Welcome back! 
I decided to share more of my life on my blog recently, and one of those is being cheap and alter clothes I own or thrift. 

A colour I absolutely loved the past months was mustard yellow. I blind-bought a dress at Forever21 and couldn't get yself to wear it, because it was just too tight and left me looking like a mustard-covered sausage. 

I decided to cut it apart and turn it into a crop top and pencil skirt for summer, which - let's be honest - was the only way to give this dress at least a short lifespan. Sausage dress was not going to be donated to a thrift store and turn another person into a pressed piece of meat!

The finished piece!

There was no need to add an elastic to the skirt since it was tight enough around the waist anyway. 
Even after summer I can imagine wearing the skirt with an oversized black sweater and tights.

That's all for the dress alteration, I will try and share more of my (more complicated and post-worthy) sewing adventures, so stay tuned! 

- Himezawa

Welcome back! 
Today I got a new cosplay make up tutorial for you, this time it's for Futaba Anzu from The Idolmaster - Cinderella Girls. It's a very simple look that can easily be modified for characters with similiar looks & features some of my favourites: Soft pastel eyeshadow, Candy Magic circle lenses & natural lashes. 
​

Products used: 
Fit Me Foundation (Maybelline) 110 
Conceal & Brighten (Rival De Loom) Nude 
Camouflage Cream (RL De Young) Nude 
Colorstay Powder (Revlon)
Extreme Last Liner (Manhattan) 
Stay On Balm Rouge Lip Balm (Canmake)
3 Steps Palette (RL De Young)
Colossal Big Shot Mascara (Maybelline) Black
Color Eyebrow (Heavy Rotation) Color 2 
Dip Eyeliner (Manhattan) Black
Lash Serum EX (Avance)
Drawing Eyebrow (Etude House) Light Brown 
Eyebrow Pencil (Rival De Loom) No. 1

The lenses I used are Candy Magic 14.5mm circle lenses, compared to deep colour contacts that I often use for cosplay these ones are thinner, smaller and therefor easier to wear for a longer amount of time. 
They made my eyes quite big, so I didn't want to add on false lashes. Normally I like the look of that, but for a younger looking character like Anzu it's better to keep the eye make-up to a minimum.

Welcome back! 

I recently put heads together with my label Grow Seeds to work on a new record. There is no due date yet, how fast it'll be progressing depends on you guys & the support coming for my last album "Spades & Stars". 
You can directly support the project via my patreon page or listen to my last record on Spotify or buy it via iTunes. 

Thank you all so much for making the last one come to life, I am glad I can continue to make music with & for you all!

Hello and welcome back, to those of you who are led here for the very first time, I'd like to introduce myself: My name is Sabrina. I am 23 years old. And I'm everything people see in me, and nothing else than the surface of a 'perfect' life on your computer screen. 
Whether it's on YouTube, where I share snippets of my life in video form, or on Instagram, where you can stare into the void of several versions of my face, my body, costumes, wigs and make up, I am whatever you chose to perceive. 
And that has been a trap to me I cornered myself into little by little. 
Becoming who people saw in me, constantly trying to outrun trends and an avatar I could not shake. 
Now get yourself a snack, a nice cold drink this summer day, and settle in for a ride. 
Because I have found something in the mirror-image of my social media profiles, that you will hope to know about before you even get started on yours. 
Put down your guard, this is not a thriller, though it could be, depending on who you ask. 

Some comments are harsh, and some are constructive criticism... Often covered in harsh language. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing ways to 'improve myself' out there, but I want to reach out and say that there are ways to give criticism privately. Direct messaging. Comments. Not public outbursts on how much someone is bothered by your hairline or dark circles. 
And I was obsessed with the latter one. 
I was so focused on trying to find the concrit in insults, trying to cater to people I saw as "the ones I didn't draw in yet". Well, the harsh truth about this is that some opinions can't be changed that easily. 
And people love blowing things out of proportion. 
Remember that one person you upset? That one break-up that was messy? Or that one time you said something dumb in front of someone? No? Don't worry, as long as you are out there trying, there will be someone reaching into the furthest corners of the feed of your life and pulling out something that you already forgot about, butter it up with some shiny polish, covering it in whatever they want your internet self to be hated for and present it to the world. 
You don't want that to be there? This might give new people you meet a bad idea about you? You want it gone? Well, good luck trying, because once it's uploaded it's here to stay. 

One doesn't have to look far on the internet to see the picture-perfect lives, bodies and faces of people, to read how happy and fulfilled they are and wish, no, want, what they have. 
With jealousy we scroll through feeds, we see numbers, smiles, money. And we know, deep inside, that most of it is fake. 
We look at peoples ideal versions, at photoshop creations and thoroughly saturated images of food. We don't see the fights that went down, we don't want to see peoples struggles, we don't want to see them unfiltered. We care about their characters and the characters they play only. After all, who wants to be reminded of the world we live in when we can indulge in a fantasy of that being us? 
​Well, we can. And we do. 

Or are you, just as I caught myself, pretending to be who you are portraying to be? 

Don't get me wrong. It's good to distract yourself sometimes, it's okay to pretend to be perfect at times, it can earn you a living, fame, success, your dreams coming true with the help of numbers and marketing. 
Because after all we live in a world where aging, imperfections and giving someone the finger publicly are shunned. 
Would we stand up against anything but our own spoon-fed paradoxa of asking people to be perfect, but shaming them for trying to cater to this illusion? When we tell people not to censor their words, yet speaking up about our problems and suffering are signs of grasping for attention? 

Our real enemy isn't the internet, anonymity or lack thereof, when we expose our faces and lives to the world wide web. It's not media, gossip magazines, blogs and sites, that made it their business to profit of ruining reputations, no, it's the paradox idea of having to be loved by everybody. 

Because most of the time, you can't please anybody. 

A few weeks ago I joined a new platform. I already have an alias, that is legally bound to my name, that I use and that some might even know me for. The name I release songs with, the name people @ me on twitter with. 
Yet, when i showed up late to this party I wasn't invited to I raised a few suspicious eyebrows. 
And soon I was messaged, called impostor and asked to send pictures to verify it was really me. 

It made me wonder. Out of all the fake profiles I had encountered in my life - some of which were created when I was still a mere high schooler and had no name or reputation to ruin - why was it now that people actually cared? 
I had just come home after plastic surgery, cast off, swollen and fresh, when I was asked, for the first time in my short life: "Are you real?"

And it made me question, how if I had never shown my real face - or in that case my new face, right after surgery, that I hadn't even shared on social media yet - would people know it was really me? 

Fact is, no one could ever be sure. I could find a double, I could find a new manager who would once again curate and tag my posts for me, and nobody would notice the difference. If I had never really been here, if I was a model, cast and posed to be this person for money, taking the blame and a name for a person that never really existed, living in a manufactured story that was weft deep into the corners of the internet, with the anonymous commenters being manufactured by a company just as I was...
Just who could even prove it? 

The truth is you can't. 
And you won't. 

No one could stop a company with enough funds and resources out there, creating a viral hit, buying a model in via Adsense, connections, recommendations and making them what some of us wish we were. 

Mirroring what we are posting, but shooting straight to the top. 
When there would be hate, there would be fake profiles of companies taking over, defesive. 
When there would be too much positivity online and it began to seem ingenuine, they could manufacture insults tailored to what some of us experience. 

Copypasting the best possible versions of ourselved to social media, it's hard to not believe in a conspiracy of a cross-media lonelygirl of 2018. 
We measure ourselves by the big numbers, but are they ever really achievable without conspiring against ourselves?

We live in a world of anonymity, a place where you can give a restaurant a 1 Star rating for not giving you free water the moment you sit down. You have the chance to ruin lives or making someone feel better right under your fingertips. And most people don't use that power. But the few who want to definitely can, and definitely will. 

​But don't worry. If you ever lose your job or have someone step on your feet, you can pay them back. Bake up a fresh scandal, a blog, a fake person, blame it on them. Tell the world about your misery and they'll surely be there to pat you on the back and if they don't, hey, it doesn't take much to create a few more profiles, create believers and cause a chain reaction. 
Nobody will question why you did this or that if you have a few masked versions of yourself out there, clearing your name for you. 

There is much to be won with the world beneath your screen having the attention-span of a few seconds and never asking questions. Whip up a few lines and watch it spin. And you never have to say sorry.

None of us will ever be what others expect us to portray. 
It's the ultimate cross we have to bear, looking at our online-selves. 
That we will not be the way we want to come across, because the prejudice of some will the the breeding-ground for bacteria that will grow and infect whatever clear and sterile image you were trying to portray. 

But it's not all hopeless. 

There is a thin line between being loved and being hated, but no mater how many times you will cross it in the life of your social media profile, you will soon realize that both sides have extreme feelings about you, what you create and who you are - in their eyes. 
That the good deed you did makes you a saint, but it will also make you have an ulterior motive. 
That your illness is terrifying and that you are brave to speak up, but you are also only talking about it to get attention. 
That you following your dreams is inspiring to others, but also makes those who failed before you pull your name through dirt for the rest of their life, just so they can feel better. 

You can always try and see the positive in things, you can always try and focus on becoming better, prettier, more likeable, fit in. But however bright your light may shine, what's in the shadows will always linger. 

And it doesn't matter if it's true or not, if it has evidence or not, someone will definitely buy it.

I wanted to end this post on a positive note. I'm in a negative mood today, and I don't think I have to explain why. I could have spent the entire day writing out which rumor about me is wrong, and which one is half-true, who wrote which information I set them up with. Whether I was a 2018 lonelygirl or not. But it doesn't really matter. Nobody will care enough about my opinion on myself, and the only thing that will be appreciated is bending the truth to fuel more. More of whatever limbo it is that we are stuck in. 

If I had to be honest about this, I wouldn't change a thing. The mistakes I make that give people material to pull my name through the dirt gives me traffic. The more I put out there about myself, the more people get offended by it, the more people get upset about my mere presence on the internet is feeding me revenue. Which in the end is - quite literally - feeding me. 

Social media will never let you feel whole, it will not solve your problems and it might make you very, very unhappy.
But you can either writhe in the sadness, frustration and vengeful spite, or you can pull yourself back up, put on a smile and a gracious middle finger and move the hell on. You will always be casting shadows.

As long as people are talking you are not dead yet. 

Koneko Magazine Germany ......... No. 86

Live at Shimokitazawa (Club 251), Tokyo, full show

Welcome back to our tale of the lost, little bean in far-away Japan. 

I started tour overly excited and without any doubt in my music, but that changed drastically. It's no secret some venues - even when I joined events - were dead end boring. Despite going on tour without any of my music releasing prior to it, I soon had to put my expectations lower and actually give a fuck about certain parts of managing myself. 
Luckily it took a turn for the better in Shimokitazawa, which I'm endlessly grateful for. It was a hard road to find the right part of the city, and right type of people, who genuinely enjoyed my music. My favourites were without a doubt Shibuya Vuenos and Club 251 in Shimokitazawa, though a lot of it felt rushed and I wish I could remember more at moments like now, where everything is just one big blur of moments.
One of my favourite moments was winning people over in Shibuya. It started horribly, even at the soundcheck, I was performing two songs that are difficult for me, that I cried about while recording, because they tell the two saddest stories of my life. 
Actually, at this point, I want to add, I had to chance to even practice "You Tore Me Apart" and "Can't Die Tonight" in their original, English version without crying and having my voice howl in the nasty mess that goes along with it. 
Up to this tour it felt great to tell the story, but reliving it on stage would have probably washed away the audience members in a sweep emotional turmoil of a barely-rested German mess, trying to just overcome a bad day. 
Back to Vuenos. I came in with pretty low expectations, ready to pack and leave without selling goods or anything really, right after I was done. But for a brief moment, while I was on stage I realized that I had actually won them over. It was an event stage, and most of the audience members were there for their respective idol in their respective brightly pastel colored shirt. Yet, after I finished through two songs already, I realized they weren't just standing around anymore, but actually enjoyed my music. 
It was a unlucky day, falling on my butt while getting off stage and receiving blurry footage from my cameraman the same night, but it was worth the effort. 

Though any of you could probably come up with a way closer guess to what the future is holding for me, I'd like to say that my plans have changed massively. 
I was shoved from niche to niche by past managers and wild guesses on 'what could be trending this year?'. I'm tired of the experience that comes with leaving your life and career up to others, there is no right way to go about it, but trying where you can to make something... Anything of it. Even now, that I'm physically incapable of doing much at all, I just try to roll my body to the lighter end of the tunnel, wherever that might be. 
I already talked about Japan not being my end goal, and I hope all of you are open to that idea, because I definitely have some different plans for this year. I was already heading a different direction with English music the past year, with a better reaction than I anticipated. 
What the future will bring, be it another tour, new music or a completely new genre, I'll be just as freaked out about as you. 

My next performance will be held at Messehalle Dresden, as part of DeDeCo, Sat. 17th at 20:00.
I don't know whether or not this will be a first of x or just a single performance in Germany, but for now I was able to set up a full set concert, I'll be adding it to the event page shortly.

Welcome back to an exciting end of the year, today I get to announce the release of my first ever album, but also the release of my first music video in two years! 
"SPADES & STARS" is available now on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and in japanese record stores (Tower Records, HMV, Neowing, CD Japan, etc.)

I wanted to use this opportunity to reflect on the progress of myself as an artist & producing my first ever record. 

Back in 2015 I already made a single with the label "Grow Seeds Record" in Tokyo, sadly the licensing and getting it pressed into an actual CD were too expensive for me to cover, barely working part-time and having no experience in the music industry. However thanks to generous patreon donators I was able to save up and practise with my vocal coach during my hiatus. 
I was able to perform at cosplay events and model in the meantime, but since I left my previous agencies I had to look for every performance opportunity myself. Which doesn't mean I don't have agency offers coming in, but I have learned a lot out of my bad experiences and rather not put myself in the same position of handing my entire life, schedule, image, etc. to a company I met once, if I can't see them giving me freedom in what I create. I made an entire video about this topic titled "Why I am not an idol anymore" during #VEDA.

The first discussion for my album happened at the Grow Seeds office in May this year.
Shortly after (on the same day) I contacted Flaviyake, if she would be interested in a collaboration, then contacted my vocal coach to set me up a schedule, and things were in the making shortly after. 
Because the release month was set on December from the very beginning there wasn't as much time to prepare my vocals and most of the lyrics were written within the rush of one week. The recording was done during 4 days in August, I also vlogged some of it. 

Also during August, before even starting recording I got to perform a preview of the songs that were finished at that time at Ueno Summer Festival (Vlog, Full Performance). It was my first time performing at an outdoor music festival and it's something I'll probably never forget. 

Mixing and mastering was done at JAM Studios and after that my team and I completed the CD, packaging, and booklet design and submitted everything to the licensing company & distributor. 
Then I was left to wait and start planning music videos and tour. 

I decided to put my tour around December, even tough it meant most people wouldn't know the songs yet, and set a lot of dates within events of live houses, one of them being the 10th Anniversary Event of Broken Doll in Shimokitazawa. Touring and also documenting the whole tour with a professional (not just vlogging from my perspective) was a whole different experience. 
The live recordings of separate songs, a BTS as well as full shows will be out throughout the next few weeks on my channel.

To be absolutely honest, I have no idea what my next few years or even months will look like, all I know is that making music, performing live and writing lyrics are a passion I am not going to give up on so easily, and even though I already have a lot of non-music projects lined up for the coming season, this will definitely not be my last release. 

I am looking forward to future performances, I still got two days left on my tour and I am excited to meet a lot of you guys again. And if you are watching from behind the screen, I'm glad you're there, on this journey with me. 


- Himezawa