Rosalia Rambles

Tag: book-review

  • Redundancy Review: Day 209, “Flipping Freezing”

    Redundancy Review: Day 209, “Flipping Freezing”

    (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 hyperboreans and cryomancers, welcome to Day 209 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    As per the title, it is flipping freezing, one might even say fucking freezing… one is me, I think it is fucking freezing, I just do not like to put swears directly in the titles of articles.

    Swearing within the body? Will do so to my heart’s content, but profane titles are off limits.

    I guess I can use today to talk about my relationship with swearing. If you read enough Redundancy Reviews or know me in-person you know I am no stranger to flowery language, dropping “fuck” in every second sentence and having a love of a good “shit”, but where did my sailor mouth come from?

    In a few short points:

    • Family
    • Work
    • ADHD

    The first one is pretty obvious, whilst they started off pretty well with not swearing in front of myself or my brother, things eventually turned to infrequent swearing in front of us yet at the same time not wanting us to swear, before all pretense was dropped and swearing once more became a common feature in our household. 

    This alone was not enough though to get me to the level of swearing I am today, which is where work comes in, specifically, my old platform lead when I worked at Codemasters who went by the name of “Rye”. Was a lovely guy, really helped me out in the early days of me working there and was generally understanding when I messed things up or needed additional guidance.

    Being from Coventry however, he was someone who dropped swears like they were treat-size chocolate bars on Halloween, and considering after a period of time I was working with him quite closely due to the Live Ops team being a smaller group, it was only a matter of time until I picked up his habit of profane language.

    That said, he was not entirely responsible for me picking up that habit, and if anything, the line of work we both found ourselves in almost necessitated swearing as a coping mechanism for dealing with the deluge of shit we encountered on a near-daily basis. It was a running joke in our Teams chat that if it were not for the security locks holding our devkit consoles to our desks, they would have been thrown out the window long ago.

    Quality Assurance is a field of expertise that requires a steady mind to stay focused on getting a bug replicated or an issue to occur on a long playthrough – cussing out whatever you are testing is a good way of stopping your brain from shutting off during the necessary repetition that this brings, which is where the final point of ADHD comes in.

    It might seem confusing for me to correlate neurodivergence with swearing, but bear with me for a bit. My area of specialisation is within the Extended Reality (XR) industry as a QA tester, this often means I have a moderately heavy lump of circuitry and screens strapped to me head with a non-breathable cushion of foam pressed right against my face, leaving only a small gap where my nose is for moist air to escape.

    Given that sometimes the experiences I am required to test will last me up to forty minutes at a time with very repetitive tasks or a large number of tasks, the only thing that can keep my focus is muttering swears under my breath or, as is often the case, venting my frustrations at the virtual avatars around me to once more stop my brain from turning off.

    These mid-test vents eventually became a source of comedy when it came to watching back my test footage, as my creative application of language would often get caught by the Slack auto-transcriber, leading to questions about the suitability of the content if it featured such harsh language… before they realise that, no, the experience itself did not have swearing, the idiot behind the headset was the source of all that.

    A lot of people consider swearing a dirty habit to have, especially in a professional context, but to me swearing comes part and parcel with the stresses that any job can bring, be it retail or corporate. The important distinction is knowing when it is the appropriate time to use curse words and when they should not be said under any circumstance. To reiterate a piece of advice I was once given and have brought up in a previous review:

    “Professionalism is delivering your points clearly and not saying fuck.”

    The line has often blurred for me given the fact I have been working remotely for so long, which I do worry has negatively impacted my socialisation skills for the day I might have to return to being in an office full time, but for now I enjoy the benefits of being a remote worker whose line of work allows her to curse to her heart’s content – which is a lot.

    I did not plan at all to launch into an unscripted diatribe about the origins of my swearing habit along with defending the character of those who do swear in professional scenarios, but that is the beauty of the Redundancy Review. We have random topics at all times and sometimes they take on a life of their own.

    It probably does not help my current situation that I am quite attentively playing through Nier Replicant “Ver 1.22474487139…”, speech marks added so as not to confuse the ellipsis that is actually part of the title with my habit of adding ellipses when a thought needs dramatic impact.

    Through playing Replicant, I have once more come face to face with one of my favourite characters in gaming, a lovely, wholesome individual that goes by the name of Kainé…

    …who has some of my favourite profane dialogue in all of gaming.

    She is a character you encounter fairly early on in the course of the story, who eventually joins with your party after defeating a boss she wanted revenge on. Her NPC AI matches similar to what the player character is intended to be, a spellsword brawler who can dish out a good amount of physical damage whilst also using magic spells to support longer combos or enable quick executions.

    True to form with any Yoko Taro game though, she has hidden depths that come to light as part of the multiple playthroughs required to fully understand the story, with her even getting an extended story in “Ver 1.22…” after completing the entirety of the original game. 

    Fun fact, this game is the sole reason that “hussy” features so prominently in my lexicon, due to the acidic banter that exists between Kainé and Grimoire Weiss, your floating magical book that is the source of all your spells.

    This does remind me I should take more screenshots of the game after I make it through my first playthrough so I can have some material ready to use when I eventually want to talk about this game after 100%ing it, but at least I can use this review to post another one of my favourite lines from Kainé.

    There is one more line that I consider my absolute favourite, but I will wait until the proper review to share that one.

    I think that covers it for today, thank you for reading this surprise discussion of swearing in real life and swearing in video games style Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope the Monday blues of the first working day back of the year have not brought you down too much, and if they have, try turning the air blue with a bunch of swearing, that always makes me feel better.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 175, “Multiples of Seven”

    (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 squares and factorials, welcome to Day 175 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Tuesday is an important milestone day when it comes to writing these pieces, which makes it a shame that I have missed so many recently as part of my schedule slippage. We have the tradition of me making every Tuesday topic talking about something in the VTuber space, but the day also helps me keep track of how many weeks I have been doing the Redundancy Review, and by extension, making sure my day counter stays consistent.

    When it comes to writing a Tuesday piece, I will take the day and divide it by seven. Getting a whole number back means I am still consistent in my day tracking, and lets me know what week I am on.

    It is week twenty-five, if you are curious. Twenty-five weeks since I first got made redundant, with so much learnt about myself along the way, and yet… I still feel immature within the world as a whole.

    My birthday is coming up next week, and I will be twenty-eight years old, which coincidentally is also a multiple of seven, and my birthday is on Tuesday, which means it will be on a multiple of seven day for the review… okay I am getting tangential here, need to get back on track.

    Twenty-eight is a young age, all things considered, but I feel an immense amount of pressure from within my own mind to be beyond my own capabilities. For all intents and purposes, I have made an extraordinarily successful life for myself and my partner for people within our Gen Z age group, even through all the uncertainty and instability that my redundancy brought, we still had a very good lifestyle.

    I anticipate needing to do some amount of lifestyle trimming depending on the outcome of this contract and how easily I can come into new work after the contract ends. It will take a while for me to reach a point where I feel “stable” in terms of work again, and there is a real possibility that I will be in what I consider to be “unstable” work for a while yet.

    In the meantime though, I shall keep carrying on as I do, rambling about the nature of life as I see it and, when I actually make a post on a Tuesday, VTubers.

    Given the news this morning though, I feel I have to try highlight the work and career of Amane Kanata, a talent from Hololive Japan Fourth Generation who today announced they would be graduating at the end of December.

    This might be a little difficult, because I admittedly am not massively in tune to what work they have done outside of the few appearances I know off the top of my head, but I will sure try.

    First off, six years. Six years spent as a Hololive idol, working on streaming, original albums, and solo concerts. That is an impressive amount of time to spend in any career, let alone one that puts so much pressure on the talent to perform on a regular basis, so that level of dedication has to be respected.

    She listed her reasons for graduation in a document, the translated version of which I will link here (Twitter link) for full context, but it seems like she was taking on too many responsibilities above her position which led to her falling behind on her actual streamer activities, all of which took a toll on her health – all the more worrying considering she suffers from Meniere’s Disease, a very debilitating condition that causes vertigo, tinnitus, and fluctuating hearing loss.

    From the small bits I have seen of Kanata, she is an incredibly talented singer, being able to hold notes for extreme amounts of time whilst having complete control over her voice. Additionally, there was an absolutely massive outpouring of love on Twitter from other Holomems, finding out about her decision to graduate at the same time as the greater fanbase.

    People sharing good memories, saying how supportive she was of their activities, and saying that when things calm down, they should share good food together. It is the mark of a good colleague that everyone feels rough when you announce your departure.

    Though, it definitely highlights the rough nature of corporate VTubing in a way. Kanata taking on way more responsibility than her position dictated should not have happened, and suggests a lot of potential management issues behind the scenes that we as fans do not know about – something that has been speculated for a long time considering how often “disagreements with management” were cited as reasons for graduation.

    Any corporate entity is likely to have issues with management, but when the brand is built on the personas of these idols, taking time away from them which could be spent on brand building activities to instead fix problems above their station does not bode well, so hopefully after a rough year of multiple graduations for Hololive, the corporate structure going forward favours talents more and enables them to perform at their best without bureaucracy holding them back.

    For now, I wish Amane Kanata the best in whatever she does next. She explicitly stated she does not intend to reincarnate or return as a VTuber, preferring instead to be a private individual once more – which I can relate to.

    That covers everything for today, thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope your week is going well, and that you have positive things on the horizon.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 171, “Libraries Are Great”

    (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 librarians and archivists, welcome to Day 171 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Yeah, I know, a single day entry – what a concept. A daily series writing an entry on the day it should go up.

    Okay I am being snarky and facetious, but given the fact I had another thing not go my way yesterday you can forgive me for being a little cynical.

    Specifically, I was unable to book the co-working space for a second day in a row, which meant needing to find another place to park my posterior to attempt to be productive. I briefly considered taking a visit back to my parent’s place, especially given they have full Fibre To The Premises meaning an absolutely gorgeous three-hundred megabits down speed with around a hundred megabits in up speed… but given my dad has also started taking all my old Warhammer bits out of the loft, I would certainly get distracted with that instead of working.

    There was also the option of becoming one of those insufferable people who squat in local cafes to do their work, although I would aim to be a bit more polite than them and actually order proper drinks regularly to my table rather than doing the bare minimum, but then I run into the problem of looking like an absolute weirdo wearing virtual reality kit in a public space, which might mean I get kicked out of wherever I have parked myself.

    My options were not looking favourable, until I started my walk home from the “office” and realised the perfect solution had been right on my doorstep the entire time.

    Shrewsbury Library, an absolutely gorgeous building, and my refuge for today to get myself connected with the hope of getting some work done. Whilst this location carries the same amount of risk that a cafe does in terms of wearing VR kit and looking weird, the table I have perched myself on is in a corner away from the main public areas. This means that I might still get a few weird looks thrown my way, but so long as I keep my voice down during any test runs I should be able to stay productive.

    The major upside to working from the library is that it is a way cheaper alternative compared to booking a co-working space or regular ordering drinks in a cafe, the only expectation is being respectful to my surroundings.

    In general though, I have always loved libraries as the free public spaces that they are, and without the local library back in my home town I do not think I would have been exposed to all of the hobbies I currently enjoy.

    If you cannot tell from the general contents of the website, I am a massive nerd, and a huge part of my formative years were spent in a library. There was a Warhammer tabletop group hosted every Saturday at my local library where I was introduced by an old friend of mine, eventually becoming a regular member at the group.

    It is interesting playing an involved tabletop game in a library, especially as whilst we were allowed to make a modicum of noise, there were moments where we did get told to reign it in a little bit as, after all, it was still a public library. Eventually though as the years shifted on at the club we were moved from a central area of the library to the space at the rear, pushing us out of sight of normal patrons and giving us a bit more freedom to express ourselves.

    This group was actually where I got into the deckbuilding card game “Star Realms” as well. I noticed it in my old friend’s bag one day and got curious, asking what it was. We played a round and I ended up enjoying it so much that I picked up my own copy to introduce to my friends at some of my other gaming groups at the time. This then evolved into me becoming an avid Star Realms collector, and to this day I still place it as my favourite card game of all time – even over Magic: the Gathering.

    Though it was not just the Saturday group that I used the library for. During my summer breaks at university there was usually very little for me to do during the week… granted I should have been studying and actually improving myself on being a game developer but there was also a lot of mental shit going on during that time which held me back. 

    Anyway, back on topic, I would often meet up with a good friend of mine to grab a quiet table somewhere in the library and play card games for a bit, getting both much needed time out of the house and socialisation.

    That is the beauty of public libraries, they go beyond what most people assume as simply being a place to take out books or use the computer, although the latter is definitely a vital service in the current age. Libraries are spaces for anyone to use for whatever purpose, they can act as social hubs, medical centres, or even just a warm place for people to come during the day. 

    They are essential public services, ones that should be funded to the highest degree because of what they can be for people in need. I would not be in the position I am in life without public libraries, and future generations should benefit from the same perks I received from having a good public library in their life.

    Think that covers everything for today, and gets in a somewhat usual dose of left-leaning politics into the mix. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to take a relaxing weekend and recover from whatever has brought you low – treat yourself, you deserve it.

  • 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