Kaymyth

Here's a site that's got some good description and some drawings of a havah: http://botanicaxu.tumblr.com/post/139649638654/polk1986-botanicaxu-vorin-havah-explained As for corsetry, unless you're lucky enough to live in a city with a corsetry supply store, obtaining supplies generally requires the internet. I get a lot of my stuff from Farthingales US, though for Europe I think Vena Cava in the UK is the preferred choice. I also use online stores like corsetsupplies.com and Richard the Thread to get bits and pieces; really, a lot depends on who has what in stock and at what price at the time. Corsets are labor-intensive and require a good eye for detail. Coutil is the fabric of choice for the strength layer; it's expensive, but you generally only need about a half a yard of it for a single corset. They can be built in 1-3 layers of fabric; an undergarment can be made in a single layer with boning channels sewn on, though I generally prefer at least a double-layer corset. But you only need one layer to be coutil. DO NOT WASH COUTIL - it will take out all of the stiffness and sizing. Corsets are generally spot cleaned; you wouldn't want to put them in the wash anyway with all that steel inside. And you always want to have a light chemise or camisole in between your skin and the corset, both for comfort and to keep the corset from picking up any oils from your body. If you've got a well-defined waist, you can probably make a havah look good without the foundation garment. But I'd never try it without a corset underneath 'cause the first place extra weight goes on me is my stomach.

Or the third option I've seen kicked around: He forgot which door they came out of, and X'd them all just to be sure he got the right one.

Sometimes I use elastic, sometimes snaps or buttons. Or you can use a combination. Bustles generally attach with hooks or ties; you can get a lot of mileage out of a simple hook-and-eye setup. Corsets, though - those are their own interesting beasts. They're really half sewing, half engineering, and require specialized pieces. I use a combination of spring steel and spiral steel for the boning, and the front closure is with a corset busk. It's basically a pair of flat steels with hooks on one, knobs on the other, and its sewn into the front corset pieces. The back is grommeted and closes with laces; tightening those laces is what gives you a waist reduction. Corsets are generally a vital base piece to any period costume. If you're going to be wearing several pounds of fabric in skirts and bustling, you need a solid foundation garment underneath. The corset actually helps distribute the weight of the skirts so that they're easier to wear, and it smooths out your lines so that the bodice looks good. For a havah, I'd put a corset on underneath, just because I have teh belly pudge and require some cinching in order to have a waistline. I think for anyone, though, a basic corset would help keep the lines clean and prevent wrinkling and clumping of the garment. For closures on the dress, though, I'd have buttons up the front, with the military-esque front piece buttoning over the top of the main closure.

It really depends on what type of garment you're making. For pants, a fly zipper is really the way to go. Skirts can go either way. Shirts (should) never need zippers. See, one of the advantages to cosplay is that I have yet to be required to insert a zipper into a costume piece.

New comic is up! Oh, Monster in the Darkness, you sneaky, loveable, adorable little whatever-you-are.

True. Though unless we're dealing with a memory wipe situation, we know that they spend their entire lives in-State. Even a few weeks of being out is enough to harm muscle tone; months would lead to some seriously weakened people. If the Wode aren't lying about them being in there from birth, they'll have muscles and a skeletal system that never developed properly. It'd be sort of like the people in Wall-E except with none of the heartwarming Pixar happy ending.

Plus, where do you go? Your body is, at best, atrophied from a lifetime of disuse. At worst, you don't have a body at all and you're a brain in a jar. Despite what Futurama tells us, that is not a particularly viable way to live.

It's a neat party trick, but not something I'd expect most professional musicians choose to do. A lot of the tone of a wind instrument comes from the breath support, and switching that from your diaphragm to your cheeks will cause a substantial drop in tone quality.

There are tricks that make zippers a little bit easier, but mostly I find them to be horrible, cursed objects that deserve the most vile language I can summon.

The 0/o substitution won't work in a lot of states; Kansas, at least, considers them to be the same character. My license plate says Vworp because I drive a Cardis.

I think you nailed it.

Um. Well then. I...see.

Huh. Learn something new every day. So much for using the standard formula for creating a Scadrian name: "Take a real name, change a letter or two, and poof! Here's a character."

Fun fact: "Everybody's Fool" is basically the perfect theme song for an entire story arc of Angel. You will almost certainly recognize it when you get to it.

I downloaded my WorldCon voting packet yesterday. I...have rather a lot of things that I need to read now.

I've got the same thing going on, except that my capacity is in the mere -5000%-ish range.

RE: crushes They can fade, they can mutate. They can be fun to indulge your imagination in, even if you have no intention of following through on anything. Mostly these days, I take them as a spark of, "Hey, this is a really cool person. Hang with them and be one of the cool kids!" Don't be silly. Why would my horn broadcast rave music? Sheesh. No, it broadcasts music I actually like.

That works so long as you haven't read the thread yet. But if you've caught up and want to go back for some reason, say to post or quote someone, that icon disappears and you have to click into the first page of the thread before you can navigate to the end. Not having the page numbers on the screen makes it a bit less efficient than it used to be.

I find it amusing that you are not only using the same first name for a character that I have used, but you are misspelling it exactly the same way as well. (Aiden)

I fart rainbows. I'm a unicorn.

I do hope that people are calling him out for his negligence and not letting him sit there and continue to blame the cat.

Cross-posted from my Facebook, with some editing: It was high time that we got some nice outdoor furniture for our back deck. So yesterday, we embarked upon a quest. We first attempted the Depot of Homes, but that was a mistake. They may sometimes have such things, but alas, today was not that day. The furniture mall across the highway had dismal reviews, and we did not want things that would fall apart on us, so we were at a loss. Where to go? What to do? We could try Nebraska Furniture Mart, but it was a full half hour's trek away, and that was far to go on a late Sunday afternoon and one is lazy. And as we drove, the hand of Fate reached out in the form of my car's music randomizer, and the musical strains of Jonathan Coulton's "Ikea" graced our ears. Eureka! It was but half the distance of the other place! We pointed ourselves northwards into the wilds of I-35, journeying past the dreaded Tower of Tongues, until finally we reached the magical land of Ikea, where we found our furniture in all of its allen wrenchable glory. We fit all of the boxes into my car, because I drive a very well-disguised TARDIS. And lo, after some assembly, there was stuff. Our quest was a glorious success!

Official NaNoWriMo is in November - the goal to "win" is to write 50,000 words in the space of that month. The Camp NaNo months are a bit more relaxed - set your own goal for the month.

*goes to look* Ha. I think. To quote Neville Longbottom: "Why is it always me?"