ladyofthethread | Entries tagged with video games

Hmm… It’s been a while since I’ve updated. Relatives from Canada are flying in on Sunday morning so I’ve been doing some cleaning and the living room doesn’t look like as much of a disaster as when I’m in the middle of a costume. >_>; Still looks cluttered though since I have so many bags of fabric either leftover from costumes or for stuff I’m planning to do.

Tuesday afternoon was fun. ^_^ I picked up some little cakes from one of the nearby bakeries and went to visit

neoangelwink and

athena_chan for a little tea party.

vampricyoda made a surprise appearance and I got to say hi to

loudnbothered before I left. Talked a bit about cosplay plans for next year since it looks like we’ll be doing a couple of groups (more about that next time). Also joked about how everything in Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar gets thrown and bounces when you put it down… Chickens, cats, dogs, eggs, bottles of wine… XD; (It is kind of funny but I sort of wish I could put the animals down normally like in the older games; all that throwing looks pretty rough!)

I’ve been enjoying the break from sewing and playing Harvest Moon instead. Into fall of year 3 now and have most of the farm upgrades but haven’t grown all of the different crops and trees yet; there are a few I still haven’t seen seeds for anywhere. And not even close to hitting the limit on animals since you can have a ridiculous number in this game. 20 chickens; 20 cows and sheep; 10 cats and dogs; and a horse. I’m running out of corny names for my animals so I’m considering being silly and doing a Saiunkoku themed game with Shuurei as the farmer since there are dozens of characters. >_>; I did a Fruits Basket themed game once in an older Harvest Moon with Tohru as the farmer and the Sohmas as the animals. Never did a PSOH one though; I guess since I haven’t played one for so long and most of D’s pets wouldn’t easily correspond to farm animals.

Also have been playing a bit with fanfic. Just some short little pieces because I don’t really have the patience to write longer stuff when I could be working on other hobbies. I think this one came out best: Birds of a Blue Feather. Short, cute, and fluffy Saiunkoku fic with Ryuuren, Eigetsu, and Kourin.

Current Mood: content

Went into the city for a bit yesterday to see if I could get replacement fabric for Ryuuren’s headdress and got lucky. Paron still had a couple of yards of it so I got the last piece. Also went by a bead shop to get more flower beads, similar to the ones I used on the sides of the headdress because I realized they might be good for the sleeve detailing on my stained glass fairy dress (which has been lying around unfinished for about 2 years >_>;). The pattern said to sew on some little buttons to cover up the ends of the cords but I could never find anything I liked that much to go with the fabric. So, I’m no longer stuck on that little detail. ^_^; The flowers had a hole in the center so I tacked them down by attaching Swarovski crystals in the middle. Not sure when I'd actually finish this though since I probably have enough things I want to wear at Costume Con without adding this and I don't know when I'd wear it otherwise.

Otherwise, I’ve been having a nice break from cosplay sewing the last couple of evenings and playing Harvest Moon instead. I’m halfway through the second year and liking Grand Bazaar so far. I especially like that you can sell the things you grow on the farm or cook or create at the bazaar each week. Some things can be a bit annoying though like how most perishable items have both a quality rating and a freshness rating and you can’t stack items unless they’re exactly the same quality and freshness. -_- You can run out of storage space pretty quickly, especially at the beginning before you can upgrade the storage area.

Kind of contemplating cosplay for it since

neoangelwink mentioned wanting to cosplay the girl farmer from this game. My favorite design is the one for Sherry, the mayor’s daughter. She runs a booth at the bazaar selling tree seeds and I have a cute idea for making little stuffed pouches of seeds as a prop. I have a long straight wig about the right color that has been lying around unused for a few years because it turned out to be too orangey for what I intended. If I could curl it, it might work for this. I could probably just wear one of my pairs of brown boots since the shoes don’t show much and reuse some of the petticoats I have from previous costumes to help poof out the skirt a bit. And I haven’t done any costumes that look like a farm girl so it might be fun to try. But not sure if I’d actually do this. I’ve found I tend to lose interest quickly once I stop playing a game which is why I rarely make video game costumes. ^_^; And this would probably be another costume that no one gets since she’s usually seen as a tiny sprite in a DS game.

Halloween is looking like it will be boring. Not sure if I’m even going to bother dressing up since I don’t really have any place to go or any ideas for photos around the city. :-/ My brother was asking me if we were doing anything or if there was anyone we could meet up with but I think most of my friends who live in the city are going to MangaNext, which we’re skipping. Anyone going to be around Sunday afternoon that wants to do something with us?

Current Mood: okay

Well, it’s my birthday today. My family celebrated last weekend by going out to dinner with relatives at a new Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood. The food was good. (There were almost no leftovers, which is rare. There’s usually a lot!) But the service was rather disorganized, maybe because they were new. We got a huge plate of lobster which we didn’t order and discovered the person who took our order had written that down instead of the bird’s nest that we did order. o_O; So, they ended up giving us the lobster for free. Then, the last couple of the dishes took a long time to come and after bugging the waiters several times, we just cancelled the last one since it looked like the chefs just completely forgot to cook it. We’d also brought along an ice cream cake to be served afterwards and it must have taken them nearly half an hour to find it! o_o; The waiters mentioned there were 5 or 6 groups that brought in birthday cakes that evening and my parents were starting to think they mistakenly served my cake to another group by the time they finally found it! Apparently someone had moved it and jammed it all the way in the back of the freezer.

And I’ve had ridiculously bad luck with computers this week. ._.; My computer gave me a bit of trouble one day last week and then on Sunday morning, it refused to let me log in and I haven’t been able to use it since. It keeps beeping when it gets to the log in screen and when I click on my name, it won’t give me a cursor so I can’t even try to type in my password. It was pretty old and my brother was saying it was about time for a new one several months back so we’re just ordering a new one. Meanwhile, my father said I could use his (another old one which he rarely uses) and I did that for a few days. Then, yesterday, that one refused to start up and my brother had to fix it. Hoping it doesn’t decide to break again. X_X; So, I’m likely to be behind in replying for a while until the new computer arrives and gets set up.

Fortunately, other things haven’t been too bad. I’m still working on Ryuuren although it’s extremely unlikely it’ll be wearable by NYAF since there are so many different pieces and there are still supplies I need to buy. I did the cream colored undershirt last weekend and have been working on the cape this week. I’ve also worked out the pattern for the blue shirt but haven’t started sewing it yet since I don’t have green fabric for the trim on the sleeves yet.

And I took some of the birthday money I got from my parents and relatives and finally bought a Nintendo DS. (The last system I had was a GBA SP so it’s been quite a while!) I got the larger version that came out earlier this year plus the latest Harvest Moon game. ^_^ Haven’t played any of those in a long time due to not having a DS before.

Current Mood: okay

Stayed home this weekend and did a little work on my new Count D outfit. Still have to sew the outer layer and lining together as well as make the collar and add most of the trim. The trim is definitely going to take longest since I’m handsewing it on like usual. Hopefully, I can finish this by Sakura Matsuri so I can take pictures at the botanic garden. ^_^

( progress pic )

And I’ve figured out what Yu-Gi-Oh cosplay I’m going to do with

novaraven and her friends for AnimeNext! It’s a pretty obscure costume and I don’t know if anyone has ever done it before. (Although that could be said for a lot of YGO stuff since there are hundreds of random minor characters and monsters. :-P I guess that statement can apply to a lot of my cosplays, too, since I often seem to like the appeared in one episode/chapter/illustration outfits more than default costumes. ^_^;) Anyone want to take a guess what character it is? :-D

To help get into the mood to do YGO stuff again, I’ve pulled out my copy of Duelists of the Roses. (Haven’t done anything with that fandom for so long. ^_^;;) I got the game 2-3 years ago when I first bought my PS2 but ended up just shoving it into the TV cabinet since I couldn’t seem to get the hang of the weird dueling method. It involves a grid and you have to move monsters around to actually attack. And it’s further complicated by things like different terrain being favorable or unfavorable to certain types of monsters. I think the games that used the real card game rules were actually much easier to play and this one goes kind of slowly due to the moving around the board factor. I think I’ve finally gotten it though and made some progress in the game.

Even if the game’s premise was kind of random (War of the Roses with YGO characters), it would have been fun to see better pictures of everyone in their medieval outfits. Other than Yugi and Kaiba, it looks like everyone just got little portraits that only show the face and shoulders. (Of course, it's a nutty cosplayer like me that wants to see the full outfits. :-P)

Current Mood: geeky

So, I finished playing Final Fantasy 4 today and was surprised how easy the final battle was. o_o I only had one character get knocked out and didn’t have any real trouble keeping the others alive. When I played 6, I got stuck on the final battle and never could get past the boss’s third form before everyone got knocked out. (still haven’t finished that one ^_^;) So, I kept expecting the last boss to change forms and kill everyone but he just eventually died. Oh, well. XD;

Not expecting any cosplay projects to come out of this. I’ve noticed that while I enjoy playing a video game once in a while (and have even made a couple of video game costumes), my interest tends to go down a lot after I’m done with the game. I still like looking at other people’s game costumes but it seems easier for me to stay interested in an anime or manga’s characters and story for longer periods.