Rosalia Rambles

Tag: youtube

  • 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 67, “A lot of spacing out”

    (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 astronauts and stargazers, welcome to Day 67 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy review.

    Committing to a short one for a variety of reasons:

    • My brain is spaced out to hell right now
    • It is a Saturday and I would not mind continuing to relax especially after a somewhat stressful morning
    • What I want to review I have not taken time to do screenshots yet especially as it is from another game I have 100%ed

    So, I will do a short check-in and a short review.

    Last night and this morning were oddly rough, my emotions have been in a heavily spiked state leaning specifically towards the sad side of things, thoughts of being a failure, my writing not being good enough, and myself not being good enough for my friends. Thankfully my partner has been there for me to talk me down through it all, but it definitely still feels a little hard to bear with my own head right now.

    The spaciness I am feeling does not massively help things either, as in some instances I feel oddly disconnected from my body, leading my mind to just wander as I lie down and everything feels oddly floaty. It is entirely possible it is related to my antidepressant weaning, and that this is one of the withdrawal symptoms, meaning it hopefully wears off soon.

    But for now, I relax, and try my best to unwind from my work week – which non-awkwardly leads into what I want to talk about today: one of my favourite videos to have on in the background to zone out to.

    Defunctland is a Youtube channel specialising in documentary-style videos talking about various theme park-related topics, ranging from deep dives into the history of the Disney parks to one-off attractions at smaller venues. Kevin Perjurer is an absolute delight to listen to across any video, his deadpan delivery of certain lines adding to the humour of his witty scriptwriting.

    Specifically this video is one people might recognise, as it is the main video on his channel that went insanely viral, accumulating 24 million views in just under four years currently. Despite it being a little weird to say, it is a video I often find myself returning to for comfort, having watched it multiple times over the years.

    I can say the same for a lot of Kevin’s videos, but something about the FastPass one just brings a familiar feeling of comfort that lets my brain truly turn off and stop being so damn loud whenever I have it on. Whether it is the delivery of the jokes remaining timeless, or the fact there is so much research and effort put into each segment of the video, the movie-length nature does not put me off in the slightest.

    Since it is a video, I need to find a screengrab for the thumbnail of this post, and I know the perfect image.

    This is my favourite punchline to a joke in this entire video, I will not spoil it for anyone who wants to watch but if you do not feel like watching the entire thing (completely reasonable given its runtime), just watch from around the 57:00 mark for around a minute to get the full effect.

    Despite this essentially being a placeholder day, I am oddly proud of this one. It still feels like I put effort into it and fills the criteria of why my daily work has a “review” segment – to show off something that makes me happy, and today’s topic certainly does.

    All the same, thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. I hope you can enjoy a relaxing Saturday wherever you are and that the looming spectre of Monday is not bringing you down too much.

    For more information on Defunctland, visit their Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Defunctland/featured 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 64, “Survival, at any cost”

    (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 Marios and Donkey Kongs, welcome to Day 64 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Ended up making a mentor figure in my life upset yesterday over the fact I had taken the contracting role, which, considering it is out in the open now, may as well explain it.

    So, what caused my redundancy was the entire company I worked at going under, leading to all of us losing our jobs. Then after a while a former colleague got in touch with me and asked if I wanted a contracting opportunity – the people who had bought the assets and IP needed a skeleton crew to push things over the finish line, and they needed a QA.

    Being upfront and honest, I was initially going to tell them to go fuck themselves, hence why I called Day 25 “The Call of Yesterday”. The investors & the board had done enough damage to my psyche throughout this whole process that I was fully willing to take a stand and hold on to my selfish pride…

    …that lasted about a weekend before I decided to sign on, thanks to some guidance from another person who had also signed on. I initially kept it quiet amongst the social group I was in with my former colleagues cause I did not want to upset anyone who was struggling, but the topic of conversation came up last night so I decided to mention it.

    She had pressed me for names of everyone else who was working there since I was an “insider” and I had refused, partially cause that was not my information to give. This made my mentor a bit upset, to the point she left the group which really made me feel like an ass, even if in hindsight it feels like a bit of an overreaction to leave on the knowledge of some people in the group still working for the old blood.

    Afterwards I had offered to leave myself to see if it would make others feel better, as I had outed myself as an “insider”, and knew that might still make people uncomfortable.

    I very quickly had four (now five) separate people sending different variations of “do not leave”, from a simple “nope” to reminding me of how my mentor can react in emotional situations, but there seemed to be a common theme amongst all of them.

    This contract is temporary, I know it will end at some point after the work is done and the board once more will have no use of me, discarding me back to the Jobcentre. 

    But in the meantime, I can survive.

    And regardless of how I felt going in, or how my actions have made others feel, ultimately I can not be blamed for making a decision in the interest of my own survival – even if it does clash with my tendencies of making sure no one is upset by what I do… yes I know that is oxymoronic with what I said yesterday about not being erased or silenced but stay with me.

    It feels difficult to have alienated this mentor figure in virtue of the fact she was one of the most supportive people in my life during my work under the previous company. She was always someone I could rely on to “unfuck my brain” and was one of the few people I could turn to when my hormones were close to making my mind collapse in on itself. 

    In general everyone I worked with was incredibly supportive and accepting of who I was, which is why the idea of making any of them frustrated, annoyed, or disappointed is a painful concept to me.

    Ultimately, I do not know where my career wants or needs to go next. Part of me wants to try turn my baking and pickling hobbies into something I can use as supplemental income, I am slowly writing the stories I want to tell whilst weaving my everyday story, and despite the fact I am out of love with the tech industry as a whole I am still good at what I do.

    For now though, I survive, in the hope of finding where I can thrive.

    I think it is time for some more emotional whiplash though, as we go from the fear of letting those close to you down to talking about, what else, pirate metal.

    Jonathan Young is one of my favourite musical artists, having initially discovered him through his covers of anime openings that so many Youtube musicians start out with, to witnessing his creative breakdown of 2017-2018, and then seeing him rise as an original songwriter creating beautiful pieces of music from scratch before following it up with his latest era of original songs based on nerdy properties.

    The song I am covering today comes from his debut album of fully original music, “Starship Velociraptor”, attributed to Galactikraken, which in his own words is “definitely a real band and NOT just Jonathan Young pretending to be several aliens from the future” – the song in question being the pirate metal entry of the album, “Glory or Gold”.

    From a personal enjoyment standpoint, I have a soft spot for anything pirate themed. One of my favourite Magic decks revolves around pirates, and I sometimes jokingly call myself a pirate captain due to the fact when my full preferred name is written out, I have had a friend call it a “fucking pirate queen” name, which totally did not go to my head as one of the most badass compliments I have ever received.

    The overall vibe of the song is, fittingly for pirate-themed metal, rebellion. From the opening verse to the bridge to the chorus and straight into the second verse, bridge, and chorus, every word in this song hammers home the fantasy of being a god damn space pirate fighting against the plutocracy – a feeling I think a lot of people can relate to in the modern day…

    …the fact I can not really decide whether that statement applies to “being a space pirate”, “fighting the wealthy”, or “fighting the wealthy as a space pirate” is rather amusing.

    One part of the lyrics I do want to highlight though is the bridge before both choruses, especially for the last line:

    “So hoist up the Jolly Roger

    We’re taking a ride

    Take back the life that they denied”

    Speaking as an artist, a trans person, and someone who went through a major life change a couple months back, I feel a lot of my personal progression going forward makes this line resonate with me a lot. 

    Regular readers will know the usage of the phrase “my life has been destroyed”, but when I think about my current role, the things I am trying to do, and where I want to go next, I am taking back what was denied from me: in making my art, in living my truth, in what was taken from me with my day job being yanked away.

    The instrumental on this song is insane as well, though I have to give special mention to the drumming. In line with the flavour of Galactikraken’s drummer being a four-armed alien the background drumming rhythm is layered and intense, especially intensifying in the last ten seconds of the song to finalise it in a perfect way.

    Which is insane in the greater context of the album, as this is the first song you will hear and it ends off with such a powerful beat, fully setting you up for the rest of the amazing songs on the album – which I do actually own as a signed CD by the man himself, one of my proudest musical possessions outside of my physical Dragonforce collection.

    Obligatory picture for the thumbnail, taken from the gorgeously animated music video…

    That is two back-to-back Redundancy Reviews I have done where emotional whiplash comes into play from using the mental check-in portion to talk about something heavy, and then do a full 180 degree pivot to talk about something way more positive. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed reading today. Once more, please remember to stay cool and hydrated wherever you are.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 49, “Slow Recovery”

    Redundancy Review: Day 49, “Slow Recovery”

    (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 blacksmiths and armourers, welcome to Day 49 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Going to be a streak maintainer one today more than anything else. I am still recovering from the amount of travel I had to do yesterday and the lack of sleep has caught up to me hard – to the point I took an unwanted nap after work which really derailed my plans.

    But it is Hololive Tuesday, and after the chaos of the VShojo implosion last week, I think it would be nice to talk about something simple.

    Bibi is the mascot of Tokayami Towa, of Hololive Japan 4th Generation. For a short bit of background, Towa is an extremely talented singer along with being somewhat cracked at first-person shooter games with Apex Legends being her area of choice. 

    For her one million subscribers merch back in 2022, she had a plushie of Bibi made, and this rotund blob not only found its way into my heart, but my partner’s heart as well. The image above is from the shelving unit in his room, it does not live on my greater Hololive display, it instead lives in his room cause he loves it so much.

    The plush is amazingly squishy, being able to be squeezed tight and return to its shape with minimal fussing, with its shape making it perfect to sit flat on shelves (or cushions in this case) without much worry of them falling over – an issue that plagues a surprisingly high number of Hololive plushies.

    This little bastard was one of my earliest merch purchases, and I am so glad it was…

    …the scalpers really put the price high on this one.

    Thank you for reading a shorter edition of the Redundancy Review. I am going to go rest my body.

    Visit Tokoyami Towa’s Youtube page by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/@TokoyamiTowa