Happy Chinese New year 2015

Happy Chinese New Year to whoever still reads this blog!

If you don't know, this year is the year of the goat/sheep/ram so lots of well wishes to you all! I've just gotten some great news but I don't wanna jinx it yet, so I'll announce it once everything has been confirmed! Till next time!

New Year Celebration

Ridiculously late post but I don't care because I had too much fun celebrating New Year's with my friends. 

We first started with a Studio Ghibli marathon, lots of insane junk food which probably added 5kg to my petite frame (making look like an additional 10kg), played Cards Against Humanity, drank till we were simply rolling around the floor in laughter and attempting to finish the game before finally collapsing in my friend's spare room for the night. 

Loveliest people I could ever spend New Year's with, from right, Kanoe (who kindly offered her house to party at), Skrei, Jean, me and Judith.

How apt that our first card of the game was about New Year's too! Guess which card won this round?

Played with my friend's adorable Japanese Spitz named, Nyx. We put a necklace from Princess Mononoke on him, as he'll be my friend's "wolf" in her future shoot.

2014 pushed alot of my boundaries, I felt lost and scared and alone many times during the year and was made to deal with many painful decisions. I grew up and many life lessons were dealt to me whether I liked it or not but I felt like 2014 taught me more about life than any other year. 

I left difficult situations and people whether voluntarily or not but thanks to these events, as painful and troubling as they were, I eventually met many people whom I feel truly comfortable with. I can be myself, even sharing disgusting, weird parts of myself with them and they accept it, or even hit back with more weird, random, disgusting things and it feels amazing! I don't bother dressing up or putting on makeup or taking selfies as much as finally, I feel more comfortable in my own skin and being who I am and knowing that I won't be rejected over such trivial things. I hardly wear makeup and dress pretty casually now on most days unless required, as I no longer feel the intense need for a barrier between myself and the world or to fake a confident persona. I feel accepted and loved and more in touch with my self identity than ever before. 

There are many emotional scars that I still have to deal with and to build up my self confidence and self esteem, and even though I know there are still many challenges to be faced, but for once in my life, I feel like I can actually truly face the unknown future and say, "I am not afraid, come at me".

Comic Fiesta 2014

Last cosplay event of 2014!!! I once again headed up to Kuala Lumpur for the Comic Fiesta event as I really enjoyed myself last year. 

Took a bus ride this time instead of a plane.  Got super awesome reclining seats with leg rests so it was really comfy on the way over. 

During day1, Selicia, Jo, Candy and I cosplayed characters from Shingeki no Kyojin. I was surprised at the reception we got, as I figured that people were already sick of seeing Shingeki cosplayers

On day 2, Jo, Zephyous and I debuted our cosplay of the movie Redline. If you haven't seen it yet, you really must sit down and ready yourself to be blown away by everything it contains! Exciting car races, handsome cool men, sexy car babes, super catchy soundtrack and did I mention, 7 years of hand drawn animation!!! I mean, no one bothers with hand drawn stuff anymore!!

Friends we met, Lokie and Vivianne, who are cosplaying characters from Space Dandy. It was hilarious to watch Lockie and Zeph engage in "hair war" they looked like narwhales clashing with their horns.

Met new people too and caught up with some like Cvy who was so adorable, and I finally got to meet Lenneth. She's someone I've admired for a long time for her dedication to cosplay and the skills she's developed through it. She was really laid back and funny. 

Bought lots of styff, I really love walking around the artist booths at Comic Fiesta, the quality of work an creativity are amazing. Favourite buys are the top left poster (which i plan to frame and display soon), the Sailormoon artbook, Sailormoon cleaning cloth (that I now bring with me everywhere I go) and the Rex Regrets poster. Rex Regrets is a super hilarious local comic about a T-rex and the problems he encounters due to his large head and small arms, the artist is really fun in real life and was really sporting in personalizing posters when autographing them.

Favourite thing to do at a hotel is to use the bath tub. This time, I came equipped with an Evangelion bath salt packet that Esther had gotten for me ages ago. My Japanese is horrendous, so I can't read bout the benefits it has, but it did leave a lovely purplish hue in the water and my sensitive skin felt softer after the bath.

Ate like a king during my trip, these are just some of the food that I actually remembered to take a pic of. 

An overnight cosplay event isn't an event unless you're partying the night away. The place to be is of course, the ever elusive Shatter Dome. Lots of gossip, drinks, laughter and even famous Filipino cosplayer, Liui Aquino, known for his Hiccup, Jack Frost and Hiro cosplays, popped by. I didn't bother to take a pic with him as I was too tired by then.

A local friend, June, took us to this amazing Mexican bar called Calavera. The decor was a mixture of Rockabilly, steampunk piping, and lots of Sugar Skull motifs tossed all around. The drinks were top notch and the music and vibe even better. 

Pic of the amazing gang I travelled with. From left, June, Jo, Marvin, Rescend and me. 

My friend Kaika also took this video of the event. See if you spot me, though I have to say, I didn't mean to look so constipated and nervous, I was just worried bout looking bad as this was my first ever cosplay that showed my tummy, an area that I'm not too fond of showing on a regular basis. 

I'll probably be slowing down abit on cosplay as I wanna save up money to travel and get things settled for the future. I most certainly will not stop, but priorities change sometimes I guess.

AFA 2014

Super late post again but I can't possibly miss blogging about the Anime Festival Asia (AFA) event that I went to last year as too many wonderful things happened there.

Firstly, I could only attend a day of the event due to work commitments but I happily attended the event with my Studio Ghibli group as Kiki!! It was a pretty comfy and easy costume except that I had to bind my chest, since Kiki's still a little girl. 

Friends I met during the day

The one exhibit I couldn't miss was the Psycho Pass booth!! I zoomed straight to it upon entering the event space and was like a rabid fangirl, snapping multiple pictures from all angles.

The event was also the first time I ever joined a cosplay competition! I usually don't bother with such things as I prefer to cosplay as a fun, social thing instead of dealing with it competitively. However, during the day, the invited guest cosplayers were allowed to roam around the event space and were tasked to find "representatives" for the cosplay competition. I was lucky enough to be picked by Hyko though when I got backstage and saw all the amazing armour, LED lights and fancy props, I felt incredibly out of place with my broomstick. I didn't win anything naturally, but it was a fun experience nonetheless and I hope I did Hyko proud.

Pic of my amazing Ghibli girls team, can you tell who belongs to which movie?

Flying off after the event!! Pic courtesy of Val.

Thanks to the competition, I managed to get up close and personal with some of the invited guest cosplayers. Hyko is the Gackt cosplayer and she's super hawt in real life, she's really friendly and sweet. I also finally got a card from Reika and Kaname *squeal*!!! Kaname is also super friendly and even went out of his way to tell me he liked my costume and greeted me again when I happened to cross his path after the competition, he wanted to autograph his card but the marker ran out of ink :(

The event tore thru my already slim wallet but I don't regret my purchases one bit! I bought the Sailormoon brooch powder and wand lipbalm. The Psycho Pass folder was a freebie.

My most expensive anime purchase everwas this Dominator Proplica from the series, Psycho Pass. I'm still waiting for it to be shipped over so no pic, but you can watch this guy's review of it (though its in Japanese, but the video is captures everything). 

Last but not least, I found myself being filmed during the competition, see if you can spot me!

AFA was definitely one of the most memorable events I've had in awhile. 

Gamestart 2014

Gamestart was a really new event last year centring round.. well, games. Keen to have a look and test out new games, I decided to drop by the event plus it helped that you could enter the event for free if you were a cosplayer, so why not? I don't have that many game cosplays so I dug out whatever I could.

Cosplayed as Rise from Persona 4 for Day 1 and a girl actually yelped in excitement upon walking past me and then hurriedly shoved a camera to her companion insisting he take a quick shot of the both of us. 

At the event, there was a major testing area for the launch of the English version of Final Fantasy Type 0 so I decided the night before to cosplay as Cinque once more. Also convinced Jo to join me that day and I borrowed her Moogle toy as a prop as I didn't feel like dragging my mace through the crowd.

The event was small but promising as it was pretty well-organized with guest cosplayers and loads of places to test a wide variety of games. I do hope that they organize another event this year.

STGCC 2014

Too many backlogged posts, so I'm just gonna write quick summaries for them. So sorry for the delay, I just haven't been  in a mood to write for such a long time.

Anyway, here's a back post on STGCC (Singapore Toys, Games and Comics Convention ) 2014. It's one of my favourite events as it's the only time you can openly be hardcore bout your favourite western comics/animation characters and people actually recognise your character and call out to you in your character's name. I don't get that as much at other events.

Did Black Widow during Day 1, quite a comfortable costume and it was so funny when I said "excuse me" to a guy to try and move past him, he turned around looking like he was gonna say something negative, only to quietly reply "So sorry, Black Widow" and shuffled off.

Did my own intepretation of a Steampunk Harley, but I need to improve it further by adding more details, some of my friends told me it looks more like a Burlesque Harley which I agree. Also met a Joker by coincidence.

As with all events, its always fun to meet new people and I made friends with a Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. They also had a pretty Cat Woman who's missing from the pic.

And what's an event without meeting old friends? Black suits twins with Noshuu that day.

On a personal note, I'm looking out for a new job, and as much as it pains me, I will probably be cutting down on my cosplays as I really wanna save up to travel and stuff. Not to mention, I need the money to get my own apartment in the future too.

Guess real life is calling...

Happy New Year 2015

I hope it isn't too late to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

I have many many things to update and progress has been painfully slow, I hope people who are still sticking by will have the patience to hold on abit longer. I'll definitely update this blog, it's just a matter of when. 

And special shout out to a dear reader I met, Rukiya. I don't know your real name and I can't seem to contact you again. But I just wanna thank you for your kind words, you know where to find me and I hope we can meet again.