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 Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:09 am
"We'll find you something," the boy said as he dismounted his bike, and walked it to one of the triangular racks set against the building. Quick work saw the bike chained, the helmet hung off one of the handlebars, and the bounty in the front basket gathered into his arms. "You'll look nice."
The boy who entered the store was given a brief, skeptical look by one of the longterm cashiers, who then abandoned her scrutiny to a smile and a wave. He ducked his head, feeling too sheepish to smile, then turned and used his hip to enter the turnstile. He felt a little relieved, walking away from that. Then he felt a little more relieved as he disappeared into the landscape of the craft store, with no one else taking notice of him.
Laike knew where to go — most of the 'plant dressings' were crammed into the aisle before the ever-expanding fabric sections, where it sat devoid of customers, and its popularity was proudly displayed with a thin sheen of dust. Laike learned never to touch the artificial flowers lest he wanted to do a little wet dusting for the store associates. But he knew that floral tape was always available there, fully stocked, as would be the ever-popular wooden dowels that were ubiquitous in crafty projects.
While he nabbed one of the floral tapes and tossed it into the pot in his hands, the peg for the dowels sat empty. Laike looked down at his precious cargo — a brilliant cambria orchid ablaze in dramatic reds and rimmed with delicate white, now sagging under the weight of its own blooms — and pouted. The only other dowels he knew of were buried in the always-swarming fabric section. Or he could ask an associate, but that was out of the question.
With the glazed pot gathered to his chest and his orchid limply bobbing with every step, Laike maundered into the fabric section like a man condemned.noir songbird hope this works! trying to find my footing with this character
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Posted: Fri May 21, 2021 6:00 pm
The fabric section, of course, was what Rosie was here for. With the new character designs released for Genshin Impact, she needed to make sure her Eula was ready for when the banner dropped--which meant she only had a few weeks to put together the costume and craft a sword.
Step one, of course, was fabric, and based on the preview images, she was going to need at least three shades of blue. So, with phone in hand and model turnarounds pulled up, she leaned in to compare various shades to the character art.
A small huff passed her lips. Complex character designs were fun and rewarding...and also really, really frustrating.
So she took a moment to avert her eyes from deciding which blue was closer to the right base blue for Eula's cape, in time to turn and see someone else walking into the section. ...Someone carrying a potted flower.
Well, that was unusual.
"That's a really nice orchid," she said, half thoughtlessly. Interaction with a stranger in a craft store sounded like a nice use of her time, especially as compared to continuing to stare at weaves.Strickenized as you can see, i'm still the slowest b***h in the world! tada.
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Posted: Wed May 26, 2021 10:11 am
Laike jerked when he heard another human talk in his general vicinity. The pot fell from his hands, and he scrambled gracelessly to catch it before it hit the ground and shattered. He felt his face flush. "Oh, uh—"
Well, this was hard. Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew the proper response was thanks. He knew it was probably appropriate to gush about Fiora and how robust she's been in her new pot, maybe drop where he got the seeds, and move on if she didn't want to chat about plants. He knew most people didn't visit the fabric part of the store for plants, so thanks was where he should stop.
What came out of his mouth was a garbled mess of syllables and vowels that didn't really sound like English.
"Sorry, um — she's — yeah," he finished, turning the pot around so the label maker label (which he taped over with packing tape) was visible to the stranger. It said FIORA in default label maker capital letters.
"Is that —" He hesitated, cradled the pot between a hand and his hip, and pointed at the (extremely good-looking) girl's phone. "Sorry, your phone — Eula?"
That wasn't really English either, he told himself.noir songbird don't say that! i'm happy to get a tag from you heart
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Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2021 4:19 pm
Rosie gasped, and moved herself to try and catch the pot when she saw it fall--but fortunately, he was as quick, and got it before it hit the ground. She let out a small breath, and gave him an awkward smile.
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," she said, and it was obvious she had, between the jolt and the nonsense syllables he was sputtering. She really should have thought of that, but, well, the interaction was happening, now, and it would probably be way worse for her to back out. So she plastered on a bright smile, and nodded when he showed her the label.
"Well, it's nice to meet you, and Fiora. I'm Rosalie," she said, "but most people call me Rose or Rosie." Then, he noticed her reference photo, and she perked up quite a bit more genuinely. "Oh, yeah! I uh, do a lot of cosplay, and new characters are always great for that, so I'm working on getting her together. Hopefully in time for her banner drop in a couple weeks. Thus why I'm here, contemplating the relative blueness of fabrics."
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Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2021 4:27 am
"Rosie. Hi. I-I'm Laike." He managed, slowly recovering his nerves. She already got Fiora's name, at least, who bobbed disappointedly in her pot. Laike had both hands around her this time, so she wouldn't fly off again.
He nodded along, finding it more comfortable to look at the different blues than make all the eye contact that people found intimidating anyway. "That's clever, actually." If she got the costume together and the photoshoot done early, she could probably get ahead of the cosplay game. And if she streamed, that'd be like… Even better.
Contemplating the relative blueness of fabrics was an interesting phrase. It reminded him, a little, of his sister.
Damn. He could be standing next to a super popular cosplayer and his basement-dwelling a** (not really, but in spirit) wouldn't know it. And it was extra rude to sit there and pick apart the fabrics with her, too. Like, who did that? She had eyes and reference photos and probably lots of experience. And Laike could be colorblind for all he knew.
"Is it a lot of work to put together her outfit?" Complete sentence. He'd feel proud of himself if he wasn't nervous he'd screw up the next sentence by being proud of himself. "I don't know much about cosplay." If he wasn't so shy, maybe he could've done it, too. Cosplaying, not Eula.
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Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2021 4:08 pm
"Nice to meet you, Laike," Rosie said, cheerily. Honestly, this felt lucky--she'd run into someone who was willing to chat, and maybe she could get some opinions on what she was going to do. Sure, he was basically a stranger, but that just meant they weren't friends yet.
"Ah, yeah, it's gonna be a ton of work," she admitted, and she sighed. "Lots of little details. I could've chosen a fandom with less intense outfits, but no, here we are." She laughed, shaking her head a little. "And, I mean, most people who don't do it don't know a lot about it? So it's cool if you don't understand!"
She lit up, smiling broadly. "Would you like to learn?"
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Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2021 9:12 am
She warmed up quick. That was nice, though he reminded himself that he still needed to get some stem tape. It was easier, too, to keep quiet and listen. He liked it better when other people talked, anyway.
He was going to guess that the ton of work came from the details she mentioned. Genshin definitely had a style to it, and details were in that style on basically every character. Not that Laike minded when he played. He would probably mind a lot more if he had to make the outfits like Rosie did.
"Yeah," he decided after a beat. He'd at least like to get pointed in the right direction before laziness decided this endeavor was too much work.
The plant shifted against his hip again. "How do you know which blue to pick?" Assuming they even had the right blue. And even if it was the right blue, there were heavy fabrics, shimmery fabrics, sparkly fabrics, dull fabrics…
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Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2021 9:24 pm
Yes. Yes, yes, yes! Someone who actually wanted to listen to her go on and on about fabrics and color choices--well, at least, he did so far. This was incredibly exciting for Rosie, and she grinned, turning towards the visible fabrics and zooming on on Eula's cape on the image on her phone.
"Well, for one, you have to make a call about what kind of material you think it should be made of. So, the outer layer of Eula's cape--it's light, and flowy, so I don't want to pick up, say, wool, the way I might for a character with a thicker-looking cape. It's also matte, so nothing too shiny. Plus, I want a lighter blue in the same fabric so I can sew on the designs. A good cotton will do for a lot of Eula's costume--it's got the right weight and sheen." She looked thoroughly pleased with herself, for her explanation.
"And then, you know, it's a lot of comparing fabric swatches to the reference image to decide what's the best, closest fitting shade, and going from there."
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Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2021 2:52 am
That sounded complicated. Wasn't just about color, but fabric type and shininess too. He wondered how weird it was to translate someone's drawing to real life like that — it wasn't like Eula existed in a live action movie first, for Rosie to know exactly the kind of fabric it was.
"That's… a lot." Laike responded, nodding. A lot of effort. A lot of looking around at different places just to get the fabric. And she hadn't said anything about a pattern yet. He thought that's what they were called, anyway. She was working with a pattern, right? Cuz how else did people like, make things out of fabric? Nobody had to do that anymore.
"That's just to get your supplies? What about like, a pattern?" Pot handled in one hand, Laike rubbed the nape of his neck. "Do they release that kinda stuff online?"
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Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2021 10:52 pm
Rosie looked a little sheepish, but she nodded. "It is a lot, yeah," she said, and she scuffed her toe against the ground. Maybe she was coming on a little too string and excited? Oh well, she was in too deep now, and he was asking!! Questions!!
"I actually draw my own--people do create them online, but a lot of the appeal for me, the thing that people are looking for, is that I really do it all from scratch." She reached up and twirled a loose strand of hair around her finger. "It's a lot of work, but it's really worth it for me?" She shrugged. "The effort means that when the whole thing comes together, I'm really, really proud of it." She looked at his flower, with the nametag.
"I mean, you probably understand? I bet flowers take a ton of work, especially orchids. They're finicky, aren't they?"
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Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2021 3:40 pm
Laike nodded along. His grandma told him once that there were really only a few types of people in the world, and her type wold be a craftsman. Interested in making something for the process of it, the challenge and the outcome, for bringing a new thing into the world, to benefit others, didn't matter what the motivations were. Some people just needed to make things to feel fulfilled. That sounded like her, Laike figured.
"They're not the worst," Laike began as he looked down, "but yeah." He'd killed his fair few before he finally learned how to keep them alive, and it took him a lot longer before he figured out how to make an orchid prosper. And even now, it was a struggle to learn the secrets to each species — he supposed character outfits must be the same way. No two outfits were exactly the same, anyway. That included the million-and-one reskins that games liked to resort to. WoW in particular.
"So say you finish Eula's outfit. Do you have to like, learn how to talk like her? Promise to take revenge on random people?" That seemed like a lot of effort. What if she had to learn how Eula walked, too? Or do hyper-fantasy-mode claymore stunts? That was even more work.
She sure did pick a work-intensive hobby. Laike thought it was way easier to play the game.noir songbird thank you for your patience heart
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