Rosalia Rambles

Tag: advent

  • Redundancy Review: Days 94-98, “A Long Look In The Mirror”

    (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

  • Redundancy Review: Day 91, “Post-Con Depression”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning axolotls and mudpuppies, welcome to Day 91 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    With my writeup done yesterday and now fully situated back at home… yeah, the post-con depression is starting to creep in. VExpo was possibly the full highlight of my year despite all of the complications leading up to it in regards to cosplay and some of the organisational slip ups the convention itself had, and now to be back to normality is… kind of rough feeling.

    A lot of people read my writeup yesterday too, which is really sweet to see. I want to try use that positive energy VExpo gave me to keep trying to improve myself, because now I have truly had a taste of life on the outside again and god fucking damnit if I do not want more experiences like that.

    Which y’know, is kind of the right energy to take away from something like this, and part of my logic is that I am pretty much exhausted every weekend anyway, so why not just be exhausted at a convention? Especially with the fact I want to turn the red dress I wore on the Saturday of VExpo into carrying even more plushies to make it almost like an ita dress but full of plushies instead.

    Helps to keep track of them too, since they are pretty much always facing front I do not have to worry too much about someone coming up to try swipe one – though I should probably invest in a decent carry bag anyway if I want to carry any larger ones around on show.

    The next potential event I could go to is London or Birmingham MCM, my usual old convention haunts from the before times (meaning pre-COVID), with London being near the end of October, and Birmingham being at the end of November. Both of them are pretty tempting options even though I do not really gel with the structure of MCM-style conventions in the UK, though, there is still one prevailing issue…

    Funds.

    Whilst I am currently in relatively stable work, I know at any moment I could be back to being in the shit once more and that makes me a little risk averse when it comes to making big ventures out, especially to events that I do not feel 100% on.

    It is also a balancing act, cause I would love to go to more events, but I also want to go to those events in cosplay, and support artists, and treat them like holidays, but doing all of those things on top of event and travel expenses make the margins tight, especially in my current position.

    So what does this mean?

    Need to work harder obviously.

    Falling into complacency was something I did a lot prior to my redundancy, of accepting my status quo and struggling to change. For the sake of my future security and to get the ability to go to more events, I cannot allow myself to fall back into that.

    And if you agree with that you should consider hiring me for some writing work!

    (god that was cheesy as fuck)

    But genuinely, I am proving myself with writing every day. My VExpo writeup was near 7000 words done in approximately four hours with images, social media linking, and detailed back research on social channels to make sure all my information was correct.

    I want to write.

    I want to earn my way through writing.

    And I want to write my story across multiple events for the foreseeable future, or until my body finally gives up the ghost.

    With that call to action done, time to head into the review segment, and well… it feels kind of weird to do a Hololive Tuesday right after doing a giant convention write up, but I think this will be a good opportunity to highlight some of the artists I bought from over the weekend, starting with Mercury Designs with this gorgeous Nerissa Ravencraft acrylic standee.

    For brief VTuber context, Nerissa Ravencroft is a part of Hololive English Generation 3 “Advent”, which is my all time favourite group of virtual people – and being honest, initially I was not all that interested in Nerissa as a talent, especially when looking at the other members of Advent.

    But over time, her streams and actions slowly started carving a place in my heart for her, to the point now where I have considered cosplaying both of her outfits at one point in time, partially because it is a character where my actual height would lend to it extremely well.

    Anyway, back on track with the art.

    When I was browsing the VExpo art catalogue they posted, Mercury Designs was one that caught my eye, though it was actually for a Cecilia Immergreen standee than anything else, and during one of my artist alley walks I remember seeing it and having something click in my brain like “Oh yeah I was supposed to check these guys out”.

    And whilst the Cecilia caught my eye once more, something about the composition of the Nerissa standee just looks so elegant, with the back piece of acrylic giving it an almost magical look to it. For £25 as well it is a solid price to support a small artist, and this is not including the fact I walked away with two A5 prints and a bunch of stickers from them too.

    A shorter review than yesterday, but, I do not think anything will top yesterday for a long while. Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review, wherever you are I hope you are able to take things easy today. I am going to continue letting my legs recover from VExpo.

    For more information on Mercury Designs and to purchase from their shop, visit the link here: Mercury Designs UK – Shop

  • Redundancy ‘Review’: Day 84, “Accepting Defeat”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning wounded and weary, welcome to Day 84 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    So, after much stress, deliberation, stress, sleeplessness, stress, panic, stress, rushing, and stress… I have decided to abandon cosplaying at my upcoming convention.

    It hurts to reach this conclusion, especially after looking forward to it for so long, but after having a rough night last night where everything started piling up on top of me at once and trying to do some last minute plans/adjustments today, the notion all became a bit much for me, and considering the stressful year I have had up to this point, I want to go into my convention weekend with as few worries as possible.

    Which sucks to come to the conclusion to, but given my body gets very close to giving up movement entirely once my stress levels reach a certain point, this is the right decision as much as I would normally keep fighting.

    And being completely honest, I am hurt. Things got derailed so massively in planning this aspect of my convention holiday that keeping everything on track in addition to doing my day-to-day responsibilities just became overwhelming, and with two days to go, the stress is not worth it now.

    A positive aspect I can at least consider now is having more time to plan out a proper approach to cosplay, taking my time with things more to have it all ready for next year’s convention… a weird thing to think about, not used to thinking that far in the future currently.

    I genuinely feel like I am one more disaster away from having a complete breakdown, which, is… fun to think about.

    But I have to keep going.

    I still have things I want to live for.

    So even if it hurts right now, I will try to keep moving.

    …feels a bit weird to do what I was planning for my review segment, but, it is Hololive Tuesday, and I want to at least talk a bit more about what my plan was for the convention, so, here is the reference sheet of one Shiori Novella of Hololive English Advent.

    If it is not already clear from the amount of times I have reviewed something Advent related for Hololive Tuesday and ended it off with calling Shiori beautiful, or stunning, or various complimentary adjectives: I love Shiori Novella so much. She is one of my many oshi, possibly in contention for being my kamioshi.

    As a goth myself, I fell in love with her design ever since it was revealed, absolutely loving her dress, her hair, and her big ass jacket. But, after she debuted and started talking on stream, her honesty & realness really resonated with one early clip in particular standing out for me:

    What people see of Shiori from the outside is usually someone who says something silly or off-the-cuff, leading to silly or lewd moments with others, but when you dig deeper on her, you realise this is a person who is not afraid to show their emotions, to be excited to share stuff with people and to be open in the harder times.

    As someone who writes daily about how they are feeling and trying to maintain honesty as I do so, Shiori’s personality resonates with me a lot, which is why I wanted to cosplay her.

    Additionally, her outfit always looked like something that could look reasonably okay out on the street, compared to other Hololive outfits – especially the jacket. If I were able to get a high enough quality one as part of a cosplay commission that was made out of a sturdy fabric, I genuinely feel I would use it as an everyday jacket during the winter.

    Plus, being fully upfront, I genuinely have considered getting my hair cut in a similar style to hers. Not matching the dye because that would be way too much to maintain on my own, but just matching the cut and seeing how it feels on me.

    Anyway, that is enough silly VTuber ramblings for the day. I am very tired, and kind of just want to curl up now.

    Thank you for reading the Redundancy Review all the same. I hope you are having the best day you can.

    For more information on Shiori Novella, visit her Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@ShioriNovella 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 56, “Not a Morning Person”

    Redundancy Review: Day 56, “Not a Morning Person”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning cockerels and dewdrops, welcome to Day 56 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    So, I tend to start work at eight in the morning. Usually meaning that I wake up around half seven to get myself ready in time, being a remote worker and all has its benefits in that regard. I tried to mimic this pattern after my redundancy as well, waking up the same time and trying to get to work.

    You might think “wow, that is one hell of a morning person attitude”, and you would be right.

    Except I am not a morning person. Not in the slightest.

    I am forcing myself to be one though.

    It comes from the fact each job I have had has been remote, meaning I have flexibility to set my own working hours so long as I complete the required amount of hours each day. When I first started out I mainly used this flexibility to sleep in some days, before having the realisation: starting at the earliest point my contract allows means I finish the day earlier as well.

    From that point on I have kept the same habit for over four years at this point. I start work at eight in the morning, I finish at half four in the afternoon with me very rarely staying past this point as well unless it was mandated for whatever reason.

    When it was just my day job that had this routine, it worked out fine enough – especially when I still lived at my parent’s place and had way fewer responsibilities than I do now. However now I am balancing my contract role, my daily writing practice in the form of the review, cooking meals, and finding time to relax, so, it gets hard to keep up with it all sometimes.

    Weird thing to say when I am coming up on two months worth of doing this almost every day, but hopefully you get what I mean.

    This is also why I am such a caffeine fiend, a caffiend if you will. One way to make up the energy deficit between the time I wake up and the time I really should be waking up is the love found in the bottom of a cup of coffee… or a bottle of Lucozade… or a can of Relentless when I really need to get stuff done.

    Speaking of getting stuff done, I should really do a proper review, and today I am extremely thankful for it being Hololive Tuesday because Advent dropped a shit tonne of announcements as I slept that gives me plenty to discuss – from a 3D live concert for their second anniversary to the subject of today’s review, the first of five original songs that build upon the pre-established lore of Advent.

    “Genesis” tells the story of Advent before they are placed into the prison that formed the background for their debut lore, exploring the chaos and mayhem all five members got up to. It is an incredibly funky beat, which is not incredibly surprising given all of Advent’s originals and covers all complement their voices perfectly.

    True to their form as a group of convicts, this song embodies the themes of freedom that are common among Advent’s originals, with one of the opening lyrics being:

    “I knew I was meant to be,

    Livin’ life so fast and free”

    The first verse is also packed with references to Advent’s lore, with Shiori (my fave) getting the lyric:

    “I have awakened to wisdom beyond my understanding”

    Playing into her role as the Archiver of Advent, collecting forbidden knowledge that would lead to her imprisonment, followed by Bijou coming in shortly after with:

    “Don’t blame me if I shine too bright

    Can’t help it if I start a fight”

    Which ties into her lore as the Jewel of Emotions, being so radiant and beautiful that humanity would wage war in order to keep possession of her.

    One small detail that I like in the music video as well is the attention to continuity about the background of Nerissa. In all of her current models she has her her-right our-left horn shattered, restricting the power of her demonic might, but this video canonically takes place before Advent’s imprisonment, and so:

    She is portrayed for the first time with both horns intact, which is an incredibly cool thing to highlight.

    The themes of freedom and enjoying yourself come back in full force for the bridge before the final chorus, with each member getting their chance to contribute:

    “Let your worries go

    Gonna show you how to lose control, ready?

    You’ve got to free your mind

    Leave your restraint behind

    Be outrageous

    The chaos is contagious

    Come on, you know what time it is!

    It’s our genesis!”

    …I know I should not be reading trans allegory into this but… I just have to, it is what I am best at. This bridge speaks to me on such a personal level as someone who has had to go through a lot in terms of trying to find myself and find a style I am comfortable in, and in a strange way, Hololive has helped with that.

    The girls often talk about reaching for dreams together and working hard to get where they want to do, something I often find inspiration in because if they are able to overcome their own hardships; I definitely should be able to as well.

    To transition is to leave behind who you were before, and become the person you want to be, free from the reins of societal pressure to live out your truth, and Advent’s themes of found family & freedom have always spoken to me in that regard.

    Plus, I have to shout out how insane it is for their second anniversary they have decided to go “yeah we are releasing five original songs in the leadup to our 3D anniversary concert”. The dedication and passion on show is insane, and I am very much looking forward to seeing the conclusion of this project.

    And now, time for the obligatory thing I have to do whenever I talk about Advent…

    …she is so pretty oh my god I love her vibe so much.

    That does it all for today, felt good to actually write a proper review again… even if it took close to seven hours to actually finish off and put out there. I hope wherever you are you can have a relaxing day and things do not bring you down too much. Thank you for reading.