Rosalia Rambles

Tag: health

  • Redundancy Review: Day 478, “Flying back around”

    (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 pilots and WSOs, welcome to Day 478 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    I promise that the plane stuff will come to an end soon, especially as I come near to finishing my first playthrough of Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve. I think I am at what will be my last wall in terms of progression, and whilst it is possibly one of my favourite missions in the franchise without having even finished it, the final phase is getting right on my tits.

    It is extremely rare I time out during an Ace Combat mission, but this mission has actually managed to inflict that upon me today. After that I developed a headache so I focused on finishing off my beef stew for dinner before playing Dead Space 3 with a close friend of mine.

    Being able to be this invested in a game has come as quite a surprise to me. I knew I was hyped up to be able to play a new Ace Combat game, but I was not expecting myself to get quite so into this installment – to the point my partner had to force me off the sofa, making me go outside for food and refreshment. Whilst I did protest initially, my stomach and body caught up with how I had been feeling shortly into our walk, with some cheese on toast from a local cafe perking me right up… until the headache hit but that is both beside the point and repetition.

    The point I am trying to make is that it is very rare for me to spend beyond two hours on any given gaming session, maybe pushing it to two-and-a-half hours at a push but even then I will likely be flagging near to the end and looking for a cooldown activity to finish things up. When a game comes along that I can get invested in, or I am simply enjoying the company of those around me so much, getting up to three or four hour long sessions is entirely possible.

    Usually punctuated with me going “I’VE BEEN PLAYING FOR HOW LONG?!” at the end of the session, having my body catch up with my mind or vice versa, and limping slowly to bed to do whatever it takes to rest my mind after using that much pure focus energy.

    On one hand, I consider it a positive that with the right impetus I can put my mind and body through intense periods of determination for multiple hours at a time – possibly a side effect of my experience working in the repetitive nature of QA. On the other though, it feels a bit weird that my only consistent source of this energy is intense video game sessions.

    Do not get me wrong, when the walls are closing in at work and the deadline seems just out of reach I will pull out all the stops to get the task done, but my focus for that seems more fragile than when it comes to these long sessions. Though if I am honest, “corporate deadlines” definitely do not inspire me in the same way as “hunting a magnificent creature” or “patriotism for a nation that does not exist” does.

    Or maybe four months of unemployment are taking their toll harder than I anticipated and the main way I can spark my dopamine receptors into action is through intense video game sessions because with the way the job market is in 2026, there is very little reward from filling out job applications knowing they will likely end in rejection or ghosting.

    I… should probably reflect on the fact I am saying something like that.

    There is no way I want to end up as a perpetual NEET, though in my current situation I can definitely sympathise with those who are in that position, and I definitely want that satisfaction that comes with a full-time position again, because I enjoy working with cool people on cool projects – especially if those projects are for the benefit of other people. There is the obvious route of “well if you get so much thrill from playing games, why not go into streaming?” which has crossed my mind more than I would like to admit, but:

    1. I am not sure how well my current setup would take to streaming with the games I want to stream
    2. I am not sure how well my personality would come through on a stream in the way I want it to
    3. “Tech layoff getting into oversaturated markets” is already a current problem I face
    4. If I were to put all that energy into streaming, it would probably be better served being put into my writing work as that is how I actually want to interact with the world around me.

    This is to not write-off streaming, as I definitely do want to try VTubing for myself properly at some point, but I would rather be doing that from a position of strength rather than desperation.

    So that leaves me with conquering the monolith of the job search in 2026, which come hell, high water, or hellishly high water, I will conquer – even if I have to start referring to it as “job search in 2027”.

    Managed to get a surprisingly good groove out of that topic, but it is probably a good time to move onto the review segment, which involves me going deep into the backlog all the way back in June for when I went out with my dad and my partner for Father’s Day.

    As a bit of background, I have stopped giving my dad physical gifts on Father’s Day, primarily because in his old age I have started to run out of things to give someone whose main hobbies are “books” and “Lego” without cluttering up their home, so instead I resolved to take him out to dinners or lunches instead with the caveat that I pay… which admittedly is a little harder to do when jobless, but for this one we resolved a split instead.

    Which when considering the price and what we got, it was not a bad deal at all.

    The venue for this dinner was Ribeye Steakhouse in Shrewsbury, a place where my partner and I went near to the end of last year as part of a Christmas gift from his mother, and a place I knew my dad would love. We had a brief debate on the table about what each of us could order, but we remembered that they offer sharing cuts of beef, so we went to check out the fridge where we saw this insane 900g lump of sirloin sitting right in front of us, priced at £8/100g. Splitting that three ways with two extra sides on top of the two included sides in the sharing price with three drinks worked out cheaper than us buying individual meals.

    It took a while to come out, though that was down to both the size of the meat and having to commit a food crime in ordering it well-done… dad’s idea, not mine. The official position of Rosalia Rambles is that the ideal red meat cooking temperature is “able to be revived under the correct circumstances”, or “bloody rare” in brief.

    But once it all came out, with the sides of creamed spinach, onion rings, and beef dripping fries put onto the plate, accompanied by a flat mushroom and some bearnaise sauce, it made for one incredibly sexy presentation.

    Now, the bill. Even with extra sides, this all came out to a surprisingly reasonable total of £88.70, with a surprising lack of service charge which is a rarity around these parts. Given how delicious the meal was and how lovely the staff were in giving us a countdown to our meal with how long it took, we decided to round up to an even £100, essentially giving a 13% tip on the meal. Split evenly between myself and my dad, that was a cool £50 each – still pretty pricey, but when you can indulge in a steakhouse dinner for £33~ a head, that is good value for a once in a blue moon event.

    My partner and I have said that we intend to go back there when either of us have big job news to celebrate, and I anticipate the day I can savour a big cut of beef my own way there.

    One should hope I end up writing these earlier in the day now that my fixation is starting to wane, but I am still proud of my regularity. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are doing well. The week is almost over, and hopefully a relaxing weekend is ahead for all of us.

    We all deserve it.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 477, “Flying ahead”

    (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 multiroles and jammers, welcome to Day 477 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    I am writing earlier today at least, it being 9:06pm in the UK currently as I set out to write today, but the situation is still much the same as yesterday, though with less hours played today than yesterday – which is entirely down to one mission being the spawn of Satan itself taking me almost a solid two hours worth of attempts. This included trialling out different strategies, doing a downright precarious search on Youtube to see if I was missing any tricks, sorting out dinner entirely to calm my nerves, beating the boss enemies only to have discovered I glitched the game cause I killed it at the checkpoint mark, and finally, finishing the mission.

    After that utter slog fest, I played for a couple more missions which involved me reaching some insane twists in the story before stopping for the night, and whilst every part of me is screaming at me to play more, I know I should do some writing work for the day so as to not be completely unproductive during this period.

    It will mainly be a ramble about looking ahead to the future today, not sure how long it will be, but it ties into the “review” segment of the day nicely.

    The nights are getting darker, which comes as a double-edged sword for myself because I love the fact it gets darker earlier in winter even as the lack of sunlight plays havoc with my Seasonal Affective Disorder, and whilst it does not really apply this year, I do hold an appreciation for the slow down on activities as the year draws closer to an end.

    Things will not really slow down for me though, as I will still be shooting off applications even as hiring teams go on Christmas parties and breaks. The end of the year can be a gamble on what will be posted, either stopping completely as no one wants to hire in the November/December months, or scrambling for new staff as budget needs to be spent before a certain point. I will keep myself as optimistic as can be, but I know there will likely be difficulties ahead.

    I still hold out hope for a better future though, and whilst I remain actively aware of a time limit on my current savings, I know that keeping myself on the right path will yield fruit.

    And I do this all because even in my darkest moments, when the way ahead looks bleak, I try to think about the future I will have with my partner, and all the things we still want to experience. Be it video games, in-person events, or simply being able to continue spending time together, I want to have a future with him no matter what.

    I… ran out of steam much faster than I anticipated for this one, but I think I have said what I wanted to say in a concise manner for once, so, I am going to move on to the Warhammer Wednesday review segment, which because I still have not had the drive to do anything with my models yet, will be talking once more about Space Marine 2, my main way of engaging with the medium as a whole.

    Specifically, their roadmap for their third year of free content drops and paid cosmetic DLC.

    In an age where meaningful new content is gated behind paywalls, it is appreciated seeing Saber Interaction (for all their faults) put effort into making Space Marine 2 a fleshed-out product that has kept me surprisingly engaged, especially now that I have a regular full group of people to play with.

    Coming tomorrow is a patch adding in a twist on the regular siege mode, instead focusing on playing Chaos Space Marines against Tyranids and the forces of the Imperium. I am a little annoyed that the cosmetics for this mode continue to be locked behind progression in the PvP area of the game, though that is more of a personal gripe than anything else because I really do not want to commit the time into getting good at PvP when I have so much else to play and do.

    There is also the “Crucible System”, which to quote the Community Update itself:

    “Challenge yourself with the new Crucible mode to earn Crucible XP and unlock the Lamenters armour set. Talk to the Chapter Chaplain in the Battle Barge to pick your Penances. Penances are personal debuffs that are designed to offer a tougher challenge to end game players.”

    Admittedly, this is not really something that interests me. My group has not even managed to reliably tackle missions on the higher end of difficulty, with one mission in particular being a struggle even on lower difficulties, so adding in even more challenge is probably not the direction we will be going. That said, having more options for end-game players to challenge themselves is always something I will celebrate being included – even if I am not really fond of them myself.

    We also have the rework of the Tactical Marine class, alongside a bevy of reworks coming throughout the next year to other classes and systems in the game… none of which affect my preferred class of Assault Marine, meaning I am perfect in every way and can continue to be death from above with a variety of pistols and axes.

    The main headline from the upcoming roadmap is the addition of the Apothecary class, traditionally a more medically inclined marine that will wield the signature weapon of the “Absolver Bolt Pistol”, presumably alongside the “Narthecium” for healing, buffs, and anything else the class may entail. This was quite a surprise, as a lot of the mutterings in the community at large were anticipating this class to be the Judiciar instead, being the precursor to a Chaplain in the updated lore. I will not complain about extra support options though.

    In terms of the cosmetic DLC packs, whilst the Space Wolves Champion Pack for the Bulwark class looks interesting as someone who absolutely loves the aesthetic of the Wolves, not much is catching my eye to actually invest my limited funds into the next season pass. I know I saw a fair bit of chatter about the Crimson Fists actually getting represented in game, albeit after several successor chapters had the spotlight before them.

    Y’know it is kind of weird in hindsight to talk about the roadmap and have most of my thoughts be “this is nice but a lot of it is not really for me”, though I guess my appreciation is still in having this much new content being available freely. New missions, classes, and equipment that can be bought with earnable in-game currency shows how serious the studio is taking this, and with Space Marine 3 still being another two or three years away, I doubt they will drop support for a while yet.

    My group and I will continue to play all the same, as the loop of the Operations and Siege modes scratch an itch inside my brain that craves violence in the form of heavily armoured super soldiers…

    …that and it is really easy to cop out on Warhammer Wednesday content by writing about the game, though I really should return to my models soon, especially if the job search does not yield fruit soon.

    My brain really has been broken by playing so much Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve (the bit of spelling out the game title will continue until I get my review out there), which has put a damper on my writing work. Still, I appreciate you reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to engage in your own hobbies, whatever they may be. The state of the world right now makes it hard for people to find the time or the funds, but I sincerely wish you are able to find either for whatever makes you happy.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 476, “Flying high”

    (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 fighters and attackers, welcome to Day 476 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    It is currently 10:36pm in the UK as I am writing this, as the majority of my day has been taken up by playing Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, or doing errands outside of the flat to recover from playing Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve. In all likelihood, I will spend even more time tomorrow playing Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve outside of some morning errands to make sure dinner is ready in a prompt fashion so I can dedicate even more time to playing Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve.

    Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve.

    I have been remembering to take screenshots where I can so there will be a bumper review coming once I have done what I want to do in the game before delivering my final thoughts, but even as I fight against my mid-tier rig not getting on with Unreal Engine 5, there has been very little to spoil my experience of getting to take to the skies once more.

    There is a certain adrenaline that comes from playing fighter jet games for me, one that makes me feel so supremely powerful weaving between enemies before unleashing salvoes of rockets, missiles, and whatever advanced weaponry the game wants to throw in for shits and giggles. That said, there was a part of me that was worried that my PC would not be able to handle it at all and I would be out the money I spent on the game, but all those worries have dissolved now that I am fifteen missions in and fully engrossed in some of the most unemployed behaviour I have exhibited in a long time.

    And this is not even including the port of Ace Combat Zero that comes alongside the fact I pre-ordered, which I am so looking forward to playing on my PC both for relieving good memories and for actually being able to grab screenshots to review the game properly and redeem my old review from over half a decade ago.

    I still want to write today though, and I especially want to do a VTuesday because of Vexpo hype still persisting even two weeks after it finished, and I want to shout out Kai Kurayomi once more. Usually when it comes to male VTubers I tend to not really vibe with them for one reason or another unless they have a niche outside of VTubing itself, like how Wunder Riku I know more for composing for VTubers rather than his own VTuber activities, but Kai has managed to firmly route his way into my heart through his Vexpo opening concert set, his personality shining through on the Youtube shorts I have been recommended, and the fact that when I went to his channel to go subscribe I was presented with this masterpiece as the one main video currently on his channel outside of a waiting room for his new cover.

    First things first, as with any mention of Linkin Park, but more so with this song, we have to take a moment to remember Chester Bennington. An amazing talent, taken from us far too soon due to a battle we could never see. Rest in Peace, wherever you may be.

    One More Light is an especially poignant song to mention that on, given it is a song about how suicide can come out of nowhere, the ripples it causes in the aftermath, and the power of caring for anyone’s light even when framed against the sea of millions in flicker of existence. 

    Linkin Park covers always fascinate me regardless of their source, because I can often feel the emotions that Chester imbued into the music passing on to whoever is covering it, and how their experience informs the emotion of their own voice. Kai’s voice is absolutely beautiful in this cover, and I can feel a similar emotion of someone who has been through a lot of shit in their life, but wants to keep the light going for whoever may see it.

    Considering how varied their setlist was at Vexpo, I would be extremely excited to see more covers from them to see how they handle different songs. More Linkin Park to see what kind of emotion they would put into something like “Numb”, or perhaps something from my emo band of choice, Three Days Grace, I would adore to see someone like him take on “Life Starts Now”.

    Music is the main way I interact with the VTuber scene, and finding someone as talented as Kai has made me extremely happy and excited to see what comes next in his career.

    Cheeky thumbnail courtesy of Kai’s twitter account here:

    I have no idea whether or not what I wrote is good enough, but it is now 11:19pm and I really need to get this out and try get some sleep. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, know that the light you shine right now is treasured, and I want to see it continue, even in the darkest nights.

    …

    Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 473-475, “Back on the prowl”

    Redundancy Review: Day 473-475, “Back on the prowl”

    (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 drones and workers, welcome to Day 473 to 475 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    First off, thank you to everyone for making my Vexpo recap my highest viewed piece this year, 15 views is absolutely insane numbers, so if any of you have stuck around, thank you for believing in this weird writer trying to make sense of the world.

    After writing twelve-thousand words over the course of a week, I decided I was going to take the weekend off and try my best to relax… though that did include doing job applications on Saturday morning just to get myself back into the groove. Admittedly harder than I would have liked to admit, but my brain is still stuck in “party mode” to some extent.

    Either that or my dopamine receptors are still completely burnt out from the Vexpo weekend alongside my higher mental faculties recovering from both the weekend and writing about the weekend that the prospect of doing anything that is not mindless or on auto-pilot is extremely daunting.

    But I said to myself that I wanted to be better in the wake of Vexpo, and that means continuing to be on the hunt for a job, whatever form that may take. I will admit there was a little bit of a negative feeling on the Wednesday just gone, as I was lying in bed after having pushed myself to write more and more I confided in my partner:

    “In any normal scenario, tomorrow would be the day I go back to work, and it feels weird to not have that still.”

    The routine of a normal job is definitely the thing I miss the most out of my current situation. Obviously I try to create my own routine during the day with job hunting and the Redundancy Review, but there is no denying that paid work helps to create an actual impetus to get out of bed each morning which systems of my own design are not as effective at doing. It keeps me moving though, and more importantly it keeps my mind active, because otherwise I very much feel as if my brain would decay into nothing if I were not doing intellectually stimulating activities each day.

    Although, this week the balance will be a precarious one, as I have Ace Combat 8 (and by extension, Ace Combat Zero Remastered) imminently on my horizon as preloading begins today with advanced access coming later this evening for me because of the Deluxe Edition. It is extremely rare I will buy a Deluxe, Special, or whatever they want to call it edition of a game, but I make an exception for Ace Combat as it is a franchise that holds a special place in my heart, and considering the long dev cycle this game underwent, I want to show my support to the developers.

    Am I going to regret staying up to play a video game in what is possibly the most unemployed behaviour I am going to exhibit? Almost certainly, but part of me wants to enjoy this period while it lasts, however hard it might be.

    There is not much I want to review today, so have these photos of ducks I took on a shopping walk to get some fresh underwear and socks pre-Vexpo.

    That will do it all for today, I want to try stay on track this week to keep myself in the groove after dropping the ball last week, but I will make no promises. Regardless, thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope the Monday feelings have not brought you down too hard.

    You deserve an easy time.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 463, “Last day before departure”

    Redundancy Review: Day 463, “Last day before departure”

    (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 worrywarts and fussbudgets, welcome to Day 463 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Small tangent I had to do a fair chunk of research on whether or not “fussbudget” was a real word, because I was not trusting the AI overview on Google when it came to finding out synonyms for “anxious person” which took me down a rabbit hole of finding out the word is used frequently to describe Lucy in old Peanuts strips, and the word itself has apparent origins in someone being fussy over trifles according to Merriam Webster.

    There is your word fact for the day, courtesy of me trying to find words to describe an anxious person because that very much describes me right now getting ready to go to Vexpo tomorrow. Each year I resolve that I am going to go to more events like this, which usually ends up in me watching from the sidelines because I do not fancy the travel and accommodation to somewhere like London whilst Vexpo carries the benefit of being a direct train away from me, although a hotel is still required considering the activities I partake in usually finish right as the last train is getting ready to leave, and I do not exactly feel like sprinting to the station after having just attended a concert.

    Speaking of, I currently have an absurd number of concerts I aim to attend, five in total across four days. Live music is one thing I absolutely miss from my pre-COVID adventure era, though whether or not I actually commit to all five will be a different story. Considering I was able to pass on my premium concert tickets last year due to stomper-boot related discomfort, I am sure I would be able to do the same again… though considering both Matara Kan and Densetsu.exe are part of the premium concert this year, I really do not want to miss it.

    I think the thing that is making me the most nervous is the notion of talking to people. Probably because it is people I follow online whilst being someone who does not really use social media to interact with people and primarily appreciates the content they put out, it is going to be hard for me to start any interactions – though I do have my partner to help out with that in some instances.

    I want to try take more photos with people, and remember to get people’s handles this year because I took so many photos last year where they either went uncredited or I had to go do a Discord/Twitter deep dive to try connect names to handles to outfits.

    My aim for this weekend is to forget about my problems, treat it like I would a normal weekend before my life got completely upended by the redundancy last year and the layoff this year. Cheers for my oshis at the top of my lungs, hang out with awesome people, and disconnect from everything to temporarily live in a magical wonderland.

    No worrying about job applications, even though I know the financial toll of this weekend is probably going to be somewhat regrettable. No worrying about my writing work, even as I create memories that I will want to record here. No worrying about what the future might bring, because I aim to live solely in the wonderful moments I want to experience.

    I want to live like I used to, and this is my perfect opportunity to do so.

    But, I still have a schedule to keep for the time being, and it is time for another Warhammer Wednesday post – this time featuring my partner and my friend Aaron.

    The three of us have taken to doing Space Marine 2 sessions on a somewhat regular basis, aiming for it to coincide with Warhammer Wednesday by playing on Wednesday, but due to another friend’s schedule shifting and me needing to reschedule my Thursday game night, we have been playing in somewhat adhoc sessions, hence why we had a Traitor Tuesday session last night.

    We did a fairly difficult operation as a warm up which we promptly ate shit on before moving to the actual focus of the evening: Siege Mode.

    Siege Mode is Space Marine 2’s standard horde mode, added as part of post-release content in June last year. The structure is simple, fight waves of either Tyranid or Chaos forces in sets of five, with each wave adding in more extreme threats as time goes on and each fifth wave bringing a massive boss fight in to cap off the set. 

    Each set of five waves starts off with you being able to receive a “Blessing”, which is a choice of three unique perks that aim to help you in your run. Outside of the ones pictured above there is also:

    • Passive health regeneration
    • Melee damage increasing with each consecutive attack
    • Unique ability recharge times decrease
    • Higher threat level enemies take increased damage

    To name a few of the more entertaining ones. Additionally, in the “Hard” version of siege there is a mechanic called “Atonements”, modifiers that last for a period of five waves and are replaced with each new set of five waves. These can include dodging causing you to take damage unless it is a perfect dodge, bringing down fog of war to minimise visibility to within thirty metres, and either making it so staying close together or moving too far apart cause armour regeneration to be disabled. For now, considering we struggled to make it through twenty waves, we stick with the normal siege.

    Throughout the siege, you are able to earn requisition points by completing combat challenges or side objectives or by having a Tech-Priest on the field which will act as a source of requisition points for five minutes – provided it stays protected. These requisition points can be spent on a multitude of helpful resources to assist you in this unrelenting battle.

    Various pieces of consumable equipment such as grenades, stimms, or ammo reserves form the top row. The second row allows you to summon a Space Marine to reinforce your character for five minutes which adds additional firepower and a specific buff depending on what class you selected. Third row is Imperial Guard reinforcements, scaling up how many Guardsmen accompany you in battle alongside the option to bring in a commissar which will continually reinforce fallen Guardsmen and provide a buff to their attack strength. In the fourth row you can reinforce the area this requisition terminal is in, adding one or two Tarantula sentry turrets, mines, explosive barrels, or the aforementioned Tech-Priest.

    The final row is one all players can contribute towards. 1250 requisition points allows you to summon Valtus, a Redemptor-pattern Dreadnought who will aid you for five minutes similarly to a Space Marine reinforcement… except way more powerful, packing way more heat, and able to demolish whatever even the hardest waves have to offer. Valtus absolutely saved our asses in both wave 15 and wave 20 and we would have likely needed him to make it through wave 25.

    Siege mode is tough, even with three players who I would like to call somewhat experienced with the game and its mechanics. Special mention goes to any of the bosses that can spawn when Chaos forces are in play, with the beguiling Terminator Sorcerer an absolute nightmare to hit at either ranged or melee distance and the Mutalith Vortex Beast being a bullet sponge of unrivalled proportions that has absolutely unrelenting attacks and no clear weak spots for my partner as a sniper to take out.

    On the flipside, it is actually the second-highest level of Tyranid threat that we struggle with. Lictors appearing from the shadows to launch devastating ambushes, Raveners bursting out from underground to conduct similarly annoying sneak attacks, and the mobile artillery platform that is the Biovore firing off spore mines and poisonous attacks before running away to a more advantageous position, making it harder for me as an assault unit to keep up with them.

    The highest level threat enemies of the Hive Tyrant, Carnifex, and Neurothrope fall extremely quickly to my partner as a sniper, to the point that when these enemies spawn we rarely feel in danger compared to when other enemies overwhelm us.

    That said, I would not trade the chaos for anything else, as getting the opportunity to spend time with my partner and a close friend of mine is absolutely irreplaceable in my opinion, especially when the mode is an absolutely perfect way to grind levels up, with Aaron going up eight levels in one session, and myself as a higher level character going up four levels.

    Even as schedules change, and we need to find time wherever possible, spending time with those close to me is a vital way of me staying sane as I navigate the challenges of unemployment.

    That will do it for the final Redundancy Review before I head to Vexpo, next time you hear from me will be my megapost recapping my adventure. Thank you for reading today’s edition. Wherever you are, I hope you can stay relaxed and stay positive in the face of adversity.

    Life is worth living.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 462, “Vexpo Bound”

    Redundancy Review: Day 462, “Vexpo Bound”

    (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 VTubers and VSingers, welcome to Day 462 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    It is now scarily close to my Vexpo trip, and after a heart-to-heart moment with my partner last night set right any leftover negative emotions from my breakdown, we are now earnestly planning our trip.

    Well, I say earnestly, it is mainly picking out what clothes we want to wear, what sort of activities we want to do, and what supplies we want for our hotel room – including the all important deodorant and shower supplies because good god we do not want to be the kind of people who do not shower at a convention carrying the smell of several days worth of body odour with us.

    Even when it comes to activities we are probably going to be very freeform. Outside of the several concerts I have booked myself into over the course of the weekend and my two Meet & Greets, there is a feeling of approaching the trip in a more freeform style. I know I definitely want to meet a fair few people that I either met last year and want to say hello to again and a lot of new people I want to take the opportunity to meet for the first time.

    My main goal is to have a weekend where I forget about all my problems for a change, especially considering the difficulties of the past couple of months. I want to cheer for my oshis on stage, I want to spend time with awesome people who hold like-minded interests, I want to eat so much junk food my veins feel clogged up.

    That said, I am still going to try pace myself, both for my energy constraints and for the fact that I am not really a massive party person. I like socialising for sure, but when it comes to loud party atmospheres and lots of people drinking, there is a certain amount of discomfort that comes into play that can make it hard for me to branch out of my shell. It is not something I really want to “change” or “fix” in myself, as I am happy with the ways I like to socialise with others, mainly just reflecting on how I may approach this weekend.

    Considering my Saturday is pretty much clear outside of any potential meetups and the premium concert in the evening, that may be my best opportunity to meet people, browse Artist Alley, and attend any interesting panels that catch my eye. There is definitely some lingering saltiness over the Meet & Greets I was not able to win or snag during the First Come First Served sale, but I do not want to dwell on it and make the most of the weekend all the same.

    I am a VTuber fan, through and through, and I want to make this the best weekend I have ever had. After that, I want to get back to work on making sure I can keep attending events like this in future, and make even more memories that I will treasure forever.

    Considering the theme of the article, and that Vexpo themselves posted an official 2026 theme song written by the composer duo of Starlight & Wonder and sung by…

    Fitting in everyone in a series of images took more faff that I would like to admit

    …about one third of the guest list looking at the credits, I think this makes a perfectly appropriate review topic if only because I have not actually listened to it properly yet.

    Small side tangent before we start, I hope I am able to run into Wunder Riku outside of his and Daryl’s meet & greet. I saw him briefly in the lobby of the hotel we were staying at right as we were going to leave and would have loved to talk to him if I was not so damn tired, and I would love to get my Sana plushie blessed by him. 

    It might be my lingering emotions from my breakdown, the residual saltiness from the Meet & Greet raffles, or the fact that music is a massive part of why I fell in love with the VTuber scene in the first place, but my first listen through this song made me tear up a little bit. I am either too young or my general music taste too misaligned to understand the aesthetic Starlight & Wonder were going for with the Y2K theming around the convention as a whole, but it absolutely holds up as a massive group idol song – a mightily difficult task when you have so many different voices all singing together.

    The opening lyrics really lend themselves to how the phenomenon of VTubing has spread across the world, with the ability to connect so many people and cultures together through the power of the internet… with a wonderful stealth reference to the two composers as well:

    “Open your eyes and see the stars above
    In every heart that’s filled with love
    It’s world-wide now
    We’ll shine wider still
    Till this world wide wonder
    Of starlight comes our way    ”

    Admittedly I feel a little bad that I have not listened to much of Starlight Daryl’s work on its own, considering I mainly know more of Riku’s work than hers, but given this is my first proper exposure to her talents, I really need to change that because this song is fantastic.

    I will apologise now for the fact this is mainly going to be me gushing about lyrics and how much I love the positive messages that idol songs can give out, because I find myself stopping the song every fifteen seconds or so to simply bask in how wonderful and amazing they all are.

    “Because the hope you gave me
    Somehow saved me
    By teaching me to dream”

    This one hits particularly hard for me, because whilst my wonderful friends have put in a lot of effort to keeping me on track during my harder days, the VTubers I follow across both corporations and independents have inspired me to carry on, and showed me that dreams are possible with the right work so long as the effort persists across all days. I would not be sitting here right now writing about VTubers if those emotions were not present, and pushing my writing into the wider world would not be possible if I did not believe that someday, something will come from it.

    “I hear a voice upon the wind that keeps on whispering
    Today’s the greatest day to start”

    This one hits way harder than it should do holy shit.

    Ahem.

    Both the lyrics themselves and who is singing them combine together to make these hit home. Matara Kan is a massive inspiration to myself, and the fact I got the chance to meet her last year still stays with me today (yes I have still not got over her calling me stylish), with her continued resilience in the face of a difficult year being a massive inspiration.

    Only to then have all of Densetsu.exe join in with one of the best pieces of advice you can give to anyone aspiring to any goal. Today will always be the greatest day to start any venture, and whilst I do not have full-spread exposure to all of Densetsu.exe that I would like to, seeing the adorable wide eyes of Phoebe-chan’s model accompanied with those words made the tears flow once more.

    Also I did want to meet Mint just so we could gush about Ace Combat 8 together.

    Finally, I am going to finish off with the some of the lyrics Wunder Riku himself highlighted at the end of a very long Twitter post about the process of creating the song which I absolutely think you should read as it goes into so much detail about how this wonderful piece came together that definitely resonated with me:

    “For every broken soul upon the earth
    Till every lonely voice is heard
    We won’t stop now
    We’ll shine brighter still”

    I have used the word “broken” to describe myself in the wake of my last layoff. My confidence broke, my spirit broke, and at points my mind has broken as well, and each day is me trying to find the pieces and glue it all back together. It has also been a lonely experience, especially in my field of tech where it seems like everyone is going through similar moments of layoffs destroying lives with zero rhyme or reason. 

    But that is the wonder of online communities, especially the VTuber community. A lot of us were exiles growing up, for how we looked, for what we enjoyed, and for who we were at the core of our identities. Through the magic of the internet, we all found each other, and so many come together each day to create wonderful works of art that resonate in the hearts of any like-minded individual.

    As silly as this will sound, this song reminds me of why I do what I do on this site. Loneliness is one of the biggest challenges facing people of all generations around the world right now, and if it were not for the combined efforts of my friends, my partner, and me being involved in VTubers, I think I would have ended up a far lonelier person. So now I want to use my voice to speak for so many people like me, all of us facing career, financial, and political instability each day, in the hopes that my experiences will help someone else feel less lonely and that they belong in this world, whatever hardship is facing them.

    Thank you, Starlight & Wonder. Thank you to all the amazing talents participating in this song. Thank you to Vexpo for facilitating it all and making it happen.

    I know I am about to have an amazing weekend.

    Thumbnail pic courtesy of the Bandcamp listing for the song, which is the best way to support the artists involved directly.

    That will do it for the penultimate review before I head out later this week. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you know you are not alone. There are so many wonderful people out in this world that would love to meet you, and I know you will find the people you relate to most one day.

    Stay safe out there.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 461, “Amidst the rubble”

    Redundancy Review: Day 461, “Amidst the rubble”

    (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 masons and carvers, welcome to Day 461 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Last night was bad for me.

    Seriously bad.

    My partner got into bed, and I felt the overwhelming urge to cry.

    So I did.

    Every little bit of negativity I had been feeling over the past three months somehow bubbled to the surface and came out as I struggled to find the words to even say what I was feeling between sobs.

    One thing in particular stood out to me, about how some days I feel that I am lying down in the middle of a crumbling castle with rubble falling down all around me. I should really get up and stop being in the rubble, especially cause there is a high chance some will fall onto me, but I cannot help but watch things crumble despite my best efforts.

    Sometimes my mind gets hyperbolic in viewing my own situation, because my actual circumstances currently are nowhere near as bad as my mind perceives it, yet I constantly self-flagellate about how unworthy I am for the things in my life, for the people I am able to be around, and for the gift of life I receive every day.

    Losing my job really did a number on my confidence and feeling of direction in my life, and whilst initially I definitely had some amount of serenity about what had happened due to my complicated feelings to the tech industry, all I feel now is an intense dread whenever I send off another application because I have lost every bit of sauce I used to have.

    I… very much want to give up some days, if I am fully honest. Everything that has gone on over the past three months has demoralised me intensely, to the point I do not know how much things that used to motivate me in the past mean to me anymore. Waking up is a struggle, keeping up appearances is even harder, and trying to put my life back on track feels almost insurmountable between everything else going on.

    But I know I cannot give up. That everything I am feeling right now is a temporary setback more than what things are going to be like forever, and in a year’s time everything will have changed again.

    Stability will return to me, but right now my fire does not even feel like it is smouldering, I very much feel like I am a pile of wet ashes with no ability to reignite.

    The ashes are still there though, and once they dry out, I know I will be back to the phoenix I so admire.

    In all honesty I had lost sight of why I even loved the phoenix to begin with. A mythical creature that can reincarnate through its ashes, ensuring defeat can never be permanent. Something that always comes back, no matter the circumstances, to shine again. I know I still have that potential in me, all I need is an opportunity to show it.

    Internalising that I still have potential is probably the hardest feeling I am going through right now, because despite so many wonderful people in my life who know what I am capable of, everything that gets said to me in that regard does not make it into my mind. It makes me feel lonely, not through any fault of the people around me, but I struggle to feel as if I am conveying the gravity of my situation well enough.

    So I write, and leave a record for those who come after, to know that I was here. Through the struggles, the fears, and the pain, I dragged myself further and further to my goal, even as I so desperately wanted to give up.

    My mind may be against me, but so long as the body survives, the ashes will dry out, and will ignite again any day now.

    Outside of my wonderful partner and amazing friends, there is one person that has been bringing me a surprising amount of comfort due to his streams, and I want to talk about him today. Introducing pretty much the only flesh streamer I watch nowadays: Otzdarva, or Otz for short.

    This is admittedly a terrible image of him, but it was during him streaming Halloween: The Game in recent weeks and when someone asked him whether or not it was going to take market share from Dead By Daylight he pulled this face and it made me laugh incredibly hard.

    Otz first started streaming in 2015, and became a Twitch partner in 2016, meaning he has been doing this gig for over a decade now, and despite only having started to watch him this year, I see a man who is still somehow extremely humble, knowledgeable, and generally keeps a down-to-earth approach.

    His primary stream game is Dead By Daylight, which is how I started watching him due to having a passing interest in the game due to my partner’s amount of playtime, with both of those factors coming together to eventually influence me to play the game, with me using Otz’s streams to help learn more about the game and approach it in a somewhat holistic way rather than raging out at any minor inconveniences.

    The game is not his only wheelhouse though, as he will frequently stream Souls-like games, modded and unmodded, alongside flavour of the month releases in the indie and multiplayer spaces.

    Whatever he plays, I am drawn to Otz for his surprising amount of wisdom and insights on things. Every so often a chatter will ask him a question and the response he gives often takes me aback due to the detail, consideration, and message he puts behind what he says. He comes off as someone with a fair bit of lived experience, whilst also not styling themselves as an authority figure on whatever he is talking about.

    One of the best examples comes from a recent stream where a chatter asked about how to leave a toxic relationship, and Otz gave genuine advice about connecting with your friends and family about the situation to help see how much this person’s needs have gone unfulfilled, and even said he would be looking out for them in future chats to see how they were getting on.

    He also recognises the insane amount of privilege he holds in order to make video game streaming his job. In one stream he had a donation from a chatter who regretted they could not donate more, and Otz went on the record saying that he appreciates every donation but to not feel bad about not being able to donate more because he does not need donations to stay afloat.

    And to top it all off, the guy has the exact kind of humour I am looking for. A mix of dramatic reactions when shit hits the fan or a ballsy play goes exactly right, and deadpan comments in response to absurd situations that defuse the tension wonderfully. The best example of the latter came from the Dead By Daylight Hardcore Survivor Challenge he and three other streamers participated in earlier this year, when they were discussing the ideal of professional competitive game playing and wondering how it could be applied to their game.

    This lead to Otz making a comment that stuck in my mind since:

    “I do not think I could play DBD professionally. The idea of my rent hinging on hitting a skill check would increase my stress levels dramatically.”

    It is so succinct, but so funny especially considering the contrast with the fact all four of them are playing the game “professionally”, but not at a competitive level.

    The last thing I want to highlight is Otz’s own website, which includes an FAQ section that helps to learn all about the guy and how he got into the position he is in today, alongside commonly asked questions about his preferred games of choice.

    And so I do not leave his grimace as the thumbnail, I am going to include an image of a short break screen he put up as he went to the bathroom one stream, with a very nice message that I think more chatters should keep in mind.

    A bad night can lead into a better day, and so long as I am still writing, I am still here.

    Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are having a good day today, and that the Monday blues are not bringing you down too hard.

    We can make it through whatever comes our way, all we need to do is persevere through the dark to see a brighter dawn.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 459-460, “Morale is evershifting”

    (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 officers and infantry, welcome to Day 459 and 460 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Yeah, missed a post yesterday after having a very good weeklong streak, but it was for a somewhat good reason as I spent the majority of the day at a friend’s house for a BBQ and general social gathering, coming home at nine in the evening and being thoroughly exhausted alongside being a bit demoralised.

    Last night was the First Come, First Served sale for the Vexpo meet and greet tickets, and it was confirmed that every talent had at least one ticket available, meaning I had a shot at grabbing one for Shiori. In hindsight, I should have focused my bandwidth on going after some other talents instead like Mint, Matara, or Wunder Riku, all people I would have loved to meet and chat with for a short while, but the chance to meet my kamioshi was too great.

    I did end up getting one ticket I had applied for but not won in the form of Dr.NOVA(e) from V4Mirai, and I still have my ticket to meet Ironmouse as well which are going to be two fantastic opportunities, but I cannot help but feel some amount of hurt or disappointment in not being able to snag Shiori.

    There is a lot I have done to try comfort and console myself in the aftermath, seeing that many prominent community members have got tickets is awesome to see, as I know they were probably as locked in as me to try see if they could get anything in the sale, and part of me knows that if I got the chance to meet Shiori there is a full possibility I would flub my words entirely resulting in me just crying for the majority of the meet.

    But it still hurts, and it still did a number on my already-depleted morale that I felt I was not clever enough in my approach to the sale, when the majority of it would have just been luck anyway. I know there will be more chances to meet her in future, and that I will still have the opportunity to cheer her on as part of the Serendipity screening on Thursday. 

    It would have been nice, all the same.

    Keeping my morale up in general during this time feels hard, as some days I will wake up ready to conquer the world and do everything I need to do to get my life back on the track I want to be on… and some days waking up is extremely difficult, as I try to muster what little strength I have to even function, resulting in me feeling negative for the rest of the day.

    The worst part about those days is feeling as if I am not entitled to have them, that I need to keep myself together and present a strong front so I can support those around me. I know this is not the case, and I am allowed to feel sad on my bad days, but this crushing weight of expectation never seems to leave me how much those in my life affirm that I am okay to not be okay.

    Writing it all down helps, cause otherwise I definitely would let everything bottle up inside, and even then there are moments where I keep it all on the inside for fear of letting my own mind overwhelm me.

    I will make it through, and I will see a better tomorrow. There is so much I still need to live for, and I want to be around the people I love when it happens.

    For now though, I will take whatever boosts of morale I can get, which includes the subject of today’s review.

    On Friday I went out with my parents for dinner at a place called “OK Diner”, a small chain of American-style diners in the UK that offer a melange of options for hearty and filling meals, with my eyes firmly set on having a big and greasy burger to warm my soul.

    Disclaimer, my parents were the people to pay for this, and admittedly I did go overboard with the knowledge that someone else was paying for my food that evening, but I will include the price as always. Thanks again, mum and dad, I really appreciate you treating me to things like this when life has really been getting me down these last months.

    Without further ado, behold: the double patty breakfast burger served with curly fries.

    My heart was set on a burger, as it is one of my all-time favourite things to order from any big restaurant to lift my spirits after a rough time period, and one of my strongest food opinions is that any burger can be improved with the simple addition of a fried egg on top, meaning that a burger topped with bacon, egg, and hash brown to form a breakfast burger was the perfect thing to indulge in after restraining myself from eating out due to not having a job.

    Although I will admit, going for a double patty rather than a single six-ounce patty was a minor mistake on my part. Whilst I was still able to clear my plate and had a whale of a time doing it, I did feel a bit ill afterwards due to eating so much food

    That said, I could have cried when biting into such a decadent feast after so long of practicing restraint to ensure my runway lasts as long as possible. It feels silly to say, as after all it is just food, but meals out with my partner were one of my favourite ways to spend time with him when I was still gainfully employed, and I hope to enjoy another during our Vexpo trip as part of the “forget about all the problems” aspect.

    But what did this indulgence cost? Including an 80p charge for upgrading my fries to curly fries, the total came to £20.30. Whilst I would fully be comfortable paying for this myself in any other circumstance, the fact I was able to get such a delectable treat essentially for free feels so amazing.

    That covers it for today, we only have about three reviews left until I head to Vexpo in the coming week, so I will aim to make them good ones. Thank you for reading today’s edition. Wherever you are, I hope you have had an enjoyable weekend, and that the Monday blues do not bring you down too hard tomorrow. It feels weird to not dread Sunday as I have done in the past, but I hope you have a good day at work tomorrow.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 458, “While it lasts”

    (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 enjoyers and savourers, welcome to Day 458 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    If I manage to finish this today, it will be one full week of posts for the first time since…

    …five months ago in April, fucking hell.

    I say “if”, because whilst I am sitting here writing a post out on my old battered laptop, I continue to find it a struggle to put words together on everything I am feeling lately. Perhaps it is a sense of being overwhelmed, that there are so many stimuli assaulting me on the daily that finding words to describe all of it feels like an impossible task.

    In a way it is a privilege to be able to write like this. To sit in an undisturbed space away from others with only my own thoughts for company, being able to use the power of modern technology to write them all down and publish them online for all to see.

    Bit of a weird reflection coming from someone who earlier in the week declared their distaste for social media as a whole, but the world we live in is one of polar opposites right now. So many are struggling the world over, even in developed countries, but advancements in technology have made resources available to more people while those advancements also produce many of the challenges that face humanity as a whole.

    There is an insane amount of luck involved for someone like me to exist in the way I do at the current time, and as the title suggests, I am aiming to enjoy the time I currently have in the best way possible, because the tides could shift for better or worse at any moment.

    This extends to me enjoying time with my parents, which is something I felt I would never get to say when I consider the situation four years ago. We were locked in a bitter cold war over the state of my transition, and I went six months without seeing them until I finally broke down the walls. Nowadays I would consider not seeing them for six months extremely strange given I will see them at least once a month, if not more frequently.

    Given the fact they are aging and I am getting reminders of that on the regular, I am aiming to try and enjoy what time I have with them when I can. Family emotions can be complicated, and while I feel they may not fully understand the person I chose to become, I know that they know it makes me happy which is ultimately what they would want from me.

    Nothing can last forever, and whilst the pain from anything ending can last longer than anticipated, I will always aim to appreciate the fleeting nature of life where possible.

    Dragging up something from the backlogs today for the review topic, especially as I get to do something I have not done in a very long while. It is once more time for…

    Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!

    A couple weeks back I spent an afternoon hanging out with one of my closest friends with the goal of discussing writing together, mainly what story projects we had and bouncing ideas off each other to see where things could be improved but mainly to enjoy talking shop together.

    As part of this, and the fact I did not eat dessert when provided at a hangout a couple days prior, she agreed to pay for my lunch that day. Whilst I will discuss the price as always, this was paid for by someone else. Thanks for that!

    After going to one coffeehouse initially and having it be far too busy to actually hear each other speak, we took a short walk up the hill to go to a hole-in-the-wall venue known as the Bear Steps Cafe, where I noticed they had a lunch special on that day for a BBQ pulled pork panini served with fries that also came with a hot drink for an extremely reasonable price of £9.99.

    So obviously I had to take that deal, the opportunity to get a hot sandwich with fries and imbibe a delicious mocha whilst not breaking my friend’s budget was too good to pass up. The fact it came out with a gorgeous crisp crust on top of the panini with parmesan and herbs sprinkled over top made it even more decadent than I could imagine.

    The pulled pork was exactly how I like it: sweet, smoky, and tender all in one package. The cheese blend used to bind the panini together was perfect, in all likelihood it was some catering blend of cheeses rather than being a dedicated cheddar or mozzarella, but it had the perfect amount of stretch and flavour to it that made worrying about the details irrelevant.

    The fries were about as standard as you can get, but there is never really a need to a cafe to go above and beyond on fries if you ask me, especially if they are included as part of a meal. I do not go to a cafe expecting the finest beef tallow triple-cooked chips, I am perfectly happy with the most basic fries to add a little bit of extra carbs to my meal.

    Finally, my mocha was also pretty standard to the best of my memory. There is never really a way modern coffee machines can go wrong with making a mocha, and whatever balance is there for me is usually a pleasant experience of getting to savour the flavour of chocolate whilst getting one of my many needed caffeine hits throughout the day.

    And again, this entire spread was the very reasonable price of £9.99. A sit down lunch in an independent cafe can very easily cost more than that in other locations, and getting a moment to sit down with a close friend to talk about a hobby we both share.

    That covers everything for today. Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to enjoy the weekend. If you are one of the many who works on the weekend, I hope you are able to navigate the trials of everyone coming at you for the most minor of things. I see your hard work, and appreciate you persisting through it all the same.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 457, “The common topic of sleep”

    Redundancy Review: Day 457, “The common topic of sleep”

    (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 insomniacs and narcoleptics, welcome to Day 457 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    I am rapidly running out of words relating to sleep to open things up with, which is not surprising considering I have written around ten reviews where the topic of sleep, either too much or too little, is brought up as the main body of the article that day.

    Today is in the latter category of “too little”, as I was up till around two in the morning stuck in a thinking pattern, alternating between having my brain slow down in the hopes of finally giving me the blessed sleep I crave before suddenly thrusting anxiety into the forefront of my mind once more giving me about ten minutes of feeling on edge with rapid thoughts running through my mind before it calms down again.

    Usually in those moments would be the moment I reach for a CBD gummy to help quiet the mind and allowing myself to sleep, but I have been holding back from taking them recently for a handful of reasons:

    • I am halfway down my last jar and really do not have the funds to restock myself at this current moment in time
    • I had a bad experience with one a couple weeks back and have been hesitant ever since
    • And I want my system able to receive the blessed relaxation as best as possible for Vexpo sleep next week because I will certainly need it

    Thankfully the day is not too stacked for me, though I do have some more job applications at the local council I need to work on before my time away. Local government has been the main focus of my applications since being laid off three months ago, primarily in pursuit of acquiring better benefits – especially a more robust pension benefit because whilst I do not fully believe I will be able to retire for one reason or another, it would be nice to actually care about my future rather than be dismissive.

    I definitely have some amount of savings in my pension, although it is simultaneously nowhere near what the guidance says it should be for my age and also looking damn fine if I start to run low on funds if this job search gets more protracted than I would like it to be.

    Plus there is the fact that writers never usually fully retire from work, as our bodies fail keeping our minds sharp is more important than ever, meaning we will be working on our own things even long past the age of any physically or mentally demanding work, though it would still be nice to fund being an aging writer considering that making a living off writing is still as hard as ever.

    Admittedly it has been nice to start writing again, even though I know for a fact Vexpo is going to completely derail any notion of a schedule as I will be out of action from the 17th to at least the 22nd due to how much I have in my itinerary and that I will be writing the sequel last year’s Vexpo post as quickly as I can once my energy returns to me.

    For now though, it has been nice to get back in the groove, and remind myself of why I enjoy writing so much. It came back naturally to me, and even on today when I feel as if I am struggling to write, it feels good to get my thoughts down and make everything feel less heavy if only for a wonderful, fleeting moment before my reality kicks me back down.

    I love writing. There is nothing that would make me happier than getting to do this every day, and who knows? Maybe I will make it there someday.

    Until that point, I will keep rambling about all the things that make me happy, which today includes showing off one of my proudest gaming achievements to date: my collection of endemic life in Monster Hunter World.

    Due to a friend wanting to go through World on their PS5 and myself having a PS4 Pro with a physical copy of the game, we have arranged a regular game night to play through things together. Even as the franchise marches on towards Ascendance, I think there is great value to be found in the fifth generation entries of World plus Iceborne and Rise plus Sunbreak, especially on sale for stupidly low prices given how much content is packed into each game.

    Returning to World felt satisfying as all hell, and whilst there are several gameplay decisions I find myself questioning both on their own and when comparing it to the quality-of-life packed Wilds, I still consider it a nine-out-of-ten experience that any newer Monster Hunter fans should experience at least once.

    Not least because the endemic life collection system and the way you are able to display said endemic life might be one of my favourite side activities in the entire franchise.

    Once you progress into Master Rank in the Iceborne expansion and unlock the new hub area of Seliana, you also unlock a personal room area that can be decorated with ludicrous amounts of microtransaction DLCs to make it fit your taste, but more importantly it features several areas to place any captured endemic life, including both a fish pond and an aquarium.

    Particular creatures of note in my aquarium include two Petricanths, extremely rare endemic life styled after ancient coelacanths, and the Sealord’s Crestfish, an even rarer endemic life that took me so many soft resets during expeditions to find but was one of my proudest achievements once I did… oh how little did I know how hard some of the others were going to be.

    When you enter the room from the main hub area, you start on this upper balcony area that can contain endemic life both on the bannister itself and on the floor. My floor is filled with Moonlight Geckos, not particularly rare creatures compared to what else you can see in the room, but still pretty hard to find. The guest on my bannister is the far more interesting exhibit though, a gorgeous bird called the Blue Diva, an endemic life I did not even search out for and found purely by chance when on a hunt one day. Whilst I would love to find more to fill out the bannister, I think there are more pressing matters for me rather than grinding it out for multiple rare creatures.

    Especially when you take into account I have six out of seven Molys from the endgame Guiding Lands area – or as I prefer to call it, the Grinding Lands because this area is so shittily designed in terms of how you have to progress each zone for mining, monsters, and the rare endemic life of Molys and there is very little that can change my mind on this being the absolute worst way to build an endgame I have seen in any of the Monster Hunter titles I have played.

    Ahem.

    Still, the majority of the Molys is not bad at all.

    In front of my fireplace is a small family of Arrowhead Gecko, another rare creature but one with a guaranteed chance of dropping in one of the early Master Rank event quests, so I took the opportunity to grab a many as possible.

    One creature that took an absurd amount of grinding on my part is the Tsuchinoko. This illusive snake only spawns in Kulve Taroth raids near to the cannons or on the slide to area two, or in the little corridor before the optional quest of the final boss of Iceborne which is where I found it. A little fat bastard wiggling along my floor is a worthy addition to my collection.

    And finally, we come to the fish pond outside alongside the hot spring. The latter holds the singular Goldspring Macaque I have been able to find, and again whilst I would love to fill an entire spring of these, that sort of grinding is not in my cards. The former holds my pride and joy, but not for what is in the pond… although there is a second Sealord’s Crestfish in the pond as well which was so cool to find after grinding out the first one.

    Flying high above the fish pond is the Wintermoon Nettle, a rare creature that can only spawn at night in the Hoarfrost Reach locale and requires full on scaling the mountain in order to have a chance at capturing it. It may not even appear, and whilst it is possible to catch a glimpse of it from the ground I often found it quicker to run up the mountain to try find it, not wanting it to turn to day and have it despawn after taking the effort to get up there.

    This thing is massive, and floats around in the sky so elegantly. I remember when I first saw it after scaling the mountain for the god-knows-how-many’th time and knowing my quest to find the rarest forms of endemic life were at the end.

    World holds a special place in my heart for many of its mechanics, but currently no game in the franchise does creature collecting better than this one.

    Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are sleeping well. Losing sleep is never fun, and I hope to sleep better tonight myself.