Review: Fire Emblem Awakening

When I uploaded my latest monthly favourites video the other week, I mentioned that Fire Emblem Awakening was my favourite game of December. A friend of mine asked me to review the game as she was interested in it, and although I've never reviewed a game before, I thought I'd give it a go!

The Game Series

The Fire Emblem games are a series of tactical role playing games, in which you control an army of soldiers in turn based strategy battles. I haven't played the previous games, but I know that the series is known to be difficult, as if a member of your party dies, they are dead permanently and it can change the whole storyline of the game. However in the latest instalment of the series you have the choice to play classic mode, where the characters can die permanently, or casual mode, where fallen units are respawned after each battle. Because I'd never played a Fire Emblem game before, I chose casual mode, and honestly I'm glad I did because I would have failed so many times! I get attached to the characters too;;

My Cosplays So Far~

I've been watching so much anime recently, and been wanting to cosplay so many characters I thought I'd make a blog post about my cosplays now, so it's not such a ridiculously long post in the future! Then after this all I have to post is cosplay updates hehe~ 

I've only done two cosplays so far, Azusa Nakano from K-On and Mirai Kuriyama from Kyoukai no Kanata. I'm not great at sewing, and I don't have a sewing machine, so my cosplays are all bought, mostly from ebay - that includes wigs too. I generally try to find shoes in local shops, since I prefer to be able to try them on than buy expensive cosplay shoes that might not fit, at least if a costume doesn't fit properly I can alter it. I just spend some time searching through ebay listings for the perfect wig and nice looking cosplay for a good price! My Mirai cosplay was the most expensive so far, but it was custom made and has a lot of parts to it (uniform, skirt, cardigan, glasses) I got the ring for her from TopShop, it was a midi ring that I got in the largest size so it would fit my pinky finger, since finding pinky rings is pretty hard! My Mirai cosplay isn't quite complete yet, I'm still waiting on my coloured lenses (which I buy from Honeycolor) and I need to get some sort of white fabric to make a bandage for her hand. I also need to re-style the wig a bit xD

More photos of my cosplays, and characters who I plan to cosplay under the cut!

Anime I've Been Watching

I've been watching a lot of anime recently, so I thought I'd share some of my favourites so far, and what I plan to watch in the future!

Kyoukai no Kanata (Beyond the Boundary)

Kyoukai no Kanata is a kind of supernatural/fantasy anime with slice of life elements and a lot of cool fight scenes. The story follows Akhito Kanbara, who has a thing for girls in glasses, and Mirai Kuriyama, who has the ability to manipulate her blood and use it to fight in the form of a sword. There's demons, sword fights, humour and even an idol episode xD 

I really enjoyed this anime, it's only 12 episodes long, which makes it fairly easy to watch. I often feel discouraged starting a new anime if there's 50+ episodes already out, so I prefer shorter series' like this! I also really loved the characters in this anime too, often I find myself drawn to one or two characters in an anime and end up disliking others, but I love the personalities of everyone in KnK, although Mirai will always be my favourite!

I also have nearly all the parts I need to cosplay Mirai, I just need the coloured contacts I ordered to arrive, and some sort of white bandage for her hand. I want to do a more detailed post about my cosplays, so look out for that!

Black Rock Shooter (TV)

This is the 8 episode series of Black Rock Shooter, which was dubbed the TV version, as there is also a Black Rock Shooter OVA which is kind of like a movie. The TV series' story is fairly similar to the OVA, if you've seen it. It's another fantasy/fighting girls anime (I'm really into those atm for some reason) following two girls, Mato and Yomi, who become friends due to similar interests in a children's book.

It's a rather confusing anime, a little hard to keep up with if you're not paying attention. But again, it's a short series that's easy to get through, and it's a real tear-jerker in the later episodes (although I cry at anything, really) Again, the characters are likeable, and the character designs are gorgeous.

As much as I'd love to, I don't think I'll be cosplaying Black Rock Shooter though!

Kill La Kill

An anime I've only just started watching, Kill La Kill is a more shounen (aimed at boys) than the other two animes that I've been watching, and isn't normally the sort of thing I'd watch. Again, it's a fighting girl anime, but it's a lot more comedic and nuts than anything I've watched in a while! It follows Ryuko Matoi, who is trying to find out who killed her father, and the other half of her giant scissor blade. The story is set in a school where students possess uniforms that give them various powers and abilities, and Ryuko has to fight through them to reach the student council president to find out the truth.

I've only watched 5 episodes so far, but what I've seen I've really enjoyed! At the time of writing there are currently 14 episodes of the series, and it is still ongoing, so I'm not sure how many there will be. If you're interested in getting into this series before the amount of episodes gets out of hand then go for it! Or you never know, it might end at episode 20 or something xD

Ryuko is another character I want to cosplay, I'll  be waiting until February before starting to gather items for it though, but I plan to cosplay her and Mirai in the summer!

I plan to start watching Mirai Nikki next, and I did start Another, so I'm hoping to finish that too!

I watch all my anime online at http://www.animeseason.com/ if anyone is wondering!

I hope you enjoyed reading, let me know if you'd like more posts on anime!

Outfits from 2013

Just thought I'd share some of my outfits over 2013! Pretty much all of these were posted on my Instagram, but I thought I would put them all in one place. Most of them are pretty similar, and not that interesting haha! I'm getting some new clothes soon from online shopping so I should have different outfits soon! Either way, enjoy~

 More under the cut!

My First Pullip Doll (photo heavy)

So recently The Hollycopter from Youtube became obsessed with Pullip dolls, and I think the love for the dolls has rubbed off on many people! (including me) So naturally I bought one too!

I bought Bloody Red Hood from Groove Store (you can also buy from PullipStyle) and a set of 3 outfits that were only available as a set from Groove.

Edit: I forgot to mention how quickly this was shipped to me! I ordered on January 1st and it arrived on January 6th, which coming from the US to the UK is super quick!

Isn't she gorgeous? Read more for more photos and information about her~

Cute Ebay Finds

People are always asking me how I find cute things on Ebay, and honestly you just have to search for what you want! I thought I'd make a post on some of the cute things I've found on Ebay recently, and include links for those too lazy to search xD

1 | 2 | 3

4 | 5 | 6

7 | 8 | 9

10 | 11 | 12

I tried to include a mix of items from fashion to stationary, but let me know if you'd like a future post dedicated to one thing!

What's on my iPhone

I've been asked many times to make a video of what's on my iPhone, but I never seem to get around to it, or if I film it, it's ages until I get to edit the video and by then I have more and different apps. Though I haven't downloaded anything new in a while, I thought I'd make a blog post about what's on my phone, and then at least I've still shared with you guys what apps I use, even if it's not in a video. I have an iPhone 4s and it's the 16GB version.

Before I start, I'll show you my lock screen (yes I took these screenshots at 3am) My lock screen wallpaper changes a lot, but right now I'm addicted to playing Fire Emblem Awakening on my 3DS, so this wallpaper is from that game.

Blog Customisation

So after spending around 2 hours changing up my blog after writing my previous post, I thought it would be a good idea to share some of the websites I found with Blogger templates and things that I used on my blog! Plus it would be a good way to get back into blogging~

First I had decided I wanted simple and cute social media icons for the side of my blog. I'm not a graphic designer, and I didn't really want to be messing about for too long trying to create the icons I wanted, so I decided to Google-fu for some. Searching 'cute social media blog icons' or words to that effect brought up some nice icons, but many of the icon sets I found didn't include one for Youtube, which being a Youtuber, is something I had to have! However, I stumbled upon these icons, and found them to be perfect! Not only is there an icon for Youtube, but you can download them in many different colours so you can pick the set to match your blog, and there's also a blank icon in the set so you can make your own! I only used six of them on my blog, which you can see at the side, but they're my most important links on the internet, so it's nice to have them displayed in such a cute way~ I chose the bubblegum pink ones, if you're wondering.

As for the theme of my blog, Blogger's pre-set themes just weren't doing it for me. I like to be able to customise them, but none of them had the look I wanted for my blog, so it was back to Google for some more searching. Searching 'blogger theme', or 'template' brought up lots of results, but again, none of the themes were cute enough for my liking, or the style I was looking for. So obviously I began searching for 'cute blogger theme/template' and this brought a lot more results! I first came upon this blog post, it has a lot of links for templates and themes, and even background images and headers, all of which useful when customising your blog. Through that post I found this site, which has a lot of cute themes, and although I didn't use one of them for my blog, I will save the site for future reference.

I finally decided upon a theme from this site, and chose the subtle stripes theme. I really liked the background and scalloped border on this theme, and I even stuck with the original header rather than creating my own (although I will probably make one in the future) The download came with the XML file containing the HTML for the template, the font (although I ended up using CAC Pinafore) a blank header to customise and a Photoshop PSD file of the header for those owning Photoshop. It was very easy to add the text I wanted in PS, and I also saved a smaller version of the header with just the text for the signature at the end of my posts!

After that it was just a case of adding my pages and widgets down the side, including an Instagram widget from SnapWidget, and of course my cute little social media icons~! I really love how my blog looks now, so hopefully this will spur me on to blog more this year! I even transferred my frainy.com domain from my Tumblr over to this blog, so make it seem more official and perhaps force me to keep this updated? Either way, I hope you enjoyed this post and it was helpful! Let me know what you'd like me to write about next!

Long Time No See

Well it's been a while...

To be honest, I've not really had the time to blog, nor have I had anything interesting to blog about! Looking back at my old blogspot (which I've forgotten the login for) it made me want to get back into doing reviews and posting about my new creations and purchases again. I make videos for pretty much everything I can on Youtube, but there'll always be things I don't get around to filming, or that I don't want to make a video for. For example, posts about a new growing obsession with Pullip ball jointed dolls, or new anime I'm watching, or cosplay; and since I don't want to bombard my Youtube subscribers with videos about things they might not be interested in, I might as well blog about my interests other than crafting. 

Thinking about it, a new year would be a great time to start blogging again, even if it was only twice a month, that would be 24 new blog posts each year, and something that people can read about my interests and life without watching videos. Of course, I'll probably blog about things I've filmed about, or mentioned on Youtube, but it'll be nice to have somewhere else to share it as well.

I've already made a video about my goals for 2014, but I'd like to add one more, to blog!

I want to revamp this blog, change the banner and theme a bit once I have photos that will better represent what I want to write about. I want to share photos of the Pullip doll I just ordered and I'm waiting her arrival, I want to show progress photos and maybe DIY a custom doll, show you how I'm trying to make a cosplay sword for my Mirai Kuriyama cosplay, more hauls, reviews, and just general life things.

It'll be fun! I hope...

I'd also love ideas on what you'd like me to blog about! It can be anything I haven't mentioned, or maybe even something specific like a review on a certain shop or item I own~

Well, I'm gonna go spruce up my blog a little, and think of other ideas to write about!