Ditto 💕

The other day I wrapped on something towards which I'd been spending a lot of my spare time, declared "I'M FREEEEEE!" and immediately recorded a yolo short cover hahahaha.

First time singing something for fun since Everything Goes On all the way back in July!

Practically half a lifetime ago; it'd been so long already. 😭

I've been obsessed with NewJeans' entire discography, and their latest tune on loop has been the comfy, sentimental, soothing, winter band arrangement of their latest song Ditto performed on It's Live.

This is something I've said frequently but I'll repeat it each time til my mouth runs dry: some of the moments I cherish most are those of feeling inspired, sparkling desire to sing something spontaneously, and then being privileged enough to have the time and health to do it. ;u; Even better if I actually finish something to share. Between inspiration, time, health, or a combination—from July until now I would cycle through lacking these things... Finally was able to experience that fulfillment again!

felt like singing a bit of "Ditto" by NewJeans (arrangement they performed on It's Live) 💗 pic.twitter.com/2b0bTHADnK

— Eva ❖ CODEX // Gemini (@waterpixieva) December 25, 2022

(also unlisted on youtube in case twitter breaks)

I do adore that next part of the song and hoped to include it but unfortunately my voice isn't up for it yet... Although I haven't been up to much proper singing in the past few months I've been doing vocal function exercises to try to rebuild/relearn the functionality of my vocal cords and breathing and the entire sound system. It definitely, physically feels like things have changed. Supporting my voice doesn't work the way it used to. My voice very easily breaks, becomes fatigued quickly, and the existence of my head voice keeps fluctuating... I'm considering seeking a voice therapist/coach to hopefully guide my recovery, but for now luckily most of the song was in a lower range I happened to be in condition for.

😭😭😭😭😭 People have been insanely sweet.............

Genuinely did not expect this short cover to receive this much love and resonate with so many people especially within my particular demographic reach (leaning more towards anime than k-pop) and considering it's a lazy bedroom facecam rather than compelling, pretty, illustrated aesthetics. Not to mention the lousy instrumental. I'm thankful that so many gave my singing a chance!

All of the interactions have been shocking...heartwarming...and tenderly raised my self confidence. Makes me happier with this cover than I'd been initially; it has set me all aglow. I'm so honored. 💗 Personally I do have a few reasons to be proud but none of them I think are necessarily reasons that others would appreciate this piece haha.

While recording I actually came close to giving up because I felt I didn't suit the song; only kept going on account that I already learned it and should record something even if not for sharing. Unlike the horrid lie insinuated by the video appearing like a oneshot, in truth it took a whole 92 recordings to piece together this tiny cover..... Took plenty of takes before figuring out the timbre and energy I ended up being satisfied with but I'm glad I got there—aimed for soft, hopeful, light without being too thin, slightly breathy, and relaxed! Personally I dislike the phrasing in much of my singing so I paid careful attention to that here, especially holding out notes to not sound rushed, and mostly am happy with those results. Also could possibly be my best pronunciation of Korean, as well as depiction of each line's meaning, yet?

Feels like I was able to thwart many of my bad habits in this little project. Progress. ✊

One final note: I'm pretty pleased with how the Medium Effort mixing of the vocals turned out. As long as you close your ears to the noise of this necromantic instrumental lolol. Pitch correction plays a huge part of a polished sound and I accidentally came up with this three-layer method that seemed to work: 1) applied natural-sounding autotune, 2) then did rough manual tuning fixes, 3) applied autotune again but extremely subtle. Each step just kind of cleans it up a little more without being too strong or sounding unnatural. Fairly polished without too much effort; I'll try it again on a future mix!

Bernard Park - "소년의 노래 (Neverland)" Lyrics + Translation

SPOILERS FOR ARTISTOCK GAME IF YOU'RE WATCHING THIS SHOW.

            ❝You're still young. It's not late at all for you to be starting your career.
So, don't pity yourself. Focus on making great songs.
You've worked hard.

❞            

I loved this scene so much. It nearly moved me to tears and punched me in the gut extra hard since Bernard Park is the same age as me; and I'm really glad he was told the exact words that he needed to hear. Thankful that he shared such a vulnerable story with all of us.

This comes after Bernard Park's delicate, emotional, beautiful performance of his new song "소년의 노래" which translates to "A Boy's Song." The official English name of the song seems to be "Neverland."

It's about his lifelong dreams of singing and making music, the innocence he had back then, how hard the journey's been, how jaded it's made him throughout the years, the hopelessness that comes with age. Or at least I think... It breaks my heart that I can't find any form of translation of the song, much less even the Korean lyrics aside from what's embedded in the performance video. 😭

The first few lines of the song are so potent that I wanted to try translating them—and found out how much fun it is deciphering and depicting something so bitterly poetic... Also surprised myself by knowing more Korean than expected! So although I'm not fluent, I'm challenging myself to attempt translating an entire song for the very first time!! As well as transcribing the hangul based on the video as typing practice.

No guarantees but I hope this'll serve as something until someone does the proper translation that this masterpiece deserves. Truly an underappreciated song.

By the way I just finished watching Artistock Game because Mnet's music survival shows have a chokehold on me, and I would certainly recommend it if you enjoy those shows! Rather than focusing on idols, the contestants are singers in various genres and industries, songwriters, musicians—and it's all about their creation of a performance. Whether it's instrumental arrangement, melody and harmony arrangement, choreography, conceptualization, lyric writing, storytelling, teamwork, forming close friendships through collaboration... Youtaite can relate lmao. I loved that this show gave a platform to a lot of talented musicmakers whom I would probably never have heard of otherwise and hopefully will kickstart many of their careers. Artistock Game is just wholesome through and through—full of talent, passionate creatives, good eggs, good music, and glorious performances!

버나드 박 - 소년의 노래
Bernard Park - A Boy's Song (Neverland)

An Update!

I know that there are kind people that check up on me here and ones that read my previous post but respected my wish to not discuss it. ;u; If by chance I concerned anyone by not updating for a while, I wanted to say please forgive me and thank you. ❤️

Doing much better now physically and mentally and emotionally! I'm feeling healthier in every way.

At one point there was a little bit of a scare on account of my heart health—not too surprising since my heart has a history of acting up during periods of stress and not enough exercise... though my dramatic little ass did tell people I loved them before I went to bed that night, just in case lmfaaooooo. And as I said I'd do in my last post, I went to the doctor and found out I have somewhat high cholesterol.

So I've been eating much healthier. Sleeping and waking up earlier. My ankle is finally 100% healed!!!! Now I'm working out every day, learning a dance, jogging, being more active in general even in small ways. My energy levels are improved. Mood improved. Not feeling as weighed down by obligations as before. I feel empowered to take my time and to freely chase tiny happinesses and to make responsible decisions for my own wellbeing's sake and also hopefully give back more to the people that've taken care of me. ;v; Fighting fighting.

Please take care of yourself now. The holidays can be a rough time for many people, but I hope we can cherish our own existences and the time we have with which to spend finding meaningful things, big or small. Also I'm sending y'all love regardless of whether I'm at risk of cardiac arrest or not.

PS;; Guess who's been eating a lot of sushi lately because it's like the only remaining tasty thing that doesn't cause reflux or bad cholesterol kek

Vent

Light and Shadow

Constantly giving the update of "I've been busy" but I seriously mean it for this year's entire autumn season lolol. Lots of traveling—business trips to Austin and Washington DC.... Chicago was a personal trip but due to deadlines I made the mistake of not fully taking the week off (never again) which resulted in working late nights after spending the day with fome's parents..... Next week is Anime Expo Chibi down near LA where I'll be reprising what I did at AX earlier this year—supporting musical guest performers and photography! And somehow I'm going to be challenging taking photos at a wedding for the first time later this month...

This week alone has been insane too lol. What the heck.

• Monday - worked til 6 AM to finish draft of video to send to client (thankfully still slept 5 hours instead of pulling an all-nighter like last time)
• Tuesday - finalized video, it plays at the awards ceremony, lots of great feedback!! 🌟 sometime during this evening, a nasty bug bites my ankle :/
• Wednesday - flying home from DC ✈️ during the flight my ankle swells up to a balloon.... blisters develop.... it hurts so much I limp off the plane.
• Thursday - it's my recovery day from the big biz trip but parents wake me up early to go to urgent care, am prescribed medications
• Friday - meds make my ankle tolerable enough that I still went to our San Francisco stop of BAR Con's Light and Shadow Tour where I helped sell artist merch and took photos! 📸 with some fucked up luck, our tire went flat so after waiting for roadside assistance and slowly crawling along the highway on a dinky spare, didn't get home til nearly 5 AM.
• Saturday - i stopped existing literally just sleep and ded on the couch
• Sunday - ...that's today!

---

Before leaving for DC, I also worked on this little promo video for the tour~
Isiliel's reaction to it was so precious I died and went to heaven. 😭😭😭😭

#moonbowgathering#californiadreamin
Thank you everyone who made it to Northwest Idolfest to kick off the Light and Shadow Tour 2022! Next stop is BAR Con Carnival Phantasm 2, on Sunday, October 30! pic.twitter.com/RnKGmnBvrk

— BAR CON (@boozeanimerock) October 25, 2022

Anyway, for this post I just wanted to compile some of the photos I took at the SF show. It was fun, all the performers were fantastic, and I'm happy that I'll be supporting them next week at AX Chibi as well!

Rambling thoughts

...Rambling thoughts about eating, our relationship with eating as affected by the pandemic, bloating, weight/body type, body image, health, etc. I know that it may be overly personal, potentially insensitive, and not something that people would want to read about—please do not feel obligated to! It's very much #firstworldproblems.

Even most of my close friends have never heard me open up about this topic and I've debated for months whether to write this post..... but for a long time it's been a frequent occupant of my thoughts, so consider this an honest diary of my various experiences in life that I may look back upon in the future. ;v;

(By the way I'm writing this on the plane to Chicago!!

...and now continuing it heading home from Austin LOL busy times; I've worked on this post over a total of 4 flights now!!! ....Make it 5 flights. 🥲 Hopefully finalizing as I land in DC~ This has been in progress for over a month and written almost entirely from 30,000 feet in the air hahaha.) 

"quarantine" diary page 7

 << page 6

I've been really dragging my feet when it comes to blogging the past few months (generally been busy in good ways: doing fun things and exercising and relaxing more!), but this is something that I want to document since I wrote so much about my early pandemic experience. ;u;

Firstly, I got the new bivalent vaccine booster this week and highly encourage anyone to get it if they can!! As far as I know it's readily available for everybody in the US! This vaccine is vital because it protects against omicron which the previous iterations couldn't. 💪

[My biggest brain move ever specifically booking my appointment slightly out of the way but next to a matcha soft serve place... the taiyaki was perfectly toasty and warm and fluffy but also crispy and just mmmm everything a waffle should be, help I can't stop thinking about this all week.]

This makes it my 5th dose of the vaccine:

May 2021 - 1st and 2nd dose

Nov 2021 - 1st booster

April 2022 - 2nd booster *

September 2022 - Bivalent booster

That 2nd booster in April I believe saved my ass.... None of my friends had it because they never made it eligible to the public while they were working on a new, more effective booster (aka the one that just dropped)—which I disagree with since having some extra protection even if unideal while waiting is still worth something, right? :/ I was only able to get it by citing moderate risk due to my lung issues.

Aaaand then all of my friends caught COVID this summer.

Notably at Anime Expo, most of my friends were hit by it—including the person that I shared a hotel room with, had meals with, rode in a car with, interacted with maskless up until the day before they began feeling sick... Basically my exposure to the virus was certain and there's no reason I should've been the only one to escape scotch-free except that I had a more recent booster shot than everyone else. 😭🙏

It's really incredible how much I've done between April and now and still managed to never get sick...? Multiple business trips including one where thousands of students flew in from all around the globe (specifically this was my biggest reason to get that extra boost). Multiple anime conventions, KCON, concerts... Of course every step of the way I tried to be safe and only unmasked around friends—but I can say that about others who did the same and still caught it. :c

Anyway, your local COVID-conquering girl is gonna sign off now to chill and try to sleep early! I'm now exercising a lot more, frequently walking, sometimes jogging, feeling them muscle gains, have made small steps towards correcting my sleep schedule, I will turn my life around and become a healthy Eva!!

Stay well, friends ♡

Turnt Up 🌸✨

Quick post to say: a collab that I sang for all the way back in 2016 has conquered all odds and released today!! A miracle baby 🥺✨✨

Everything is so, so, so pretty—I love it all.....

Absolutely enamored......

Everyone has such a lovely and pretty voice, the art is beautiful and looks straight out of a game, designs are so stylish, the animation aesthetics are flawless and smooth, and mix is stunningly clean with godlike blend. 👏 Really honored to be in such a high-quality collab like this!

(Meanwhile, I shouldn't be too harsh on myself from six entire years ago but wants to close my ears during my solos hhh..... it sounds like I'm singing a different genre from everyone else, cries. Wish I'd sung it more prettily like everyone else... At least I do think I've improved at singing since then! Also isn't this art of me super cool!!! The artists went with putting my hair up and using my glasses as a necklace accessory—they made me such a hottie!!)

【11人合唱】 Turning Up ! - SQUARE MUSIQ cover

vocal || ♥ lizzzy → (here) @lizzzynya ♥ 사기 → (https://www.youtube.com/user/sagisapon) @sagisapon ♥ chiisana → (https://www.youtube.com/c/chiisanauta) @chiisanauta ♥ hinoe → (https://www.youtube.com/user/AqueousSky) @yuibunni ♥ hanami [はなみ] → (https://www.youtube.com/c/hanamiseason) @hanamiseason ♥ ✦nike → (https://www.youtube.com/user/nikessi) @nikessi ♥ NONON → (https://www.youtube.com/user/xpomusume) ♥ eva → (https://www.youtube.com/user/waterpix...) @waterpixieva ♥ ATEL → (https://www.youtube.com/user/atelierfive) @atelierfiveYT ♥ Takara → (https://www.youtube.com/user/Official...) @Taka_Ramen ♥ 네루 → (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs_H...) @konemeru mix || - hanami (time/tune) ♥ Eris (mix) → (https://www.youtube.com/serenityselixir) @squishyycatpaws illust || ♥ kao (sketch/line) → (https://twitter.com/tsukkaomi) -lizzzy (base) ♥ Siswrn (color) → (https://twitter.com/Siswrn_B) pv || ♥ Jaey → (https://www.youtube.com/c/Jaeyy) @BaeyYK script + initial organization || Takara revival organization || lizzzy

Everything Goes On 💫

The best part about being on hiatus as my throat heals is that although I can't join any collabs due to my unstable condition where I might find myself unable to sing for weeks at a time, it means that whenever I am able to sing I have freedom to record whatever it is I feel like!

My era of yolo short covers is back~ ✨

The Sunday morning before previous, I woke up to find that Chungha dropped a Korean version of Porter Robinson's "Everything Goes On" which is the new League of Legends song that I've been hearing everywhere, released for the new Star Guardian skins and animation!! And I do love me them magical girls!! And I love Chungha's gooooorgeous, emotion-driven singing.... And just this arrangement of the song is so beautiful, simply magical and enchanting and flowing. 🥺 I sighed and clutched my heart upon first listen, absolutely immediately fell in love, and had an inkling that I'd want to try to sing it if possible loooool.

While getting ready to go out, I couldn't stop listening to the song... Actually for nearly a month my throat condition wasn't great and in particular I could barely eke out or control my head voice which sucks because most songs are too high for me so I depend on it lol. Luckily it had been starting to come back so that morning was me testing it out along to this song—at that time I was skeptical that I'd be able to even sing the "looooonGER~" because it's a sustained note and then goes higher without any reset...

That was a super fun Sunday by the way! My friend pKotetsu (whom I wrote about in this post; he was one of our amazing animators for DREAM✦SCAPE) was in town for the Dreamcatcher concert so we spent a lot of time together hitting up good, good food spots. 😁🌟 I still think about that Sunday's food x friends adventure... My favorite matcha latte spot ever, mochi muffins, authentic Italian pizza, burnt brown sugar boba, mango sticky rice bingsoo, matcha warabimochi, unexpectedly really bomb wings that we got at the dessert place... Take me back to that day LOL.

I spent my 45 minute long drive home just looping the hell out of that song and continuing to test my head voice, began familiarizing myself with lyrics while getting unready, and then started recording it that same night HAHAHA. Until 3:30 AM... before a Monday... when I have work............

But it was too much fun. :3✨ I've said this again and again but I really think it's something special to cherish when you have something you desperately want to sing and you're able to spontaneously indulge yourself with it.

My condition wasn't perfect—in fact I would hate to give anyone the raw recordings in this when my voice often sounded scratchy or grating or unstable or not properly supported... And this song was exceedingly hard to sing... I got away with it(?) by doing the mixing myself and masking it with effects—used a lot of the same ones I showed in 0X1=LOVESONG and gotta say I'm pretty happy with how my "medium effort" mixing sounds now! It's a huge upgrade from before and sounds remotely polished enough despite not going much into the details or automating or having a clean instrumental. (I made this instrumental by taking an audio recording of the song off of youtube and removing the vocals in Audition...) All things considered, I'm fairly happy with how the end results sound 💖

short cover!! #youtaiteworks

"Everything Goes On" ✨

i absolutely fell in love with chungha's korean version of the new Star Guardians song (orig. by porter robinson) - the arrangement and lyrics are simply magical so i wanted to try singing it 💫 pic.twitter.com/VaZc4dmj1w

— Eva ❖ CODEX // Gemini (@waterpixieva) July 26, 2022

[or listen on Soundcloud!]

0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You) + Mix Breakdown

[Updated 7/26 with mix breakdown!]

 “0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)” / cover by Eva ft. chiisana

Vocals (TXT’s parts) / mix / video : Eva (youtube)  

Vocals (Seori’s part) : 小さな (youtube)

Chorus Artificial Harms Tuning : Scylla (comms open!)

Vocal Remove Instrumental : https://youtu.be/vLGDbH5FY08

---

I truly do not know how this became an entire cover with a video uploaded to YouTube like this lmao.

For those who don’t know, I’ve been on-and-off vocal hiatus for the past year due to throat damage from laryngopharyngeal reflux! But esp the past few months with my condition fluctuating, I pretty much haven’t done any singing.

…Until one day I was in an angsty TXT mood (whom btw I've realized might have my current favorite discography among kpop boy groups?) and started singing this for fun… In fact, about 1/3 of the mains were recorded with speakers bc I thought of it as karaoke looool.

It’d been 1.5 months since I’d last sang so was basically testing my vocal condition—I expected my voice not to be able to handle low notes, pleasantly surprised, then I thought maybe rapping would be too much, was super happy since my last rap attempt my throat said nOPE, and DEFINITELY I thought I’d be skipping the chorus and loud parts, but big shock!!! Somehow….a cover came to existence!!

This was so fun—from the whole unexpected recording experience, mixing with lots of effects, getting to do a new yolo duet with the best friend (thank you chiisa for your angel voice and Sakura-chan!!!), pulling this video out of my ass…..

Thank you for watching and reading if you did ♡

I will sing lots more when I’m recovered!

---

PS: I got greedy and rushed to upload this the night before leaving for AX LOL. Kinda contributed to my dying but I'm glad I got this out there ;v; I'd like to do a little breakdown of the mix effects, maybe coming soon !?

---

Yaaaay I did it! Rather than a proper mix breakdown, I just showed everything that was on my effects chain—they're kind of the typical effects that I would use for vocals, especially kpop vocals that need to be thick and punchy, and ESPECIALLY since I only recorded one layer with no doubling!

mix breakdown ?! kind of !?

such a huge relief that ppl liked my mixing for the "0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)" cover tysm 🥺

it was fun haphazardly piling on all the effects - so here is a breakdown of what's on my Vocal Bus as requested!#youtaiteworks pic.twitter.com/taWhCEyesq

— Eva ❖ CODEX // Gemini (@waterpixieva) July 13, 2022

Also a little demo of how the pitch phasing works since it's not super common but I think it makes a world of difference!!

Anime Expo 2022 📸✨

{ Currently listening to: "Stay This Way" by fromis_9 🎶 }

Things been crazy again lolololol.

Despite attending Anime Expo every year since 2012—HOLY IT'S BEEN TEN YEARS ? ! barring the two years it was virtual..... This year I hadn't planned on it until a month beforehand because the team I work with for BAR Con was either managing, representing, or collaborating with a bunch of music performers and we just needed more personnel on-site. It was thanks to volunteering at Fanime, having a great time with the team, meeting cool performers, and having so much fun taking photos that solidified my decision and I'm glad I went ;u; Hindsight certainly says I would've regretted not going.

The thing to regret though... most of my friends caught COVID. 💀 It's hard to pinpoint how and when. Miraculously considering I shared a room with someone who's been bedridden this past week, my body seems to have managed to fend it off entirely..? Shout out to my 2nd booster vaccine that I was able to get by citing mild immunodeficiency from my lung risk—you a real one. 🙏

It was definitely a different experience; Anime Expo in the past always felt like a bonding camp where I'd squish into a hotel room with too many friends and we'd just chill together, I cosplayed pretty much every year, and we'd leave at the end feeling like a little family with the stupidest inside jokes. It was the central place where we could meet our youtitty friends from all over the world and I helped out with organizing the AX Youtaite Meetup, sometimes vlogged, one year we even filmed Youtaite React. Heartwarming, bursting with friendship and things that became wild stories, mostly wholesome. Many of my favorite memories are of AX!

This year most of my typical friends hadn't planned on going... until just like me: many ended up there for staffing, boothing, or networking/work-related purposes. Pandemic isn't a good time for sardine-mode hotel room so we did our separate things. Very interesting that we've spent enough years attending the con and gaining experience/rank that we now stand on the other side of the velvet rope—my friends have become so powerful hahaha.

XXIX

Continuing into my 15th year !!! doing my personal "birthday" tradition of taking a mirror selfie with this shirt—and also as per tradition, it's late, seeing how my birthday was last month.

Gosh I really do not want to think about the fact that I'm 29 now LOL... It's too close to thirty, I can't do this. Not to propagate the ugly myth that one's life ends after your twenties but there are certain societal expectations that kick in; and I just personally don't check off the boxes in many departments such as life skills, aesthetics, independence, interests... There's so many things I can't do for myself and also don't necessarily care about nor have the energy for. I'm currently not interested in moving forward to any other "stage" in life. In general, my taste particularly leans more childish and less sophisticated, and I'm a late bloomer who only recently started to express things more so I wish to keep exploring that without probable judgment. Still don't feel like I'm even completely out of my shell or have shedded my social awkwardness yet. And I keep making more friends in their early-to-mid twenties and just do not want my age to ever be perceived again... 😣 I genuinely hate that I always feel so embarrassed of who I am (and pity my parents) for a stupid reason like not fitting societal norms even though I'm overall a hardworking, fairly responsible person and doing little harm. I could simply not care.

Funnily enough, I just revisited my post Twenty-eight from last year and not only did I use the exact same vocabulary, but also made a 180 degree swerve in mentality lmao. I'm weak now. It was easier to say all that at 28 than...y'know, that age that I am now. But those words do give me a bit more courage!

How quickly do things turn from "I don't need to check off requirements in order to feel worthy of my stage in life" to "I hate that I loathe myself because others will perceive me as unworthy."

I'm also not ready to watch my family grow old, or for things I've always known as sturdy to erode. I'm not ready to become the strong one, or to be fully confident in myself and everything I represent. I don't desire anything in my situation to change. Aging is terrifying and there's so little of adulthood that I want anything to do with...

Somehow this post went in an extremely grim direction, I'm so sorry LOL.

Like I said last year, right? In the end most of this stuff doesn't signify much. I'm really glad that I wrote that. ;u; Let's just do our best and be whoever we want to be in the precious time that we have.

---

New in my style this year!!!

• I've committed to training my bangs to fall downwards so it's front bangs all the time now ✨
  
  
• Bought rings and started wearing 'em! My new favorite low-effort-high-visual-upgrade hack.
  
  
• Now almost exclusively wearing high-waisted pants and skirts 👌 (+ getting more into crop tops!)
  
  
• I won a Fitbit in the staff raffle from volunteering for Fanime :D!! I'd never owned one or a smartwatch before, so this was legitimately lifechanging and motivates me to try to exercise nearly every day. It is now a permanent attachment to this human body.

GI, pt. 1

Hello.... I'm just here to rant for a quick second. 😭

It's that time again where I be cryin' in my car after a doctor's appointment hahaha....... I need to go pick up meds and get home to continue my workday, but I wanna process my feelings first. Not bad news, just frustration!

So leading up to this I've been seeing an ENT about my throat issues since it really escalated last year, was diagnosed with laryngopharyngeal reflux (basically acid reflux affecting your vocal cords) and have been on medication and diet and lifestyle changes for 6 months. Typically with this treatment it should be resolved in about 3 months but even after 6 although it's improved tremendously, I don't think I'm quite "normal" yet?

The ENT referred me to a GI to get my stomach checked for any underlying/more serious causes to my reflux beyond the typical factors like food and certain lifestyle habits—but the nearest appointment I could get had a 3 month wait (at least ENT had the highest recommendation for this doctor) and today was finally, finally, fINALLY !! that day that I was hoping would give me progress and answers.

📸🎶

Um it was just March, I blinked, and now it's June...? Huh.......?
Thankfully life did manage to slow down a bit during April, but oh sweet baby jesus lordy—the entirety of May was a month-long nonstop sprint. Just running and running, kept going and going and going.

My month of May was characterized by... spraining my ankle, helping fome move to a new apartment, big work projects, 9 day long stressful but amazing business trip with lots of walking on injured ankle, a national tragedy, and then I ended it with a bang by helping volunteer for Fanime our local anime con.

Specifically it's because I have lots of friends involved with either running or performing for the Dance so I signed on to help with A/V and thought I'd try my hand at taking some photos as well!

Honestly I had dreaded this weekend, not for any external reasons other than that I knew I'd be exhausted. 😔 Going from preexisting exhaustion to a highly exhaustive, physically demanding gig with extremely long hours and high social pressure aaah. I wasn't wrong with these predictions; it felt like I was pushing myself to my limits and somewhere in the middle I even cried from fatigue......

(staff vest bright pink,,)

But what I didn't predict was that. I would.. end up.. feeling pretty happy about the entire experience? Despite the lows, it felt... fulfilling? What I'm left with is only.... glowing feelings? Is it Stockholm Syndrome?

This weekend I met a lot of cool people and made new friends—and I didn't expect that that would put me into such a state of giddiness. 🥺 I'm not necessarily the type of person to actively seek out new friends but how can I not be excited about having met and spent time with folks that I got along with well?! And the little community that formed out of all of us working on this event together and supporting each other warms my heart. Attending the shows was fun too since the performers gave tons of energy, bombass remixes, and it's awe-inspiring to see a huge room of people get hyped over their favorite anisong hits haha.

Admittedly I also have to mention that it feels amazing to see people using the photos that I took. Feels like validation that they liked my amateur photos and just being someone who's considered useful/helpful to others is what I live for. It's extra gratifying since taking photos was purely my idea, nobody asked me to do it, yet it ended up becoming something somewhat significant; I feel honored to have been able to contribute like that and help some of the performers be able to immortalize their experience from what sounds like was a meaningful stage for many of them 😭

Plus, I'm not a real photographer so every compliment I've received on my work has meant a whole lot!! There were certainly ups and downs in my photography—especially at the end of each night when I was most tired, the quality suffered—but I want to think that overall I can feel proud of myself. ;u; This may have been my first time experimenting with angles like this too!

Anyway I just wanted to share some of my favorite shots that I managed to take~ I'm not including every artist and it certainly doesn't reflect at all on my opinion on any of them or their incredible performances. 🙏 This is essentially from a photography standpoint.

Regrettably there were four nights of shows, from 6 PM til 2 AM, so unfortunately I just couldn't make it around to capture photos for every performer... And like I said, my work was really inconsistent—most of the shots came out poorly because of the dark room, ever-changing lights and haze, constant movements, my fatigue, sore arms, having to borrow fome's camera for one of the days and being unfamiliar with it, and not having fast enough shutter speed. These are the shots where luck aligned somehow!

NOISZ Dev Interview with Phoebe

A second post about NOISZ STARLIVHT in a row, only the difference is that this one wasn't written practically a month ago on a plane without me having had time to finalize it until now loooool.

I edited a highlights of a Twitch stream for the first time!! Well, it's not really a typical highlights—it's still pretty longform without too much editing since it's meant to serve as the VOD for the interview that Kternal (NOISZ's producer) had hosted by Phoebe (voice of Hikari and my fellow member of SUNRaiSE in the game ☀️).

The interview delves into the process behind developing the game, thoughts and values, LGBTQ and racial representation, favorite songs and what went into the lyrics of them, the difference between this game and the previous one in the series, and more~

I found the interview interesting (you might catch me in the comments section ahah) and they're both wonderful people so this is a rare case of me taking on a freelance video editing job. Took a 1 hour long stream, cut it down to 29 minutes, and did the closed captioning. :3

NOISZ STARLIVHT Livestream 💖

[Update: The official VOD of the livestream can be found here!]

If you've perhaps read this twitter thread of mine then much of this post will sound familiar, since I'll be talking about the same things but expanding on it!

In February I made a huge, significant, crazy, unbelievable step upwards in my personal growth. 🥺🥺🥺

For starters, I was blessed to be cast to provide the voice for a character in a game!! 

It's called NOISZ STΔRLIVHT, a mobile game for the NOISZ series which take on the genre mashup of visual novel x bullet hell x rhythm game. Out and playable now! ✨

It's full of cute idol girls and lovely LGBTQ stories told by a wonderful team of devs—and the main cast of STARLIVHT are all friends of mine from the youtaite community that I admire which is freaking amazing!!! They're KT (whom I hang out with very frequently irl now), Angela, k*chan, and Leon!

I'm in their rival idol group SUNR愛SE aka SUNRaiSE, alongside Phoebe (another irl friend!) and Snazzle/Niko who are both youtaite as well. 🥰☀️✨ Asuka-chan is the girl that I sing as~ My first paid vocal gig wowowow. Our songs aren't in the game yet but coming soon, apparently this month!

To celebrate the long-awaited launch of the game, we did something crazy.....

We held a livestream where all 4 members of STARLIVHT and all 3 of SUNRaiSE participated using live2D models of our characters !!! 😱😱😱😱😱

Admittedly when we were asked to appear on this stream, I was freaking out about it already since I have stage fright and a bad relationship with speaking... I'd misunderstood and agreed thinking I could just briefly pop in with "Hi I'm Eva, I provide the voice for Asuka" and allow others who are more comfortable with speaking to take over............ and then I found out that I had to act as Asuka.

Who is an overconfident, loudmouthed, cheerful, trendy, well-connected girl with "infectious energy," a longtime idol and pro on the stage. And I...am not an actor.... and I am absolutely none of those traits.

Ummm... Hi I'm Eva, and this is how I had to suddenly 1) conquer my stage fright, 2) learn how to act, 3) prepare myself to improv voice act, 4) overcome my fear of speaking, and 5) debut as a fake vtuber practically overnight.

Holy shit.

---

...March

March 8th:
Huhu again long time no blog; I've been busy but with enough free time to spend enjoying playing games and being with friends. ^^

Writing this—and the next post—as I'm on a plane to my first business trip since the pandemic! ✈️

After two years of the STEM youth events being virtual, finally we can go back to working with DSLR footage and not crappy webcams via Zoom... As a video editor I'm so tired of boxes hahaha. 🙏 It'll be mighty interesting with how strict the COVID restrictions are on-site; we're doing either a PCR or rapid test every day and not allowed to see anyone outside our bubble. We've expanded our team (with me as lead editor) so I'm really hoping to be able to sleep more than I've done in the past!!

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March 16th:
Aaaaand then I got so busy on the trip that I never posted this from my iPhone notes.

I'm now on the plane heading home! 🛬

Exhausted but my heart is full. The first few nights I was so jetlagged I couldn't sleep, then afterwards I didn't sleep much from working late crazy nights and still having to wake up early to attend a shoot or take our daily COVID test...

My main job was editing a highlights video that was shown at the awards ceremony on the final day—comprised of all the interviews and footage our team filmed all week of the students' activities. It's a task that I take very seriously because it's how this super important week for these kids is immortalized and gives them an immediate perspective of how amazing their experience was. Everyone on the staff does their best to treat them like mini celebrities, since they've done so much to be celebrated, but I get the privilege of letting them see themselves framed like superstars which I think is quite special.

It's really, really touching to watch them watch the video. 🥺 Honestly makes all the exhaustion feel kinda worth it. It warmed my heart to hear their comments, clapping for each other, laughing at the funny parts, hugging each other and all the "awwww"ing.... And then at the end they applauded the video team and my boss FOR SOME REASON POINTED AT ME and gave me all the credit despite there being other team members too that did the filming and producing and assisting so the whole room turned and applauded me which was so mindblowing aaaaaaa I was insanely embarrassed!!! had no idea how to act!! but the recognition is gratifying. 😭😭 My team members also told me that I cut together an amazing story so I feel really happy about that.

There's so much energy, camaraderie, good food, and fun experiences from doing this in person that just can't be replicated to even a fraction during the virtual counterpart—and makes it possible to power through all the miserable things like stress and not sleeping.

Oh yeah, I pulled an all-nighter on the final night before the video was due lol. I'm sad about that because we expanded our team to prevent this... but we overlooked some things and there was also bad luck and a lot of troubleshooting and ugh....... I was pretty stressed the whole time and barely slept.

Anddddd then I never finished this post until now lmaolmaoalmaaooo my March continued to be busy stressful even after getting back but I think FINALLY... in April now I can take a breather! 🌸

(...until the next big business trip in May)

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Photo dump after the cut because I guess why not:

The Princess and the Malewife

Ehe a new post for my voice acting tag~ Another short Genshin Impact fandub—this time as a collab with Kuroノ who is one of my friends that I hang out with irl!

Twitter embed is very fickle—if it's broken, here's the direct link to the tweet and backup on YouTube!

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another short #GenshinImpact fandub, this time w/ Kuroノ!!! ⚔️

Thoma ⬩ @KuronoStuff
Ayaka ⬩ @waterpixieva

『Character Demo - Kamisato Ayaka: Camellia in Winter Snow』#evatriestofandub pic.twitter.com/J9BeIJR7ol

— Eva ❖ CODEX // Gemini (@waterpixieva) January 22, 2022

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Kurono posted a fantastic fandub of Kazuha back in July of last year (he did the entire thing and it's both timbre and acting perfection 👌👌), so we thought it'd be fun to collaborate on a fandub of something together—and so when Ayaka's trailer came out a week later featuring Thoma......!!

First of all, our friends and I all thought Kuro would already be a natural effortlessly good fit for Thoma and we were so right LOL. Good neighborly puppy boy energy!! But also slightly sassy yet dependable!! Kuro was able to record that lightning fast yet sounded "as flawless as ever;" I was so impressed ahaha. What a pro. So yes... he recorded that in July... on the same day the trailer came out.......

Cut to: me struggling to reach the Ayaka voice that I wanted to go for, trying it over many days through into August as a lower priority venture under my other projects, my voice wearing out quickly during the recording sessions both due to the whispery timbre (my ENT told me whispering is super harsh on your throat...) and unfortunate external reasons.

This was happening around the time I started realizing something was wrong with my throat... ;;;; I felt so bad for Kuro because something that was supposed to be quick and spontaneous got dragged out for so long—I told him and myself that I'd pick up trying to record better takes for this again once my throat felt better. In the meantime I finished up all the lines I owed and went on a recording hiatus... It fluctuated for a bit and then I watched my throat get even worse and worse.............

Now in February, I'm still waiting for it to get better. :/
(My reflux and allergy medications might not be effective enough for me, sigh, fingers crossed my ENT appointment next week will create some progress.)

So yeah, I went back to all of the B-tier takes that I saved but wasn't entirely happy with and performed extremely detailed surgery to stitch some syllables together and make something post-able at last! Also nixed two lines that I had no good takes for. I do feel that I didn't reach my vision for Ayaka's voice and my pronunciation bothers me, so I consider this an "incomplete version."

---

Again I find it really interesting how the official voice actors for the various languages in Genshin take pretty different directions in characterization. Despite them being quite different, I genuinely really really really like both Hayami Saori and Erica Mendez as variations of Ayaka—they both did such an amazing job and sound very pretty. 😭

Hayamin of course has the perfect princess voice that's simultaneously "out-of-your-league" and "little sister" and she carries such a soft warmth and effortless whispery tone (LITERALLY, PHYSICALLY HOW??). I enjoy how her characterization includes some playfulness—the way she often sounds like she's slightly laughing feels so friendly, open, and affectionate. She's precious but also strong and reliable when need be. I could listen to her voice all day long.

Erica's version of Ayaka also has a really pleasant, airy, soft timbre that I was happy that they pulled off because I rarely hear such a tone in English dubbing. Her voice acting conveys so much all at the same time: Ayaka's seriousness as an important member of society and sword master (the English characterization seems to lean into this aspect the most?), formality, tradition, tranquility, yet still with a hint of the childlike purity that Ayaka has. It's so good. Compared to the Japanese version, the English Ayaka seems much more confident and strikes me as more of an observer than an experiencer.

(Btw I was especially impressed upon realizing she's also the English VA of Nico from Love Live, that insane range...!! Another side note, I love Christian Banas' Thoma as well—he does such nuanced performances and makes him so wholesome and energetic. 🥺)

"there can only be one"

For my rendition of Ayaka, I tried out several approaches—it started out comparatively closer to Erica's version and I did kind of a throat'y voice—but I ended up wanting to challenge myself to inch a bit closer to Hayamin's portrayal that was whispery, higher medium tone, slower, less confident, a "cool" timbre that has a grainy texture to it but warmer and slightly rounded delivery, a delicate balance of inserting some fullness into the voice while also remaining light. In the second half I wanted to slip in some of that openness and subtle playfulness into it. Also I didn't want it to feel like the exact same direction I did for Ganyu (though there's a lot of overlap)—I wanted my Ayaka to comparatively be a bit more grounded and full, yet more inflated with air, decisive, and less sweet. YES I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS A LOT LOL. AND NO THE EXECUTION WASN'T SATISFACTORY.

Aside from the pronunciation, one of my regrets is that I couldn't get "Spar with me some more" to hit that ideal balance of playful and assertive. And also unfortunately I'm not Hayamin herself 😔 Oh whales, I'm ultimately still fairly happy with what I achieved and am fond of this collab with Kuro. ^^

This was the toughest thing I've ever tried to voice act!!! And I will probably never attempt such a whispery voice again in my entire life because boy, it do not cooperate with me throat!! Please enjoy as it will never happen again!!!

2021 New Year's Resolutions Review

For those who don't know, starting all the way back in 2009 I've tried to write 100 goals for myself almost every year! It's one of my personal traditions and I'll often reflect on how I did before coming up with another set for the next year.

This was quite a year lmao I'm scared to see how badly I did. (That said, there was every excuse for doing badly, I'm forgiven, I don't care!!!)

The reason I'm bent on reviewing 2021 though is because I don't plan to do 2022 resolutions for now. ;v; It would just be, like, 70% health-related resolutions which is boring as heck.

There's too much uncertainty about whether/when my throat will recover and the other health things preventing me from working on projects or my skills much—I've been set back so much that I don't want to think too hard about distant goals. This year I really just need to take care of myself by staying disciplined and extremely careful about my lifestyle, appreciate the small things in life, and keep my pessimism in check believe that everything will get better soon!

- - -

— Highlights of my 2021:

[link to MV if embed breaks]

• After an extremely long editing and color grading process, I finished the Ph03n1x 4sh music video that I had the huge opportunity of directing back in 2020—and it premiered at Virtual Anime Expo!!! The biggest accomplishment of my life. 😭
  
  
• Vaccination! I'm very fortunate that most of my loved ones and I have steered clear of COVID. Just one friend that I see sometimes caught it right before New Years ;;
  
  
• Neither a high nor low but...... I... went to my high school 10 year reunion, omg.........
  
  
• Spent a good amount of time with friends to make up for 2020's lost time ❤️
  
  
• Before cases surged again (cries), I got to travel a bit again! Went to LA and Seattle and made lovely memories!
  
  

— Lows of my 2021:

• In the spring, workload was insanely overwhelming and I lost control of work-life balance and dealt with the worst burnout I've ever experienced.. Like, bursting into tears trying to write an email asking for time off because I felt so deeply uncomfortable and guilty about it sort of bad. What has this bloody pandemic done to our psyche?? Anyway I can't relate anymore; my work-life balance is great now! 💁🏻‍♀️
  
  
• Health sux I can't sing I see many doctor I sometimes feel not great blah blah blah blah

The future like the wind~ 🍃

YAAAAY! I've been looking forward to this collab more than anything and I'm so happy it's out in the world to be shared! 🥺💖 It was my huge honor and delight to sing the part of Shibuya Kanon for Mathew's English translyric cover of Liella!'s "Mirai wa Kaze no You ni" aka the ending theme from the Love Live! Superstar!! anime.

My heart was fully invested in this, in so many layers hahaha. First of all I'm a big fan of Love Live and while Liella's season 1 wasn't the greatest I still have fond memories from watching it and bonding over its ups/downs with friends (including Mathew). In terms of my personal taste in music, I'd probably say Liella is a close second to Nijigasaki for what I would regularly listen to.... Their songs just sound so lovely and light and refreshing and uplifting without going overboard. ;v; There are a few Liella songs I like a lot and the anime ending is one of them! It's such a nice song!! Plus you always get sentimentally attached to the theme songs after watching a show haha.

There is definitely a soft spot in my heart for Kanon's character and the first episode that introduced her as having crippling stage fright (fucking up performances and auditions) and yet having a passion for singing and making music and it destroys her that she can't do better. It was the first time I related so deeply to a Love Live character... And was totally unexpected for the protagonist, at that! For a silly idol anime, I appreciated how grounded and full of heart it was. 🥺

GUESS WHO REWATCHED EPISODE 1 TO TAKE THESE SCREENSHOTS AND ENDED UP SOBBING UGH. It hit me harder now than the first time. (Though of course the bad news is that they went on to ignore this super important piece of character development for like 9 episodes but who's counting--)

Given all this, it meant a lot that Mathew entrusted me with singing Kanon's parts and for representing the protagonist of the group....... Such a great honor 😭😭😭😭

And on top of everything, I've been listening to the covers that Mathew puts out for a while—I genuinely enjoy and admire them a lot! Every video of his is sparkling with passion and love and warmth. He brings together such lovely casts and writes touchingly inspiring lyrics and his mixes are magical (the blend is always amazing!) and it's so cool how active he is with idol cover projects and getting them finished at a time when many projects never see the light. :') 💕

That said, ofc I've been wanting to work with him but a few opportunities didn't pan out because they were at really bad times for me... And when this one came along...... I'd already been dealing with throat issues and taking a break after clearing my urgent projects........... but I just knew that if I said no I'd regret it forever?! My response to Mathew was literally: "My heart tells me I should say yes this time 😭" This was the only project I recorded in the middle of my vocal rest periods—I did try to be careful not to push myself too hard or sing for too long so it was recorded over many days and I tried to respect my limits.

After this was when my throat took a turn for the worse so this is the last thing I recorded before taking my serious vocal rest! And of course my thoughts lead me here... that if I never recover..... and am forced to retire......... I'd be happy that this collab is the one that marks my retirement. ❤️ THOUGH OF COURSE I'm GOING to recover!!! and NOT retire!!!! so yeah!!! ( •̀ᄇ• ́)ﻭ

Also I will admit that I'm actually happy with my solos in this,,, It's been ages since I could say that LMAO. Considering the circumstances it was recorded in that's surprising, but I think I managed to sound as well as I'd hope to sound—I don't dislike this timbre that was used to sound closer to Kanon and I expressed everything I wanted to express and don't sound like a bad singer quq Success, I'm actually quite proud!

The cast is just wonderful. Such pretty, lovely, adorable, sweet, soothing but energizing voices and I love everyone and hope I can sing with them all again. ;u; I'd absolutely still be a gushing fan even if I weren't involved since this collab is a delight to listen to—I've been looping the mix drafts for a while and now that the video is out I'm still not stopping!!

We will give our all, so let us take flight, you and I~ ✨✨✨!

Mirai wa Kaze no You ni (Liella!) ⌈english cover | Sepia Pro.⌋
Vocalists ►Eva @waterpixieva ►Hikari Kira @Hikari Kira ►Cheri Fish @cherifish ►Odin @❤ Shoujo Brave ❤ ►shoyun @shoyun Mix ►Mathew @Sepia Days Music English Lyrics ►Mathew @Sepia Days Music

The Not-So-Little Mermaid

praying for a full recovery from all your health issues Eva; you got this 🙏

tell your throat that K-pop idol mermaids need their voices regardless of what sea witches think 😤

— David Guthrie Music (@djguthrie5) January 2, 2022

 

Just wanted to share this analogy made by my friend David that BLEWWWW MY MIND AND POSSIBLY CHANGED MY LIFE LOL...... My throat issues may perhaps just be the chapter of my mermaid fairytale in which a nasty sea witch has stolen my voice, before I defeat her in the name of love and restore my place as princess of the seven seas...!!! ✨💫✨💫✨

You know those times when you have to explain something serious or disagreeable to children, so you make it sound way cooler and simplified by relating it to something childish and they're dumb enough to accept it?

That still works on 28-year-olds btw.