wildfillysama: Cosplay with horses

There be demons out there, and they’re all dressed up and showing off just how inept they are at horses.

Attack on Titan has some of the worst offenders out there at the moment. Here are just a few pictures taken from google image search.

First up, this horse is in English tack, including a definitely non-canon bridle. The horse is also chestnut, which is a colour that never appears in the anime. The rider is sitting well, and her cosplay is pretty good, but she’s been completely let down by the lack of costume for her horse. Dedication, people!

Same cosplayer, now holding the reins badly and making her horse go “WTF IS YOUR PROBLEM”. Sort of canon, but mostly not. 0/10

This one just makes me cringe. This horse is in disgraceful condition and the rider/cosplayer hasn’t a damn clue what they’re doing in the saddle. The gear is inaccurate, the cosplayer’s hands are all over the place, and the horse’s disastrous ewe-neck and rubbish overall body health is seriously distracting.

The photoshop is strong with this one, but even that doesn’t hide the horse’s overall stress and shameful condition. Yuck. -100/10

For the record, this is what the horses should look like. Cosplayers wanting to do an accurate Attack on Titan horse cosplay should look for a Thoroughbred in either bay, grey, or liver chestnut. Saddle cloths should be red and western cut, with either a basic western saddle or stock saddle with a high pommel, but the headgear is a simple snaffle bit fitted to an English hanoverian-style bridle (cavesson noseband or sometimes a dropped noseband, depending on the animation shot). Saddle bags and breast plates are occasionally worn, but since the saddle bags appear to be worn on the shoulder in the anime I wouldn’t recommend doing that part of the costume, especially if you’re riding at speed. You’re just asking for rub marks otherwise…

Some tips for cosplaying with horses:

1. ONLY USE HEALTHY HORSES. Photographic evidence is a damning thing.

2. There is a LOT of cool horse gear out there and it’s pretty easy to mod your own stuff to be costume-accurate. Be conscious of fit and comfort for the horse.

3. Get some lessons or some tips on how to sit on a horse confidently before taking your photos. There’s nothing funnier looking than a supposedly confident character sitting on a horse like they’re about to slide off and die.

Here is an epic Brave cosplay for inspiration. Enjoy!

Friday Free For All: Hatoful Boyfriend or You WHAT mate!?

As we are all together once again, this Friday was dedicated to the wonderful(?) game known as Hatoful Boyfriend, better known as that pidgeon dating sim. Here follows some general thoughts about the game.

marsy: U WOT M8!?

Windfyre: !

anit the flea: This pidgeon dating sim, is not a dating sim at all.

lorekai: Having played through the entire game already, I second this thought. It’s all a cruel trap to lure you into a false sense of security.

wildfillysama: Surprisingly deep for pidgeons, far more cleavers than I would have ever of thought necessary.

marsy: It’s not okay to eat your classmates.

Ebolabooze: I’m sure that there are lessons to be learned in this game.

wildfillysama: Mostly about evidence disposal.

General consensus: The moral of the story is, U WOT M8!?

Before we return to our wonderful game here are everybirdies’ favourite pidgeon, and their ideal pidgeon boyfriend.

lorekai: Anghel for both, I enjoy his brand of crazy.

anit the flea: My favourite pidgeon is definitely the doctor because that’s when I realised this was NOT a dating sim, but if we’re talking dating material I’ve gotta go with Yuuya and his trash can digging hair clips…

Windfyre: Kazuaki, zzz…

wildfillysama: Shuu is both favourite and ideal pidgeon, because crazy scientist is a strange brand of familiar. Also, his was the first path that I saw and it sticks in the mind rather a lot.

EbolaBooze: Shuu is the favourite because I sense a kindred spirit. Pidgeon husbando would probably be Kazuaki. Naptimes are super comfy.

marsy: Everyone better back off of Kazuaki – I claimed him as my husbando first! Maths and napping are the closest things to my heart.

lorekai: Summer Anime 2014 Final Thoughts

As most of the series I’ve been following are coming to a close I thought now would be a good time to express my thoughts on this season’s anime I watched, just as a warning though there may be some mild spoilers.

 

Akame ga Kill:

This anime is brutal, very brutal, it is however an enjoyable watch, it’s almost a pleasant change to know that no character is safe. While the story is a bit lacking, the character designs are great and they stray enough from their archetypes to remain fun, and interesting. Aside from that this anime has some really nice action scenes, and a pretty decent soundtrack, definitely worth watching, especially as it’s only halfway through.

Also (here be spoilers) I don’t care what happened or what anyone says Bulat will always and forever be “best girl”, Esdeath is a pretty close second though. 

 

Aldnoah.Zero:

THAT SOUNDTRACK!!! I love this show, everything about it is fantastic, the characters, the story, the animation, the soundtrack, even the mech battles, the only thing that’s not fantastic is how long we have to wait for the next half. I’ll admit that theoretically it’s not that long a wait, but with a final episode like that, it’s going to seem like an eternity. I can’t recommend watching this anime enough, it’s genuinely great.

 

Ao Haru Ride:

I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would, after the first episode I didn’t think I’d continue watching, but the consistently nice animation, and the well written, if a little typical for shoujo, story, were enough to keep me coming back each week. It’s a very well put together anime, and it approaches some fairly common and relatable issues, that are very rarely tackled within the genre, and handles them well. I’d definitely recommend this if you’re a fan of shoujo, or just looking for something pleasant and fairly light to watch.

 

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Crystal:

It’s Sailor Moon, if you’re not watching it, why the hell not? I’m very much enjoying this adaptation, and it’s still got so long to go.

 

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya 2wei!:

I’ll be honest, I dropped this very early on, it’s the biggest disappointment of the season, and I cannot in good faith recommend this to anyone. It’s a decent series, it has nice animation and an interesting story, but it is far too happy to sexualise underage girls, and I find that truly reprehensible.

 

Free! Eternal Summer:

I love Free! it’s one of my all time favourite anime, and another series that I cannot recommend enough. I was a little disappointed with this season, especially when compared to the first, but that largely comes from the mishandling and generally rushed feeling of the last episode. This season did however sort my shipping dilemmas, which is exactly what I hoped it would do (for anyone who cares, HaruRin, Reigisa, MakotoKisumi, SousukeNitori), so I’m happy about that at least. I’d definitely recommend watching this, it’s awesome.

 

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun:

So soon after I found it and it’s already ended, I really hope there is a second season.

 

Love Stage:

Another series that I ended up enjoying much more than I thought I would, reiterating my statement from the beginning of the season,  I’d forgotten how vaguely plausible and actually enjoyable the early parts of the series were, and it ended in the right spot, even if it did mean it was only ten episodes long, so it didn’t have to face the illogical mess that the manga becomes. If you’re a fan of the yaoi genre, it’s definitely worth a watch, though I do question their decision on turning one character into weird glowy clouds as a means of censorship.

 

Sword Art Online II:

This season seems to be a test in how unlikable can they make Kirito before they lose all their fans, he was a little annoying before, but now his only redeeming feature seems to be that he makes a pretty girl. I have quite mixed feelings about this season, it has nice animation, a good soundtrack, and the story is interesting, I love a lot of the concepts used, but the characters, and the slow pacing are really letting it down, all I can hope is that it starts improving going into the second half.

 

That’s all, overall I’d say this past season was a very strong one for anime, lots of great shows, with very few disappointments. Thanks for reading.

marsy: Reviewing some books

Today is another day for reviewing books. Book book.

Let’s start with World War Z by Max Brooks. It’s a zombie book, if you couldn’t tell, and it’s set after World War Z (which is the name given to the zombie uprising) has ended. If you’ve seen the movie, then now is the time to forget about it completely – this book has only one thing in common with it really, and that’s that there are zombies. They’re not even the same type of zombies in the movie. Anyway. So, the basic premise of the book is a writer getting personal accounts from survivors of the zombie war. It’s pretty interesting actually, and one of the only zombie things I’ve come across that’s set after the apocalypse and where the human side has won. Definitely not a challenging read, but a good one anyway.

 

Next up is Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen. This is one that I really enjoyed, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next one (which probably won’t be out for a long while). The unsuspecting teenager turning out to be royalty trope is a very common, and perhaps overused, one, but this book does it quite well. The main character, Kelsea, becomes the Queen of the Tearling upon turning 19. The kingdom lost a war a while ago, and the Regent has been ruling very poorly, so it’s a lot of work for the new Queen. Typical fantasy stuff really. Has magic. I like magic. What I found interesting is that the setting is actually seemingly post-apocalyptic. The people in the current land sailed over from Europe many years ago (for reasons undisclosed) but lost a lot of technology/information. I’m keen to see how that turns out. There’s also supposed to be a movie adaptation in the works, with Emma Watson playing the main character (who is supposed to be quite plain looking, so I’m not sure how they worked that one out). Should be interesting to see.

 

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer is book one of the Southern Reach Trilogy. This was quite a short book, but one I felt compelled to read in one sitting. Expeditions keep going out to the mysterious Area X, but they never return or, if they do return, it’s through inexplicable means and they either die of cancer soon after or commit suicide. This books follows the 12th expedition and is narrated by a woman who is only known as the biologist. Most of the characters are only identified by their roles in the expedition, which I thought was quite interesting. The writing style gives the book a very unsettling feel, but it also makes you really curious about what’s coming next. I should be getting a copy of the second book in a couple of days, and the third one has just come out too (the fact that all three were released in the same years seemed an odd choice to me, but there you go), so hopefully all will be explained because the first one didn’t really answer any of my questions at all. This is good for anyone looking for a quick but kind of confusing read, I guess.

 

Abalus In the Beginning by Stephen L. Padley. Another post-apocalyptic one (I seem to read a lot of those recently). Don’t want to give to much away, but basically the world was changed by the development of nanomas (a type of nanomachine), leading to a regression in technology. 15 year old Abalus and his family are caught in possession of forbidden books, and taken to a prison facility. A boy called Shaun helps Abalus escape, and they set off to discover why the world is the way it is. I can’t really say more without giving away major plot points, but it’s a good book. You should read it.

 

Exodus 2015 The Cloud is the sequel to Abalus In the Beginning. This one tells the tale of the nanoma takeover and how the apocalypse began. Not much else to say other than that. Also good. Read this one too.

 

wildfillysama: Reunited with my wardrobe!

After six months of living out of a suitcase, I’m finally back and surrounded by all of my stuff, and that includes my lolita wardrobe!

One of the most fun things to do with lolita clothing is build coordinates, which means that you build different styles of outfit from the pieces you currently have. It’s one way of making sure that you don’t get bored of a particular item, which makes sense since lolita tends to be horribly expensive.

Today I had a play with one of my newest pieces, which arrived while I was overseas. It is Alice and the Pirates’ Midsummer Night’s Dream Jsk I in black. Some of these coordinates turned out better than others…

Close up of the print… so pretty…

 

Now, on with the coordinates!

First up, ivory theme.

This coordinate features items from…

Head accessories: Angelic Pretty and H&M

Bolero: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Jsk: Alice and the Pirates

Socks: Angelic Pretty

Shoes: Liz Lisa

Parasol: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Layering petticoat: Innocent World

 

Next up, red theme!

This coordinate has items from…

Head accessories: Chess Story and H&M

Blouse: R Series

Jsk: Alice and the Pirates

Necklace: Alice and the Pirates

Socks: Angelic Pretty

Shoes: Liz Lisa

Parasol: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

 

Next up, “weather” theme!

This coordinate didn’t come together so well. Also there was a cat involved. Items are from…

Head accessories: Innocent World and handmade

Blouse: R Series

Jsk: Alice and the Pirates

Socks: Angelic Pretty

Shoes: Liz Lisa

Parasol: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Bag: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Jewellery: Angelic Pretty

This one could use some work – the weather/cloud themed accessories don’t really show up well enough and aren’t quite the right tones for the dress.

 

Next up, pink theme!

This one was also a bit tricky, and probably isn’t something that I’d wear, but I’m still pretty happy with how it turned out. Items are…

Head accessories: Innocent World and H&M

Bolero: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Blouse: R Series

Jsk: Alice and the Pirates

Socks: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Shoes: Liz Lisa

Parasol: Angelic Pretty

Bag: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Jewellery: KumaCrafts

 

Next up, café au lait theme!

Items here are…

 

Head accessories: Innocent World and H&M

Bolero: Innocent World

Blouse: R Series

Jsk: Alice and the Pirates

Socks: Bodyline

Shoes: Liz Lisa

Bag: Innocent World

 

And finally… alpha theme!

Can’t wait to wear this…

Head accessories: Chess Story

Jacket: Alice and the Pirates

Eye Patch: Alice and the Pirates

Blouse: Alice and the Pirates

Jsk: Alice and the Pirates

Socks: Angelic Pretty

Shoes: Liz Lisa

Parasol: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

 

So much fun… can’t wait til I get the chance to wear these again!

World of Tanks: Glorious French Boomstick

Or: EbolaBooze reviews the AMX 50 Foch 155 French Tank Destroyer.

So yeah, another gaming post, finally!

 

I’ve been playing a lot of World of Tanks lately, trying to slowly improve the consistency of my play.

I’m one of those people that doesn’t have fun unless I see the enemy driven before me, before crushing them ruthlessly under the steel tracks of justice.

…Okay, I lied, as long as I get into a good fight, win or lose doesn’t matter so much. At any rate, on with the review!

 

One of the dream tank destroyers (TDs) that I wanted to own in internet pixel form was the AMX 50 Foch 155, the Tier X TD in the French lines. It has ~280mm equivalent frontal armour, a 1000 horsepower engine, and a top speed of around 50km/hr. The trade-off is the worthless top, side and rear armour, at an average of 30mm thick. The best part of the tank: It’s a tank destroyer, what do you think?

The gun. Oh my lord, that gun.

One-hundred and fifty-five millimetres of autoloading hurt in a 12 degree frontal arc with a three round drum, throwing an average of 750 hit-points worth of damage downrange every five seconds until it needs to reload.

The reload is a problem though. With the right equipment and crew skills, you can shave it down from 50 seconds to 45.8s, but you’re effectively out of the fight for that long while your drum is reloading.

The full stat block is at the link.

http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Tank:AMX_50Fosh_155

 

What makes this tank so absurdly deadly in the right hands?

The combination of speed, frontal armour, mobility, and the ability to shred an average of 2250HP off pretty much any tank in the game with its three-round burst, within 10 seconds.

Just so you have an idea of how absurdly powerful this can be: One of the most popular Tier X heavy tanks in the game is the T110E5, on the American heavy tank line. It has a maximum HP of 2200. Other tanks have more than 2250HP sure, but only a couple hundred more at most. In fact, the highest HP a tank has in the game is 3000.

Even if you don’t kill your target in an ambush, you will have put its hit-point pool on such a low number that that tank will be at combat-loss grouping – A single shot from another tank will likely kill it.

Alternatively, it can be used as a clean-up crew. Tanks on low hit points can be quickly and effectively mopped up with a single shot, and the loss of three tanks on a flank will likely lead to its collapse.

 

I play this tank as heavy support – I roll up behind a lance of heavy tanks, wait for the first exchange of fire to happen and then pop out and slam two or three rounds into some unlucky sod before pulling back. Occasionally if I see an opportunity I’ll flank attack, but I’ve been doing that less as of recent, and saving my hit-point pool for the late game when I can use my speed to go hunter-killer mode. Here’s the replay where I got Ace Tanker in my Foch 155.

 

 

lorekai: Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call

Released in 2012, the original Theatrhythm Final Fantasy was the game that convinced to look past the reservations I had regarding the 3DS, so it seems only right that I review it’s recently released, and pretty awesome sequel. Before I begin though, I just want to say, if you played the first game and liked it, you should definitely pick up Curtain Call.Story:

It has one, sort of, or at least there is a prologue when you start the game, and as it’s a rhythm game I wouldn’t really expect much more. It has characters as well, so many characters, multiple from every Final Fantasy game with music present, they say various things relevant to their game of origin, and pull various faces when you start a song, it’s cute.

Gameplay:

As mentioned previously, this is a rhythm game, so you input commands in time to music, based on what is scrolling along the screen. The songs are sorted into three different types, battle, field, and event music stages, they each have their own minor differences, but the gameplay is pretty much the same.  It’s fun, addictive, and is one of those gameplay styles that is simple to grasp, but a challenge to master. Unlike it’s predecessor, this game offers different options for inputting commands, you can use the stylus, the buttons, or a combination of the two, it’s is a nice addition as it increases the portability of this game, as with it’s stylus only controls the original game was quite unwieldly for use on public transport or the like.

This game also offers several different modes of play, all of which are pretty fun.

Music Stages offers you the chance to just select a song from any of the games and play, it’s also has a handy random option, if you are like me and have trouble making decisions, especially considering the extensive range of songs.

Quest Medleys are the the equivalent of the Chaos Shrine in the previous game, except vastly improved. It has a better range of difficulties and you are guaranteed to get shards at the end, making unlocking new characters much less of a chore, the only downside being they are comprised of several songs it does take significantly longer to go through one compared to a Chaos Note.

Versus Mode allows you to play battle stages against AI, people locally, or people online, in order to win collectacards, which can be used to improve your characters. Local and online play pretty much the same, you each pick a song you want to play, the game will then decide which one (if you are playing against marsy it’ll always pick her choice), and then you play. As you play it will build up a gauge, and once that is full it will unleash various things to hinder your opponent. Versing the AI is very similar except that you don’t get a choice in the song you play.

Sound:

Is excellent, I don’t think I need to say much else.

Graphics:

Graphically this game is very much a polished version of the previous one, it also seems to have been better optimized for the larger screen of the 3DS XL, and while some people might criticise it for it’s simplicity, I think that it is a design choice that works well for the type of game that it is, and not one made out of laziness. It’s colourful and visually appealing, but not in a way that detracts focus from what you need to be paying attention to, and I love the chibified characters, they’re so cute.

Overall:

The only things about this game that I really have to complain about are, that the event music stages from the previous game aren’t making a return, that the menu screens are less aesthetically pleasing, and that it’s somewhat annoying that you can’t edit your party in the Music Stages area, and these are all fairly minor things to me. This game is excellent, and if you like Final Fantasy music, I would definitely recommend picking it up, even if you have no sense of rhythm, trust me I don’t.

Also if you have the game already and would like some easy ranking points, I’d be more than happy to verse anyone, I’m no good, but it’s good fun. Thanks for reading.

 

marsy: Wii U and Wind Waker

As mentioned by lorekai last week, I am the proud new owner of a Wii U. Responsible use of finances, woo! While waiting for Hyrule Warriors to come out (I should mention that I’m really excited for that game. Really excited), I’ve been playing Wind Waker. I never got far in this game previously on the GameCube because sneaking and marsy are not things that work well together. But I did it. Go me! Love how expressive Link is in this game. Spent longer than I should have catching pigs. Enjoy taking selfies during boss fights. lorekai and I shouldn’t be allowed to come up with theories about games, because they are always really strange. Tingle is still too creepy to exist. Sailing is not much fun. Good game.

Anyway, looking forward to Hyrule Warriors and Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call this week. That is all.

wildfillysama: Travelling again

I left Cambridge yesterday evening and will be leaving the UK tomorrow morning… finally heading back to Australia! Should be back in time for Friday night’s post 🙂

My packing skills have been sorely tested. Too many books. Way too many books.

With any luck, no one will try to weigh my hand luggage. With any luck my hand luggage also won’t fall apart under so much pressure. Books have been stashed inside hand luggage in an attempt to disguise bags as totally within the weight limits. On the bright side, I will have no end of easy access reading on the plane.

Also, I watched all of Attack on Titan. I finally know what all the hype is about. So much eating of people. Their horses also have the strangest notions of physics. Should be a very easy series to cosplay if the urge ever strikes – I have a near endless supply of bay horses to borrow.

Short post only this week – apologies! I have to go track down an ATM now for my taxi-to-airport fare.

EbolaBooze’s Astro Corner: 47 Tucanae

Whew, it’s been a while since I posted one of these!

Blame inclement and uncooperative weather for the lack of pictures.

This here is 47 Tucanae, one of the largest, and the second brightest globular cluster in our night sky. Easily visible to the naked eye from dark skies, and very easily seen through even a modestly-sized telescope.

Unfortunately, this object is only visible to observers in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s quite a large cluster in terms of area covered as well, the the outer halo of stars coving an area around the same size as the full moon.

The image is a composite of 113 sub-frames in LRGB, averaging 11 minutes of exposures per filter.

Clear skies!