason the gods do what they do, they broker in information to their diviners for their own purposes. Sometimes all mortal has to go on is what their god told them, or dreamed them or hinted. . .
The gods are chant brokers. They are driven by information and what they can learn. So what do you think the 'grandparents' are driven by?
What they can learn from the gods.
Light and dark, and something and nothing make Anything and Everything. But information is what is universal to everything. And as anyone in the Cage would know, knowledge is power. Even knowing that is worth something. So as long as you can think, you will know and you will have power; the power that drives the Great Wheel of the multiverse round and round. It is ours to have, and the gods to have and their gods to have. So go an experiment and tinker in your own way as the rest of creation has done. Otherwise we have no purpose and will become Less than Nothing.
What are we? The product of some divine invention? Possibly.
Well, the Gods came from the Time Before Time, before they were Less than Nothing. Undefinable. What I do know is that we are each the centre of our own universe. and the gods are so to their's. We could be a shared dream of the gods, an illusion. Or maybe I am a figment of one of yours imagination's and the rest of us are not real at all. I cannot say for sure on that. But I can say that were are most likely the product of some divine involvement.
Something from nothing, so the gods came, so we came. But if we came from "nothing" then it seems fair that the gods also came from this less than "nothing." so something perhaps precedes them is they are the product if It as well. As so on back, the strings lead to a puppeteer that also has strings and so on repeating the pattern onto apparent infinity.
So don't be angry if you don't like the gods and the positions you have put them in. Surely the gods have some of the same reservations of their creators. Like children angry with the 'rules' imposed by their parents. And we are the 'grandchildren' though shunned, not spoiled, by our grandparents.
So again, why? some gods have a purpose or a niche for their creations, most-every mortal race other than humans has a patron or patron-pantheon to themselves, filling the needs of all of their peoples. But the humans have anything and everything to choose from and some of the more dedicated can worship the gods intended for non-humans. So who created the humans? No one god seems responsible, going by my research. And on the various worlds no one god seems to claim creating humans.
So what if they were all of the above? Created for a purpose to be decided by the individual? No specific god's purview yet all of their responsibilities once all the gods are chosen by various humans? Or perhaps the 'grandparent' is doting on it's children's creations. The ground on which life resides is also a creation of the gods so it too is a 'grandchild.' There are so many variables that it is hard to pin anyone theory down. That's the other thing, there are so many unknowns it seems impossible to have been done on purpose this way.
What if the humans had conquests for world domination and took over the land for themselves? On Faerun they are still picking up the pieces of that lost empire of Netheril. What if the humans greatly erred, nearly brought the destruction of their own world on all of it's inhabitants and the gods intervened before their creations shifted into oblivion, erasing all knowledge of that former time so that it may never happen again? On Giae, it was called the Cataclysm. And since the gods have taken an active role in preventing it from happening again, we have forgotten, but the gods have not. So many variables that there is possibly worlds out there where it's residents have passed to oblivion and Sigil will never see their like.
We are flawed, we mortals, we can bring down complete destruction on ourselves. My research has yet to cover such worlds as Greyhawk, or Oerth as scholar's call it, but no doubt a continent that large has had many ways that they have avoided destruction.
Now, I have many experiments on various topics, I had a very pronounced lab in my home on Giae. Where many theories were tested, some failed, some did not, some produced results, some did not. But both those variables mixed together. Just because something was a failure did not mean that it did not produce results. You see the pattern now? Albeit I have not found the answer, I have only drawn similarities. But there is a definable pattern there that is repeated by myself at home. Though, from what I have seen of gods, a world's destruction takes all their worshipers with it and possibly drag the gods down as well. Though there is most likely gods above them, and if they are so distant there might only be one or a few that travel from realm to realm, checking on their "experiments."
Why would they do this? Well, the purpose of most things is to grow and change and learn. Grow into something more so that they can learn more; change based in what they learn and change to better learn; and learn for the sake of learning. Once survival is well in hand, most things try to learn. When i say most I mean that there are individuals that do not drive to learn, not races as a whole. Even demons want to learn more ways to trap the purer souls. Though things that don't technically 'think' like slimes and oozes probably don't 'learn' in any way we can understand. So would that not drive the gods as well?
They want to learn that their niche has purpose and how to 'push' it better with mortals. Whatever the exact reason the gods do what they do, they broker in information to their diviners for their own purposes. Sometimes all mortal has to go on is what their god told them, or dreamed them or hinted. . .
The gods are chant brokers. They are driven by information and what they can learn. So what do you think the 'grandparents' are driven by?
What they can learn from the gods.
Light and dark, and something and nothing make Anything and Everything. But information is what is universal to everything. And as anyone in the Cage would know, knowledge is power. Even knowing that is worth something. So as long as you can think, you will know and you will have power; the power that drives the Great Wheel of the multiverse round and round. It is ours to have, and the gods to have and their gods to have. So go an experiment and tinker in your own way as the rest of creation has done. Otherwise we have no purpose and will become Less than Nothing.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
NWN Lecture Sereis: 2 The First Theory
Nothing needs Something for either to have any sort of definition. And True Oblivion can only exist AFTER things have been forgotten and lost.
Before needs After to obtain definition as well. But before there WAS a before and there was LESS than Nothing, there was the Time Before Time (before, during and after are concepts of time, so before there was Anything and Everything there was No Thing and No Time). Even the Gods do not speak of this time(or lack of it), for it is before them and whatever force brought Them into existence.
Anyway, from whatever was before before and time before time there was less than nothing some-thing came from It. It was neither light or dark or male or female, neither yet something in-between. From It came the Nothing which, of course, must have also been followed by the Something. Something that contained Everything and Anything. It contained everything that grew into everything that makes up our existence, every piece, person, plane and Being that would eventually come into being. As well as everything that would cease to be. though nothing stops being, it just changes it's state of being.
Something came of Nothing and now we have Everything. The thing is that if even the Gods do not talk about the Time Before Time, then there is no way to reconstitute how Something came from Nothing except with theory and conjecture. There was Something and Nothing and It was less than Nothing. Time and Worlds without end. . .
Yet what we know and what we can find out only go back so far until even those old enough to remember do not know. Sigil was there before the Lady of Pain came to it and can go back beyond even what she knows. and I bet that they would not remember what came long before them. So on and so on, the Beginning is lost to Oblivion.
This may seem a little far-fetched, but there is a time before your own memories. So why not the gods? Many worlds have gods that started as mortals, so as infinite as they seem, they can be based on us. Our foibles and limitations.
According to my research, on Abeir-Toril (where the continent Faerun is) a Goddess of Light and one of Dark came together and Abeir-Toril was the result. Many people from Faerun come to Sigil. what about the other continents? All those multitudes of people are the result of twin opposites coming together. But there was a before of that, then what came before that?
Something had to come before, because for the goddesses of light and dark, Toril was during for them. So to them there was a time before that. And before that and before that. Until you go back before even the God's understanding. What came before then? I don't know. I am only a man. I could not possibly have all the answers. It should be enough to share that even the gods have limits and that the Time Before Time is so beyond Everything's understanding because there are no words to describe it.
It was so long ago, that there were no words to describe it and there still is not. The Time Before Time that was Less Than Nothing and was No-Thing.
There was No-Thing which convalesced into Something and Nothing. Which became Everything and Anything from which the gods were able to form and in turn form that which we could call home one day. A Great Wheel of Planes that we and everything else in the multiverse can call home. It is all our home even if not all of us prefer or live in all it's rooms.
It is Something that once came from Nothing. But what came Before and how it came from Then to Now is such large a Dark is to not be found, yet, even by me. But I have come this far on my own and will go farther still. It is a work in progress.
Before needs After to obtain definition as well. But before there WAS a before and there was LESS than Nothing, there was the Time Before Time (before, during and after are concepts of time, so before there was Anything and Everything there was No Thing and No Time). Even the Gods do not speak of this time(or lack of it), for it is before them and whatever force brought Them into existence.
Anyway, from whatever was before before and time before time there was less than nothing some-thing came from It. It was neither light or dark or male or female, neither yet something in-between. From It came the Nothing which, of course, must have also been followed by the Something. Something that contained Everything and Anything. It contained everything that grew into everything that makes up our existence, every piece, person, plane and Being that would eventually come into being. As well as everything that would cease to be. though nothing stops being, it just changes it's state of being.
Something came of Nothing and now we have Everything. The thing is that if even the Gods do not talk about the Time Before Time, then there is no way to reconstitute how Something came from Nothing except with theory and conjecture. There was Something and Nothing and It was less than Nothing. Time and Worlds without end. . .
Yet what we know and what we can find out only go back so far until even those old enough to remember do not know. Sigil was there before the Lady of Pain came to it and can go back beyond even what she knows. and I bet that they would not remember what came long before them. So on and so on, the Beginning is lost to Oblivion.
This may seem a little far-fetched, but there is a time before your own memories. So why not the gods? Many worlds have gods that started as mortals, so as infinite as they seem, they can be based on us. Our foibles and limitations.
According to my research, on Abeir-Toril (where the continent Faerun is) a Goddess of Light and one of Dark came together and Abeir-Toril was the result. Many people from Faerun come to Sigil. what about the other continents? All those multitudes of people are the result of twin opposites coming together. But there was a before of that, then what came before that?
Something had to come before, because for the goddesses of light and dark, Toril was during for them. So to them there was a time before that. And before that and before that. Until you go back before even the God's understanding. What came before then? I don't know. I am only a man. I could not possibly have all the answers. It should be enough to share that even the gods have limits and that the Time Before Time is so beyond Everything's understanding because there are no words to describe it.
It was so long ago, that there were no words to describe it and there still is not. The Time Before Time that was Less Than Nothing and was No-Thing.
There was No-Thing which convalesced into Something and Nothing. Which became Everything and Anything from which the gods were able to form and in turn form that which we could call home one day. A Great Wheel of Planes that we and everything else in the multiverse can call home. It is all our home even if not all of us prefer or live in all it's rooms.
It is Something that once came from Nothing. But what came Before and how it came from Then to Now is such large a Dark is to not be found, yet, even by me. But I have come this far on my own and will go farther still. It is a work in progress.
NWN Lecture Series: 1 Something from Nothing
without darkness, light loses definition. you have things or you do not. Life, death.
you cannot have something, unless you once had something else, or nothing at all.
something or nothing or something in-between. but you cannot have one thing, without two things, or nothing.
what is nothing? an absence of something? so nothing is no-something and no-nothing is something?
for that matter, what about no-where? for if something is truly no-where, you cannot go-there.
you can go somewhere you have never been before, where you do not know where the way back is.. *underline know where*
no where is some where you do not know. but you are still there.
know where must have some where to truly be nowhere.
you may have not been everywhere in the outer planes, but someone has, or something. the ethereal plane is the nowhere that goes somewhere through all the inner planes. as the astral, and it's undefinable infinity, is the nowhere between everywhere in the outer and the Prime for that matter. As the shadow fills in the nowhere between the somwhere's of other worlds. even when you think there is nothing, something waits for us all around some-where.
life and death. nothing truly goes away, it is merely changed. bodies grow, die, rot. the soul moves to it's appropriate home, or the ethereal if it cannot find a place. but in the end we all go somewhere. though for most people that somewhere is beyond what they know where, so is no-where. but to the multiverse it is somewhere.
take a piece of meat, cut it in two. it is two and cannot be one. and one divided makes two. if the one was truly one then it could not make two? no, two halves make a whole and one whole can be made smaller. not less, just more spread out. is the multiverse truly divided or is it one whole with walls put up to make many that add together to make on whole. go the other way, cut and cut and cut and you get more pieces of the one whole. was it truly one?
zero is indivisible, but what of debt? zero can go beyond to less than nothing. * draw a line eats to west. +1 at east, 0 at centre and -1 at west* what if zero is a transitory state between something and shades of nothing?
perhaps the prime is the nothing state of the inner. and Sigil is the transitory state of the outer. Sigil is not nothing, for even nothing is something. nothing is not the end, but the beginning of something more. without nothing there can be no possibility for shades of nothing. and those shades are merely divisions reverse to divisions of something. nothing bear definitions. shades. *north-south line. north +1, south -1* Everything have degrees of something and nothing. yet this cannot define everything, it had two degrees of definition. we need three. *casts silent image and 'draws' a line out towards the crowd and 'draws' +1* I"m not sure if can get the right illusion 'into' the board. but lets say minus one is in there. We are all zero, nothing. and everything else is a given distance away, far or near. yet we are made of something. and nothing. and so is everything else.
something is Everything. and what is that that divides everything? why nothing. nothing is between one and two. yet a division has to be made. a wall. a line. a stop-gap. a gap of nothing. something is defined by the existence of nothing and there is nothing in something, everything.
i can enlarge the piece of meat and take my knife and make it so small i can barely see it. bring it back to normal size, it disappears. shrink it and even the normally visible pieces become invisible and undividable. yet it WAS visible and it WAS divisible. is a halfling any less something for being smaller? a giant is MORE divisible for being larger? not really. we are all made of something and something is divided by nothing.
we are all defined by the nothing in us all that makes us definable. for when something and nothing come together and make EVERYTHING. nothing is a part of us, all of us. and without it something loses definition and the nothing that follows is indescribably with mortal words.
life-death. young-old. knowledge-ignorance. hot-cold. light-dark. white-black. good-bad. law-chaos. beginning-end and everything in between. made of something and nothing. Nothing is Everything and there's a universe full of us, wandering around, doing something with nothing. we all are. just different shades of the everything that makes up something and nothing.
without that, there would be no universe, no gods, no magic, no life.no? but what about Yes?
fin
you cannot have something, unless you once had something else, or nothing at all.
something or nothing or something in-between. but you cannot have one thing, without two things, or nothing.
what is nothing? an absence of something? so nothing is no-something and no-nothing is something?
for that matter, what about no-where? for if something is truly no-where, you cannot go-there.
you can go somewhere you have never been before, where you do not know where the way back is.. *underline know where*
no where is some where you do not know. but you are still there.
know where must have some where to truly be nowhere.
you may have not been everywhere in the outer planes, but someone has, or something. the ethereal plane is the nowhere that goes somewhere through all the inner planes. as the astral, and it's undefinable infinity, is the nowhere between everywhere in the outer and the Prime for that matter. As the shadow fills in the nowhere between the somwhere's of other worlds. even when you think there is nothing, something waits for us all around some-where.
life and death. nothing truly goes away, it is merely changed. bodies grow, die, rot. the soul moves to it's appropriate home, or the ethereal if it cannot find a place. but in the end we all go somewhere. though for most people that somewhere is beyond what they know where, so is no-where. but to the multiverse it is somewhere.
take a piece of meat, cut it in two. it is two and cannot be one. and one divided makes two. if the one was truly one then it could not make two? no, two halves make a whole and one whole can be made smaller. not less, just more spread out. is the multiverse truly divided or is it one whole with walls put up to make many that add together to make on whole. go the other way, cut and cut and cut and you get more pieces of the one whole. was it truly one?
zero is indivisible, but what of debt? zero can go beyond to less than nothing. * draw a line eats to west. +1 at east, 0 at centre and -1 at west* what if zero is a transitory state between something and shades of nothing?
perhaps the prime is the nothing state of the inner. and Sigil is the transitory state of the outer. Sigil is not nothing, for even nothing is something. nothing is not the end, but the beginning of something more. without nothing there can be no possibility for shades of nothing. and those shades are merely divisions reverse to divisions of something. nothing bear definitions. shades. *north-south line. north +1, south -1* Everything have degrees of something and nothing. yet this cannot define everything, it had two degrees of definition. we need three. *casts silent image and 'draws' a line out towards the crowd and 'draws' +1* I"m not sure if can get the right illusion 'into' the board. but lets say minus one is in there. We are all zero, nothing. and everything else is a given distance away, far or near. yet we are made of something. and nothing. and so is everything else.
something is Everything. and what is that that divides everything? why nothing. nothing is between one and two. yet a division has to be made. a wall. a line. a stop-gap. a gap of nothing. something is defined by the existence of nothing and there is nothing in something, everything.
i can enlarge the piece of meat and take my knife and make it so small i can barely see it. bring it back to normal size, it disappears. shrink it and even the normally visible pieces become invisible and undividable. yet it WAS visible and it WAS divisible. is a halfling any less something for being smaller? a giant is MORE divisible for being larger? not really. we are all made of something and something is divided by nothing.
we are all defined by the nothing in us all that makes us definable. for when something and nothing come together and make EVERYTHING. nothing is a part of us, all of us. and without it something loses definition and the nothing that follows is indescribably with mortal words.
life-death. young-old. knowledge-ignorance. hot-cold. light-dark. white-black. good-bad. law-chaos. beginning-end and everything in between. made of something and nothing. Nothing is Everything and there's a universe full of us, wandering around, doing something with nothing. we all are. just different shades of the everything that makes up something and nothing.
without that, there would be no universe, no gods, no magic, no life.no? but what about Yes?
fin
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