September 9, 2011

Longest post title ever or longest post title ever??

There’s some pretty rad games on the horizon, and they’re all due for release just before the holiday season, which is nice.

This post is part 1 of three-ish.

As for this first one and the one I’ll talk about tomorrow, I’m pretty excited about them, although they’re niche titles so you won’t hear much hype about them elsewhere. They’re also coming out really soon, like, before September is over. So if you want in on an incredibly adorable preorder bonus, you’ve got to get in on this soon.

Game to Look Forward to #1 is Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns, the DS version of which will be sent to stores September 20 (which, common to publisher Natsume, usually means it’ll be available to buy on the 21st). No date for the 3DS version has been announced yet, besides Natsume’s comment that it will be in October. Place your preorder through either Natsume’s Online Store or Gamestop in order to get the bonus, which is DRUMROLL PLEASE…

…an aplaca plush. Yes. Yes.

(Btdubs, those links are for the DS game… no links are available for the 3DS one yet, although Natsume promises alpacas will be available when you order the 3DS one as well.)

Anyway, Tale of Two Towns sounds like a pretty sweet addition to the Harvest Moon lineup. There’s a lot more emphasis placed on exploring, as in between the titular two towns (European-themed Bluebell and Eastern-themed Konohana) is a massive mountainous map. On the mountain’s paths, you can interact with various environmental elements, climbing and jumping your way through the terrain to fish, catch bugs, and forage around for items. The environment is gorgeous. I think some pretty major graphical enhancements have happened in this installment.

Here’s a five-minute video of gameplay in which both towns are explored a little, we’ll see some of the mountain path’s interactivity, and a bit of animal care:

In addition to the prettier scenery, the colorful folks inhabiting the towns definitely don’t look half bad, either. This game boasts a wide variety of marriageable candidates, and I love that the artwork is juuuust a tad more grown-up and anime-looking rather than the short, ‘chibi’ style characters Harvest Moon usually goes for – not that I don’t love HM’s previous art and character designs, but it’s just refreshing to see an updated art style. c:

Okay, so here’s the places you can purchase this one, and it’s very important to note that the Gamestop and Natsume Store links are only for the DS game, and are the only ones that offer the alpaca plush bonus.

Natsume Inc’s Store:

GameStop:

PlayAsia:

Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns DS (Nintendo DS)

Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns 3D (Nintendo 3DS)

Amazon:

Alright! There’s one game down! The next part of this series will be up tomorrow (disclaimer: maybe actually the day after, if I get lazy), and I’ll give you three hints as to what upcoming game that will be: 1.) It’s also published by Natsume; 2.) You probably already know what game it is because I never shut up about it; and 3.) There’s a screenshot from it on the homepage. Yup. YOU’LL NEVER GUESS.

Update: Here’s Part 2
Update Again!: Part 3 is here!

September 7, 2011

Yesterday’s Outfit Post revealed that I buy most of my clothes on clearance and many of my accessories are cheap kids’ jewelry and party favors. XD

Well, I’m just as frugal when it comes to makeup!

L.A. Colors is a brand that makes a huge variety of colorful palettes available, and they are extremely cost effective. I was wary when I bought my first eyeshadow palette of theirs at the general store for $1.50 – the colors were great neutrals that I really wanted to have for work, and I figured even if I didn’t like them I wouldn’t feel too bad for paying just $1.50 for it.

I was so surprised when I got home and used it! The colors were really accurate (looked the same applied as they do in the palette), stuck to the skin well, and didn’t fade for hours. This is now my favorite palette when I go to work or even formal events:

That white is greeaaaat. It’s so awesome as the highlight under your browbone. And the pink is so rosy and creamy. <3 The selection of browns is awesome – the creamy one in the middle is like a copper penny, and those darks are really dark.

I bought three more palettes in other colors the next time I was at the store! XD

L.A. Colors also does pretty rad nail polish, especially their line of nail art bottles, which have a super-thin applicator brush for detailed art. Most of the time I just dot polka dots over my solid-color polka dots, and they’re perfect for it. <3

Okay, so let’s try out this widget I’ve got here…

Did that work? This is EVERY LISTING for L.A. Colors’ eyeshadow palettes that I could find on Amazon. There are even some with my comments underneath – those are ones that I especially admire. <3 I also sprinkled in there the nail art colors, and some lots where you can buy all of the colors together in one big swoop.

I hope that’s super convenient for you. 😀 I think that widget is cool and I’ll probably use it to showcase other products in the future.

September 5, 2011

Probably dooming myself by posting this so late in the day. XD; I went and did all my chores for the day before stopping to take pictures, and then spent a lot of time fixing up the photos and generally took my sweet time in uploading them and finally writing all of this.

I’ll try to be better about Today’s Outfit posts in the future! oAo

So here’s what I wore today, my favorite t-shirt and pants coordinated together to the color theme of blue and purple.

This is my favorite graphic tee that I own. ; 3;~ I nabbed it off Delias‘ online store when it was on super clearance. It was like $6!

The purple corduroy pants are also from Delias (and were also on clearance).

The white text at the bottom says “Best friends forever” … for some reason, idk.

Necklace:  Claire’s

This elastic purple headband I have looks like a frilly headdress! ^o^ Accent it with a blue bow and you are super coordinated. I like putting barrettes over my headbands because it actually helps to hold the headband in place!

Headband: Generic brand from the pharmacy lol.
Barrette: Circo (in the dollar deal bins at Target XD)

My makeup is super faded there (remember; took these pictures at the end of the day XD), so I put together this little thing to demonstrate the colors I used and where:

White (it had glitter in it!) under the brow and at the inner corner of the eye, purple in the crease and wrapping around the outer corner to underneath the eye, and blue on the lid. This particular palette of colors is from Claire’s.

This is my “safe” eyeshadow layout that I use pretty much every day, except with different colors. Highlight under the brow, contrast in the crease, main color on the lid.

On my wrists are these accessories:

Star bracelet: random party favor 8D;
My Melody Watch: McDonald’s, decorated with a bow and rosebud myself.
Rainbow Dash bracelet: Party City, rofl party favor jewelry everywhere.
Blue scallop bangle & purple bangle: Dollar Treeeeeee >3< I have a lot of accessories in a lot of colors. 8D Specifically so I can mix and match them in different combinations like this. You can see more of them in the background of this pic:

…which is the colors I would have painted my nails today if I weren’t so very, very lazy. They are, as you can tell, from Claire’s.

So there’s my first real Today’s Outfit post.  I hope to do more of these (an interesting goal to set for myself considering I don’t have much of a wardrobe??), and I’ll also look into joining the sites Polyvore and Lookbook.  Yeah.  I should… join those.

And that’s the end of my post.

September 1, 2011

Although I’ve meant to, I haven’t really covered on this blog yet just how much adoration I have for cartoons and franchises from the 80’s. My Little Pony is definitely a big one, and its current popularity is something that I just enjoy to bits. Hasbro’s other franchises such as Jem & the Holograms and Lady Lovely Locks are some other favorites, although I am only just too young to have caught them when they were aired on television and now make up for having missed them by watching episodes online when I can. c:

So anyway, when things I loved as a kid resurface, I like to take notice. Even if just to nod and say, “Oh, so that’s what Rainbow Brite looks like now. Interesting.”

Thundercats is one of those things that I definitely remember watching as a kid and I know all of the characters’ names. I could hum the tune of the theme song for you and maybe even recite some of the lyrics (okay, maybe just the line “Thunder thunder thunder Thundercats!”). But if you asked me the plot of any one episode that I remember, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. XD So, I guess Thundercats is a show that I was vaguely familiar with, but it wasn’t one of my very favorites and I don’t remember many precise details.

A Thundercats reboot is six episodes deep at the time of me writing this, and I learned of its existance around last weekend. (Not watching television tends to leave one on the external side of the loop.) The retro cartoon buff in me wanted to check out how Thundercats had changed and I was quick to do a search and sniff out the relevant results.

Impression the first: Wow, this looks pretty animesque.

I can deal with this, though. As long as it’s animated well, I don’t consider animesque an immediate turn-off.

An immediate plus: the characters are all pretty recognizable from their original designs, and for the most part I like the updates that have taken place. For example, the male characters now wear pants. This is great. I think the only character whose design I dislike is Cheetarah’s – somehow she ended up with less clothing than her previous iteration and I am just not digging her longer, more tame hair. Lion-O looks great though – he’s got the same wild mane of his predecessor, the sharpened nails, the vertical-slitted eyes, and the coloration of his skin (fur?) and armor is all properly procured from the original design.

Upon learning that the new series is airing on Cartoon Network, I navigate to CN’s page of video clips for the show and sit back to watch some footage. This is the part where my idle curiosity turns into intrigue. I find myself thinking that this… actually looks pretty cool.

(If you get a message saying embedding is disabled, click the vid again to watch it on Youtube. I recommend doing so – this clip is what really captured my interest in the show.)

That big guy, Claudus? He’s voiced by the original actor that played Lion-O back in the old cartoon. Also, that is some EXCELLENT (and accurate!) homage to the “sight beyond sight” skit, which is sharp and clear in my memory’s eye despite how I might not remember much else about the old cartoon. Can anyone reading this disagree?

So yeah. I’ve hunted down and watched the six existing episodes of this so far, and I can say I’m enjoying it. I can’t say that I’m loving it to pieces or that I’m a die-hard fan, or that I plan on spending cash on the inevitable toy line (My Little Pony is an entirely different story). But the show is doing just what its purpose is, which is to provide entertainment. I’m entertained. It’s still early in the game and my opinion may still change, but I’m going at this with an open mind and I’m not clouded by nostalgia (okay, maybe juuuuuuuuuuust a little).

May blog about this more in the future. We’ll see if my interest stays hooked.

Afterthought:
I’m toying with the idea of sharing full-episode videos here and then writing a little feature sharing my thoughts on it (calling out specific scenes that I thought were cool, or funny, or poorly-scripted, or w/e). This is something I was going to do once Season 2 of Friendship is Magic started, but maybe I can use Thundercats (or Thundercats 2011 as the reboot is widely referred to) to test the waters and see if such entries would be well-received.

The next episode airs tomorrow, and if I like it I think I’ll go ahead and do a featurette on it. Let’s see. c:

Update:
If you hadn’t noticed, I didn’t do that featurette after all. XD I don’t think Thundercats really fits with the whole super-cute-and-sweet theme I’ve got going on this blog. Plus, I’m not totally in love with it so I probably wouldn’t like writing articles about it every week anyway. Any further Thundercats talk on my part will probably stick to my Tumblr. xp

August 31, 2011

Holy cow! I did not expect such a MASSIVE reaction from everyone on that Lolita post!

You are all so beautiful and wonderful! ;~; I tried to thank everyone individually who commented and gave me such awesome feedback and encouragement. <3

But I also just now put this quick gif together. This is a shout-out to all of the beautiful people reading this blog right now!

I couldn’t be any happier. 8D

Soooooooooo anyway, just thought I’d fill everyone in on what my next plans are for this blog. <3  I am RAPIDLY filling up the shopping pages for the Boutique portion of the site. Hopefully I can open it soon! I know I keep saying that, but it’s because I really do get a little bit closer every day. XD

Fashion posts seem to be a big hit, so I’d like to share some more outfits and coordinates and stuff. There are a couple of category links on the Home page that still lead to 404 pages because there aren’t any posts in that category oAo So, I’ve got to get to work on those. Fashion posts it is!

Also, cartoons! I have not even touched on this blog about how much I love cartoons and toys. With My Little Pony Friendship is Magic’s second season just around the corner, I want to highlight some of my favorite episodes and toys that have been released so far. 😀 ALSO I have just gotten into the new Thundercats cartoon and want to review it briefly. Maybe I’ll do that one tomorrow. Yeah. We’ll see a Thundercats post tomorrow. BD

ALSOOO fajsldkalf did you guys know that Natsume is releasing two Harvest Moon games in mid-September, within a week apart from one another? O_O The first is Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns, which I’ve been greatly looking forward to because it looks sooooo pretty and has some seriously cute characters. 😀 The announced release date is September 20 but the guy at Gamestop said they’d have it on the 21st (this seems to be normal for HM games).

The other game is Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny on the Wii. I loved Rune Factory Frontier to bits and I’m a huge fan of the RF series. I might have to skip on this one since I don’t really have the funds to spend on a big game like this, nor the time to sit down and immerse myself in a console game, but I want to keep my eye on it anyway just because I adore the series so much. It ALSO has some pretty rad characters, and the game world is gorgeous. <3 Tides of Destiny’s release date is Sept 27 (which probably means Sept 28).

Hummmmm I think that’s about all the updates I can think of for now. o3o Yeah. Will talk about Thundercats tomorrow and after that I’ll work on filling out all of this blog’s category tags so there won’t be any more 404 errors. Woo!

Btw I totally meant it when I said you all were beautiful. 😀 I could never properly express how much I appreciate you awesome readers. ; 3;~ HUGS AND KISSES FOREVERRRRRR