(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 pots and kettles, welcome to Day 338 to 357 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
May 29th was the last day of my contract with my previous company. I leave on good terms and whilst I do wish things could have turned out differently, the nature of layoffs is to cut costs to give the business the best chance of survival when things get hard.
So, what comes next?
Decisions.
Decisions.
Decisions.
Some amount of waiting as well, as I currently have two open job applications that I need to wait to see if I get an interview or not, but if those do not go my way for whatever reason, a lot of personal decisions for myself.
One of the most pressing is deciding what I want to do as a career going forward. Early on after getting told I was going to be let go, I made a decision that I wanted to move away from the tech industry as a whole. My intention is to keep the door slightly open, partially because a good majority of my connections are within this industry, and partially because I feel I could jump back in if the right opportunity came along which somehow also managed to align with the direction I want my life to go.
But that alignment feels unlikely to happen. Even with only a short amount of time to view myself from outside the tech industry, I can see a more positive future if I slowly start to decouple myself from the professional identity I have built over the last five years.
Admin or communications are the main things that come to mind, if I want to redirect myself into a more corporate-style focus. Working with data, organising others, or being able to use my writing skills for a positive influence in an organisation.
There is a perspective in my mind that putting myself back into a corporate environment is “stifling” my own potential, when all of my major skill advancement and career moves have been within the same startup environment, giving me the flexibility and freedom to build myself up within the same place by adopting new roles as they appear.
However, and this might come off as a bit controversial, but at this stage of my life, I would happily trade freedom and flexibility for a bureaucratic structure if it gave me even a modicum of job security, especially when it would give me a launching pad for the other activities I want to do in life.
My goal in life is to try be evolving constantly. For the last five years, this was a career-focused goal, of pushing myself beyond my limits in work, climbing the ladder, and seeing where I could end up in that regard.
Having the ladder shatter beneath my feet twice within the span of the years has honestly left me kind of disillusioned with that whole notion, and has made me realise little time I have taken to evolve myself over the last two years or so. I have my Rambles, but I have not really taken time to develop it in the way I want to outside of a few standout Redundancy Reviews.
I need to work more on original fiction, which was something I did tonnes of back in 2022, and gives me the ability to be more creative with my storytelling or work on writing prompts that I find interesting, or even just scratch out a random story based on the most simple things.
Which leads in nicely to my other main decision: when do I want to go all in on job hunting again? Well, the most forward answer is: “Right now what the fuck are you talking about do you know how fucked the market is and how long it takes to find the kind of job you are describing?!”
But, that is exactly why I am hesitating on when I want to dedicate myself to the job hunt, which is a full-time activity in and of itself. I want to recover from the stress of my previous role, I want to work on my own projects as an artist, and I want to be in the best position possible before I throw myself into the seemingly never-ending grind that is finding a corporate position in the current market.
The obvious worry of this approach is financials. The cost of living in the UK is high, no thanks to successive governments not doing anything to help that in the slightest, and spending any length of time unemployed is not going to help my monetary outlook, especially as my partner is not exactly rolling in cash from his part-time job – though he is also looking for full-time work himself, which has its own set of difficulties exclusive to him.
On the flipside though, in the face of several irresponsible financial decisions I have made over the course of my life, I think I have more of a safety cushion than my contemporaries in Gen Z, which gives me a surprising amount of runway for both job hunting prospects and working on my own projects.
And that is assuming I do nothing at all, which would include not taking commissions (which I am always open for get in touch if you are curious) or selling any of my collectable items, which I am currently working through the notion of selling a good chunk of my Magic card collection.
Not for overt dislike of the game, but more because I am sitting on a good number of expensive cards that are gathering dust in a binder, and that I am unlikely to buy any new sealed product in future because Hasbro’s management of the game has fully put me off investing any more money into it.
The road ahead looks rocky, but when times look hard, I keep the immortal words of Phoebe-chan in my head.
My love of VTubers will definitely keep my spirits up as I navigate the days ahead, segueing me nicely into a VTuesday segment where I am actually going to talk about something recently released for a change rather than picking something from the backlog of awesome VTuber-related things I want to write about.
Specifically, the second original song from Densetsu.EXE, a VTuber idol group formed of Phoebe-Chan, Mint Fantôme, and Victoria Roman: “Burn On! Hot-Blooded Heroine”
So, I have mentioned Phoebe-chan before, my partner and I met at her Vexpo last year with her opening concert performance leaving a lasting impact on me to the point I bought her album and my partner bought a lightstick. Specifically my partner refused to accept change from her manager Steiner which left them both a little confused before they just went with it.
However, I have not ever mentioned Mint or Victoria, which for the latter comes solely for the fact I have not interacted much with their work outside of what they do with Densetsu.EXE, only really seeing bits of her from clips when they are all streaming together. Considering how much I enjoy her personality in those moments, think it might be an idea to properly sit down and engage with her.
As for Mint, it is now a silly goal of mine to attend a Meet & Greet with her for the sole purpose of talking to a VTuber about Ace Combat, as she has streamed Ace Combat 4 previously and someone who sounds suspiciously like her has streamed Ace Combat 7, but I am sure that is completely unrelated.
Whilst they are all nerds in their own right, they are still idols… even if this song is particularly silly more than anything else, looking to pay tribute to old Japanese sentai style shows… which I am going to be honest, I know next to nothing about so I can not really do a deep analysis on the aesthetics of this other than it is absolutely amazing to see the idols performing as heroes in their signature outfits with PNGs of their avatars imposed onto their heads, with special mention to Mint wearing the exact off-the-hanger cosplay that so many other nerds can buy.
I think the MV is also a testament to how far Steiner goes for the talents under his management. Both acting as director and starring in it as the main villain “Lord Loiter”, which is a fantastically bizarre name for something in this style, it really shows the dedication he puts in to helping the enable the girls to pursue more ambitious projects, shown in the fact that the explosions in this video are real and done with gasoline.
In general, this MV is an absolute achievement for all the hard work involved by all parties, a beautiful display of what independent groups fo VTubers can achieve with the right backing and people behind them, producing high-quality works of art that show the passion that lies behind the screens and the dedication to get it done, though I think Steiner says it best himself.
Also dropping the thumbnail of the video for the thumbnail of my article, courtesy of the lovely Maid Mint herself.
Much like how this segment started with Phoebe saying “Never give up, bitch!”, I strive to never give up on myself, as my idols show what they can be capable of when you keep on keeping on.
Well, I got no excuse now, I am officially unemployed and made a declaration I want to try keep evolving my writing work, guess I got to try keep to it now.
As always, thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are safe and keeping well. If not, then I hope my silly words about various topics have brought you comfort, if only for a short while.
Keep going. I will if you will.
Rosalia Rambles 