Here Comes The Sun

 Hello everyone 

Well now… it’s been quite a long time, hasn’t it? Almost a decade in fact. I’ve been intending to revive this blog for a while now, since April. And I recently finally found some time to brush away the cobwebs and prepare to chronicle this new era in my life. 

When I look back at some of my previous posts, it seems almost unreal, like a whole lifetime has passed. Between the pandemic and now, so much in my life has changed both good and bad but one thing that happened is that I turned thirty in 2021. With that, I think I’ve been going through some sort of long-term epiphany where a lot of things began to click in my mind all at once. 

Maybe it’s finding joy and fulfillment in my current field of work, or maybe it’s because I have a great therapist and even greater support system, but for the first time in a very long time, I can say that I am truly finding my confidence. Over the years I’ve dealt with a lot of self-hatred and other mental issues that have affected how I move about in the world. I won’t say I no longer have those moments, but I’m able to deal with them far better than before. 

The only thing I really regret is that it took me so long to begin healing. And even then I acknowledge I still have a long way to go. But I digress, being a late bloomer isn’t the worst thing a person can be. And now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, allow me to re-introduce myself. 

I'm a September Libra with an INTJ-T personality type. I’m a cat mom and history student pursuing my master's in museum studies at the University of Maryland. I enjoy Jfashion (especially EGL), Vkei, kpop, ballet, traveling, jewelry making, millinery, writing, and upcycling. Here are some of the things you can expect to see here on this blog:

Jfashion ~ After an almost six year hiatus, I finally returned to wearing EGL this year. I’ve come to the realization that lolita fashion has had such a huge hand in how I’ve shaped as a person and my love for it has never truly gone away. I just couldn’t really enjoy it the way I wished I could in the past. But things are a lot different now, namely I’ve distanced myself from a lot of the toxicity marring my enjoyment of the fashion, I’m coming to accept the way I look and I’m more financially stable. So now I can truly find happiness in a style that I have loved for almost twenty years. 

History ~ My other great love, studying history. My dream is to one day move to England and work for Historic Royal Palaces but for the short term, I’d be content to become a curator at one of the Smithsonian museums. Expect occasional rants and musings about what I’m currently studying or what historical dramas I’m currently watching. I’m actually currently working on a multi-part retrospective of Downton Abbey that I hope I can share toward the end of September. 

Travel ~ I love traveling! I’ve visited six different countries and I would love to visit many more in the future! In the past I also traveled a lot for conventions and while I don’t go to cons as much these days, I still like taking weekend trips.

Craft projects ~ Mostly making jewelry and hats, skills I picked up during the pandemic. Another hope of mine is to one day open up an online storefront, once I’m confident enough in my skills. 

And I think that’s it for now! I’m still in the process of cleaning up this blog but the old posts that are left exist as something of a time capsule for me, a reminder of past adventures and how who I used to be has helped shape who I am today. I hope everyone enjoys their time here!

Yours Jasmine

No Title~ (Major TW)

Hello Everyone

This is going to be a long post. It’s filled with thoughts and feelings that have been filling up my mind for years and only now (and due to a recent drastic turn of events in my life) do I feel safe writing about. Also I want to apologize in advance because I will inevitably end up upsetting or disappointing someone I care about who will read this.

You might have noticed that I have removed over 75% of the posts on this blog and edited many of the ones still remaining. I guess I’ll just flat-out say it: I feel like I’m growing out of lolita fashion. Lately I’ve been seeing more and more of it’s flaws and drama and corruption in certain parts of the community has really left me discouraged and sad. It makes me even sadder because I know so many kind and uncorrupt lolitas who hate the drama and bullshit as much as I do but I just feel that for me personally, it’s eating away too much of me and I feel like I need to take an indefinite hiatus from lolita until I can get a stronger grip on a lot of things; but one thing in particular.

There have been many times over the last few years that I felt like I needed to take a hiatus from the jfashion and convention scene, but I stayed mainly because I didn’t want to disappoint people close to me, but more importantly, I wanted to prove to myself that I was not a coward. I’ve mentioned this rather vaguely many times on this blog out of fear of backlash but I’m not afraid anymore. 

You see, for the last few years I’ve been going through emotional and psychological Hell in the form of someone I thought was my friend, dare I say it, someone I thought I loved. To say that this person caused me anguish wouldn’t even be putting it lightly. This person bullied me, talked about me behind my back, slandered me and many times nearly drove me to end my life. They managed to convince me everyone in my local lolita community secretly hated me all the while spreading rumors to the point I will likely never feel welcome in my local comm again. 

But probably the worst thing this person did was put me in an extremely compromising situation which resulted in me being ASSULTED at a convention in 2011. And then blackmailed me all throughout 2012 to keep them from gossiping about what had happened to me. Meanwhile, I was dealing with the unfortunate physical result of that assault and had to miss several conventions while I was made to give every extra cent I had to this person, to keep them quiet. But it didn't matter because they still told nearly everyone we mutually know about the incident while continuing to slut shame me and remind me of how I was now worthless because of what I had "allowed" to happen. How I deserved what happened because not only was I not asexual, I wasn't a good lolita. 

In their twisted mind, the only way to be a good lolita was to be rich, skinny, pale, and pretty, and since I was none of those things I did not deserve to have any friends or be happy. This incident was a huge blow to my already low sense of self-worth and has made it hard for me to trust people, especially those I’d want to be romantically involved with. It's gotten to the point where I'm terrified of being left alone during conventions, concerts and the like. I hate to say it but I've honestly haven't felt safe at any convention since the assault and that was now almost five years ago. 

When I finally dropped this person as a friend I thought the torment would end but it didn’t. They continued to cause shit for me all up until as recently as this past January. They slandered me to my local lolita community making it nearly impossible for me to make friends with lolitas in my area, nearly got me removed from VKH with even more lies, HACKING MY EMAIL ACCOUNT, turned many people I thought cared about me against me and tried multiple times to pit my current circle of friends against me. And worst of all, soon after AWA, they found out where I work and slandered me to my employers. I was placed on a long-term suspension and came very close to losing my job. 

My only crime against them: being a better-dressed lolita, being a better writer, having more brand and generally being more sociable and having more friends. 

When all this first happened I thought about taking a break from the scene for a while but I didn’t want this horrible person to feel like they had “won” over me, not for a second. But the fact remains that I never really allowed myself to recover from all the abuse this person has dealt me. I just kept pushing through to prove myself strong all the while my psyche was deteriorating.

Well yesterday after an extremely heated fight with my mom, I came to a revelation. Staying in lolita even after all of these things happening is not strength, it’s foolishness of the highest degree. I’ve proved nothing to anyone and what’s worse is that I’ve wasted years trying to. If I had just taken a hiatus when I thought I should and focus more on myself and my own personal ambitions, who knows how far I could be by now?

At this point between needing to take care of myself and my broken self-worth, and the general current tedious nature of the Lolita community, I feel like the time has come for me to take a long-needed break from it all. What does that mean? I will be selling off about 75% of my lolita wardrobe in the next few weeks and removing myself from the general convention scene and the like for the indefinite future, keeping only the lolita items that mean the most to me like my dream dresses or items that hold strong sentimental value to me. I’ll likely be dipping more in to Otome Kei and my trip to Europe is still on but I don’t know yet if I’ll be going to Under the Sea just yet and if I do, it will likely be for only one day. I will also be leaving VKH or, if my superiors allow it, take a hiatus from being a writer there with the idea that I would return in the future. 

The fact is I do love this fashion and I know that most lolitas are not horrible people like the person who has hurt me for so long. I’ve made so many wonderful friends and made so many beautiful memories that would not have happened if not for this fashion, it can bring people together in a way other things don’t. I know all this and it makes my hiatus all the more bittersweet but I’m looking ahead of things. Maybe I will get back into it and start con hopping again in the future but for the time being I just want to focus on myself and learning to love myself without lolita being a condition of my self-love.

I’ll still update this blog as often as I can, but instead of talking about lolita or convention adventures, I’ll mostly just be writing about the other things of my life, school, my love for history and costuming, my writings, otome kei and vintage movies.  Lastly, to all my dear lolita friends and those I’ve come to know in the last few years, I hope we all can still be friends even with me taking time to focus on other aspects of my life for the time being. I hope you all understand and I love you all.

Yours Jasmine

Pacific Media Expo 2015 ~ Crimson Nail

Hello everyone!

As promised, here is my post about the Femme Fatale concert at PMX this year, the main reason I ended up going this year!

It’s been a long time since I’ve been so deeply hooked on a “traditional” vkei band. I think the last band I was really into was Versailles. Either way, Femme Fatale is the first band that has caught and kept my attention in a long time and not just for Kaya. I had previously been aware of Tana and Iori from past bands they were a part of and Toshi in particular was the bassist of another of my favorite jrock bands, A (ACE). Sadly they disbanded/went on hiatus some time ago.

Since Femme Fatale only formed last year, I did not expect to see them stateside so soon. Their announcement at PMX came as a very happy surprise to me and I must say, they are really awesome and fun to see live! Kaya’s amazing vocals and graceful stage presence mixed with everyone else’s equally incredible instrumental skills and lively personalities made for a show that was so wonderful that I’m taking a whole post on this blog to write about it! XD

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Right before the concert! <3

The air of excitement in the room was strong long before Femme Fatale took the stage and when the lights dimmed announcing the start of the concert, it jumped sky high! The members entered the stage one by one first was Fumiya the support drummer, and then Toshi, from the moment Toshi appeared I could feel his enthusiasm and it was rather exhilarating, to say the least. Iori was next, followed by Tana. When Tana took his spot on the stage I closed my eyes for a second but they bolted open when I collective of intense shrieks from the audience announced Kaya’s appearance, my heart jumped. He was dressed in his “Freya” dress, a gorgeous black strapless gown trimmed with black feathers along the neckline and black and gold lace down the full skirt. In many ways he reminded me a lot of the goddess Freya in his appearance so I guess it makes sense that that was the first song performed.

Kaya commanded the stage with his signature mix of grace and sensuality, when it came time for the Freya chant mid-song; he replaced it with some amazing operatic vocals that seemed to echo throughout the room. After “Freya” was “Jester”, an awesomely fun track. Kaya’s voice was absolutely on point and the bassline of this song in particular is awesome and really showed off Toshi’s skills.

I can not put into words how much I enjoyed the concert! I loved watching each and every member but I must say, Toshi stood out to me the most! He had a lot of energy as I said before and seemed to be really enjoying himself, his smile was very infectious! Many times he would look in the direction of my friends and me making faces as if to pump us up with more excitement, it’s hard to describe but it was really awesome and helped me from surrendering to fatigue all throughout the show. It was so intense. And it goes without saying that Toshi had my attention a lot of the time because I have a thing for bassists’ and he is just so damn sexy he was already a part of a band I really liked. LMAO!

 Iori was also awesome, he and Toshi were the members closest to us and I spent a lot of the concert watching him as well. At one point Kaya left the stage for a moment and Iori treated us to a rock version of the “Star Spangled Banner” on his guitar! It was beautifully done and drove everyone wild!  He told us that how much he loved the US and it made my heart very warm. Such a sweet guy! >w<

During one of the MC’s Kaya thanked us all for coming to Femme Fatale’s debut show in the US. He talked about his solo project for a bit, and how Femme Fatale is very different from that, a lot more rock! XD It’s true and in a lot of ways Femme Fatale is also very different from Schwarz Stein. Another one of the reasons I really like Kaya and respect him as an artist, the versatility of his voice knows no limits. ^.^ 

There was a certain song I was really, really REALLY hoping to hear that night though I worried I probably would not hear it since it’s a very intense song and probably too intense for a convention concert. But I held onto the hope of hearing it throughout the show.

Even though I was waiting/hoping for a certain song to be performed, I still enjoyed every song of the concert and all of my favorites were included.  During another MC, Kaya mentioned a certain song called “Kodou”, it’s technically a new song even though the single was only released for a limited time at lives in Japan this summer. I was quite surprised to see it on sale at PMX and of course, I bought it. Kaya announced that they would be performing that song next and said for all of us to think about someone we really love while listening. At once a bunch of people called out Kaya’s name and he giggled in his cute distinct way, hugging himself and pretending to act shy/embarrassed. I personally WAS embarrassed by this, but for another reason and in a good way.

“Kodou” is indeed a very sexy song and Kaya moved in a way that was quite provocative. I later learned from one of my roommates that Kodou I another word for “lovers” in Japanese. After “Kodou” was another one of my favorite songs, a lovely and bittersweet song about parting called “Voyage”. Another of my favorite songs performed was “Stardust”, it’s also my favorite track off of their first album Arcana. Upbeat and fun, one of my roomates mentioned that she liked this song because the sound reminded her a lot of Kaya’s solo work and honestly I am inclined to agree with her. <3 

Toward the end of the song we sang along with Kaya in what was a very wonderful moment. And then, the moment I was hoping for finally happened. The room when near completely dark for a moment and Kaya performed what I thought was maybe a poem or monologue; either way I could not understand it but I didn’t have to, I knew it was the beginning of the song “Crimson Nail”!!!

Based on his posts on twitter, I know whenever Kaya comes overseas he is concerned about playing the more overtly dark songs (and before PMX he posted about the possibility of doing this particular song. I’m very glad that he did. Thoroughly dark and intense, hearing the recorded track is NOTHING compared to seeing this song performed live. For the first time during the whole show, I turned my attention completely toward Kaya and was in awe at the amount of power and rawness he put into his performance. Screaming out and pleading in a way that could make me feel the agony in his voice. I thought maybe he would hold back only a bit since this was a convention but absolutely not, Kaya held back nothing! After his lament he collapsed fully onto the stage, his skirt of his beautiful costume pooled around him as the rest of the band continued playing. When the song was over and Kaya finished off with another pained shriek that bounced off the walls of the room, I could actually feel my entire body shaking. As everyone clapped and screamed in applause, I actually blurted out “Holy shit!” It was a magnificent performance and, in my opinion, the highlight of the show. The shaking in my body remained with me until the end of the concert.

After “Crimson Nail” the remaining songs were all the very dark and intense songs; “BABEL”, “Medeia”, “SALOME” and “JUDGEMENT –the die has been cast-“ “Medeia” was one of the few songs in which Tana came over to our side and actually stayed there for longer than half a minute. So I took in as much of him as I possibly could. I’m not sure if it was “Medeia” or “SALOME” but at one point Kaya went over to Iori in a teasingly seductive manner, putting his arm around the guitarist and at the very last second, kissing him! It was soooooooo cute! Of course, I absolutely enjoyed “SALOME”! I still want to do a Kaya cosplay based on his Salome costume. This has become one of my favorite Kaya songs of all time. Toward the end of the song, Tana Iori and Toshi all went toward the back by the Fumiya, waving their heads in unison while Kaya enchanted us all with his fabulous dancing.

“JUDGEMENT –the die has been cast-“ was the last song of the main set. A gorgeous song about fate, it was the perfect song to wrap up the main set of the show! Kaya, Tana, Iori and Toshi all came very close to the stage, standing together and seeming to never stop smiling. It was wonderful. Kaya thanked us wholeheartedly, waving and smiling widely as the rest of the band reached out to all. I reached out for Tana’s hand since he was closest to me at the moment but instead grabbed Toshi’s with success. XD I did manage to grab Tana’s hand for a second, and then Iori’s before the whole band left the stage.

It didn’t take too long before everyone was calling for an encore; and it didn’t take much longer after than for Femme Fatale to return to the stage, greeted with thunderous applause from the audience. Kaya teasingly responded that they “had” planned to end the concert at the last concert but because we all seemed to still have a lot of energy they would continue! The band members all introduced themselves and spoke a little, and honestly and sadly, I cannot remember what any of them said because of what Toshi had to say. He took the mic from Kaya and began to say in English “My number is…” and at once Kaya snatched the mic from him while manager-san rushed to shush him up. It’s sad how much I was rolling at that.  ANYWAY! The last song of the night was announced: “Grim Reaper”!

If anyone had lost any energy by this point, it was fully recovered for this powerful encore! The headbanging seemed to never end and the band treated us all to a good dose of fan service. At one point Tana, Iori and Toshi were all together on our side of the stage, bending down at times and allowing the fans to touch them. I held back though because I was trying to catch Kaya’s attention; he was grabbing the hands of fans, kissing/biting them and at one point touching one lucky fan’s lips! It was so thrilling!

Such an incredible concert!!! When the band left the stage for the final time, I immediately collapsed into the first chair I could find. I had to take a few minutes to compose myself and take in all of the amazingness of what I had just experienced. My body was still shaking too. Soon I met up with my roommates, we all mused about how great the show had been and soon there would be an autograph session with the band! I watched as people began to line up but I was still quite overwhelmed and remained sitting as I watched all my friends get things signed. Soon enough though I got in line, I decided to get my Voyage poster and Arcana photobook signed. I bookmarked each page of the book I wanted signed with the little gift boxes I had prepared for Femme Fatale: pieces of handmade jewelry using colors and stones I felt suited each member’s respective personality. Finally, it was my turn, my heart was racing but I managed to stay calm and collected through the experience. I first met Fumiya, he was very nice but I felt somewhat guilty that I had not bought a gift for him as well. I do believe that in time he will become an official member of the band.

Toshi was next; next to Kaya and Tana I was most nervous about meeting him! I could feel my hands shaking as I handed him his gift after he had signed my photobook. He accepted my gift with great enthusiasm, thanking me and shaking my hand heartily. <3

My shyness fully disappeared by the time I got to meet Iori. He is so sweet and has a very warm essence about him. I think the drawing he made is supposed to be a seal, he likes seals! <3

I was quite nervous about meeting Tana though! He’s so very gorgeous and my second favorite member of the band. This going to sound very odd, but something about him reminded me a lot of Kyoya from Ouran Host Club, does that even make any sense?! >o<

And of course, I was most excited/nervous about meeting Kaya. However, I don’t know if it’s because I’ve met him many times, or because by this point I had met the entire band without any moments of embarrassment or fail; but when I first went up to him and he said hello to me with a very sweet smile on his face, my heart felt strangely calm with a sense of warmth. He really is such a lovely, beautiful person and seems to really care deeply for his fans and music. At the right moment, I presented my gift for Kaya with both my hands, all the while thanking him for coming back to the US again and telling him how much I enjoyed the concert as best as I could; I could hear the high pitch in my voice but I still kept it together. He took it with both of his hands and thanked me graciously, shaking my hand afterward. Only then did my heart become fluttery again and I nodded my head quickly and went back to my friends. I was so, so happy. *___*

Afterward, everyone had to leave the room, I  watched through a crack in the door when Crystal presented Femme Fatale with the US flag covered with all of the many signatures of fans that had come out for this wonderful show. The band looked very happy and took pictures together with the flag that can be found now on Kaya’s blog and Iori’s twitter. It makes my heart so warm thinking about how much effort all of the fans put into the flag project and seeing the band appreciate it. I can only imagine how happy Crystal felt too!

After the concert! Can you see the exhaustion on our faces?? XD

Despite still being overwhelmed from the show none of us were sleepy just yet. So we decided to go out and eat and muse and fangirl even more. So much fun we had, so many inside jokes made! The last thing of note to mention was that as we were waiting for Crystal in another part of the host hotel, we saw the band, sans Kaya, pass by us to get to the elevators. That was slightly thrilling! LOL!

Yours Jasmine