1. 5 Fandom Friday: Games I Love To Play

    April 24, 2015 ♥ Posted in: 5 Fandom Friday, Nerd Topics by Kristina Horner

    This week’s 5 Fandom Friday is RIGHT up my alley, but as I sat down to write it, I realized how difficult it was going to be. FIVE games? Really? I have to narrow all my love of board games, app games, handheld games and video games down to FIVE? Honestly, I almost just skipped this week on account of it being too hard.

    But then I saw some other 5 Fandom Friday posts containing games like Clue and Uno and I realized it was extremely important that I make my list. Learning when I did that there were literally hundreds of actual great games out there after growing up with Milton Bradley was extremely eye-opening, and I love any chance I get to help pass that knowledge on to others. I am writing this list so people can stop thinking games like Clue and Uno are the best this world has to offer. Not saying people shouldn’t ever play and enjoy those games… but there is so much more.

    After agonizing over it for awhile, I’ve come up with the following list:

    7+wonders+front

    1. 7 Wonders: It was extremely difficult to pick favorite board games for this list, as my personal collection contains over 30 and the list of games I’ve played and love goes well beyond that. But I’ve settled on 7 Wonders as my first one, because it’s probably the game I own that I’ve played more than any other game. 7 Wonders is a drafting, resource-management game where you’re deciding what elements of your city’s economy you’re going to care about. Military? Sciences? Just straight Victory Points? This game got even more fun with the release of some of its new expansions (Cities, Leaders, etc) and it’s really hard to explain why this game is so great, it just is. It plays just as well with 3 players as it does with many, because everyone is taking their turns at the same time, which I really appreciate in a game.

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    2. Betrayal at House on the Hill: This is an oldie but a goodie; my friends and I love Betrayal at House on the Hill. It’s a standard “explore the haunted house” style board game, but the great thing about this one is that once the haunt starts, you then play out one of a list of about 50 various stories for the game. We’ve played this with it ending in vampires, a literal cat and mouse race, ghosts, crazy people living under the floors, etc. This game probably has the best replay-ability because of that fact and I rarely get bored of it.

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    3. Ladies and Gentlemen: I don’t actually own this game yet, but playing it at a friend’s house instantly got it on my mental top games list. Ladies and Gentlemen is amazing. You partner up as a “husband” and “wife” though it’s often fun to work in other gender pairs, or gender swap, etc. Basically, the men “go to work and make money”, and the women “go shopping and find the prettiest outfit to spend their husband’s money on”, and while that sounds antiquated and extremely anti-feminist, it’s just self-aware enough to make a parody of the whole situation. It’s hilarious, a lot of fun, and works well with large groups of people.

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    4. World of Warcraft: I couldn’t make a list of games I like to play without mentioning World of Warcraft. I was tempted to add one of the many app games I love, or any of the Nintendo games that have gotten me through my life, but World of Warcraft is sort of one of those old faithfuls. I got into it in 2010, and even though I sometimes get too busy and have to freeze my account for while… I always come back. I’m not sure what it is about it. The expansive world, the holiday events, knowing there’s more levels I could get my main character up after the last expansion… World of Warcraft has been a constant in my life for nearly 5 years and doesn’t judge me, even if it’s been over 6 months since I last logged in. Except that sometimes I have to re-do my talent tree and reassign all my spells in the action bar. Okay maybe it judges me a little. I wish I had more time to play games.

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    5. Pokémon: This was just a no-brainer for the final game on my list. I was a hardcore fan of Pokémon Red, collected the cards, had Pikachu paraphernalia in my room growing up – then started playing again in college with Fire Red because I loved the nostalgic feel of the game. It’s been downhill from there, as I loved Pokémon X, Pokémon White and am now slowing working my way through Omega Ruby. I love playing these games as much as I did when I was 11. It’s nice to know that Pokémon is still there for me, and I’m glad Nintendo seems to know that while the younger generation also still loves these games, they’re also still making them for us – their original audience, who still loves it like it’s new.

    Should I make a more extensive and detailed list of games I like? Maybe I could make different posts for different genres of games? Let me know if that’s something you would be interested in.

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  2. Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon!

    April 23, 2015 ♥ Posted in: Books, Geek Events by Kristina Horner

    I’ve been craving a readathon lately, and luckily – there’s one this Saturday! If you haven’t heard of Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, I highly encourage you to go check it out. It’s fun and relatively low commitment, since it’s only 24 hours. Here’s my TBR:

    deweys 24 hour readathon tbr book pile

    I realize this is incredibly ambitious for a 24 hour period, but I am about halfway through both Since You’ve Been Gone and Sorcerer’s Stone already. I hope to finish each of those books, and get through two graphic novels I’ve been sitting on for awhile. It’ll be tough, but I’m gonna try!

    Are you taking part in the readathon? If so, what books are you hoping to read? Leave a comment, let me know, and join me on twitter this Saturday! I’ll be tweeting about my progress when my nose isn’t in these books. So excited!

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  3. Sanrio/Little Twin Stars Cosplay Photos + Tutorial

    April 19, 2015 ♥ Posted in: Conventions, Cosplay, Geek Events by Kristina Horner

    I’m not sure when I got it in my head that a Little Twin Stars cosplay was a thing I had to do, but once it was there it stuck. I was a huge Sanrio fan as a kid (who are we kidding, I still am) and this adorable pair of siblings was always my favorite of the characters. I can’t tell you how much stationary I had in middle school with the Little Twin Stars on it.

    little twin stars sanrio brother and sister

    There are a lot of different variations of these two, but we used this basic image as inspiration.

    SakuraCon 2015 fell the weekend directly after Emerald City Comic Con, so we didn’t really have time to put together anything too complicated. We weren’t going to cosplay at all, but then I remembered this idea. I asked Eia if she’d be down to power through putting this together, and luckily she was totally on board. We figured all we’d need to do was find matching white dresses, find the right color and length wigs, find matching shoes and make our respective props.

    little twin stars sanrio cosplay costumes halloween

    In the end it was actually a little bit more than a “quick costume” but we still managed to pull it together in a little over a week.

    How we did it: Starting from the top down, the wigs we both got lucky enough to find on Amazon Prime. Thank goodness, as we definitely wouldn’t have had time to order from China or anything like that. Both the star wand and star backpack were made by using standard pillow-making method with yellow fabric and batting. I glued mine on a wooden dowel, Eia added straps to her with thick pink ribbon. We got uber mega lucky with the white dresses, as we found these simple, perfect ones that somehow looked great on both our body types at Forever 21. Eia made her pink waist bow with the same ribbon she used for the backpack straps. We both found tights and/or leggings on our own (I believe mine were from Target and hers were from Goodwill) and the white sneakers were from Payless Shoe Source.

    little twin stars cosplay costume halloween sanrio

     

    Surprisingly, not too many people knew what we were dressed as right away, but those who did were instantly delighted. Maybe they were too obscure of Sanrio characters. Maybe people just weren’t thinking that far back into their childhoods. Whatever it was, I really didn’t mind being in a relatively obscure costume, because everyone always got it as soon as we explained it, and it can be sort of fun to see people scratching their heads as you walk by. Especially after being Rapunzel last weekend (one of many, many Rapunzels) it was exciting to be a less immediately obvious character.

    little twin stars sanrio costume cosplay halloween

     

    It was a nice little test at how quickly we can put together costumes we’re still proud of. Even though we spent way less time and money on these costumes than previous ones we’ve made, they weren’t any less fun to wear. The photoshoot wasn’t any less good, the pictures are a lot of fun, and we were super comfortable all day.

    cute sparkly little twin stars sanrio

     

    I think that’s a good lesson to learn early in cosplay honestly — that sometimes it’s really not the amount of money and time spent on a costume that makes it great. You don’t have to break the bank and make yourself crazy every time you go to a con. I will definitely be mixing easier costumes like these into my lineup in the future, for my own mental sanity and because at the end of the day, people are going to enjoy your costumes regardless of how hard they were to make.

    As long as you put your heart into everything you do, it’ll usually turn out great. *thumbs up*

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  4. 2015 Conventions I Will Be At!

    April 18, 2015 ♥ Posted in: Conventions, Cosplay, Geek Events, YouTube videos by Kristina Horner

    After realizing I never made videos mentioning I would be at Emerald City Comic Con and SakuraCon this year, I decided something needed to be done. Here’s a video outlining every other event I currently plan to be at in 2015 – though if new events pop up, you’ll want to make sure you’re following me on other social media!

    Are you going to any of these events? Do you know of any other cool conventions I might not have heard about? Leave me a comment!

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  5. April Unboxing Video!

    April 16, 2015 ♥ Posted in: Nerd Topics, YouTube videos by Kristina Horner

    This month I received Loot Crate, 1 Up Box and Nature Box in the mail – and opened them on camera for this video! I got some awesome stuff this month, so watch the video to both see what I got AND get info on how to sign up with my discount codes!

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  6. Dancing on Rainbows is here!

    April 14, 2015 ♥ Posted in: Nerd Topics, YouTube videos by Kristina Horner

    Sometimes I watch this video and think “what have we done”. Sometimes I watch it and think “this is a masterpiece of pogo sticks and purple hair”. I flip flop back and forth pretty consistently, but regardless, the Dancing on Rainbows music video now exists – it’s a tangible thing in the world that you can watch, and it was a lot of fun to create.

    For those in the dark, this is the music video that accompanies my web series Job Hunters. Job Hunters is a dystopian roommate comedy about college grads who are sent to fight others like them in an arena 9-5, then forced to live amicably with the survivors in the off time.

    My character Avery is a washed up pop star who tries to make her comeback with a publicity stunt that involves briefly entering the arena — which fails miserably and leaves her stuck in the Maewin system for the rest of the show. This song was her one-hit wonder.

    Job Hunters took up a huge chunk of my life and I learned so much having been part of it. I made life-long friendships, met Joe and learned a lot about myself because of this show. I hope you guys have enjoyed everything we’ve created under the heading of this project, and again, I sincerely want to thank everyone who ever backed one of our two kickstarters for helping make this whole thing possible. If you’re interested in downloading this track or other music from Job Hunters, you can do so here.

    Dancing on Rainbows is bizarre, ridiculous and a little on the crazy side, but it’s fun. It’s Job Hunters. It’s Avery. And I love it.

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  7. SakuraCon Video and Haul

    April 13, 2015 ♥ Posted in: Conventions, YouTube videos by Kristina Horner

    I recently went to SakuraCon, Seattle’s biggest local anime convention. It’s kind of crazy… I’ve actually known about SakuraCon since I was middle school, and remember wanting to go back then. Somehow that never happened for me, and continued to not happen until THIS YEAR.

    So, come along with me on my very first anime convention experience, see what I cosplayed as and what I ended up doing and buying there. It was a blast – you won’t regret it.

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  8. Gravity Falls Cosplay Photos

    ♥ Posted in: Conventions, Cosplay by Kristina Horner

    Emerald City Comic Con was amazing for a lot of reasons, but a big one for me was this Gravity Falls group cosplay my housemates and I pulled off. It’s always a struggle getting those final outlying characters for the perfect group cosplay, but it’s nice when you have a few built in boys living with you that will do most things you ask with a bit of arm-twisting.

    I had always thought I wanted to be Mabel if I cosplayed anyone from Gravity Falls, but when Eia had to get braces recently, it was like it had been written by the heavens. She was obviously Mabel and I am obviously Wendy. It was stupid to ever think otherwise.

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    wendy cosplay costume gravity falls cartoon

     

    Of course, the costume really doesn’t feel complete until you’ve got the whole group. For as simple as these costumes were to put together, I think they really turned out wonderfully. I think the key to simpler costumes is attention to detail – getting each piece exactly right really brings the whole thing to life. Also having a full human size Waddles doesn’t hurt.

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    gravity falls costumes cosplay everyone

     

    Gravity Falls costumes cosplay group

     

    People seemed delighted to see us walking around together, and we kept running into Grunkel Stans and other Dippers and Mabels… it was a lot of fun. Even more fun than that was setting up some of these “action shots” highlighting Dipper’s jealousy of Robbie. These were some of my favorite shots of the entire weekend.

    wendy and robbie costumes gravity falls dipper jealous

    wendy robbie and dipper from gravity falls costumes

    Joe isn’t always into costumes to the extent that I am, but I can usually talk him into at least one or two a year. Last year it was Barbie and Ken (which is still one of my favorite costumes ever) and I was happy to find another fun “couple” for us to dress up as. I think he enjoyed it, as well.

    wendy and robbie gravity falls costumes

     

    wendy and robbie gravity falls costumes

     

    Overall, I had a GREAT time. Cosplay is so much more fun with friends, especially when you’re dressing up from a show as fun as this one. And not to toot my own horn here, but how great does bright orange hair look on me? Who would have thought?

    Wendy gravity falls costume cosplay

     

    Almost all the pieces of these costumes we purchased online or at thrift stores. Joe used Heat n Bond to created the read bleeding heart on Robbie’s hoodie, Eia made the shooting star on her sweater out of felt and sewed it on, and Jenn painted spots on a pig kigurumi to make it look more like Waddles. Aside from that and a few other little tweaks, these costumes were fairly easy to put together! Again, the key is finding pieces that look the most like the ones from the show.

    I’d love to see your pictures if you’ve ever made any of these costumes! Link them in the comments, or come back and show me if you decide to make this costume group in the future!

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  9. 5 Magical Items I Would Love To Own

    April 10, 2015 ♥ Posted in: 5 Fandom Friday, Journal, Nerd Topics by Kristina Horner

    I’m 2 for 2 now  on 5 Fandom Friday! I’m on a roll. For those of you who don’t know what 5 Fandom Friday is, you can check it out here.

    The topic this week is: 5 Magical Items I Would Love To Own

    1. Invisibility Cloak (from Harry Potter): I’m actually sort of iffy on this one, to be honest. I KNOW I’d always run the risk of using the invisibility for bad reasons – spying, etc. You know you’d never find out anything you actually wanted to know that way. But I think that risk is worth it, because the real reason I want an invisibility cloak is to like, sneak into concerts or other events that are sold out or are extremely expensive. Though as I am typing this, I realize that picking The Doctor’s psychic papers would probably be a much simpler way of achieving this goal. Okay. I’m switching to psychic papers.

    invisibility-cloak

    2. The Babel Fish (from Hitchhiker’s Guide): I think this one is fairly obvious. Being able to understand any language would be beyond badass. I don’t even think I need to justify this with any more explanation, I just wanna travel and this would make travel so much easier.

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    3. Transformation Brooch (from Sailor Moon): Okay, even if it like, didn’t actually work, you know? Even if the brooch only transformed me into a girl in a Sailor Scout costume, that’s still worth it. I JUST WANNA TRANSFORM, DAMMNIT. I wanna yell “moon prism power make up” and then I want jaws to drop because of the magical lightshow that engulfs my body. And then I want to be wearing a pretty sailor suit.

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    4. Everlasting Gobstopper (from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory): It’s the only candy you’d ever need. I just want one! I could create a whole review series “today it tastes like popcorn.” “today it tastes like beef stew.” “oooh oatmeal, that’s new. anyone else got to oatmeal yet?”

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    5. The Clow Deck (from Cardcaptor Sakura): This is sort of my catch-all final magical object, because really any power I didn’t get with my previous objects will be in here somewhere. A deck of 52 cards, each containing a different creature with a unique ability.. yes please. Flying, jumping, control of wind, etc. It’s all in there. Just don’t make me have to catch them all first.

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    This was a surprisingly difficult list to put together, but I had a lot of fun. In a conversation I had with Joe about this after writing it up, he pointed out that I forgot to mention a Time Turner, which I immediately regretted. But! After thinking about it a little more. I decided I didn’t want one. While time travel would be amazing, I would definitely Hermione all over that thing. I know myself, and I would only use it to get more work done, and in the end that would not be a good thing for me.

    What would you pick? What would your magical items be? Let me know in a comment!

     

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  10. March Wrap Up / April TBR!

    April 7, 2015 ♥ Posted in: Books, YouTube videos by Kristina Horner

    Hello lovely blog readers! This is my reading wrap up for the month of March. I read mostly audiobooks and ebooks this month, but there are a few physical books in there. It was a busy month with cosplay construction also going on, but I still managed to read 7 different things!

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