Writing this is 26-year-old Eva who has been working in video production for 4 years now and is still blogging, doing online karaoke, and many of the things you already loved in your time! And I have some pretty exciting news. :>
Sixteen-year-old junior in high school, huh? I imagine this must have been the time when I felt the most pressure about figuring out my future; yet having absolutely no idea, no real ambitions, no pull of direction in the slightest, not even the expectation of staying alive for too much longer...
Well good news! I not only survived—this Eva is now living strong, and she's not who you would've ever expected to become.
Helloooo! It's 2 AM on a work-night but I really needed to write this post. For the past three weeks, a delightful doggo whom I call Corgi-kun has been staying at my family's house and today he returned to his owners................. and somehow I cried for hours and hours and hours? I'm definitely more attached than I'd intended to be, but I didn't expect to be nearly that affected. I don't know what's come over me but my heart was broken, my soul feels restless, and I think this post will help soothe a lot of it. Generally I'm doing well though! 💓
Thankfully I'll still see him around!! He belongs to my mom's neighborhood friend—and my mom actually goes over to help walk him every afternoon—so on the days when I'm home (which is honestly....not super often) I'll likely see him! So missing him is not necessarily why I was so broken today @@...
I briefly touched on it in my last post but he brought along a disruptive lifestyle change that was strange for sure at first but not entirely unwelcome? My parents and I all live fairly isolated lives—really this whole experience just emphasized to me how isolated I've always been. When I'm home, I'm not used to interacting with anyone, or spending time with anyone, or emotionally connecting with anyone, or accommodating anyone in the things that I do. ;; I realized a couple years ago that the unconditional love, companionship, and responsibility of a pet probably would've helped me a lot as I was growing up..
So I made it a point to try to not get used to this new lifestyle, not let me or Corgi-kun become too attached to each other—and I was able to maintain some distance for the first maybe 5 days and then it all started wildly unraveling..... Parents initially didn't want him in my room, but I started letting him in. It started becoming a bit of a routine that I would come home from work [recently very late orz], be happily greeted at the door, feel increasingly more guilty for being gone all day so I'd give him a good petting session, he'd follow me to my room and try to steal my attention, oftentimes I'd give in to those puppy dog eyes, and then he'd fall asleep on his side in my room in the little remaining time I had to do my own things. 🥺 I started buying him toys and he'd always beg to play... It was comforting that he'd always look for me and that I had the power to bring joy to another creature. 💗 I'd sing to him and eventually started saying stupid shit like, "Don't go home! I lub you!!! Be my dog!!"
I'm a fool...... When I came home today, no one greeted me or had been looking forward to my presence. The house had gone back to its empty, quiet, dark state that it had always been in. He really brought a lot of openness, affection, comfort, and smiles to my and my parents' lives that I haven't seen before. It was nice to have something to bond with my parents over; we all became super fucking enamored with this dog. It was cute to see how my parents would light up around him ;u; even if it meant they smile and talk 100x more with him than they do with me--- dsjkajsdsd I hope we can continue fostering a bit of this open, positive energy rather than shrinking back into our shells.
Also worried about how Corgi-kun is doing.. My mom and I both agree that we gave him quite the carefree, happy life here compared to how his owners treat him unfortunately. ;;; They're unreasonably strict and mean and manipulative to him... They don't really pet him much or actively play with him—and I know he gets social withdrawal since he tends to be clingier and sometimes even grumpy on the days after my friends come play with him. I hope he's doing okay and not too sad T___T Poor baby deserves better. It's nice that I worked from home this week/had Christmas off so I was able to spend a lot of time with him in the end, yet I feel bad that he probably became overly used to the attention and affection too...
On the bright side, it'll be nice to get a bit of personal time and independence back! Recording was something I had to largely forego while he was here. ^^;; And honestly I had a bit of a hard time coping with the whole "your pet may be a small part of your life but you are their entire life" thing—luckily I was only 1/3rd of his life, but still. Poor baby must have thought that his owners had abandoned him, so I felt terrible to be gone for most of the day and I always felt pressured to act cheerful and as attentive as possible for him even when I was exhausted. Conflicted feelings... It was a fun time.
I kept meaning to update my previous post but never did, so here's another giant spillage of corgi photos and videos. :'D
The past few days sort of feel like someone took my Life Book, ripped a few pages out, and abruptly inserted a chapter from an alternate universe LOL.
My mom has a neighborhood friend (albeit still a ~10 minute walk away) who has the most darling little corgi! He only has a Chinese name—which was apparently derived from a Japanese name but I don't know it—so when referring to him in text I've been calling him Corgi-kun for simplicity hehe. Over the past year, my mom has been enjoying her early retirement by going on walks with them often and I've tagged along a handful of times when I could! Now his humans have been out of the country for an over-a-month-long trip and the only arrangement they made was for their next door neighbor to feed him and let him out for bathroom breaks. 😭 Poor baby was so miserable that my mom started going over there to take care of him every afternoon for about three weeks... Sometimes she'd bring him back to our house to chill on the porch as he initially wasn't allowed inside.
But now as of 4 days ago ❗❗ Corgi-kun is staying at our house ❗❗❗❗ until his owners are back on Christmas, which in a sick twist of fate is the most ironic day to have to part from a puppy.
Wow!!!!!! My (not really my) first ever real [temporary] pet that's not a goldfish!!!!! (or the turtle i briefly had which my grandpa thought was poisonous and let go of while i was away at kindergarten lmao)
My entire life I dreamed of having a dog but my parents would never allow it—and that's how I ended up with a large collection of doggy stuffed animals and they were honestly some of my best friends as a kid. It's really not an overexaggeration to say that I grew up pretty isolated and without much knowledge of the world... My lack of real life experience with dogs is so sad that I had to call in Chiisana (my hero 💕) to come over and help with giving Corgi-kun a veeeery much needed, long-awaited bath. Hooooooo-weee. I'm so happy now that I can pet him without having to immediately wash off the thick layer of chalk on my hands before I can proceed with the rest of my life. 8D;;
And then to make the entire situation even weirder: we had no power in our neighborhood for three days lmao; I was so torn. I absolutely felt terrible inviting Chiisa and our other friend to my dark, cold house but it was the only available time without delaying the bath by a few days...... So it was me, Corgi-kun, Chiisana, her dog Bradley (whom she brought over so that both dogs could learn to socialize), and our friend...... and a flashlight......... in my small bathroom together with no ventilation or ability to blow dry. ☠️ It was a fun kind of chaos though! For me, at least. Bless the others for hard carrying..!!
[ he sleeps on his side?! ]
Since our time together is limited, I've been taking a lot of videos to immortalize these memories. ;^; But also trying not to get overly attached while still enjoying my time with him and letting him feel loved. I hate that this is setting us both up for inevitable heartbreak. It has been strange but somewhat comforting that he'll follow me around no matter what; he'll stay in my company and just sleep on the floor in my room when I'm done playing with him and need to do my own things... It warms my heart in a way but also I really don't want to get too used to this. It's a presence I've never had before and will not have anymore very soon.
So in October, it was announced that my favorite k-pop groupLovelyz would be coming to LA for a concert in November! Somehow, both times they've ever had activities in America have been this year in LA..... and both times, the concerts were announced a cruel mere month prior. ToT Initially I was like, "WHAT I probably shouldn't yolo down to LA again for a concert," for maybe like...10 minutes before it became, "But why not?" As a member of their relatively small western fanbase, I'd definitely regret not being there to support my girls 💪! Y-you can always make money back anyway right? o(-(
Luckily it turned out to be a pretty wallet-friendly trip. ^^ The concert, which also featured JBJ95 and Heize, for whatever reason was free to attend?! I went with my friend Tiffany—who's my only irl Lovelinus friend—and also Myst who was heading to LA for her own playtime, so we made a roadtrip down together and shared a motel. It was a fun little weekend trip with good music, good food, and good friends!
As I mentioned, I've only ever known one person irl who's a Lovelyz fan, aside from Chiisana who likes them but isn't necessarily a Lovelinus. Even given that, Tiffany and I had never actually attended a concert together before. But on this trip I was introduced to two more wonderful friends who are Lovelinuses!!!! It was sooooo much fun and so refreshing to be around them and talk about our girls and for everyone to be on the same page without explanations and just being able to share our excitement and practice fanchants together! 💓
Thanks to these friends kindly waiting in line early—and no monetary restrictions—we were luckily able to have some amazing seats! Honestly so grateful; I owe them my life. The poor folks all the way in the back probably saw nothing as there were no cameras/screens.. But we were able to see the performers' expressions, so therefore they must've been able to see ours too! 🥰
And the moment I realized this...... that Lovelyz could see me, that I was now an existence known to my beloved idols that I'd only ever in these past 5 years been able to admire from afar, that my actions and support might really be felt by them directly, that I had the power to help them feel loved by their fans and give back to how much strength they've given us, that I was truly in that moment a representative of their American fanbase.......... I almost cried while they were performing.
It was a small concert with only 3 acts, but because of that we were treated to a long set with SIX WHOLE SONGS!! 😭 What an amazing experience....
One of the things I love the most about Lovelyz is that their title discography tells a whole story. It's brilliant and it's been so incredible to watch this beautifully thoughtful music project unfold.
OOOOOOPS.... It's a personal tradition of mine to post a mirror selfie with this shirt every year for my birthday, except I always forget to do it around the time of my birthday on May 2nd.... This is a record worst—7 months late!!! I'm closer to my next birthday than the last one!! I've already changed a lot since May!!! LOL. It honestly surprised me to see such a big stylistic jump from last year's post to now.
I'm now 26 (and a half), still not really a competent adult, but I don't let it bother me as much these days looool. I'm just doing what I can.
So grateful to my "fairy godmother" for introducing me to clip-on earrings because they were absolutely the Low-Effort Big-Glow-Up accessory I've been looking for ✨ Such a simple but striking visual upgrade; I love it! It's been really fun to alter my look with different earrings and doing some crafty work by making my own. Feels like the possibilities are endless and I look forward to exploring them 💞
And then this became a selfie dump post, sorry. I really like earrings now. My life is forever changed.
:D........ I learned this the day after the song came out.
Last year I also did a quick "POP/STARS" Soyeon verse oneshot cover which I tried to revisit but I simply cannot bear to watch or listen to any of it anymore; I cringe so much... Guess that means I must've improved at rapping in the past year without even realizing it?!!
Hi! Feels like it's been forever since I last blogged. I've been overwhelmed with work which doesn't leave much to blog about... And then I sort of wanted to write something after Sulli's death but didn't think I could write a post worthy of properly honoring her. Bless her beautiful, brave soul and may her next world treat her better. ❤️ I miss her.
So work things.. I got a raise and lots of kind words from my bosses last week! And then just spent a week on an intense, exhausting, albeit inspiring business trip working on another science fair video. Super proud of those kids and I even made friends with this really sweet, smart, charismatic girl who kept calling me beautiful, I'm soft 🥺🥺 At the end, she won a $10,000 prize so during her interview I got to tell her I was proud of her (also told her mom that she has a wonderful daughter!) and she gave me a hug. 💞 This time I not only did all of the editing, I also was the boom operator on some of the interviews AND—this is a first!—I shot a bit of the footage myself!! Just for a few hours when our main camera person had tons of other things to shoot. It was.....a lot. I'm not that happy with the video but I suppose it was the best I could do in those circumstances. Over 4 days, I worked for 49 hours and didn't sleep nearly enough 😭 so as soon as I walked through the front door upon coming home, I immediately laid down on the floor LOL. So...non-functional.....
Here's me after working until 7 AM, sleeping for 4 hours, making client changes and madly editing for another 4 hours to make my final deadline, helping my coworker instead of napping, and immediately having to get ready for the fancy dinner ceremony where my video was played.
On the plane, I watched Toy Story 4 and very unexpectedly found myself strongly relating to Woody... We're both stubbornly loyal, don't like change, and have a complex about needing to feel useful. And we will sacrifice ourselves for the sake of these things. :c That last one especially is a problem, is the cause of workaholic behavior, and can be a confidence-killer for no good reason when you feel like you're not useful enough in a certain aspect—even if you're doing swell in other aspects. Idk, I've been feeling kind of down about myself for some reason and want to remind myself that I am enough, I am worthy, I don't have to be responsible for everything (honestly lately been feeling a little crushed under the pressure of feeling responsible for everything and everyone ^^;;), I don't need to be particularly good at anything, I don't have to keep proving myself to others, I am special and wanted. Dammit.
[a complete lie i'm not listening to this right now i think i would totally be overwhelmed w/ emotions if i heard this atm LOL but i looped it a lot before and love this song and the visuals to death ugh play this at my funeral pls]
Earlier this week I finally finished the 13 episode run of probably my new second-favorite anime, Irozuku Sekai no Ashita kara (aka Iroduku: The World in Colors) 💖💖💖 First will always be Tsubasa Chronicle haha.
I really feel like this anime was made specifically for me!!! There's too many specific things about it that I particularly love or can identify with—it's such a treat for both the eyes and the soul. In a previous post I already talked about how much I'm completely whipped for every single aesthetic/conceptual/thematic aspect of this show: the magic, the colors, the photography, the magic shop, the children's book illustrations, the sparkly star sand, the wholesome friendships and gentle romance... All of it is what makes up the atoms in the deepest crevices of my half-frozen heart.
It brings back so much of what I loved as a child, and what I want to keep within me, and I realized that that might be why I'm unwilling to re-brand myself despite my alias "waterpixieva" being from 15+ years ago. That's something I just thought of today, that maybe I don't want to "grow out of" being the person who identified as Water Pixie. ;o; I already mentioned this in my other post but felt like writing about it again: my childhood character Water Pixie owned a magical healing potion shop! And also was a part-time leader of a spy agent team but that's unrelated to anything LOL. In elementary school, my dream was to be a children's book author and illustrator, and then turn my Pixies stories into an animated series. This vague sense of direction helped push me towards working in video/audio production and I also feel a strong connection to photography as I grew up always equipped with a camera and devotion to capturing memories.
Now that I've finished the series I realized that the overarching theme is really about the protagonist Hitomi breaking out of her shell. The story begins with her living in gray—literally as she's colorblind but also emotionally since she's very guarded, is pessimistic, unconfident, cannot smile, is socially isolated, and hates that she's a mage. Her journey is about discovering the beauty and colors in the world and in herself, and I feel this really resonates with my own journey in the past few years... ;;
...to become a brighter and warmer person, be less embarrassed and more expressive about being myself around people, to be able to pull myself out of pessimistic thoughts, try to find and cherish those little sparks of happiness everyday, to no longer feel bored of the world/of living, to notice wonderful things in my surroundings and in my life. ✨
I always think back to this blog post from 2017 (a year and a half before Irozuku aired!) in which I write about my coworker who marveled at how cool the clouds looked that day!!!! I envied her shining interest in the world, her ability to see beauty in things that I found to be mundane and uninspiring. "I realized that maybe I'm not necessarily bored of life... I'm just not paying enough attention to life?" In my quest to change, one of my challenges to myself was to pay more attention to colors around me! (Are we sure Irozuku wasn't written specifically for me?) I remember to do this from time to time when I'm feeling impatient; it's an ongoing challenge. In fact I'm still working on all of those things I listed earlier but I think I've still come a long way ❤
Anyway, here are some more screencaps I've saved from Irozuku hehehehe I want to do a rewatch just to save more pretty frames!
Oof we're already at the end of September but I still wanted to post about this: August was a pretty busy month just from the sheer amount of BAR Con shows that happened throughout the month and subsequently at the beginning of September haha. To recap, BAR (booze - anime - rock) Con is a monthly event that I'm on the staff for—it takes place every first Friday of the month but when the opportunities arise we also put on special shows. August had a lot of opportunities which was amazing!!! but also tiring for everyone involved.... Over the years I've been helping Fome with stage setup and running sound—although not so much recently with our friend Diji being wicked awesome with the soundboard and it's been freeing me up to do other things like film/take photos and order/pass out staff meals! I also make some of the official BAR Con videos, like the ads that we run on FB and a couple of highlights videos.
One of August's special events was a 5-stop tour with the lineup of Phoenix Ash (Fome's rock band), PhEri (LA-based idol duo), Stephanie Topalian (an increeedible singer and person who sang the iconic song "Friends" from Gundam 00), and Diana Garnet/Tonkhai whose inclusion was meaningful beyond words 💞💞💞 Tonkhai was a youtaite and was in fact the very person who introduced Fome to the community..! I've always greatly admired her singing and especially loved listening to her "Sobakasu" cover back in like 2011 ;o;... She was one who pursued her big dreams by moving to Japan and getting signed by a label!! She sang an ending from Naruto and is doing a lot of TV work! It's just so incredible to have her come back to the US and go on tour with artists that include two other youtaite (Fome and Phoebe from PhEri) and to have a ton of youtaite come to the shows to cheer them on and I even got to hear Tonkhai sing "Sobakasu" live and she was perfect T//A//T
So Fome and I had the idea of making a highlights video using footage from the first leg of the tour, in order to thank our home audience for coming out and to get the other locations hyped up about what they were about to experience! The only issue was that the first show ended at 10 PM Sunday night... And the next show was on Tuesday.... If we wanted the video to circulate around social media, it would have to be uploaded on Monday. So that's how I ended up applying my quick-turn event video skills from my dayjob to ... this!
AAAAAAAAAHH finally sharing the photos of my K/DA Kai'Sa (from League of Legends' "kpop group") cosplay from this past July's Anime Expo!
I logged my entire costume-making progress in this post in which I exposed my method of 0% technique and 100% guessing as I went along lmao. Mess. What the fuck. This costume is genuinely ugly up close. The joke is that it's okay because her playstyle is generally long ranged anyway--
🔹 Shoes ---------------------------------- $0.00 bc they're inaccurate idc man shoes are expensive
My spending came out to this, which is not terrible!
I'm not very experienced with photoshoots but my friend Muramatsuri Photos (no link requested) is probably one of the few people I'm less uncomfortable with having photograph me, and I'm super grateful for him going above and beyond for what I'd initially expected to be quick and simple—all I wanted was at least one presentable full-body picture so that I could show people my completed cosplay. ^^;;; It turned into going to multiple locations (which he scouted), having simple lighting which was still more than I'd ever been photographed with, assistants to make me look slightly less awkward than I felt, and his time generously put into editing the pictures!
As for the assistants, quite literally I had a rock star and an idol choosing all the poses for me, making sure my wig and costume were under control, and giving substantial feedback LOL. Fome aka Sean(from PHOENIX ASH) and Eri from the LA-based idol duo PhEri were seriously amazing and without their direction, I would have just helplessly flopped around the entire time T^T.......
A big lesson that I learned on that day is that apparently a cosplayer/model is not properly posing unless their body is in pain.... Jeebus god I was in pain. My body felt contorted at times, I was practically holding a squat sometimes, my arms were doing things that they shouldn't naturally be doing lolol. But thanks to everyone's help the photos actually turned out really cool and I'm proud of them, so keep on scrolling if you'd like to check em out below!
I tried to copy Kai'Sa's splash art pose from memory but did not reference it and fucked up royally oops.
This background and the bokeh worked out amazing though! Muramatsuri did a fantastic job ;v;
Yesterday's concept was colorful, sugary embellishments 🍭 !!
I've been making a few steps forward recently in feeling more comfortable with being bolder and trying more of a cute style outside of conventions. ;o; Since AX, I wore crop tops a few times!! And even though I'm getting older and it may appear strange/immature to certain people, I'm finding myself now able to wear cute accessories to my job and in my daily life. To put it into perspective: until this year, I was too guarded/self conscious/unconfident to even wear hair clips that weren't fully black or brown for fear of standing out even more than I already did for being very tall orz..... Handling attention and judgment has always been a big complex of mine—I must confess that for most of the past decade I often tried to be plain in my everyday life so that people wouldn't have much to say or think about me 😭 I honestly still struggle a great deal with sharing much about myself or my interests to most people so spaces like this blog are very special to me. But have been making strides in being truer to myself and more open about it! /o/
If you read my recent KCON post and have incredible photographic memory, you may recognize this shirt, necklace, and clip-on earring as I bought them all from "my fairy godmother" ;u; The very reason I began talking with her was because I stuck around her booth feeling indecisive about which shirt to buy—it was this one that had initially caught my eye but I stupidly started worrying about whether I would be too afraid to actually wear it because it might be perceived as "too cute" for me... or something something stigma about bubble tea something something stereotypical asian girl in Bay Area whose entire personality is boba, blah. Anyway I overcame that thought, bought it, wore it, felt cute! This was a fun look ✨
💕💕💕 My fifth year attending KCON and I'm still impressed at how I almost always have a good time as long as the ticket wars don't kill me! This year's lineup included two of my favorite girl groups (IZ*ONE and LOONA) and just overall most things were really fun and reasonably well executed in my opinion! It's still insane that simply at the convention itself—before you even make it to the concerts—you can encounter a ton of idols, listen to their special talks, potentially interact with them. ;u; I find some panels pretty interesting and I really enjoy exploring the expo with all the free beauty and food samples and loads of unbelievably delicious sales!! It's just become a no-brainer for me to go every year LOL.
Artists that we saw this year!!!
💘 Owns my soul probably: IZ*ONE, LOONA
💕 Love~: fromis_9, SF9
🌸 Like: NU'EST, Mamamoo, Itzy, Seventeen
👌 I guess I like?: N.Flying, AB6IX
🔍 Interested in learning more: ATEEZ, Stray Kids
😊 Neutral: Momoland, Verivery
Just like me, this post is long and messy—sorry, not sorry.
I think that I tend to focus so much on the lacking moments that perhaps I forget to acknowledge and appreciate the times when there are little sparks of joy. Today was a really good day, full of things that I can say with certainty made me happy! 💖 I loved waking up today without somewhere to be or immediate deadlines to work towards!! I cannot remember the last time I was allowed to be so relaxed. With my freedom I decided to lie in bed and start playing the Revue Starlight mobile game—which I genuinely quite enjoy! ^^ There's lots of fun story content, reasonable combat system, generous gacha and stamina so far, even your own little space to decorate and watch your best girls walk around and interact in. And then I met up with friend to get my new favorite thing: the Sesame Matcha Milk drink, which was super yummy and hit the spot!! Followed by a really fun thing! We joined up with another friend to take a spontaneous adventure to the beach city that's 45 minutes away. 💕 Visited one of my favorite ice cream parlors and we went on a wild goose chase looking for these particular coffee beans (despite not being coffee drinkers LOL) that support a particular youth resource foundation related to events from years ago and is very close to my heart. We explored downtown! And finally, I've been looking forward to lying in bed and playing more Revue Starlight!! Sadly I've been busy preparing for tomorrow which will be a..crazy day so I haven't actually gotten to open the game—and also really wanted to immortalize my joys from today—but I think it's a beautiful thing, the sensation of "looking forward to something." ;v;
✨✨✨ I'M FREEEEEEEE. I've been waiting for this moment for months!! I'm thankfully happy with all the things I've been working on recently and they are fulfilling projects, but it's truly exhausting and stressful to constantly be against deadlines and to always come home from work knowing that I can only take a short break before diving into making cosplay, or recording lines, or mixing, or making video ads. I really need a whole week just to catch up on sleep ;^; However I'm very excited to be spending all of August just doing social fun things and making a trip to LA with friends for KCON!
DREAM✦SCAPE made it to the final round of Ascension Chorus Battle (2019) and the deadline was last week, marking the end of an amazing journey. I really love all three entries our team made!! Our non-vocalist staff (pKotetsu, shippa, minty⁺, neneki) are all so talented and cool; it's been such a great honor to work with them and I still feel privileged that they said yes to us and stuck with us for 3 rounds. ;u; And of course it's been incredible to be a vocal team with longtime friends Mimi, Chiisana, and Aerin 💕💕💕 The other day in our sappy feels we called each other our "singing sisters"—and I feel like that's really the best way to describe the four of us... Our vocal tones all vibe and blend extremely well together and we sing with similar amounts of energy!! And we're always on the same page; having worked together and been friends for nearly a decade (yet somehow we'd never done a quartet before?!) let us be very comfortable with each other and give/accept honest feedback and have the best support system ever. ;o; I love them so much. I got to sing with such fuqqin POWER VOCAL QUEENS.
There's a lot to appreciate—from the vocal prowess and blood-pumping energy by chiisana, Mimi, and Aerin; to minty⁺'s ever stylish designs that nailed each of our personalities every time and eye candy illustrations that I would happily eat up at any given moment because they are just my type; to neneki's persevering dedication and how she elevated us with her knowledge about mixing and audio tech; to pKotetsu and shippa's animation (and the story was crafted by them too!) with A+ aesthetics and unique effects built by them that I can't comprehend the process behind.
Thank you for a great CB run! 💕
【A-S3】紅蓮華 | GURENGE【DREAM✦SCAPE】
For the past two rounds, neneki had done the main audio mix while Mimi and I would work on the timing—but for this round the scheduling only worked if neneki tuned/timed while I did the main mix, so that's how I ended up mixing despite swearing off CB mixing after Gemini's "Innocent x Haven" for Ascension 2017, heh....... For good reason too, I found out. and reconfirmed every. single day. as I struggled to make enough progress on the mix. Struggled just to accomplish anything. Discovered that I know nothing about efficient mixing, am lacking a lot of technical knowledge. Constantly felt the pressure of the looming deadline and the high expectations for a final round entry. Was burning out because my full time job is also post production and eye strain intensive. Had trouble staying awake late every night. Ear fatigue clouding my judgment.
This was such a big wake-up call regarding my mixing process. ;; More about this under the cut.
Wrote my very long AX write-up on all the fun times I had and thought I'd leave a bit more of a personal post too since June has been...a really different experience LOL. I'd never lived such an intensely disciplined life before—since I usually never exercise or diet...... And it was all for one (1) day of cosplaying a character who doesn't even suit my playstyle lol..................
What I was doing was actually pretty...unhealthy. Before being hospitalized I was already seriously underweight for my height (I'm 5'8 or 173 cm orz) then I came out of the hospital severely weak and never quite recovered weight-wise, so after under-eating for a month there were actually times I was scared looking at my own limbs. ;; All I wanted was to lose that layer of fat on my tummy so that I could try to bring out some abs, but I ended up pretty unhealthy............ On the plus side though, my acid reflux improved a ton! I focused on protein and no longer had snacks 24/7 during June, WHICH WAS REALLY REALLY HARD because my fast metabolism means that I get hungry really quickly and I'm used to eating often? Thus the acid reflux. I was hella getting withdrawal on the week before AX LOL. So much respect for people who are able to diet!!! Powerful beings!!!!
I don't know how to do this again in a healthy way. How do you achieve that balance?
And then I spent every freaking day either working on my Kai'Sa cosplay or doing chorus battle work TT~TT til like 3-4 AM..... through 126 episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's.... and then go to my full time job.... I was actually really frustrated that I never had time to do spontaneous things or take a chill day. >< For probably two months, I was too busy to hang out with Fome aside from a few group outings and the one time he helped with my costume. Constantly just worried about having enough time to finish everything.
Being busy also meant that I had difficulty dedicating time to workouts (okay, it's literally just ab excercises—I only care about abs) so I tried a new method this year of treating every waking moment as a casual, lowkey ab workout. While at work, I would use a standing desk and do a bunch of leg stuff and mini core squats. A lot of exercises while looking at my phone in bed or hand-sewing anything.. Dancing or knee highs whenever I was standing around idly.. While talking to friends, I would do sit-ups LOL. I really didn't have the abs that I dream of having—but in this specific photo, the lighting brings out ?? abs ????? a little???
Throughout June, I kept saying, "AS SOON AS THIS IS OVER, I'M GOING TO EAT A TON AND DO SOCIAL THINGS WITH FRIENDS!!!" and oftentimes you come up with these ~finish line fantasies~ in order to motivate yourself through challenges, though they may not actually come true afterwards... But I think I've been really happy the past week (despite the exhaustion and a few bad things) because I actually was rewarded with all the things I looked forward to. QuQ Lot of yummy food, more quality hanging out with friends than ever this AX, and I looked decent in cosplay.... It feels pretty fulfilling and as though my effort and discipline was worth it! I've been blissfully treating myself to every craving and living my best life hehe!
Right now I can safely say that my mental health is in a pretty good place. 💕 There were a few blips of me being overwhelmed with stress but all of my negative emotions have been temporary and situational. Been very stable and able to leave myself open to help others. I may be tired but I'm happy! ^^
A few years ago I realized that my life essentially revolves around Anime Expo—it's a staple that guarantees a good time filled with love, that I can look forward to/work towards every year without fail, and motivates me to keep going. ❤️ Year 8 has now passed and it was a lottttt of fun! So now begins the "waiting for the next AX" phase lolol.
After last year's gargantuan turnout, this year had a much smaller youtaite crowd and in particular I didn't have as many non-local close friends that came. ;o; On the one hand, it meant I didn't get to meet up with as many people that I rarely get the opportunity to hang out with, but that was okay!!! Because my hotel group (+ our friends who became honorary members) spent so much time together that it felt like we became a big comfortable family. 😭 This makes me sooo happy.... I love them allllllll T____T What a good group of good boys and good girls and gremlins and ninja bros! Kind of funny though that we went all the way to the biggest annual weeaboo gathering to mostly spend time with 80% folks that we already can see in NorCal but ayy the bonding was priceless.
"Afraid so. We really ought to install a sign, something like, 'Offerings Only' or the duller humans will continue mistaking it for what they call 'mailboxes.'"
"And who from this time?"
"The human girl again. The one who makes moving pictures. Fortunately it seems her litter may cease soon—her troop is relocating and she gratefully asks that we look after the mischievous feral creatures of whom she still believes we are guardians."
"Tsk, I told you humans have a way of falling helplessly for flerkens' trickery. If only she'd gratefully send more than a sheet of paper."
"Right. The incessant updates go on: singing, dancing, the usual, and she'll be accompanying her companions on their yearly migration towards..." the fairy squinted, perplexed. "What is a convention of animo?"
(i found this at my workplace today but i should be packing for ax)
Two and a half years after Mikumo, I'm gonna be very shoddily hacking together working on another cosplay up until Summer 2019! It's K/DA Kai'Sa from League of Legends' "k-pop group" and I gave all my reasons here for why she's personally my favorite member ahah.
Follow along as I have no heckin' idea what I'm doing.
Been a while since I wrote a new post; though I've been updating my cosplay progress post once in a while! My whole life recently has been my full time job and then sewing til late every night while listening to episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh LOLOLOLOLOLOL. I finally finished season 5 of the original YGO and then with my friend KT's recommendation, started YGO 5D's which was my first time watching a Card Games on Bikes series and it's not bad! Yesterday I cancelled dance practice on account of my recent lung pain(?) so I spent the entire day sewing......... through 27 episodes of 5D's. o<-<
I did go out with friends today though for Gino's birthday! We took a very obnoxious group photo at the produce section in Target :'D
thank you to everyone for voting me as Center for Produce NYA!!!
I’ll work hard until our debut, so please look after me with anticipation 🤗🍍🍈🍎🍅🥬 pic.twitter.com/AFNIQSauxY
Recently I've been thinking about how one of my uni professors tried to teach us that "You are not your art. If your work fails, it doesn't mean you've failed" and I never grasped that at all.
It's been on my mind as I just wrapped up a crazy work week (thankfully the event we were working towards is done so is all good now ;v;) during which I put in overtime and took on way more responsibility than I was tasked to, which in turn really helped the team and improved the videos we were working on. And at this point, in this moment I don't feel like I'm necessarily being a workaholic so much as I've already committed myself long ago to projects and am pushing through to finishing them even though I'm unhappy that I'm not left with any free time. Maybe it's because it's summer now but I wish so much to be able to do more things with friends, have spontaneous outings, sometimes just chill and play games.... instead of just constantly feeling like I'm running out of time for all the things I committed myself to getting done.
Back to that lesson by my uni professor, I think that separation is a great thing to teach—especially to students who are about to go into the world and face probable failure. On the other hand, I do find that it's one of my strengths that I take so much pride in my work, and it's something that my bosses be sure to point out during my reviews. D: Because I care, I try my best.... But I think it also means that I tend to sacrifice myself in favor of achieving better results. It's a double edged sword for sure. ^^;;; Once July 22nd (ACB round 3 deadline) is over, I look forward to dropping all responsibilities and just!!!! doing whatever I want!!!!
Happy to be able to say: I have a new solo cover!!! ✨✨✨
So twelve and a half years ago, I uploaded my very bad "fandub" of For Fruits Basket to youtube—my first cover that I put online. But like. Recorded in Windows Movie Maker with a $20 microphone. Mispronouncing everything and singing the wrong words.
Fast forward to when the 2019 reboot of the Fruits Basket anime was announced, I knew I definitely had to cover the opening theme—no matter what kind of song it was, no matter if I actually sounded good on it or not LOL! Hit up my friends' art and instrumental commissions, immediately started recording when the song came out, and I was set on uploading in April because I have other projects to worry about.... Until I got sick for 2 weeks, was on biz trip for 1 week, never fully recovered, had to focus on other things. :c Singing this was a struggle! In any case, I'm just very glad that I finally finished it; this is a super meaningful project. 💖
Bless my friends sherry and Dibur for making me sound and look this pretty?!?! sherry's art is just wonderful and warm and adorable. TuT And Dibur's instrumental makes me feel like a princess.... Do check out their links below to support/commission them!
There's a special reason behind me holding a basket full of candy in the illustration: I wrote a "future generation" fanfic called Candy Basket as my 8th grade novel lol. A friend and I wanted to make it into an anime (literally drawn in Microsoft Paint) and I was going to voice the cat character, but this is something to share more about another day~
I'm okay, so please please please click away/scroll past if this makes you uncomfortable and don't force yourself to read this post!! I'm doing well now and everything's good; please take care of yourself and don't think much of this ❤️❤️❤️ I appreciate you very much~
A super exciting thing—the bestie Chiisana and I have finally released our duet of Girl's Day's iconic song Expectation!!! Although we recorded it in 2014, many plans fell through throughout these years and at long last, expectations have become reality....haha get it.......thanks I'm here all the time
We're very privileged to have aeror404's hot, leggy art and Nobelz' amazing animation 💗
Since there have been multiple "finished" versions of this mix that span across 5 years—evolving with my growth in mixing skill/judgment—I was interested in comparing them and seeing exactly how my style of mixing and mastering changed!
Sad that YouTube was not very kind to the mix though so please listen at the link below:
Hawwo, it's been a while. TAT I honestly don't even remember how I spent April but I was certainly busy with something or the other... Now the month of May has blown by me with little semblance of healthy personal time. orz I was sick for two entire weeks and then had the most intense, draining, high pressure business trip for a week in Phoenix.. Now I'm mostly recovered but still got busy and some stressful times ahead. Yells a little.
Right before I got sick (and probably the reason), Fome and I made a 1 day trip down to LA because my favorite!!!! group!!!! Lovelyz came to the Korea Times Music Festival for their first American performance. QuQ I was so happy I got to use my lightstick and banner.... My princesses were beautiful and glowing 💗 The downsides to KTMF were that it was outside, a very long show, and it got cold once the sun went down—but o m g it was so much better a concert than I ever imagined it to be.... We both enjoyed it a lot!!! Every single act brought a quality performance and we were constantly awed by how impressive everyone's skills were... Kim Bumsoo is now my favorite ahjusshi; he's literally a godman and can do no wrong ever. Super Junior is always a joy to watch; plus their live vocals were very clear and they nailed them. Eunji from Apink is just such a wonderful and incredible singer and person!! Sungwoon's super stable vocals and dancing! And of course Fome's favorite Taemin dances for this non-broadcasted outdoor concert with as much charisma and feeling as he would for a music video shoot. And everyone else was impressive; I'm just too lazy to write about every act.
Here's me being the one embarrassingly loud Lovelinus in my section.
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The Ascension Chorus Battle round 2 deadline was a few days ago and yaaaay our group actually made it...... Not gonna lie, we were getting worried but hoooooo everyone really worked their asses off and pulled through in the end. T___T So thankful for everyone's hard work; this round was not easy at all.... On the vocal and mixing side, we struggled a lot. We sang XAI's "THE SKY FALLS" (which btw is from a Godzilla anime movie OST, which for some reason we were pretty hyped about) and it's a very cool song but is overwhelmingly repetitive, so we came up with a lot of melody changes and stretched ourselves to add new adlibs and harmonies as last ditch efforts to add a little spark... And then this sort of song is pretty unforgiving to mix since the vocals are very exposed, so every adjustment makes a drastic change in the sound and you end up going back and forth trying desperately to find a sweet spot that may not exist. (Not to take credit for the mixing—I only did timing and then neneki mixed while Mimi and I gave feedback so we were all frustrated together lolol)
Visuals are freaking amazing. This concept? The selective colors? The character styling? The story? The Marvel reference? Amazing amazing amazing.
A few weeks ago was the round 1 end of the newest, hottest chorus battle Ascension. Before I rave on and on about my own group, here are some of my close friends' groups that I highly recommend a watch through!
🔹 CYPHER - Redmoon :: Absolute legends. My favorite boys. ❤️ Truly, I admire every single member of this group and I LOVE that they are a CB repeat group! This time they came back with AN EPIC ORIGINAL SONG written by one of their members Toast who just released his first EP which you can buy here! I highly recommend checking out the lyric translations for Redmoon and the rest of Toast's songs as they're just poetic artistry. Everything about Redmoon is flawless....
🔹 The Prison Girls - Division Battle Anthem :: Badass rapping girls!!! Everything is so cool and I've never known of a CB entry as rap-centric as this before! So impressed!!
There's an abundance of great, impressive, fierce, beautiful, sweet, hardworking groups in this battle and you can find them in this playlist~
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It's kind of like a long-time dream come true to finally form a group with some of my favorite singing homegurls Mimi, Chiisana, and Aerin/Erin ❤️❤️❤️ Of course Mimi, Chiisa, and I are very used to working with each other, and Aerin has always been one of Gemini's closest friends and supporters so she's basically family. (Aerin and Mimi have also recently made a duet channel so please subscribe since they'll be active there. ^^) The four of us have great synergy and an honest, comfortable, trusting dynamic that allows us to really try our best—and so it's unbelievably gratifying and touching to hear from...actually a handful of people.......that we were their favorite entry vocally ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; omgggggggggg............ how is this possible?????? what a dream come true... It's especially flattering because our visuals are so strong that it's crazy that people are still able to give attention to our vocals? ToT
We sang the Japanese version of "What" by Dreamcatcher!! It was fun to get to show our colors as we're all also k-pop coverists and Dreamcatcher's songs in the k-pop scape have the unique quality of sounding like j-rock!
And of course the staff are the real reason our entry turned out amazing....
neneki was an incredibly dedicated mixer whose magic touch was what seamed our vocals together and made us shine! She's been dealing with some terrible circumstances but she still chose to work hard towards this entry in spite of everything—and for that, we're indebted to her big heart. ;; Please consider checking out her audio editing commissions as the income would mean a lot to her!
minty⁺ art speaks for itself.... I had a friend describe her art style as "timeless" and I think that's right on the nose. It's visually appealing as hell and she represented us as pretty, fierce, and vulnerable all at once. So freaking perfect. T^T How lucky were we to get Minty art..... I love it too much....
We were also privileged to have pKotetsu and shippa work on the animation and they really brought to life this story of 4 students trapped in nightmare scapes! I really love that we each have our own spoopy situations and how the color grading sets each world apart. Honestly both of our animators were dealing with reallyyyy busy lives during this round so it's crazy impressive how the animation still came together despite how little time they had to work on it. ;;;
Actually Chiisana and I last minute helped out with the animation to take a little off their shoulders—I animated the rap portion and Chiisa animated the bridge! Luckily we had pKotetsu's comps and settings as a base and I'm happy with how my portion turned out ;o; I felt like I leveled up as an animator from this!
Hello hello! I procrastinated blogging a lot in the past few weeks but I've been doing well! I've dedicated a lot of my time to singing projects but not in a burnout sort of way. ^^ My business trip earlier this month was incredibly exhausting but it's for one of those causes that feel warmly gratifying and fulfilling—I edited a video that celebrates some of the brightest students in the country with the strongest knacks for scientific research and potential to improve the world, and they always fill me to the brim with inspiration and pride every time I work this event. ;A; These students are so brilliant, ambitious, sweet, and hardworking; I love being able to share their stories and share their research, showcasing impressive and fun sides to them, and letting them see themselves as heroes. In comparison, they make me feel stupid and unpassionate but I try to think that my part in doing my heartfelt best to create videos that spread the message about their achievements and help them be proud of themselves is important too. ;o;
On this trip I also met up with Sonny for the first time over delicious ramen!!! We became friends many years ago through our blogs so it's super meaningful to me to get to post about our first meeting here. ❤️
Also got dressed up for the fancy gala at which my video was shown at the end of the trip!
Hmm, what else has happened... Chiisa and I got tickets for NCT 127's US tour in May! The ticketing process was painful but yay we're going! Also just one mere month before the concert, MY FAVORITE GROUP IN THE WORLD Lovelyz was announced as performers for the Korea Times Music Festival in LA 😭 Even though I had to book plane tickets and a motel, I'm gonna be exhausted from being busy, and my bank account has a chunk taken out of it from my lung situation, I thought of course I have to go......... How much would I regret it if I missed Lovelyz' first ever appearance in the US? ;;; Sadly Chiisa can't come but Fome wanted to accompany me so it's going to be his first kpop concert ever wowowow~
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March 16th was my singing fam Gemini's 8th year anniversary!!! We wanted to be more active so on top of a new project that's being worked on, we also thought it'd be nice to pick up a really old project that we recorded back in 2014! I had actually mixed it back in 2015 and shockingly the mix was not bad at all, I was kind of proud of myself..... But it wasn't up to current standards and our old mics sounded like crap, so I went and basically redid the majority of the mix L-LOL.. orz;;
A-and then I was going to make kind of a simple lyric video with chibis and just like.... particles and our dumb representative symbols from 2011, BUT LOOK WHERE WE ARE. LOOK WHAT THE NOOBIE ANIMATOR DRAGGED IN FROM AFTER EFFECTS HELL... I sold my soul for over a month animating this in most of my free time while listening to 37 episodes of Shokugeki no Souma dub in the background LOL. It was my first time making a 3D scene and I learned a ton of new things just for this video ^^;;; Please look upon it kindly!
We were all amazed at how our vocals from 2014 don't actually sound that bad ahaha. Of course we've all become stronger singers since, but man this really feels like the ~essence~ of Gemini that we're most familiar with. I'm incredibly proud of the six of us and how we've stuck together through all of these years—making us one of the few permanent singing groups in the communities we've been in that's this old and somewhat active. Especially in the past couple of years, we've been hearing a lot from people that have been supporting us for a long time or tell us that we inspired them, and that's just soooo amazing and heartwarming..... I really want us to keep going if that's the sort of impact we can have. ;^; ❤️❤️❤️
I was in a collab of LOONA's debut song Hi High as Choerry!! Bless the Torangi crew for continuing to actively organize and finish k-pop collabs in this landscape of dying projects ;v; We've been at it for a looooong time and I'm happy that they still invite me back. I really like this collab because everyone sings with a lot of energy and suits the song well, plus I love LOONA 💗
Helloo I'm now writing this post on the plane on my way to DC for my first business trip since my lung collapse in October. So far this morning has already been absolutely horrific but at least I still have both of my lungs? The large vehicle we ordered to take us to the airport turned out too small for all of our equipment so I had to carry my luggage on my lap... except it's not exactly a small suitcase, so from the passenger seat it SOMEHOW would keep pushing the gear into neutral while we were driving—which is absofuckinglutely terrifying and such an unsafe car design flaw, what the fuck!!! So I had to hold up my suitcase for the entire 50 minute hellish drive to the airport, literally hanging on for dear life until my arms became numb. It was raining too so if we had gone into neutral and slid on the freeway, we probably would've been in a terrible accident. Oh my god!!! Also I was feeling nauseated since my body can't handle lack of sleep anymore, and I barely slept because of finishing everything I needed to do before leaving for a week. ><
The entire month of February for me was a project grind month. 💪 It's super wonderful that Gemini is active and will be uploading soon! My chorus battle group is doing great as well! But I realized that I need to sharpen my time management if I want to be able to do everything that I want to do. I don't understand how some people accomplish so much in a day—I often feel like my time passes me by and I always fall behind or have to sacrifice something or the other.
I've been putting in a lot of effort to keep myself from being stressed/burnt out or unhappy and I'm very proud of that. ;v; Instead of being a workaholic, I've been trying to make sure that every moment is meaningful to me. This mentality has helped me a lot! Basically I've been multitasking a ton, cutting out the "fat" in my day, and no longer have productivity guilt when I'm not working. I don't have to feel like I'm wasting my time when I watch shows, because that enjoyment is still meaningful to me. ^^
While animating, I started watching/listening to shows in the background and that's done wonders so that I no longer feel like, "Ugh the whole day passed and I just worked and had no fun." When transitioning between tasks or doing chores, I started always listening to music and the endless kpop albums I'd been meaning to check out for forever. I've been so consciously efficient about everything, I feel like I don't even stop to think anymore without something happening at the same time whether it's music or a render/mixdown or the microwave running LOL.
Another lifestyle change is that I've climbed out of the sinkhole that is scrolling through twitter and looking at random things out of convenience rather than genuine interest, then refreshing my TL and continuously waiting for something interesting. Nope, I don't wanna give away my precious time like that anymore! And no more constantly checking discord and skype and /waiting/ for messages. I only be distracted by social media when I want to!!! The new Eva says no more just dawdling around, no more dumb sulking, no more waiting, no more being too lazy to take action. Gotta fill my days with good things, efficient productivity, entertainment, and plenty of sleep 💖
A week and a half ago, I went to Red Velvet's LA concert stop and Disney's California Adventure Park with friends!!! It was a super fun trip full of yummy food and many matcha desserts. Red Velvet were unreal! Chiisa and I by pure coincidence wore Mickey and Minnie shirts :>
Wows, 2019 has been such a crazy productive year already and it ain't gonna stop~ This past Valentine's week saw new covers out from some of my closest friends ;U;
【cover】Million Love (eng.)【chiisana】
Chiisana who's capable of all genres and charms (trust me—unfortunately there's not evidence of all of them online :c) put out a suuuuuuuuper adorable cover!!! With translyrics that she wrote 10 years ago ahaha THE EPITOME OF CUTE. AN ACTUAL ANGEL PRINCESS. 💗
【mimi✽rin】EXID - I Love You (알러뷰)【cover】
Mimi and Aerin/Erin sang and rapped a BAAADDDAAASSSSSSS cover of EXID omg. Queens!!!! They killed it so hard—I felt attacked by cuteness just moments ago and now attacked by ferocity and power. They are planning to be quite active on their newly debuted duet channel so please look out for their stuff and also ;D ;D ;D
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I love that I got to post Chiisana, Mimi, and Aerin's new covers because...the four of us are doing a chorus battle together as a quartet! (Almost makes me wish I uploaded a cover this week ahaha jk I don't wish for death) We were blessed by amaaaazing staff members too—such a privilege, we can't believe they all agreed. *^* This lineup!
Most of us are very busy people so we started working hard on our entry very early on, like... December early even though round 1 ends in March LOL. We're making unbelievably good progress and making sure everyone gets plenty of time to do their tasks! A stress free CB experience? Who woulda thunk it might be a real thing? Also it sounds amazing and the aarrrttttttt is to die for. You can definitely look forward to us!!!
On the other hand, on the list of things you don't need to look forward to LOL... is the animation that I've been grinding what feels like nonstop lately for Gemini's upcoming throwback upload. It's something that we recorded in 2014 and never finished, but we wanted to finally bring it to light. And I made a terrible mistake thinking that it might not be so bad if I animate it... After all, I'm practicing After Effects and familiarizing myself with the expensive plug-ins that my boss bought for me... I am just honing my motion graphics skills to up-level my contributions at my video editing job.... Sits in a little puddle..................... what are aesthetics what is creativity what are colors how to use plugins how to make nice things why do i work so slowly i don't know
Under the jump:
🌟 haircut selfie dump... again :'D
🌟 K/DA progress! + lung update
🌟 Irozuku, the anime I'm currently watching that's already entered my eternal top faves T__T 💖💖💖
It's a good week of uploads!!! I published my solo cover last week and today, the best friend [goddess] Chiisana uploaded her solo cover! We worked hard on our videos so it's nice that we got them done QUQ Fun fact: we both sang, mixed, and animated our own videos!✨
【歌ってみた】Shokugeki no Soma OP - BRAVER 【小さな】
I'm slain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are not deserving of Chiisana's vocal cord vibrations. Her talents transcend human capabilities. Chiisana is a literal goddess and angel. I can't even begin to fathom how she does what she does. This animation is badass. And just..just listen to her belting. Are you still alive? Yeah, me neither. I want Chiisana to sing at my funeral. I love her so, so much.
t h i s i s t h e c o v e r o f t h e c e n t u r y
💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘
【Cover】 JUNNA / Shooting Star (eng.) 【Eva】
And then there's my cover which I wrote about here LOL.
This was my first time mixing, animating, AND drawing for a video! Albeit they're very low quality, childish doodles because that's all I can do. ;o; (The main illustration is by soemei 💞)
Tbh you wouldn't think that a mix for this type of cover would be difficult at all, but this was a struggle through and through. All of these years of using a Blue Snowball—which has the reputation of being a difficult mic—I'd NEVER had nearly this amount of trouble T_______T Matching my mic quality through all of my takes was an absolute nightmare that I probably spent at least 10 hours on over the span of the year. I wish I were joking when I say that I probably did some sort of EQ adjustment to literally every single syllable in this song. Recording this cover was the reason I decided to finally upgrade and take up Fome's offer to long-term borrow his extra mic passed down from his uncle lol;; Considering what I had to work with, it now sounds somewhat consistent enough so I think my long hours of EQ bore fruit, yay!
I don't even know what to say about the animation haha. It's pretty simple. I wish I had good aesthetic sense and had better creative ideas adlkfjslf but luckily I had pretty soemei art to make up for it!
Fun fact: I just discovered today that my cover might just be the only... existing version of this song on youtube....... I-I can't believe.... Gotta make a shout out to Victor Entertainment—I'm so fortunate that they actually approved my copyright dispute ;u;
Hello hello!! So I finished working on a solo cover on Saturday and uploaded it to youtube but encountered something for the first time—the video didn't become unblocked as soon as I submitted a copyright dispute and it says, "Viewing restrictions caused by this claim are still in place for the time being," which was new to me and some friends. ^^;; When I uploaded a snippet as a copyright test in March of last year, they approved my dispute so fingers crossed that their policy hasn't changed!
In the meantime since I don't know when (or if, heh--) I'll be able to publish the cover, I thought I'd post a sneak preview here for the couple of people that regularly visit my blog. ♥ Kind of like a secret patreon reward lolol except you've paid me with your interest and support and that truly means a lot! It's really an honor that you come and read what I have to say, especially in an era wherein blogging has died and following social media feeds is much easier, yet you go out of your way to let me feel like I have a voice and a space to share things. ;^; Usually I don't very much address my "readers" since I don't like setting up expectations that I'll have readers, but I know a few of you have been out here lately and I immensely appreciate you~~ <3
The song that I covered is a b-side track from JUNNA's first mini-album called "Shooting Star" ! It's mostly in English with a bit of Japanese sprinkled in, which I found interesting along with the fact that there was such an easygoing acoustic song amongst JUNNA's intense discography ;u; If you don't know who JUNNA is, she's a brilliant little rising star with an amazing and surprisingly deep voice. At the age of 14, she was the singing voice of Mikumo (whom I cosplayed) in Walkure / Macross Delta. I had the privilege of seeing her perform live at AX two years ago and she just..blew me away.... and hilariously could not come out for the final bow at the end of the show because it was past her curfew LOL.
For the art, I commissioned soemei whose work I really love! It's tender and flows beautifully, and her coloring style is lovely as hell. It's so nice, what the fuck--
I also did a simple animation for the video so please check that out when and however the video gets published later on, hopefully soon. ;v;
Click above if you'd like to listen to my Shooting Star cover, or this link:
Hi! I hope anyone reading this has been doing well and taking care of themselves 💕
TAT I feel like I've been doing really, really well myself ever since the holidays and it's rather awesome! It's great that my New Year's resolutions are fresh in my mind, as I've been consciously trying to keep at them/move towards them and I feel like I'm in a good place where my irrational thoughts are in check, I'm in tune with myself, I spend time doing things I enjoy, I'm driven to work at goals without being overloaded, and I'm always reminded that people support me. QUQ
Physically, I've recovered a good amount too! This week, I went to my first kpop dance practice since my lung surgery, planning to take breaks whenever I felt that I was pushing it—but I must've been in amazing condition that day because I kept up the entire time, didn't need more breaks than the others, and had no pain or trouble breathing! Unfortunately Chungha's "Gotta Go" dance has lots of chest movements so I had to go lightly on those, but I was shocked that I danced for hours without issue!!! Once in a while though, like today, I do still get scares of sudden pain, but at this point I've been through enough of them that never have serious consequences that I can calmly wait them out like, "yeah ok I'll just go back to the hospital if I need to lol" 👌
