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[ Now Playing: "Highlight" by IZ*ONE ]

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!

K/DA Kai'Sa Cosplay Photos @ AX 2019

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--

🔹 Materials & Accessories ----------- $50.08

🔹 Wig ------------------------------------- $28.88

🔹 Make-Up ------------------------------ $15.26 yikes

🔹 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;

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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 ✨