Wowie... it's already been a year since the launch of NOISZ STΔRLIVHT—the rhythm game x visual novel x bullet hell mobile game that I have the honor of singing for as Asuka of idol group SUNRaiSE. ☀️
To celebrate, both groups SUNRaiSE and STΔRLIVHT came together for a collab track called "Clash of Twilight!" It's a cool song filled with cryptic lyrics referring to the game's story, which btw really keeps me on my toes and after every chapter I just want to find out more. The devs have poured a lot of passion into this fantastic game. Also love that all of the vocalists, plus Malcolm who's behind the videos, are all from the youtaite community. ❤️
We're actually running a Kickstarter right now where you can buy some merch including a CD of the entire game's soundtrack! It's super freaking cool how many members of the youtaite community have participated in it—beyond the idol group cast there's also chiisana, fome, and Miyolophone in the song credits! We're all on an album together!!! Too cool!!
Clash of Twilight (Lyric Video) / STΔRLIVHT vs. SUNRaiSE (prod. Shirobon & MegaSphere)
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SUNRaiSE has two songs which you can check out below!! Both are bright, hype-inducing, uplifting songs! The notes in "Parhelion" were crazy high to sing haha. To be fully honest I'm not satisfied at all with how I characterized Asuka's singing voice and wish it were more unique. ;;
Rise Above (Music Video) / Soleily ft. SUNRaiSE
Parhelion (feat. SUNRaiSE) / Reku Mochizuki
I actually uploaded a playthrough/reaction video of the first time I played Rise Above in the game... 😳 Been meaning to film again while playing Parhelion, combine the two parts, and upload onto my vlog youtube channel, but...yeah my backlog of things to do is huge lol...
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NOISZ STΔRLIVHT Release Celebration Live
Finally, here's the official VOD of our livestream that we did one year ago for the launch of the game! I wrote about it in-depth in this post, but the entire idol cast went on stream as vtuber models of our characters—a huge challenge for me to conquer due to my stage fright and throat issues. But it was fun. And we did it. We did that!
This VOD was also edited by me! I added the subtitles and song names and tried to smooth out some of the technical issues we had. After the stream I just couldn't bring myself to listen to what I'd sounded like (EMBARRASSING!!!) so you can bet... much screaming and cringing happened while editing this .....
PS: Wait omg, I can start an "original music" tag for this post... Still going to tag it as a collab cover though even if that's inaccurate heh.
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!
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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. 😭😭😭😭
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!
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!
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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 !?
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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 🥺
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
Something that I can't help but feel is rather sad is that some singing collaborations I'm in are no longer up on YouTube; I just found out today that this happened to a few with a group I'm very fond and grateful to have been part of—and it prompted me to go download a bunch of collab videos for my own safe keeping SDFKSDKJ YouTube is not a trustworthy archive.. 😭 (Though I understand that for certain people it's a matter of safety and identity protection to remove those videos from the public eye..)
It made me extra glad that I update my blog with all my uploads and collabs, so that I'll always have my own proof that each of these steps of my journey happened and that mark in the sand will never go away. I like that I can leave my feelings here about all the stuff I helped create and/or watched being created, and the lovely people that I've worked with, and I can feel assured that those memories are somewhat preserved.
Anyway, yeyeyey I was in a couple of new collabs that came out recently! ⭐️
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This one is so, so special. I think it's the first of its kind in the youtaite community and I can't get over how cool of an idea it is.
pKotetsu/Justin brought together all of the CB groups he's been in by inviting a representative from each—and I had the honor of representing DREAM✦SCAPE (our group from ACB2) which he animated for along with Shippa! It's truly a celebration of the friendships and amazing works created throughout the years. 🥺 Justin has been behind so many legendary groups in CB history; the nostalgia really just hits you in the face!!!
In my opinion this might just be the greatest homage that the ytt community has seen thus far. It's filled to the brim with detailed and thoughtful references to all of these beloved projects—Justin seriously outdid himself in carefully crafting this video with love and it's visually gorgeous too. ;u; The animation is perfect... Justin is so damn talented flawlessly executing all these different styles and making the entire video flow.
For me, the DREAM✦SCAPE references during my solo hit particularly hard. The birds and feathers are a clear callback to our What video, as not only the motif that came up during the scenes when I sang........but also they were significant in the part that I actually animated myself!! The rap part from 2:23 to 2:35 was put into motion by me using the assets, aesthetics, and scene set-up that Justin and Shippa already made so I can't take credit for too much but HONESTLY.....I'M REALLY REALLY PROUD OF IT TO THIS DAY.......
Additionally there are callbacks to The Sky Falls, in which my character is portrayed standing in front of a wall with moving images projected on it. :D :D :D It's also this exact CB entry that inspired me to utilize a projector for the uh....rock band music video that I directed....heheheh 💦
Personally I'm not a fan of how I sound on this song tbh but it's a privilege to have been drawn by Chisacha, mixed by Vuvu, and tuned by azuma! I've looked up to all of their work for years and had never been under their care like this before. /o/ And the instrumental by immanuelbear is impeccable—I always forget that it's not official! Also I helped with timing the vocals :D Enjoy!
This collab came out last month and I hadn't gotten to sit down to write a blog oops 💦
My friend David Guthrie did a smashing rock remix of SNSD's The Boys and invited this ~dream team~ cast of absolute queens to sing on it! At the time I got this invitation I had been turning down every collab due to feeling overwhelmed with responsibilities and my backlog, but the temptation was too strong here... 😫 I admire everyone in this cast and would've kicked myself for letting go of the opportunity to play among the stars.
It was so much fun that we all recorded facecams while trying to adhere to a similar color scheme! I loved seeing the others rock out and enjoy themselves, which can't really be expressed in the same way with the typical animated PV. ;u;
Fun fact: chiisa and I actually covered this song in English before many many years ago as part of Gemini ............with parody lyrics that we wrote...... It's called "The Trolls" since our member Jeffrey (who was a SONE) was always associated with trolls and pranks loooool. Both chiisa and I only retained the lyrics from that rendition and were like, "Oh that's what the actual English lyrics are?!" while recording for this collab. I can tell you're looking at me, why're you such a creep? Any closer and you'll be dead meat~
Oops I have a ton of projects I need to work on (and I will as I have more time off work through the holidays!) but instead ?? I yolo filmed and edited a quick unboxing vlog ???
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There's a stupidly specific chain of events that led to this happening LOL.
1) Fome surprised me by having a microphone boom arm delivered to my house—the exact item that I've been meaning to buy for myself but kept procrastinating on... Thx fome!!
2) I wanted to shoot a small vlog thing about the Before vs. After of my mic setup.
3) But first, needed to embellish my new desk setup a little! My workplace just bought me a sit-stand desk to have at home and it's CHANGED MY LIFE. ✨
4) I decided it'd be super cute to have the Snow Miku nendo accompany me on my desk......
5) It was also a gift from fome from last year so I thought I should show him my reaction and I felt my friends would probably be interested in seeing cute Hatsune Miku nendo as well!
6) Somehow I ended up just filming a whole unboxing video on my phone and quickly edited it and uploaded in the same evening HAHAHAHAHA ???
?!?! THE LAST TIME I WROTE ONE OF THESE WAS APRIL?! EXCUSE ME, WHAAAAT?? And it's already mid July?!! Why is time suddenly going at superspeed?! Highly alarming; I literally need a moment to just pause and absorb this information. Wow.
Yaaaaaaaay, the baby has been birthed!! 💦💦 It has honestly been such a source of anxiety for me LOL.
Back in December 2018 a group of NorCal friends and I filmed the latest Youtaite React episode and I put it on my project backburner intending to get to it when I had time—since throughout 2018 I pushed back most singing projects in order to release 5(!!) episodes—and very quickly it's already been a year and a half that I'd been holding onto it without progress and the person who was interested in assistant editing was also living their busy life.....
Finally the week before AX (which of course was cancelled/turned virtual) I suddenly swerved from working on a chorus mix to deciding that I wanted to try to get YTReact out first instead. I thought it could be a nice thing to combat the AX cancellation blues and uplift the youtaite community a bit since we've recently been exposed to much more of the dark sides of it—a good thing so that we could flush them out—and it seemed like many were forgetting that there's also lots of wholesome friendships and meaningful personal development and great things that have come out of this community.
For this episode we answered questions that were submitted to us; and I do dare boast that the video turned out not only insightful and informative, but also wildly hilarious. It's a fun one because we filmed in pairs so there's bantering and also audience reactions to boost the energy!
Despite the insane amount of footage, I smiled a lot throughout the editing process because everyone was so entertaining. Sad that there are many gems I had to leave out but the video's already almost pushing 10 minutes, eek. Going forward I'm not too sure when we'd do more episodes heh..... is a lot of work... Anyway, if you watch it I hope you enjoy!
YOUTAITE REACT to Your Questions 【ep. 6】
Director / Brand Design: myst Producer / Camera / Video Edit: Eva Audio Recordist / Asst Director: fome Audio Edit: mochi Motion Graphics: KT (lower thirds), kumo (transitions), myst/Eva (intro)
Helloooo! It's 2 AM on a work-night but I really needed to write this post. For the past three weeks, a delightful doggo whom I call Corgi-kun has been staying at my family's house and today he returned to his owners................. and somehow I cried for hours and hours and hours? I'm definitely more attached than I'd intended to be, but I didn't expect to be nearly that affected. I don't know what's come over me but my heart was broken, my soul feels restless, and I think this post will help soothe a lot of it. Generally I'm doing well though! 💓
Thankfully I'll still see him around!! He belongs to my mom's neighborhood friend—and my mom actually goes over to help walk him every afternoon—so on the days when I'm home (which is honestly....not super often) I'll likely see him! So missing him is not necessarily why I was so broken today @@...
I briefly touched on it in my last post but he brought along a disruptive lifestyle change that was strange for sure at first but not entirely unwelcome? My parents and I all live fairly isolated lives—really this whole experience just emphasized to me how isolated I've always been. When I'm home, I'm not used to interacting with anyone, or spending time with anyone, or emotionally connecting with anyone, or accommodating anyone in the things that I do. ;; I realized a couple years ago that the unconditional love, companionship, and responsibility of a pet probably would've helped me a lot as I was growing up..
So I made it a point to try to not get used to this new lifestyle, not let me or Corgi-kun become too attached to each other—and I was able to maintain some distance for the first maybe 5 days and then it all started wildly unraveling..... Parents initially didn't want him in my room, but I started letting him in. It started becoming a bit of a routine that I would come home from work [recently very late orz], be happily greeted at the door, feel increasingly more guilty for being gone all day so I'd give him a good petting session, he'd follow me to my room and try to steal my attention, oftentimes I'd give in to those puppy dog eyes, and then he'd fall asleep on his side in my room in the little remaining time I had to do my own things. 🥺 I started buying him toys and he'd always beg to play... It was comforting that he'd always look for me and that I had the power to bring joy to another creature. 💗 I'd sing to him and eventually started saying stupid shit like, "Don't go home! I lub you!!! Be my dog!!"
I'm a fool...... When I came home today, no one greeted me or had been looking forward to my presence. The house had gone back to its empty, quiet, dark state that it had always been in. He really brought a lot of openness, affection, comfort, and smiles to my and my parents' lives that I haven't seen before. It was nice to have something to bond with my parents over; we all became super fucking enamored with this dog. It was cute to see how my parents would light up around him ;u; even if it meant they smile and talk 100x more with him than they do with me--- dsjkajsdsd I hope we can continue fostering a bit of this open, positive energy rather than shrinking back into our shells.
Also worried about how Corgi-kun is doing.. My mom and I both agree that we gave him quite the carefree, happy life here compared to how his owners treat him unfortunately. ;;; They're unreasonably strict and mean and manipulative to him... They don't really pet him much or actively play with him—and I know he gets social withdrawal since he tends to be clingier and sometimes even grumpy on the days after my friends come play with him. I hope he's doing okay and not too sad T___T Poor baby deserves better. It's nice that I worked from home this week/had Christmas off so I was able to spend a lot of time with him in the end, yet I feel bad that he probably became overly used to the attention and affection too...
On the bright side, it'll be nice to get a bit of personal time and independence back! Recording was something I had to largely forego while he was here. ^^;; And honestly I had a bit of a hard time coping with the whole "your pet may be a small part of your life but you are their entire life" thing—luckily I was only 1/3rd of his life, but still. Poor baby must have thought that his owners had abandoned him, so I felt terrible to be gone for most of the day and I always felt pressured to act cheerful and as attentive as possible for him even when I was exhausted. Conflicted feelings... It was a fun time.
I kept meaning to update my previous post but never did, so here's another giant spillage of corgi photos and videos. :'D
The past few days sort of feel like someone took my Life Book, ripped a few pages out, and abruptly inserted a chapter from an alternate universe LOL.
My mom has a neighborhood friend (albeit still a ~10 minute walk away) who has the most darling little corgi! He only has a Chinese name—which was apparently derived from a Japanese name but I don't know it—so when referring to him in text I've been calling him Corgi-kun for simplicity hehe. Over the past year, my mom has been enjoying her early retirement by going on walks with them often and I've tagged along a handful of times when I could! Now his humans have been out of the country for an over-a-month-long trip and the only arrangement they made was for their next door neighbor to feed him and let him out for bathroom breaks. 😭 Poor baby was so miserable that my mom started going over there to take care of him every afternoon for about three weeks... Sometimes she'd bring him back to our house to chill on the porch as he initially wasn't allowed inside.
But now as of 4 days ago ❗❗ Corgi-kun is staying at our house ❗❗❗❗ until his owners are back on Christmas, which in a sick twist of fate is the most ironic day to have to part from a puppy.
Wow!!!!!! My (not really my) first ever real [temporary] pet that's not a goldfish!!!!! (or the turtle i briefly had which my grandpa thought was poisonous and let go of while i was away at kindergarten lmao)
My entire life I dreamed of having a dog but my parents would never allow it—and that's how I ended up with a large collection of doggy stuffed animals and they were honestly some of my best friends as a kid. It's really not an overexaggeration to say that I grew up pretty isolated and without much knowledge of the world... My lack of real life experience with dogs is so sad that I had to call in Chiisana (my hero 💕) to come over and help with giving Corgi-kun a veeeery much needed, long-awaited bath. Hooooooo-weee. I'm so happy now that I can pet him without having to immediately wash off the thick layer of chalk on my hands before I can proceed with the rest of my life. 8D;;
And then to make the entire situation even weirder: we had no power in our neighborhood for three days lmao; I was so torn. I absolutely felt terrible inviting Chiisa and our other friend to my dark, cold house but it was the only available time without delaying the bath by a few days...... So it was me, Corgi-kun, Chiisana, her dog Bradley (whom she brought over so that both dogs could learn to socialize), and our friend...... and a flashlight......... in my small bathroom together with no ventilation or ability to blow dry. ☠️ It was a fun kind of chaos though! For me, at least. Bless the others for hard carrying..!!
[ he sleeps on his side?! ]
Since our time together is limited, I've been taking a lot of videos to immortalize these memories. ;^; But also trying not to get overly attached while still enjoying my time with him and letting him feel loved. I hate that this is setting us both up for inevitable heartbreak. It has been strange but somewhat comforting that he'll follow me around no matter what; he'll stay in my company and just sleep on the floor in my room when I'm done playing with him and need to do my own things... It warms my heart in a way but also I really don't want to get too used to this. It's a presence I've never had before and will not have anymore very soon.
Oof we're already at the end of September but I still wanted to post about this: August was a pretty busy month just from the sheer amount of BAR Con shows that happened throughout the month and subsequently at the beginning of September haha. To recap, BAR (booze - anime - rock) Con is a monthly event that I'm on the staff for—it takes place every first Friday of the month but when the opportunities arise we also put on special shows. August had a lot of opportunities which was amazing!!! but also tiring for everyone involved.... Over the years I've been helping Fome with stage setup and running sound—although not so much recently with our friend Diji being wicked awesome with the soundboard and it's been freeing me up to do other things like film/take photos and order/pass out staff meals! I also make some of the official BAR Con videos, like the ads that we run on FB and a couple of highlights videos.
One of August's special events was a 5-stop tour with the lineup of Phoenix Ash (Fome's rock band), PhEri (LA-based idol duo), Stephanie Topalian (an increeedible singer and person who sang the iconic song "Friends" from Gundam 00), and Diana Garnet/Tonkhai whose inclusion was meaningful beyond words 💞💞💞 Tonkhai was a youtaite and was in fact the very person who introduced Fome to the community..! I've always greatly admired her singing and especially loved listening to her "Sobakasu" cover back in like 2011 ;o;... She was one who pursued her big dreams by moving to Japan and getting signed by a label!! She sang an ending from Naruto and is doing a lot of TV work! It's just so incredible to have her come back to the US and go on tour with artists that include two other youtaite (Fome and Phoebe from PhEri) and to have a ton of youtaite come to the shows to cheer them on and I even got to hear Tonkhai sing "Sobakasu" live and she was perfect T//A//T
So Fome and I had the idea of making a highlights video using footage from the first leg of the tour, in order to thank our home audience for coming out and to get the other locations hyped up about what they were about to experience! The only issue was that the first show ended at 10 PM Sunday night... And the next show was on Tuesday.... If we wanted the video to circulate around social media, it would have to be uploaded on Monday. So that's how I ended up applying my quick-turn event video skills from my dayjob to ... this!
I was invited to sing in a chorus of Bokutachi wa Hitotsu no Hikari (the final song from the Love Live! movie qq) for a NorCal friend, Alice ^___^ It just came out a few hours ago! Most of the folks in this I'd never worked with before so that was pretty cool. Big props to the organizer, mixers, artists, and animator for finishing this on time (!!) for Alice's birthday today and making a really sweet chorus. ;v; I'm happy I got to be in this and ALL THE ART IS SO CUTE AAAA
The heartwarming second part of our Anime Expo Youtaite React special, in which we asked the participants about their favorite memories of being in the community! It's really nice to hear people talk about these kinds of things ;u;
Tbh after putting out the first part, I thought it would be ages and ages before I would get to editing the rest of this but it sort of jumped ahead in my project queue LOL;;; because I wanted to film the "Ask a Youtaite" episode while all the NorCal kiddos had winter break and this release was a good way for us to collect questions from viewers... The next episode will be fun! This time I really don't know when it'll get edited LOLOL
Another video I edited recently (which features a lot of footage I shot) was BAR Con's season 3 promo!
We're branching out for the first time—it was just announced yesterday that there's going to be a BAR Con Los Angeles !!!!!!! I'm not gonna explain what BAR Con is since the video does precisely that in only 30 seconds LOL.
It takes place every first Friday of the month and I've been volunteering as Fome's audio engineer assistant over the past two years. The staff is actually entirely made of volunteers (profits from every show go to performers, charity, and venue cost!) so it's pretty cool how much we've grown and how sort of a community has developed around this monthly event. This year we started using titles and they branded me their Director of Media Production 😱 which sounds way more legitimate than I actually am LMAO. Aside from making videos, I like working with sound and music and I keep learning a ton from the experience under Fome's wing (which actually benefits my job work when I do on-location sound!) but man the pressure can be high for sure... I respect sound engineers—Fome recently pointed out that it's "one of those jobs where even the best get blamed all the time" which makes me feel better but also realize that I would never be able to handle doing live sound for a living. Whenever things go wrong—often times not in my control—I feel so humiliated and guilty. Some of my goals for this year include being less burdened by irrational guilt and and worrying less, so that's the energy I hope to carry forward. ^^ I may not do it for a living, but it's a very cool opportunity to do once a month!
Somehow after gaining much more free time, I ended up blogging less? LOL Here is a big update post~
After my hospital discharge, I stayed home for a week just recovering which was a bit rough at first. I couldn't sleep the first few nights because of the discomfort in my chest, and also because I would mis-estimate how long my legs are or where my pillow was while trying to settle myself down without breaking my body... and once I was down, I could not move without pain and my arms weren't strong enough to adjust myself with lmao. I was just stuck with however I landed, even if it meant my feet dangling off the bed. What a funny problem to have honestly!!
Thank goodness I was mostly functional by last weekend because it was a crazy (and also very rewarding) (and painful) one! But more on that later.
On Monday, I had my follow-up appointment with my very cool surgeon and received some great news along with his nonchalantly optimistic life advice! My breathing has improved a lot and he says that because I'm young, I'm recovering ahead of schedule!! However it's also because I'm young and my nerves are sensitive that I feel more discomfort and pain than most of his patients... Then he took me off my painkillers because I was apparently taking them too much ("it's not candy") so I've been continuing to feel mild discomfort but at least it's not pain anymore and my surgical wounds are finally healing. I try to take it easy now so I'm doing alright.
I've been doing work from home since last week and on Wednesday I went into the office for the first time! It's already been...a lot. It's an overwhelmingly busy time for my company right now and some things stacked up while I was gone... Lots of projects are due next week... I'm already really tired...
But I'm happy to report that I recovered from my burnout!! I hated feeling flat and inspiration-less, not having the energy to do anything and having nothing sound fun to me. I'm feeling pretty inspired and less exhausted now and I'm able to fantasize and plan for future projects—and that makes me glad because it means I actually desire something, look forward to something.
You know, this recovery period was my first time getting to experience being a NEET in 7 years? I haven't taken a good break since I started working part time the summer before starting college—and I don't count travel vacations since traveling is exhausting. I'm pleased that I was able to fill up all that free time without feeling empty or stressed. ;v; I finally got into another k-drama (it's been a long time) called 100 Days My Prince, a historical rom-com with some tense royal drama, and I really like it! I'm also watching the anime Zombieland Saga and everything IZ*ONE related! Plus I worked on a little something that I'll probably put out in the next couple days. ^^
And now...I've also started to play LoL again.......because K/DA is smashin' awesome and made me want to try playing Kai'Sa :D She doesn't even have solos in this song but she definitely appeals to me the most because 1) Her design is the most my style—it's cool and chic without being over the top. 2) Her official profile seems to imply that she's Chinese or has strong Chinese influences!! "Kai'Sa won Hong Kong’s Can You Dance in 2018" and won my heart in the process. 3) She's an AD carry, which I main! And her abilities have long ranges which is an A+ for my cowardly ass. 4) I kind of like her lore—she's a human who was consumed by the void and is now seen as a monster. 5) Somehow I've accidentally started only cosplaying purple-haired girls, so it would...be perfect... But I definitely wanted to try playing her before deciding to commit to trying to make this cosplay........... I am researching the required purchases and thinking about it..!
After I finish up my current solo (I touched up the mix last week but gonna do some redos once I have the lung capacity~), I'm probably also likely going to record a full solo cover of POP/STARS because I like it a lot!!! I love Soyeon T___T The others sound great too and it's an extremely catchy, badass tune that I've had on replay!
Meanwhile I quickly learned Soyeon's rap and did a yolo live cover a few days ago, but hopefully when I get around to recording it for real, I won't flub on the words this much. It's a fun song and this kind of rap is very much my shit bahaha.
Other things I've worked on that I never got around to posting:
【Highlights】 Norcal Youtaite Alliance Performs @ Slap Face
My local youtaite friends performed at a coffee shop in September, I shot all of the moving shots, and edited this little highlights video for them. /o/ They'll be performing here again in March I think!
BAR Con Matsuri: TOKYO LIVE Promo Video
I also put together two promo videos for a local three-day event that happened last weekend! BAR stands for "booze - anime - rock" and Fome is one of its organizers so I volunteer once a month as his audio engineer assistant. If you're ever in the Bay Area on the first Thursday of the month [Edit: IN 2019, IT'S THE FIRST FRIDAY!], it's definitely a fun thing to check out! This month was the big extravaganza—the first of its kind—with three days of events, some guests from Japan, eurobeat, and Phoenix Ash's (Fome's band) single release. It sucks that I had to be injured for it because I would've put in so much more if I could. ;n;
After overexerting my body on the first day, I resolved to spend the second day sitting still at the soundboard and I promised that I would only touch cables... But we ran into so many issues (plus this was a very loaded show with 6 acts across 6 hours) and had such a lack of stage hands that I ended up exerting myself like ten times the amount I intended to... Twas rough but I'm alive and I ended up with lots and lots of wonderful memories! The girls from Japan were soooooo fucking sweet, respectful, and humble that I can't stop gushing over them. T____T I really did not expect for them to talk to me as much as they did and one of them even called me cute AAAAAA I love them and will support them for the rest of my life... Definitely some of my favorite artists that I've ever worked with—although I'm thankful to report that everyone on this lineup was nice to work with! But like! a cute girl!!! called me cute!!!! I'm ded. I was in a lot of pain on the third day tbh. But all of the performances were a blast, there was a lot of good music and sweet people, and the events were successes, so it remains in my mind as a good memory.
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.
Once again I'm terrible at keeping this blog updated with all the projects I've been taking part in, so here's stuff from March til now!!
First of all, two more episodes of Youtaite React came out! I'm not in them, but I produced and edited again. :> For these two episodes, our youtaite friends are cringing over their first covers.
This one I haven't really shared but it's a cool thing I got to be a part of ;o;!! Pash, who was one of Gemini's artists during ACB, asked me to sing for her Songwriting for Film final project—a sweet song befitting for a romcom!
This was my final in a songwriting for film class! We had to write and produce an original song to use as a "feature" for this early 2000s romcom film. Special thanks to @Diburrito for providing me with bass/guitar and @waterpixieva for singing the vocals! pic.twitter.com/DPm7tdWR6H
Listen here to "Spring Buds" if the tweet embed breaks ;v;
I'm frankly not super sure I'm proud of my vocals in this but please enjoy—Pash is a wonderfully talented budding songwriter~
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For Sophie/kuroko's birthday, I got to sing in a chorus of Orangestar's "Your Night Sky Patrol" with a bunch of cool people ;v;)b Huge props to Kusa and Para for making this happen!
【HBD Sophie ❤】 キミノヨゾラ哨戒班 / Your Night Sky Patrol 【8人合唱】
Having the privilege of seeing Davichi perform their legendary song "8282" at KCON inspired me to record a short cover of it the night I got back from LA ahaha. They were simply breathtaking *___*
Chiisa and I were actually going to record ourselves singing this song for an online singing show audition in 2010, so I wrote these rap lyrics back then...... shudders
"Yeah, just like a fool, I hope that you’ll find your way to me once again This heart needs fixing, needs some loving, needs for you to mend This calls for stitches, got some glitches, and I cannot forget Pick up the phone and call me before we both end up in regret"
~
In this time, I also uploaded a vlog from my trip to Japan and Korea! ^^ I need to get around to posting some of the photos we took...
What's in the pipeline now?
I'm working on two things that should theoretically be coming in the near future! One being a solo cover—my first one since Whistle in 2016 aaaa—which I've been working on since March. I mixed, animated, and also drew some doodley things, so it's going to be my very first attempt at the Holy Trifecta, heh..... The other project being the special edition of Youtaite React that we shot during the official youtaite meetup at Anime Expo~ That was...probably the craziest fucking shoot I've ever done LOL. More details here in my AX post. It's very, very close to being done! So close!
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.
