highlight~ highlight~

[ 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;

🍭

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 ✨

KCON LA 2019 ✨ Photo Blog

💕💕💕 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;

Tomorrow is another obstacle to cross.

【DREAM✦SCAPE】 GURENGE

✨✨✨ 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.

Axe Me

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! ^^

Anime Expo '19 ✨

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.

The Hidden Post

"Another letter?"

"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)

K/DA Kai'Sa Cosplay Progress Post!!

[updated 09.08.19]

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.

Oops I dropped my soul in the netherworld

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

— Gino (@oksoitsgino) June 24, 2019

~✨~✨~

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!!!!

Again / Fruits Basket 2019 OP Cover

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!

【Cover】 Again / Fruits Basket 2019 OP 【Eva】

⇢ Vocals/Animation/Mix/Ending Doodle: Eva
http://www.youtube.com/waterpixieva

⇢ Illustration: シェリー / sherry
http://www.instagram.com/creamsherryart
http://www.patreon.com/creamsherry ** support her art here! **

⇢ Instrumental: Dibur
https://www.twitter.com/Diburrito ** music commissions open! **

⇢ Sky Stock Resources:
http://loo.sakura.ne.jp/sozai_m.html / https://material.animehack.jp/bg.html

⇢ Original Credits:
Song: Again
Artist: Beverly (ビバリー)
Composition: XYZ
Lyrics: Sakata Asami (坂田麻美)
Anime: Fruits Basket (2019)

Recorded on a Neumann U87 thanks to Fome and his uncle ;u;

~✨~✨~

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~

🍭

.

🚨TRIGGER WARNING: animal death

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~

Expectation // 5 Year Mix Comparison

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:

[left to right is low to high frequencies]

Green :: Expectation 2015 ver. [Link]

Purple :: Expectation 2017 ver. [Link]

Blue :: Expectation 2019 ver. [Link]

The Sky Falls

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.

AH-CHOOO @waterpixieva pic.twitter.com/E4NSH5CxKa

— fome / Sean of PHOENIX ASH (@at_fome) April 28, 2019

Here's me being the one embarrassingly loud Lovelinus in my section.

~ ✨ ~ ✨ ~

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-S2】 THE SKY FALLS 【DREAM✦SCAPE】

【ANIMATION】
✦pkotetsu - https://www.youtube.com/pKotetsu
✦shippa

【ILLUST】
✦minty⁺ - https://www.youtube.com/furisou

【MIX】
✦neneki (main, timing) - https://twitter.com/theonlyneneki ** audio editing commissions open!!! **
✦eva (timing)
✦mimi (timing)

【VOCALS】
✦mimi - https://www.youtube.com/mimimoiselle
✦eva - https://www.youtube.com/waterpixieva
✦chiisana - https://www.youtube.com/c/chiisanauta
✦aerin - https://www.youtube.com/RamenBlossom

You know, I'm actually very proud of my singing in this!!! That opening solo is kind of like a new side to me ^o^