(for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)
Good morning glassblowers and potterers, welcome to a catchup post covering days 94 to 98 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
It has been a while, and, I did initially have a post ready to go for Saturday talking about something I was doing over the weekend, which was doing some tidying around my flat, all it needed was a review subject that I was struggling to find so I left it there and instead spent time with some friends catching up & chatting.
But, partway through the conversation, the subject of how I was doing came up, and words spoken ended up hitting me right to my core triggering what I can only really describe as a mental breakdown.
Every barrier and bits of bravado I had shattered, resulting in me crying my eyes out, apologising to my friends before just shutting down mentally, struggling to speak and needing to use Discord to say what my mind was trying to say.
That is one of the reasons I prefer writing as a medium, because I have always found it easier to write out what is on my mind than say it out loud, in both sound & unsound states of mind. My hands can do what my mouth often cannot, which is probably why I find it easy to be somewhat emotionally honest in these pieces.
“Somewhat” being the operative word in that sentence, as that mental breakdown did give me clarity that I had apparently been sitting on a lot more emotions than I realised, and I have honestly been taking the time since to look in the mirror to try reflect on what I am actually feeling currently.
In short… I think it is burnout.
Not just on work.
Not just on hobbies.
But on… life as a whole I guess.
I am someone who tries to push beyond my limits in all instances, and I was suffering greatly for it. It was making my inherent paranoia worse, pushing me to the point of thinking none of my friends actually like me for me, and more like me for what I can do for them, leading me to feeling depressed when I was not able to put on a show.
Additionally, I have not been processing my initial redundancy in a healthy way. For all intents and purposes, it was a traumatic event for me, something that is likely going to be impacting me for a good long while into the future, but at the same time, I have got to try release the hold it has on my outlook on life.
The redundancy was not my fault, and I have come out the other side of it with a few scrapes & bruises, but ultimately alive. Whatever work I do each day to build myself up again is enough, even if it is just showing up for a placeholder post.
It is going to be a long road to recovery from this severe of a burnout, and along the way I feel I might have to completely re-evaluate what direction I am taking to see if changing my path in a way similar to how I did in 2020 might work for me again.
For now:
I am enough.
The work I am doing is enough.
I want to make peace with my past.
I want to build a better future for myself.
Both things should not come at the cost of my mental health.
I have already done so much.
And continuing on in a healthy way will continue to do more for me too.
For anyone reading this, thank you for being along for this journey with me. The schedule has slipped a lot in recent weeks due to conventions and depression, but I still want to be here regardless, writing my story as best I can with the dream of being able to support myself with my writing work.
It will take a long time, but I have faith in myself.
…so anyway, Hololive Tuesday?
In a way it is a happy coincidence I have returned to posting on a Tuesday, especially as yesterday there was a frankly massive lore drop in regards to the two most recent HoloEN groups, Advent and Justice, with a motion comic uploaded to the main Hololive English Youtube channel.
Advent & Justice fans are eating good right now: the amount of collabs between members (including the hilarious recent chess collab), Advent’s five song project detailing their story, and now a fully voice-acted motion comic explaining the former’s time in the cell combined with how the latter interacted with them.
It would have been easy enough for Cover to just upload this as a manga, but the fact all the girls put the effort in to provide voice acting for this shows how dedicated to their craft they all are.
One of the main things I love about this motion comic is that whilst it deals with lore-heavy topics, it never seems too serious, even when resident theatre kid Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame is hamming it up with bombastic speeches about the nature of justice… only to instantly flip into being a complete dork in the next scene, getting flustered by Advent’s antics.
And speaking of Advent’s antics, god do I continue to love their chaotic found family theming. From sharing a room in The Cell to Shiori deciding to orchestrate a grand escape mainly because Bijou wanted to see the outside world, their dynamic continues to feel natural together – a bunch of misfits trying to navigate their way in the world.
One thing I hope definitely gets expanded on in later episodes or the lore in general is getting to see Justice use their weapons and abilities a bit more – especially Raora.
For those unaware, my favourite member of Justice is actually Raora Panthera, the “Artist with the God Eyes”, and I feel that aspect of her is slightly underutilised in the current story context. It is such an interesting idea for an ability and Raora herself has loredumped on Twitter that she is able to open portals for teleportation which sounds like one hell of an ability, so it would be nice to see that implemented in stories.
Of course I love that Liz is still shown using Thorn as her main weapon of choice though, there is something so badass about seeing her wield a weapon that is so clearly designed to be two-handed swung around near effortlessly with one hand, though they did actually show her doing a two-handed slash in the comic.
Plus the end reveal of Liz being the one to be providing Advent with all the comfort and amenities of The Cell is a very cute touch. Just monitoring, innit?
Need a thumbnail now, and well, if you have been around long enough to know what happens when I talk about Advent on Hololive Tuesday, you know who is coming up, plus…
SHE SAID THE THING SHE SAID THE SONG NAME AND THEN IT STARTED PLAYING AAAAAAAA!
*ahem*
I just really love Advent.
Deep self-reflection followed by me gushing about VTubers, even with an inconsistent schedule, the Redundancy Review follows its theme of inconsistent themes consistently… that is a very silly sentence but I love how it reads.
Thank you for reading today’s edition though. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax and take it easy. If you are struggling yourself with something, do not be like me, reach out to friends and loved ones to find support – it is often closer to home than you think.
For more information on Advent VS Justice, surprisingly, Hololive have a dedicated webpage for it that you can view here: Advent VS Justice | hololive official website
Rosalia Rambles 
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