[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.
Earlier this year, some of my friends and I were obsessed with the anime If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budoukan, I Would Die (aka OshiBudo) which was airing at the time so we thought it'd be really cute if we covered the opening theme!! This cast feels really precious because not only are they my [lovely-voiced] friends in the youtaite community, but also they're all in NorCal so we used to hang out a lot! You know, back during "precedented" times when hangouts were a thing.
And then of course we were brought to life by the perfectly adorable visuals of souleheart (illustration) and Azuka (animation), bless!!! They both make such wonderful things and are really sweet to work with—would definitely recommend their commissions. ;u;
🔹 Looks like souleheart's art comms are closed right now but they're worth keeping an eye out for; she was impressively fast and communicative and just captured all of our personas p e r f e c t l y.
🔹 Azuka is incredibly multitalented and has both animation and vtuber model comms open—and she's also debuting as a vtuber on 10/24!
【合唱】 Clover wish / 推し武道 OP 【7人 ver. youtaite】
⇢ VOCALS: KT ･ https://www.youtube.com/seahorsegurl ･ as Reo Lucy ･ https://www.youtube.com/Lyrratic ･ as Sorane mochi ･ https://www.youtube.com/c/crunchimochi ･ as Maki yanovi ･ https://www.youtube.com/yanoviP ･ as Yumeri カリタモ (tamou) ･ https://www.youtube.com/c/isoperi ･ as Yuka 小さな (chiisana) ･ https://www.youtube.com/ChiisanaChanx3 ･ as Maina Eva ･ https://www.youtube.com/waterpixieva ･ as Aya Kuroノ ･ https://www.youtube.com/c/KuronoCovers ･ as 🐝
“I will say "bees" exactly once (x1) in the background if you will have me as an additional adlib vocalist”
~✨~✨~
And uh, I mixed!
With the much-appreciated help from fome, mochi, KT, and Kurono for their insightful feedback! 🙏
Yup, that's all I have to say about that....... Just kidding, there's probably like 500 more words to follow on this topic, sorry.
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.
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;
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.
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:
YASS!!!!! IT'S DONE!!! It'S FINALLY OUT IN THE WORLD!! And it's gotten such an explosive response so far omggg thank youuuu QAQ
It's been a wild ride executing the Youtaite React AX (Anime Expo) special, from filming outside for 3 hours in 108 F / 42 C weather, to the crazy complicated edit that it became and how many things kept popping up that needed to be done before it was ready to go. It really took me over 50 hours of working on this after the shoot to get it done and ready for upload..... Under the cut, I'mma discuss the post-production process in more detail!
For this episode, we put up a clipboard during the youtaite meetup for anyone to sign up, with only the info that they'd be doing a challenge and not to spoil the answers. We then had participants watch entries from a selection of the chorus battles with the most participating entries/were the most iconic for their time, and they racked up points by guessing the song, group, and CB.
We got some hilarious struggling as well as folks expressing their love for entries/groups/their friends—so I think it's pretty entertaining and full of heart. ^^ Everyone did great! I'm also in it kind of as a host.... I swear I tried to cut my intro out but it didn't make enough sense without someone spelling out the setting and what was happening... I don't even know how I let Fome talk me into that ending. That's not me.
Anyway! I also asked them questions after the challenge and got lots of wholesome answers, so that's what the next episode is going to be composed of. Someday. When I....make time....to edit it.
It's been years since I've written a post like this, but I'm gonna give it a shot! As my memory gets worse and worse, I feel like write-ups will be really helpful and yet also terribly difficult to compose since I've already forgotten what I did on this trip...... And I got back...3 hours ago.
Overall, this was a good AX that went fairly smoothly! Yay it wasn't a mess!!!
Admittedly I'm extremely spoiled/a bit numb because I'm privileged enough to be surrounded by my youtaite friends in my everyday life and it was also my 7th time (WTF IT DOESN'T FEEL LIKE IT) going to AX so I don't necessarily get super excited about everything or get post-con depression anymore..... I'm truly happy for how this event has impacted others—people's tweets are so, sooo cute ;;;—but is it weird to say that I feel almost left out because I don't feel as emotional about it as others do anymore?? Regardless, AX is still one of the most special things to me each year! It's strange but I simultaneously feel like I was more social than ever this year, yet also didn't socialize as much as I feel I should have—but I'll elaborate later. ;o;
This time, my hotel arrangement ended up being 10 people split between two rooms that we were luckily able to get next to each other. My room was with Chiisana, Hinoe, Sophie/Kuroko, and Diji; and the other room was Fome, Myst, Chris/Hakuro, Toast, and Lisa. They're all friends that I've already hung out with a lot (everyone was NorCal other than Hinoe) and was pretty comfortable with, so that went super well!
Hi there!! I put this together for me to remember not to repeat mistakes, but decided to publish in case anybody's looking for [mostly Korean] skincare recommendations. This is yeaaars upon years of trying stuff haha. My skin goes through a lot of product, so I'll try to keep this post updated! I'd love recommendations so please feel free to share via commenting or tweet/DM or whatnot, and also if you'd like more details on anything in particular. :D
About my skin: TL;DR: Products that work for me are likely extremely hydrating and gentle. I can't speak for acne.
Long version lolol: I have chronic dry skin, premature wrinkles, sensitive irritable skin, eczema (mostly subsided), and occasional red patchiness—although I've never had acne as my face doesn't seem to produce oil. If I fall asleep without more than a layer of cream, I will wake up looking like the floor of a crackly dry desert. My skin is still problematic, but skincare basically keeps me afloat~ My smile lines have been reduced a lot and admittedly I now have baby ass soft cheeks LOLOL
How I judge effectiveness depends on 1) if I can wake up without a dry face—even better if it's supple, smooth, glowing, 2) if it can reduce the frequency at which I must re-moisturize during the day—typically every few hours CRIES, and 3) if it stings or causes irritation.
If you haven't seen this yet, SURPRISEEEEE LOL. Youtaite reaction videos have been a joke for a while, but this time we took the joke far, further, farthest... until it came into existence and now it's a Real Thing.
We kept this one small and top secret since it was a pilot and we weren't sure how it would work/if it would work out... It definitely took more effort and time than I expected it to, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and super delighted by the awesome response we got. xD Later this month, we'll be filming episode 2 with a bunch of other youtaite (who're really pumped about it!) so I expect that one to be more fun than this one haha. Please look forward to it and thanks for watching!!
I cannot believe how much it came full circle that making youtube videos led me to choose to pursue a career in video production, which gave me the experience and resources in order to make youtube videos about my youtube videos.
Ahhh, where do I even start... I can't remember the last time I was this happy and satisfied with my life. ;u; Not sure why but I feel like I'm more in tune with myself than ever. I can't remember if I ever felt like, "Wow I am a healthy person!" the way I do now. It's probably good luck and good timing that a combination of things has led me to this, and I hope I don't take it for granted haha. I feel worry-free, I feel proud, I feel confident and self-empowered, I feel loved, and I feel like I have things I enjoy and look forward to. It's crazy.
So let's start with my I Wish collab, because I feel that it was likely a trigger in all of this... In my last post, I said my confidence in mixing took a nosedive, so I was pretty scared about getting back into this mix. ;A; But as I did, I realized that I really didn't hate the mix...? All I remembered was my dissatisfaction and struggle with it, so I had low expectations, but honestly I hadn't done a bad job at all...? So I spent about 5 days working on it more, took advice, redid the mastering, improved it, and just kind of threw in the towel when I was riding up against my self-determined deadline for the evening before Valentine's LOL. I'd say considering my current ability, I'm about 95% satisfied with the mix, which is pretty amazing!!!!!! There was so much frustration that I was hitting my limits, so I thank the heavens that I might still yet have potential in me. Also, I was pretty scared about the animation, because I'm really not experienced in animating and the standards for both aesthetics and technicality have risen ridiculously high (due to animators' hard work, respect) in this community. In the end, I've accepted that it's really not bad for being my first animation in AE and for being primarily a mixer/vocalist. Some seemed to like it a lot, yay ;o; <3
I'm really happy about this collab... All 12 of the other girls in it are suuuuch sweethearts, super supportive and gracious, and wow their voices. *___* They're all fantastic and I'm grateful they agreed! I'm glad to see them receiving love and extra recognition through this. ♥ One of my favorite things is that I was privileged to be in a place where I could invite and bring together friends from different communities—so I was able to have friends (and a new friend I stalked down because I liked her voice LOL) from the youtaite community, long-time friends with whom I've been singing since 2010 (Zoey and Chiisana since 2007 actually!), and some friends that I met in 2016 through the k-pop coverist competition PRODUCE90. That's a super beautiful thing to me ;____; And the adorable art makes me clutch my heart!
And of course, I'm proud that I was able to complete this collab at all. It's actually been hitting me with a lot of guilt throughout the past year, whenever I had to deprioritize it in favor of other projects, whenever it was me that was holding up the entire thing... I had wondered if I was wrong to be so ambitious to be organizing, mixing, animating, rapping in, and recording additional harmonies for a 13-person collab. The more time went by without me completing it, the more I felt I was failing—and I also didn't have the confidence that I could make it up to expectations. But ultimately... in this economy when most non-chorus battle collaborations never see the light, I'm glad I could shine some on this one. ^^
HONESTLYYYY it was good luck more than anything that I happened to be able to finish it up right around Valentine's Day, which I believe helped it get such good reception for being a collab of a kpop song most have never heard of before LOL!! I'm so grateful for how well it was received, like ;_____; it exceeded my expectations tenfold. ;___; There was so much love! Not to mention that I don't have any expectations for my youtube channel anymore, because I'm pretty much a washed up unspectacular person whose subs are mostly from ancient times and I cover mostly kpop despite being most active in a non-kpop community, and I've basically come to accept that it'll be this way until there's a turnaround. The amount of views/likes/retweets may not match up to others' works, but for me, it was shocking. Thank you.
It truly reminded me of how supportive and full of love the people around me are. ;o; It felt like it was the birthday of me and everyone else in the cast!
As for everything else in my life... After a few weeks of work being very stressful and deadline-ridden, it's been slow and chill for the past 2 weeks, which I've uh been taking advantage of LOL... I know it's going to get busy again soon, so I'm enjoying this. Typically I'd feel guilty over not being productive enough.. and I always feel like a failure for how late I can't drag myself out of bed until and how late I get to work...... but lately, I still think, "Wow I did amazing anyway!" Q^Q I'm quite pleased with myself for taking care of myself and how good I feel about myself despite whatever. I'm in such a good mental and emotional condition that I was able to shake off something that would usually put me in an unhappy and toxic mood. I haven't let physical discomforts get me down either. I don't know how long this will last, but I'm grateful for it right now. I also feel that I've found a good balance of doing good towards others, without giving away too much of myself, which is pretty important to me after how burnt out I was for a while. I'm glad I have time to spend on hobbies and indulgent fangirling—they bring me a lot of joy. I think I'm more comfortable with myself now. The other day, I noted how green the hills were and thought that a cloud looked cool, which I wouldn't have said a year ago!! I'm proud that I've been going to kpop dance class weekly and that my acid reflux has diminished a lot since I started going on a diet for it. AND!!!!! I might be doing a new solo after all, since I felt like recording it and actually enjoyed it ^^.... It's been a while since I truly enjoyed recording. I'm happy that I can work on passion projects, that I can feel "inspiration."
Also I think it's worth noting that right now I'm happy about the friends I have and—gross moment—about how wonderfully blissful and strong my relationship is. I owe a lot to Fome.
YEAH OKAY WELL HERE'S "I WISH" PLEASE APPRECIATE THE 12 BEAUTIES I GOT TO SING WITH!!! <3333
So quick story: my friend Gino has a high school friend—Kate Kim—who debuted in Korea as a soloist after participating on a singing competition show. She's AMAZINGLY super talented and a lot of our friends have been supporting her for years despite never having met her. She co-composed an awesome song, came back to California to film an MV for it, and when Gino told me about it, I was more than happy to help out on the shoot. ^^ It was a long, exhausting day of handling gear, but a very fun experience and I learned a lot from the crew leads! And now I can say I've worked on a k-pop video hahaha!
When I wasn't helping with lighting, I was taking behind-the-scenes photos on my camera. (Ah have I mentioned on here that I bought my first DSLR in October? :>) And I guess they ended up choosing one of the pictures I took as the cover photo for the single, which was really unexpected and cool!!! So you can see this on iTunes and on official Korean streaming sites and errthang....
Anyway, here is Kate's MV for "So Long, Baby" which is a wonderfully groovy bop. She sings with so much flair and oomph and it's got me singing, "do re mi fa sol~~" all the time. The music video looks so cool; the space we filmed in was tiny, but it's incredible what we were able to make out of it thanks to the crew's creativity. And look! how! cute! Kate is! And chic and sassy and gorgeous all at once.
It's also worth noting that Kate's as much of a sweetheart as I already had an impression of her being. Honestly every single person on the set was really nice and cooperative, so it was a positive and productive atmosphere the whole time. Gino vlogged/took behind-the-scenes videos (of course, because he's Gino) which you can check out below. You might spot me a few times~
Under the cut, I'll be sharing some of the photos I snapped on the shoot. :D I'm no photographer and I'm still very inexperienced with cameras, but I do really like how some of these turned out. Enjoy!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.
It happened. Gemini came back for another chorus battle, one year after LSO ended. Our visuals crew from LSO all either had their own ACB groups already or were busy, so we've got new friends on visuals now ;o;)b They did amazing things!
And as usual, Gemini members split up the mixing work, with me on main mix and mastering. Aaaaaaah I have to say it was not easy—for any of us on the team for that matter; we were all busy with work and/or school or.. had to evacuate from a hurricane...... Okay, it was very rough. Thankfully there was a 24 hour grace period after the deadline, because we couldn't submit our entry until 19 hours past the deadline. @___@ And it was really nobody's fault in particular, because the video finished rendering at the same time I finished mixing. Or maybe it was my fault because I was the one doing the rendering (god bless fast work laptop) and I had to split my time between mixing and figuring out all the right plugins and assets. But still, that's really fucking embarrassing to me—that I was mixing up until about 18 hours past the deadline. I'm deeply disappointed in myself about that. The mix ended up sounding pretty good I think, thankfully!! I appreciate having been told that this might be my best mix and I want to be proud of that! And I don't know what I could have done differently that wouldn't have impacted others negatively unless we settled on a bad mix. It's not like I was mixing slowly or that I procrastinated? As soon as the vocals were passed to me, I mixed every night when I got home from work, until I slept sometime between 2 AM and 6 AM. On the weekends, I mixed literally all day long, with only two occasions I had already made plans to spend with friends. Sometimes I would sleep with an alarm set to go off in 3 or 4 hours. And on the day after the deadline, I wasn't even at the point where I was tweaking minor things—I was still mixing and trying to make things cohesive. Aaaaaaah stress and sadness. In conclusion, I suppose I'm just not meant to handle this sort of a timeline. Anyway, it'll take some time for me to recover, but I'm glad that we got an entry in after all!
[Edit: Two days later I just learned that we were the very last entry to submit...... iiii feeeeel soooooo baaaaaaadd screams]
Also, I animated a small section when I had some downtime at work last week. xD It's the shouting part at the bridge with the stage lights, which is... pretty simple but I had just learned how to use lights in After Effects for the first time for this!
Whining aside, here is our entry and please enjoy!!!
【A-L1】 Innocent x Haven 【Gemini】 - Please feel free to turn on/off CC for singers' names! - Theme Interpretation: "What is bliss?" Take my hand and let’s find it together! Start with a smile and run with me - towards that Haven with an open heart. MP3: https://goo.gl/AJ61dL ACAPELLA: https://goo.gl/PFWakB SCRIPT: https://goo.gl/7WTbh6 VISUAL RESOURCES: https://goo.gl/hhgFdb Song: INNOCENT BIRD x SEVENTH HAVEN - Mashup Inspired by: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDHj5... Title: SEVENTH HAVEN Artist: Tokyo 7th Sisters (セブンスシスターズ) Composer: kz (livetune) Title: INNOCENT BIRD Artist: AZALEA Lyrics: Aki Hata (畑亜貴) Composer: Tetsushi Enami (江並哲志) Arrangement: Tatsuya Kurauchi (倉内 達矢) VOCALISTS Eva - http://www.youtube.com/waterpixieva Mimi - http://www.youtube.com/mimimoiselle Ryan - http://www.youtube.com/RyanEatPho 小さな (chiisana) - http://www.youtube.com/ChiisanaChanx3 Jeffrey - https://www.youtube.com/jevacado Jay - https://www.youtube.com/jaysingyou MIXERS Main Mix - Eva Timing - Mimi Tuning - Ryan EQ - 小さな (chiisana) ARTISTS Concept and Design - pash & kane Vocalist Sketch and Base Lines - pash - http://piikoarts.tumblr.com/ Coloring & Staff Art - kane - https://www.facebook.com/mprincekane Line Art - Ange - https://twitter.com/qqnge ANIMATORS Sawヽ( ・∀・)ノ - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZc_... 小さな (chiisana) Eva - We now find our six protagonists in university, where they play whatever the heck games they want. -
SO...... last year I started this post in an effort to update my blog more often and be transparent about my cosplay-making process—but of course I ditched, totally forgot about, and then procrastinated on it for a year. :'DDDDDDDD
Now to bring you the very unexciting conclusion to my Mikumo Guynemer (Macross Delta / "Bokura no Senjou" and "Fukakuteisei COSMIC MOVEMENT" outfit) cosplay journey.
The total of my spending from my progress post, including the wig, was $63.31... Crud, that's more than I hoped. D: And now that I've bought my own pair of boots (I'd borrowed Sophie's before but I plan to wear mine casually too), my total spending is $93.30. orzzzz
And then there's all the time and laborious nights I spent... I even worked out because I wanted flat abs.......
My cosplay turned out okay'ish though I think! It debuted at last year's Anime Expo and in most pictures, you can't tell what a ragtag bullshit mess sewing job I did!!!
Some WIP pics again:
And now I'm going to interrupt my own post here with a vlog break. Please enjoy "How [not] To Make Cosplay with Eva" presented by me. (It's extremely unhelpful and I'm a shit role model sorry—)
Anyway, here is how the cosplay turned out! Kudos to Myst and Himuro for helping me finish it on the rough final night when I couldn't stay awake, to Sophie for lending me boots, and to Fome for lending me his microphone and taking all the non-selfie pictures ^^
That's right!!! Ten. Ten whole years..... For half of the entire duration of my lifetime I've been doing this thing where my parents would be at work or asleep, and I take out my little microphone in my bedroom, shut the door, and record myself shrieking in languages I can't speak.
Looking back, this hobby gets really time-consuming and it's frustrating, but definitely rewarding in its own ways. Somehow I feel like I've found and lost myself many times over the years because of singing.
In middle school, I likely permanently ruined my own throat because I wanted to take advantage of every breathing second that I had after school and before my mom came home from work—which meant forcing myself to keep singing even when it hurt. Sometimes I purposely sang with my throat in pain because it dulled my very obnoxious vocal tone.. It was an exciting new hobby and it was thrilling to collaborate with other coverists and be a part of something. I could never say no, and god I had so many lines to do LOL. But probably because of that, I'm still dealing with throat issues today. Right now I'm going through a decent phase, but sometimes it just hurts to use my voice, and that was a pretty big source of depression for me especially early in college. There was nothing I was passionate about, but I knew at least that I loved to sing and rap—it was the only thing that made me happy and through which I had an expressive/emotional outlet—but it physically pained me to do. And my throat doctor didn't even know what to do with me. But I'm a bit better now ^^ and I learned a huge lesson in self control haha.
Then there was my phase in high school during which I was super obsessed with trying to cover k-pop songs as soon as they were released, so that I could "ride the wave" of attention. I ended up spending a lot of time covering songs that I didn't actually like that much, just for what I perceived to be "popularity." A few of them I kind of regret; they were so half assed LOL. I wouldn't do it again. :'D It's still a struggle of balance finding something that I think others might enjoy and that I would enjoy and be able to put my heart into producing.
And of course feeling shut down and built up again and again; it's been a rollercoaster!! I'm not someone who was born with inherent talent, and it's so easy to compare yourself to others and feel like you can't even do anything. Honestly, I can barely sing at karaoke. Even to as recent as Tokohana for LSO's final round in September, I was actually extremely emotionally distraught when trying to record lines and I wished my vocal tone were better, struggled a shit ton with higher notes, struggled to hold notes out, couldn't live up to the other members' awesome. (rly if you haven't heard it yet, please do bc Gemini sounds amazing<3) But I figured out a long time ago, that if I couldn't be the master at anything, I needed to put in that much more effort to strive to be a jack of all trades ;v; That's how I ended up dabbling in all these different languages, in rapping, in "animating," in mixing and mastering, even tried to dance.
I consider animating a lost battle for me. At first in the Dark Ages, I was so proud that with my AMV-making experience, I was able to put names for when people sang in groupdubs LOL! And then I assumed the role of video-maker for Gemini since I was most interested in Sony Vegas. But then when everyone else was making magic in After Effects and I was still in Sony Vegas with my very (still) brokenly horrible sense of aesthetic, I couldn't keep up and decided to focus on mixing. Now I'm slowly picking up bits and pieces of AE because of work, but I suck LOL.
And mixing..... That's still very much a work in progress. I first started out trying to "mix" in Windows Movie Maker lmao, and I still remember DUBattle Royale in 2011 when the judges told us to EQ, and I was like, "What's that?" LOL I really fell behind my peers in learning to EQ and master.. Although I've improved a lot in mixing (especially during LSO), I end up feeling ashamed and as though I know nothing compared to other mixers. LSO was really a huge challenge; I was so proud of myself at first and then I kept realizing all of these mixing flaws I caused and got mad at myself tbh. But that's all the more reason for me to learn more and prove myself, so my next challenge will be OTO&ME CB! Q^Q)9 I'll.. try my best and hopefully can make something nice for us to all look back on!
Because of this hobby, I found a career path for myself. I totally went through a phase in high school when I dreamed of becoming a Hello!Project idol and then a K-pop idol LOLLLL. It was always obvious that I'd never be able to. I knew I loved singing, and it was depressing that I had waaay too many limitations to do that, but I had enough interest in mixing and video editing that I decided to enter university as a Radio-TV-Film major. I still always felt like I had no talent, but eventually it ended up working out great! 8D Because now I primarily do video and audio editing at my awesome grown-up full time job; otherwise working on sets and often as the audio recordist. It's great.
Most importantly!!!!!! I'm grateful for how many people I've met and how many friends I've made in online covering communities, as well as all the support I've received. Q___Q I met my best friend Chiisana in 2007 because we both covered overlapping anime songs and made AMVs—turned out we lived in neighboring cities and obviously both didn't care enough about stranger danger even though she was literally 11 years old LOL!! Then I got to meet a lot of nice people through singing Mermaid Melody and Hello!Project. AND THEN K-POP.... I got a message in 2010 from some girl named Mimi who did some k-pop duets with a guy named Ryan. And you see, kids, when coverists really love and accept each other, sometimes they do things all night (talked in chat) and give birth to baby groups like Gemini. And sometimes, this group becomes family as important to you as blood. QAQ I'm so lucky that we still sing together and even came back as a full group for a chorus battle this year, five years after our last battle!!! <3
And joining the vocaloid/youtaite and twitter community in 2012 really changed my life. I had never felt so immersed in people that were similar to me and accepted me. A lot of them were so cool and social or really talented or popular, but they still wanted to be friends with me?? I felt for the first time that I could kind of talk to people and socialize, and it made me more confident and outgoing in my college classes. ^^ Since then, most of my friends that I hang out with IRL have been people that I met in the youtaite community—bless that there are so many of them in Norcal. :'D It's been a bumpy ride, but some of these people will be lifelong friends I think.
I typed for too long, sorry. Here is my celebratory(?) 2006-2016 vocal evolution reel!! I hope I can improve much, much more and keep singing with cool people in the future~ Thank you!
VERY SORRY FOR MY UGLY HANDWRITING AND HUMOR AND THE UGLY IN GENERAL TBH.... Hi everyone!! This is a very special video to me because 10 years ago—when I was 13 years old—I uploaded my first cover on youtube. And somehow, 10 years later, this is still my hobby. I'm still here trying to learn to sing and rap and mix and slaughter languages, and it's still fun. I forget to express it, but I'm really grateful to everyone who's ever supported me along the way! ;_; Thank you for encouraging me and teaching me!! ♥♥♥ To commemorate, here is my 2006-2016 vocal evolution reel archive compilation...video thing. An update to my last reel which was 5 years ago! https://youtu.be/9sGI7ZSdXEo (And an excuse to bring to light a lot of covers that were never finished tbh.) Please watch your ears—it will be painful, sorry. :'D Thank you for watching!!! If you'd like to hear the full version of something that's not on my channel, you might find it on my collab playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA5E87AF81CFCA7C6 soundcloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/waterpixieva box of extras: https://app.box.com/s/e3hdl6o7hhhneyjd2u7i Or just request ^^
"This post is 5 months overdue, but better late than never..!"
....I wrote in January 2013. And now it is September 2016 and I have JUST found this entire post of precious pictures from 4 years ago that I never published. How could I have let something like this fall through the cracks?
We were young, clueless babbies back then~ This is rather embarrassing and we've changed a lot—except for Mimi who doesn't age—but join me on a journey through our memories of what I still consider some of the best 18 days of my life? ^^
(Sadly, Jeffrey is missing, but I was able to meet him earlier in 2012 when I visited Australia!)
I couldn't be prouder that Gemini family is still singing together after all these years. <3
In a not-really-continuation of part 1, here are my comments and recommendations about dramas that have caught my attention since last year. :> It's not very current as I've been too busy to diligently keep up in the past few months, but I'm hoping to gain drama-watching (or reading) momentum again soon!
Somebody please talk to me about Korean dramas. ;A;
Comment: So so so so so good!!! Each episode is long, but this piece of thoughtful, well-written, fun, heartwarming, deliciously nostalgic treasure is worth your time, I promise! It's about 5 families who live on the same street in 1988, and as you grow up with them, you can't help but care about all of their wellbeings and relationships—whether it's the core friend group of the kids who are figuring out life and love, or the friend group of the parents who are also still figuring out life and love.
Progress: I pretty much always watched each episode as soon as it came out LMAO Sometimes even snuck peaks on recaps before subs came out..
Recommendation: Yess, recommended so much! If you love friends or love families, you'll probably love this?! (do it.) I would suggest reading Dramabeans' recap either after or during the episode so that you don't miss the references and to have more cultural context. :>
Cheer Up (aka Sassy Go Go) *
Comment: A high school's ragtag dance team has to work with the academic elite to form a cheerleading club. It sounds dumb. It is dumb. I FUCKING LOVED IT. I have so much endearment for the entire cast ㅠㅠ! Eunjifrom Apink is always such a joy to behold in any form!! Main man (boy) Lee Wongeun was out to kill us all with his A+ smile and surprisingly charismatic charm, jfc. Chae Soobin played an annoyingly written character with sympathetic complexity and I can't help but love her! N from Vixx was a cute puppy. And Jisoo is the perfect angsty puppy boy—I hope he becomes a huge star because he's such young acting potential~
Progress: This drama was crack for me from beginning to end. I watched each episode the day subs came out, during my lunch break.
Recommendation: If you can put aside the ridiculousness and frustrating conflicts, this is really cute and enjoyable! You know what, fuck it—I recommend this. You'll see why I was addicted.
I just went to my first KCON! And now I wonder why I've never gone to KCON before because holy shit, it is such an unforgettable experience. I went with Chiisana and our friend Dres, and the funny thing is that Chiisa and I are known for having very bad luck—especially together. The drive from Norcal to LA is supposed to take 6-7 hours, but guess who had to endure a 10 hour drive through traffic hell with a lovely view of mountain wildfires.... ;x;
And somehow, KCON itself went .. beyond smoothly for us. In fact, it went super well!
So here's my KCON experience complete with shaky pictures and scream-ridden fancams ^^
My friends are so maso wtf. I really didn't expect to receive Ice Cream Cake, but I expected even LESS that that present was partially to throw me off the trail of ANOTHER epic birthday present?!
So a few months ago, Erin asked me to fill in for her If You Can Dream collab because her Ariel "dropped out last minute." Of course I said yes because I love Erin (she's the sweetest), I'm still obsessed with Disney Princesses (I own the DVD that has the MV for the song), I love the song (attempted a collab of it in 2007), and Ariel is my absolute FAAAAAAVORITE. *^*
Fast forward to Fanime last weekend.
I'm getting milkshakes with Chiisana, Sophie/Kuroko, Fome, Dibur, and Yano. Suddenly Sophie hands me her phone and earbuds, and tells me she has something to show me.
......???
A video starts. Wait. Ryan. Is this the Ryan I know? WHOA, NOW EVEN JEFFREY... AND JAY........ IS THIS ANOTHER GEMINI THING HOLY SHIT?!
Then the intro song ends and the title for If You Can Dream comes up.
My first reaction: "WHAT!!! YOU GUYS SANG THIS SONG WITHOUT ME?!"
.........
..................
=____=;;;;; They're so sneaky. Suuuuch tricksters. Wow.
Seriously though aaaaa what an epic collab! All of my precious Gemini family, and sweeties Erin and Robby who featured in Gemini's PonPonPon, and the talented members of NYA (NorCal Youtube Alliance) who I hang out with irl?! And the insanely adorable art is by Aaron and Kanso who I adore and got to see last weekend too?! Jackpot. Man, I'm so lucky!!
Everyone sounds so goooood!! Really, not a single weak spot imo. Mix and video are flawfree; I love the unexpected blend in vocals and the touch of the silhouettes. So many of my friends came together for this—I can't believe it. And it's NYA's first completed collab too! I love it to bitssssss *u* I've had it on repeat since last week~ It's such an honor to receive something so lovely ;A;
I'm gonna shamelessly point out that my most repeated part tbh is the part near the end with Chris/Hakuro's solo followed by Jeffrey's because KRISTOFF x SVEN OTP (the! adorable! art! doesn't! help!) and they're both the precious young boy characters of NYA and Gemini respectively who are blossoming into young men before our eyes QuQ;;.... Pets them both.... And AAAAgh they sound so good I squeal. I've never heard Chris belt or falsetto like that before and it sounds wonderful/// and then rings in Jeffrey's heavenly voice that I may or may not have once had a slight voice crush over before...... I'm just gonna go hide in a corner now so please treat yourself to this beautiful piece!
Honestly, the sole reason for the delay in making this post was because I didn't have time until today to sit down and combine all the art together into one image.
LET US APPRECIATE THIS ENDLESSLY ADORABLE ART * 7 * !!
So I have a story to tell about what happened today in the Gemini chat.
It all started (for me) in the chat we had for executing O.K, which was Gemini's secret birthday present to Chiisana. I basically finished the mix and videos days ago, and frankly was confused as to why we haven't revealed it to Chiisana yet—especially since it's been a week since her birthday. But I was clearly alone in wanting to give Chiisana her gift asap, even if it meant I weren't around for it, since the others were adamant about making sure everything was perfect and that all of the Gemini members were online during the reveal.
Cut to today, when after very busy days, we finally found a window during which the majority of or all of the members could be online simultaneously AND able to join a skype call.
Scheming abound over in the O.K chat:
[5/18/2015 2:55:01 PM] Eva: i'm kinda scared chiisa's gonna go nap so i'll try to keep talking to her
[5/18/2015 2:57:19 PM] Eva: oh man it's almost 8 AM in australia [5/18/2015 2:57:24 PM] Eva: wonder if jeffrey would be up.. (note: actually I miscalculated because I didn't realize he moved to a different timezone)
[5/18/2015 3:01:01 PM] 「 Mimi 」: or I can be like [5/18/2015 3:01:02 PM] 「 Mimi 」: gaisssss [5/18/2015 3:01:08 PM] 「 Mimi 」: we can haz call [5/18/2015 3:01:10 PM] 「 Mimi 」: benton's studying for finals [5/18/2015 3:01:13 PM] 「 Mimi 」: I'm ronery [5/18/2015 3:01:14 PM] 「 Mimi 」: ;[ [5/18/2015 3:01:18 PM] Raien: yeah that works lmao [5/18/2015 3:01:27 PM] Eva: yeah i'd believe that the most ahah
(note: hot babe is jeffrey. we have reasons for calling him our resident troll) [5/18/2015 5:22:47 PM] Hot Babe: i HATE [5/18/2015 5:22:48 PM] Hot Babe: being AWKE [5/18/2015 5:22:52 PM] Hot Babe: SO EARLY [5/18/2015 5:22:56 PM] Hot Babe: LIF EIS A POO [5/18/2015 5:23:07 PM] 「 Mimi 」: hi jeffrey! [5/18/2015 5:23:16 PM] Hot Babe: he000l0ol [5/18/2015 5:26:51 PM] Eva: LOLHI JEFFREY!!!! [5/18/2015 5:26:58 PM] Eva: okay roll call [5/18/2015 5:27:03 PM] Eva: GOOD MORNING JEFFREY [5/18/2015 5:27:05 PM] Eva: THANKS FOR WAKING UP [5/18/2015 5:27:11 PM] Eva: eva is present who's present [5/18/2015 5:27:11 PM] 「 Mimi 」: I'M PRESENT [5/18/2015 5:27:14 PM] Jay: yayy jeffrey ur here finallyyyy
BUT JEFFREY ARRIVES WITH BAD NEWS.
[5/18/2015 5:34:24 PM] Hot Babe: i am leaving [5/18/2015 5:34:26 PM] Hot Babe: for class [5/18/2015 5:34:26 PM] Hot Babe: in 5 mins [5/18/2015 5:34:27 PM] Hot Babe: xox
[5/18/2015 5:34:37 PM] Jay: UH LETS ROLL [5/18/2015 5:34:40 PM] Jay: I MEAN LETS FLOY [5/18/2015 5:34:40 PM] Eva: let's gooo [5/18/2015 5:34:43 PM] Eva: LET'S FLOY (note: we are mocking jeffrey's opening lines in O.K) [5/18/2015 5:34:43 PM] Eva: LOLL [5/18/2015 5:34:45 PM] Hot Babe: what so we do [5/18/2015 5:35:19 PM] Eva: jeffrey get on gemini chat and call it and then we'll react like WTF JEFFREY WANTS A CALL? THIS IS WEIRD [5/18/2015 5:35:28 PM] Eva: and [chiisa]'s curiosity will do the rest of the work
The Gemini chat is calling!! There's chaos. Why is Jeffrey calling? Wtf??? Chiisana hurry and pick up; we're all in call now!
She joins us. There's a brief awkward silence as NOBODY KNOWS WHAT TO DO.
Suddenly I go, "OH MY GOD..... THIS IS SO FUNNY. WAIT I THINK YOU GUYS HAVE TO WATCH THIS VIDEO HAHAHA. IT JUST SHOWED UP ON MY SUBSCRIPTIONS,"
and I link the O.K video.
We all revel in Chiisana's shock and happy tears. ;u;
Suddenly, Jeffrey interjects with, "Guys I'm leaving for class in one minute." I think to myself, hey the video is only 2 minutes and 30 second's long. That should be enough time for Chiisa to make it through the song before Jeffrey leaves.
At this point, it's been over a minute of Chiisana going, "What is happening...? Oh my gosh... You guyyyss.... I can't believe it........."
BUT NOW WE ARE BOTH competing broken records of: "What is happening..... Oh my gosh..... What theeeeeee.... What is this........" except with the addition of "HOOOOOLY SHIIIIIIIIT WHAT THE FUCK YOU GUYS?? DID I JUST GET RICK ROLLED?!??!!"
Chiisana: "I'm so confused.." Me: "I think I'm more confused.. I THOUGHT I WAS IN CONTROL OF THIS SITUATION.... "
And naturally, Jeffrey has to go to class and ends up hanging up before I recover from reeling from shock LMAO. Love that punk of a kid.
Man, I don't care that we call Jay our resident saint; they're all sneaky little devils :'(! I had nooooo idea.... And the whole time, I thought I was calling the shots around here too LOL.
This is a really lovely cover though; I'm so happy!!! My bbbbyyys all sound absolutely charming, the blend is on point as always, video's got hella more aesthetic game than I've got, and the mix is great! Aaaaaahhh I can't believe they pulled this off—not because I don't believe in their ability, but because they're such busy people that I never expected them to take so much time out of their lives to make something like this for me ;_; Wahhhh I'm so thankful. This is the best family. <3
Mix: Chiisana, Ryan, Mimi Video: Jay Image Editing: Mimi
Gemini’s back! And we don’t know about you, but Eva’s feeling 22, so happy belated! ♥ Not gonna lie, this project was a mixing fiasco and a half because we had to do it all without our lovely and talented mixer, Eva ;___; DON’T EVER LEAVE US GIRL. WE APPRECIATE YOU. In its entirety, this project was literally mixed down and passed around at least 3-4 times between Mimi, Ryan, and Chiisa prior to completion = u = In light of that, we hope you all enjoy this special treat since we haven’t posted in a while! We promise we actually have a lot coming up right around the corner, so keep an eye out! And finally to our precious leader Eva -we hope this lives up to your standards ♥ we did our best to learn from your example and we can’t thank you enough for doing all that you do as a one woman super team C: CAN WE BE LIKE YOU WHEN YOU GROW UP? weloveyoubbygirl ♥
WAHHH THEY'RE SO NICE. <33333 And rapping!Chiisana is back YAY!
Also, this is the song that I liked so much that I had it on repeat for a while, learned the the rap, and even learned the dance to the chorus. (And I will fiercely deny that I dance, even in the face of videographic evidence.)
So I'm kinda mad. I would have wanted to sing this song with them!!! HMPH. (I really love them bah)
Me, Mimi, Chiisana, Jay, and Ryan during our meet-up in 2012
Jeffrey and I don't deserve any better than this quality when we're together tbh.
