Rosalia Rambles

Tag: health

  • Redundancy Review: Day 456, “I do not like social media”

    (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 posters and creators, welcome to Day 456 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Considering I am posting this article online, which I will then share to my friends over Discord and then post a link on my Bluesky account for the world to see, the title may seem a little weird. Admittedly, even though a lot of what I want to discuss has probably been said by people smarter than me, in more eloquent ways, I still want to write down my thoughts.

    Social media seems like a necessary evil in the modern world. You want to stay in touch with friends or follow like-minded people for your hobbies or interests, but wanting to do that comes at the risk of seeing the dregs of the internet appears to speak down on whatever you enjoy whilst being exposed to a non-stop stream of every single horror that exists in the modern world because a handful of old men refuse to give up their power or wealth.

    Personally, I am someone who has an unhealthy relationship with Twitter. I like being able to passively engage in the hobbies I have and seeing the interactions between the people I choose to follow, but in return I end up finding myself doomscrolling long past the point of being engaged and all it does is ruin my mood when I am already in an impaired mental state.

    The answer seems easy: deactivate my account like so many people I looked up to have done so before, but as someone who has had to battle various addictions before I know going cold turkey is not exactly the right option, plus for all its faults I do enjoy seeing both my interests and random fun things when the algorithm decides to bless me rather than curse me.

    I recognise this is hypocritical, though I feel I am not alone in thinking this way. To be a writer in the modern age requires the use of social media, and if you are wanting to make this your profession you have to use it to an extensive degree for the required amount of networking in order to land reliable gigs. I will not even lie and say I do not feel anything when I see my view numbers go up or I get engagement on Bluesky, because that dopamine hits like hell whenever I know people are reading what I have to say.

    This is not to mention that my current line of work – self-reflection blogs – requires a certain amount of conceit and vanity in order to make it work. I literally write about my day-to-day life whilst trying to put a positive spin on it all whilst behind the screen I feel like my life, the world, and everything in between is falling apart. For all the complaining I will do about social media feeling fake, manicured, or astroturfed I am equally as guilty for presenting a positive vertical slice when I spent this morning breaking down into tears for almost an hour because I realise I hate the person I am becoming because of the many blows I have taken in recent months.

    At the very least, I hope what I present comes off as more “genuine” than other influencers who might talk about similar things, and I am most definitely not under any illusion to call myself such a ridiculous title. I do not even feel comfortable enough to call myself a “reviewer” despite the title of my headline series being “Redundancy Review”, because whilst I can think critically and formulate my words into critique, I really do not think anyone should take my opinions too seriously outside of “hmm, that is an interesting take”.

    Part of my dislike does definitely come from lack of knowledge as well. Whenever I am putting together a Bluesky post for anything I have posted here I feel as if I am doing it all wrong. I write out a short, but hopefully entertaining, blurb on what the article is about, say what day I am on, and then add my least favourite part of any post: hashtags.

    At the very least, I appreciate that Bluesky has dedicated feeds for writing that my work can be pushed to when I use the tags “#WritingCommunity” and “#Writing”. After that, I usually add the tags “#WordPress” and “#WP” to try push what platform I am using… for better or worse, considering I have a lot of issues with WordPress as a whole but right now the sunk cost fallacy is what keeps me here for the time being.

    After that though is where the real struggles start, as I will usually put in two additional tags related to what I have written about that day. For example yesterday was “#Hololive” and “#HololiveEnglish” to push myself to any feeds that might be about Hololive related news.

    But then I never know when to add more tags, both for respecting character limits and because I do not want to overwhelm my post with SEO-ese to try to get as many hits as possible from as many feeds as possible.

    When it comes to learning new things, I try to do as much as possible by myself and attempt to feel things out before I resort to written guides, but there is little desire to work towards or style myself as a “social media expert”, especially when I try to keep my presence minimal for my own sanity… which is a shame, cause a lot of professional writing roles are very social media focused, and I feel I could adapt myself to those roles for the right price, but I think my wheelhouse for writing roles is admittedly smaller than I would like.

    This is not even to mention my intense resentment of LinkedIn as a platform. It says something when one of my career goals, outside of writing for a living, outside of having a nice steady role I can develop in, and outside of not fearing layoffs every year at a certain point, is solely getting the ability to abandon or outright deactivate my LinkedIn account because I see very little value in having a presence on that platform and absolutely despise the level of performative I would need to be in anything I post there.

    Of course I could make my personal brand on LinkedIn of not being like everyone else on there, but again that falls into the trap of any amount of social media presence requiring some amount of conceit to dare to be “different”, or to think any perspective I have is truly unique.

    But even if my experience is the same as thousands if not tens of thousands of people, there is still value in me writing my experience out, both to record how I am feeling and in the hopes that if it helps even one person feel better, I have done something right.

    I will probably never fully extricate myself from social media, especially if I want to keep sharing my writing, though I can definitely hope for a healthier relationship in future… I still probably will not upload any of my work to Twitter, existing on that site as a trans person of even the slightest visibility feels like it would destroy my psyche beyond repair.

    One of the main challenges that has been facing me during my long writing hiatus is a struggle to engage in any of my usual hobbies besides mindlessly playing Umamusume because it requires little brain power and gives me the required dopamine to stop my brain shutting off. This does mean I have a lack of topics to talk about for Warhammer Wednesday as I have not been building models, or basing models, or doing anything at all related to building things.

    In general it has been hard to stay on track with what I wanted to do with Warhammer this year because of the blows I have taken. Back in March when I was making progress on the daily and making preparations to start painting, I felt positive about the upcoming 11th edition and was considering getting in on the ground floor with the starter set before finding out what local play groups are in my area to start meeting new people. 

    Working on getting my army into a battle-ready state would still be the goal, as I feel going out to meet new people could help me out of this current rut, but there is a lot of myself I need to work on before I feel I could be ready to do that.

    For now, I will just share a progress picture of where I am at with my main T’au force. Plenty of infantry with both Fire Warriors and Pathfinders, a small amount of heavier infantry with Crisis Suits (with plenty in my pile of shame to be built), and two choices of leader in the form of Commander Farsight or my commander in Coldstar armour, not to mention plenty of drones for tactical flexibility.

    There is also an Ethereal that came from a cheap box I managed to find on Vinted pre-layoff which does not entirely fit in with a Farsight Enclaves theme army. There is a part of me that wants to use a craft knife to cut off the head and replace it with a Fire Warrior helmet to make a “rogue Ethereal” kitbash model, one who abandoned the main empire to join the Enclaves, but is required to wear the helmet to show their loyalty to their new side.

    Things still feel hard for me, but each day I wake up I have a chance to improve things. And even if I need to cry out a lot of my negative feelings, then I will do that in the hopes of letting myself heal from all the things that bring me down right now.

    Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to stay positive in the face of adversity. The world sucks right now, but we are still here. 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 455, “Is existence enough?”

    Redundancy Review: Day 455, “Is existence enough?”

    (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 go-getters and bread-getters, welcome to Day 455 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    It finally happened.

    The first consecutive post since 11th June which was almost three months ago holy shit.

    A prophecy that was foretold in ancient scrolls has finally come to pass, and I write two days in a row once more… although I have no idea what to ramble about other than to simply throw out what is on my mind.

    I ended up sleeping in hard this morning, waking up to the sound of my alarm before doing the one thing you should try never to do when unemployed and going back to sleep. On paper, I “lost” about an hour of time that could have been used in other ways, though I tend to view these types of calculations in a more nuanced way, if solely because I know I would not be at prime functionality waking up at that initial time anyway, spending what could be viewed as a “productive” hour shaking off grogginess and waiting for coffee to kick in anyway.

    Although the above definitely reads as some amount of cope for the fact without a job, I struggle staying in a healthy routine. Staying up at late hours on weekdays doing not a whole lot of anything except zoning out to Youtube videos to numb how I am feeling which leads into sleeping in hard during the mornings to compensate for staying up that late, before dragging myself out of bed to work on whatever small bits of upkeep I can manage and perform the accursed task of job searching once more.

    Even on days where I manage to get applications done or make a good amount of progress around the house, I cannot help but feel a sense of stagnation, or rather, a feeling of yearning for what my life was like with a job. Being on the hunt for a new role is repetitive as all hell with little variation in how things play out.

    Fill in personal details, fill in supporting statements, fill in references. Double check everything you wrote down. Tweak it here and there to make it more suitable to the role. Have friends check it over. Tweak it further. Send it off. Get ghosted. Feel sad. Start the whole cycle again.

    I am no stranger to repetitive work, my primary field of quality assurance relies on performing repetitive tasks in different permutations to see where things break. Automation can minimise a lot of these tasks, but checking other paths through an experience is often something that needs to be done by hand to find where real humans will find friction or frustration.

    But there is a stark difference between the repetitive nature of job hunting versus having a repetitive job… outside of the obvious pressures that come with being unemployed.

    The main thing I miss is socialising with my colleagues over morning standup. We would often get onto the tasks for the day fairly quickly but those five minutes a day where we would chat about any random shit that had come up in any of our lives is something I was not anticipating to miss, but I find myself yearning for even the smallest conversations before getting on with things for the day.

    For all the talk I do about being a remote-first individual who will advocate for remote work in almost any role that can accommodate it, maybe office socialisation would not be so bad for me in the long run – especially if I am finding myself pining for the most basic and bland social interaction that comes in a professional environment.

    My train of thought went off on a tangent far removed from what I was intending to talk about today, but that is the magic of the Redundancy Review. A peek inside the psyche of someone on the borderline between Gen Z and Millenial, somehow finding myself sympathising with the struggles of each generation in the problem I currently face.

    What I was actually wanting to talk about today are those days where all I will really do is passively exist, where everything I need to get done in a day happens, but it feels as if nothing has ultimately happened except for the fact I have existed on that day. In some respect it could be a sign of declining mental health in the face of adversity, that days roll by into each other with no clear definition as to what happened on each day leading into existence feeling homogenised.

    I like to view it with a different lens though, one specifically of finding the positive within overtly shitty situations. For a start, being able to wake up each day in a body that feels comfortable to me is an absolute blessing that I know not many others have, and is the result of years of estrogen taking its effect. Could my body be better? Absolutely, but the work continues each day.

    Additionally, being able to wake up as a trans person each day and try to survive in a world that oftentimes feels insanely hostile to people like me feels like an accomplishment in and of itself. Holding on to hope that the world can become a better place than it is right now and wanting the world to be better when I eventually leave it are two similar ideals that help keep me persevering through the harder days.

    Sometimes, continuing to exist is all that matters in order to see another day where you can live life to the fullest.

    Outside of it being three months since my last consecutive post, it has also been just under three months since my last VTuesday and well… there is a lot I could cover. While I was gone there was a number of big releases on both my Hololive and indie fronts:

    Hololive English Justice released an original group song called “SUPERNOVA SUPER GIRL”, a high energy bop which I do not listen to often but have a super soft spot for.

    Hololive English Advent released another original song called “Spotlight”, an inspirational little number with the amazingly godlike lyric of “Aurafarming baddies in a getaway car” partway through.

    Hololive English as a whole had their fourth concert titled “Serendipity” alongside the official MV for the title song release, which I get to see a screening of this concert in under a week’s time as part of my Vexpo trip which I definitely will talk about soon.

    Shiori Novella, one of my Hololive English oshi released a four part motion comic series detailing an original story involving the Archiver herself and several other holomems in an emotional tale with some light moments that does not constitute as official canon what the hell?

    And whilst this happened before my long VTuber discussion hiatus, Rin Penrose debuted a new model that is insanely more expressive than his old one and started uploading regular videos on old Flash games which has definitely become part of my regular entertainment regime.

    So… there is a lot I missed, a lot I could discuss, and to be honest a lot of it I will probably stick in a backlog and work on it as time passes, but today I want to talk about something recent released in the Hololive space, specifically a cover song by Mori Calliope and Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame, of a hype anthem that has inspired anime fans to do the impossible, see the invisible, and fight the power.

    Yes I am fully aware paraphrasing the song is cringe as hell, but I absolutely do not care considering Gurren Lagann holds a special place in my heart. It was the first anime series I ever watched fully as a semi-aware teenager, of course I had watched Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and individual episodes of other famous series before that point, but Gurren Lagann was my first experience of watching a story all the way through and I came out the other side a changed person.

    Gurren Lagann has its weird moments, as do all anime, but I struggle to think of any definition to it other than “pure art”, a story about human perseverance in the face of impossible odds, and using those impossible odds to push your own evolution beyond its limit to overcome any obstacle in your path. 

    And I think a song that blends opera singing and rap music into a song that punctuates the most awesome mecha battles you have ever seen is the perfect definition of doing something impossible to come out with the best result.

    The opera lyrics are in Latin, and tell the story of someone praying to a god to grant them peace, rest, and sanctuary in the fact of an oncoming apocalypse, which is perfectly contrasted with the rap lyrics being about taking what you want for yourself and not letting anything, not even a god, get in your way as the song ends with the two singers dueling to be heard until all that remains is the rap singer repeating those immortal words.

    “Row! Row! Fight the power!”

    That is enough about the song itself, so what do I think of Mori and Liz singing it?

    Absolute.

    Perfection.

    There is no other way to describe this. Two singers who have diametrically opposed vocal styles, arguably two of the greatest voices in Hololive English (I love you too Nerissa) coming together to utilise their own strengths into something beautiful. I knew Liz had pipes, but I was not fully prepared for how powerful her voice was going to be in the opera parts.

    As for Mori, I actually tend to flip-flop on where I think her voice shines best. There are some of her originals where I cannot help but bop along, special shoutout to Grim Reaper is a Live-Streamer for the first original of hers where I fully appreciated her talents, but at the same time there are some songs where I listen to them and I can tell she is trying her damnedest and either the lyrics do not sit right with me or I do not think her vocal style matches the song.

    (disclaimer: not a professional music person, might be talking out my arse)

    However, there are no such qualms with her approach to the rap on this song. In fact I think it might be some of her best vocal work yet, especially when the two of them reach the dueling segment as she starts out quiet with the opera overpowering her before she rises up in the mix to overpower any feelings of hopelessness.

    Oh, and the entire thing is topped off by the key art being drawn by an artist known as Hyde/@Tabakko, an artist who I primarily follow for our shared love of a certain white fox friend, but is able to create these beautifully detailed pieces on commission for various Holomem projects, with Mori as Simon and Liz as Kamina with her fucking chest flame having little Kamina glasses on them being a small detail that elevates this from a gorgeous piece of art to a true homage to the source material.

    Given the recent news of all of the Hololive branches merging into one, dropping the identifiers of “English”, “Indonesia”, and “DEV_IS” to unify everything under a single “hololive” name, and the usual anxiety that comes from any big high-level company plays like this, it reminds me of how I have always chosen to view Hololive as a company.

    The main purpose of Hololive is to bring talented people together to create amazing works of art, original or interpretative. Hololive acts as a catalyst to these projects, helping talents access resources they would not be able to otherwise and provide connections to make projects like this come into reality.

    But the source of all these projects are the girls behind the talents, and those are the ones who need the support in whatever they do. Whether it is whilst they are still in Hololive and working the best they can within a corporate structure, or when they graduate to go do their own thing, supporting the talents at any point in their journey is the best thing to do.

    And as the somewhat Skyline Serenade concert has been able to show, you do not always need corporate backing to come together to create something magical. Sometimes all it takes is the perseverance of a few talented individuals, and those around them who can help enable amazing projects.

    Not only did I write consecutively, I wrote way more than I anticipated for how I was feeling today. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are doing good in these challenging times. We can make it through together, and I know we can see a brighter day on the horizon.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 429-454, “Longer than I expected”

    (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 timekeepers and watchmakers, welcome to Day 429 to 454 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    As I have said many times in the past: it has been a while. Constantly getting trapped in my own head, trying to navigate what seems like an impossible job market, and wondering whether or not the things I have to write down are worth it at all.

    Usually when I come back to the Redundancy Review it means I have something I want to get out there and writing is the only way I feel I can comfortably convey it, or at the very least, I want to be able to wield my emotions for good rather than letting them bottle up into an almighty crash out at the expense of myself, others, or myself and others.

    The Redundancy Review has gone on longer than I expected it would. What started as a way to practice writing daily whilst chronicling my job search became a way to monitor my own feelings as I returned to work after my initial redundancy, tracing the highs, the lows, and every single rapid inversion of my own mental state in near real time for a good part of 2025… less so in 2026, which you know, could count as its own reflection of 2026 because whilst this year has held plenty of positives, there has been so many negatives as well – on both a personal level and a “I cannot control this shit but it still makes me depressed” level.

    Additionally, this current period of unemployment has gone on longer than I initially expected, currently cresting above the three month mark, although with the state of the job market it is a superposition of:

    • A long period of time for someone who has been able to get interviews but has not had any success yet
    • Not that long at all considering some people will spend an average of six months searching with some searches going into the year plus mark if they even get lucky after that

    The fact I am able to get interviews, especially for roles that are outside of my current wheelhouse, helps reassure me that I am capable of working still, and the most common bit of feedback I receive being that I come off well with an eagerness to learn, but someone else has more experience in the specific area I was interviewing for and would make a better fit… which usually means an internal candidate but there is only so much bitterness I can hold over that before it would outright consume my soul.

    What has gone on far longer than I could have ever expected though?

    Me.

    There is some solace I take in looking back at how I was in previous years, and whilst I clearly see the loss of potential there was in my past, I feel a certain comfort in seeing my past self talk about how long she anticipates to be in a point in her life, with the result usually being that the road keeps on stretching out longer than I could have ever imagined, and that whatever I worry about in the short-term usually ends up working out in the long-term.

    I am still probably going to worry about where I will be three months from now, as I continue to apply for jobs and wonder if this next interview will finally be the one to free me from the crippling uncertainty that comes with waking up each day.

    But I will always try to move forward. Even when the world feels against me, even when nothing seems to go my way, and even when all hope feels lost.

    I keep going. Best I can do some days.

    Right, time to scroll through my camera roll and see what is in my backlog that is worthy of a review…

    …yeah that will do.

    A tradition my partner and I have kept up even during this unusual time for us is taking a trip on the train every Friday to go to a local town to go shopping for a bit, usually going to Asda to get custom pizzas from the counter there because our local one is usually never open and the quality being far below when it actually is open.

    It seems silly to put on paper, but “Pizza Friday” has been something he and I have tried to do consistently for the four years we have been together, and getting to continue experiencing it together even during rougher moments is a light that keeps me going.

    Although… the review today is not going to be about the pizza, it is about the preamble to getting the pizza, as there is a lovely coffee shop in extremely close proximity to where we end up called Coffee #1, a small chain of shops (albeit owned by the same group that owns Caffè Nero in the UK) which offers one of the best professionally-made mochas I have ever tasted, alongside a good selection of savoury and sweet delights.

    My usual go-to as part of these excursions is a three piece selection: a large mocha, a ham and cheese toastie, and a piece of rocky road. Together this comes to an admittedly steep amount of £13 exactly, which would not be far above other chains in terms of pricing, though definitely something I have slowed down on going all out in recent weeks.

    That said, the quality of each individual item is above and beyond what I would expect from any of the larger chains like Costa or Starbucks. 

    To start, the mocha is unbelievably creamy whilst still retaining a strong hit of coffee in each sip, and I want to give a random shoutout to how solid the mug feels to hold. Usually when it comes to coffee shops I find myself intensely disliking the tiny handles that usually come on mugs, whereas this is a solid handle to grab onto and sip as the caffeine takes hold.

    The ham and cheese toastie is the highlight for me though, as this simple staple often sets me up for the rest of the day, with the key difference being that it is not put into an industrial toaster oven like is the norm among other chains, but it placed into a ridged panini pressed, ensuring the cheesy top of the toastie is both melty and with a slight crisp alongside the inside being gooey and delicious.

    Finally, there are very few ways you can mess up a piece of rocky road… although my controversial opinion is adding cherries or raisins into it, whilst being the traditional route, is actually a surefire way to ruin what should be a decadently sweet treat. Tangents about the optimal road construction aside, this is a perfect piece of rocky road, having a good balance of biscuit, chocolate, and marshmallows. 

    Whilst a full spread like this is probably going to be cut back on for myself in the foreseeable future to help manage funds, it makes me happy that I was still able to indulge like this to help keep my spirits up in the darker times.

    I definitely think I am off track for my initial goal of 180 Redundancy Reviews this year, but I am still here, and I am still thankful for you reading this far. Wherever you are, I hope you are keeping yourself safe the best you can. The world continues to be an unusual and scary place to exist at times, especially when things change rapidly.

    I am still here, and you are still here. We should celebrate that.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 416-428, “Loss of Potential”

    Redundancy Review: Day 416-428, “Loss of Potential”

    (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 downers and bummers, welcome to Day 416 to 428 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    The struggle continues to be real. We are back to being in a heatwave in the UK, in addition to being in a “flash drought” due to how little rain we have been getting recently, which is both depressing and terrifying, the latter for the effects of climate change getting progressive worse over here, and the former because I feel sitting down and listening to the rain would help me a little bit.

    Outside of watching the world burn, it has been a struggle to write down my thoughts because everything feels negative right now. I definitely have some good days, but a lot of days recently have had aspects of my negative mind prevail. A particular highlight includes a night where my partner and I had a heart-to-heart about my current job situation, leading to me needing to vocalise something in order to get it out of my head.

    It came after my most recent unsuccessful interview, and I was talking about how it felt to be sitting across a panel of three people in my interview outfit – an outfit that makes me look as professional and presentable as can be – and one dark thought came into the back of my mind as I was answering questions:

    “Who in their right mind in this day and age wants to hire a transgender person?”

    Admittedly… the phrase my thought manifested was not “transgender person”, it was most definitely the T-slur. I am not proud of saying/thinking it, especially in reference to my own identity, but to try deny otherwise would be to deny the serious self-image problems I have been experiencing as part of this most recent layoff/job loss.

    I am still not really sure what to call it, cause in the end I was a contractor, someone who could have been let go extremely easily at any point so it is not really a “layoff”. With a fair bit of time having passed since the initial hit, I do appreciate the amount of heads up that I was given was extremely generous, especially in the current climate of layoffs.

    Layoff might just be the easier word to say? There is a lot of nuance around my current situation, ever since the initial redundancy that triggered this entire journey, which has left me reflecting on my entire career thus far which led to an… uncomfortable conclusion about each of my previous roles: none of them ever reached their true potential, and looking back on that all makes me feel an immense sadness.

    From my first day at Codemasters, I strived to make an impression and do my best work. I was looking back through previous messages to my partner where I recapped a performance evaluation I had with my platform lead at the time, where he had mentioned that “the higher-ups had definitely taken notice of me”, which eventually led to me assuming the “second-in-command” role for my team at the time, with the idea that I was being set up for advancement in the company.

    And then along came a certain video game publisher, who put a stop to any routes I could have taken, which put me on the virtual reality path after a year of working there… which is a good thing for me, considering almost everyone who stayed with the company got laid off sometime in 2023 due to QA being outsourced to another studio, meaning any potential I could have had would have been snuffed out anyway because of that.

    I still see friends and colleagues I had at the time on LinkedIn looking for something new, up to and including the former head of QA, a man who oversaw an incredible operation out of work for such a long period of time is a terrible sight, but it is terrible that everyone got put into that position to begin with.

    But I carried on my journey, and much like with Codemasters, I tried to do my best at Immerse. Making impressions, helping out where I could, which put me on the radar of the executive producer who took me under her wing and helped to mentor me, both in the ways of production but also helping me to mature into a better person, one who could tackle any sorts of problems. I am still thankful to her for all that she did for me.

    I once again had potential, and even though I did not know it, the executive producer had put me on a path that would have led to becoming a fully fledged producer in my own right, working under a new head producer and finding my own rhythm and standing on my own two feet…

    …well the last 428 days have shown things very differently, as the insolvency process at Immerse put a stop to that potential, and it has never really been explored since because of the move I took for my contracting role as a matter of survival.

    Even that ended with my potential being snuffed out once more, leaving me in this current situation of watching, waiting, and wondering what comes next.

    If I am fully honest, I have put a pause on job searching for the time being. Summer feels like a bad time to find something new because most people are going to be on holiday, but also, part of me wants to go to Vexpo and treat that as a full reset.

    Spend the weekend partying, going to concerts, and just embracing my nerd side, before throwing myself fully into the numbers game that is trying to find a job in 2026. Who knows, maybe I will actually find someone there who could find me something to work on for the future – though the main priority is relaxation.

    It has been a while since I have posted anything on Wednesday, but I have not forgotten that we have Warhammer Wednesday around here. Although, I will not be discussing my model building escapades today… if just because I have not had the headspace to build for a while currently.

    Instead, I am going to be talking about my favourite chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, more commonly known as Space Marines – the Salamanders. Specifically through the lens of my current character on Space Marine 2, an Assault Marine.

    I have been having an absolute blast playing through the Operations and Siege modes on Space Marine 2, Player-vs-Environment missions which see you facing off against the Tyranid hordes or the legion of Chaos known as the Thousand Sons, fighting your way through infantry chaff, battlefield commanders, and the toughest elite units each faction can throw at you. 

    Assault Marines go into battle wearing a massive jump pack upon their back, allowing them to elevate themselves above the battlefield before crashing back down to earth like a meteor, soon turning into a flurry of blows against the enemy, armed with a potent melee weapon and a pistol to ensure maximum tactical flexibility when knee-deep in traitor flesh and xenos miasma.

    My current two weapons of choice are the Neo-Volkite Pistol, a concentrated beam weapon that does small tick damage on any enemy it hits whilst building up heat to culminate in a damaging explosion that can be modified to transfer heat to surrounding enemies if desired, and the standard bread-and-butter Power Sword, a versatile melee weapon that can be switched between “Power” and “Speed” style to change tactics against all sorts of enemies, whilst also serving as a potent dueling tool for heavier enemies.

    It carries a massive amount of danger, to go hurtling down towards massive groups of enemies, knowing that even if you do massive amounts of damage that stronger units will survive and you will have to fight them off, but I usually have my partner providing long range support as a sniper.

    So, why did I pick the Salamanders chapter?

    Ever since starting the game with my Assault on Black Reach starter set, I have been fascinated by the chapter, leading to me picking up the Tome of Fire trilogy and learning more about these noble warriors of the Imperium of Man.

    There are very few objective “good guys” in the world of Warhammer 40k, but the Salamanders definitely qualify under some measures. They take the safety of the general citizenry extremely seriously, often putting themselves in harm’s way so civilians can make it out alive.

    This does not mean they are soft however. They will fight with ferocious fire to defend what is right, and do not take kindly to those who would desert their posts to save their own skin rather than fighting to the end to defend the Imperium from harm.

    Also, I really like salamanders as an animal, so I would have an inclination to like a chapter named after them.

    I think that will cover everything for today, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are doing well in these crazy times, and I hope that in some small way, my writing has helped you out, even if just to provide a small distraction.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 379-415, “Weltschmerz”

    Redundancy Review: Day 379-415, “Weltschmerz”

    (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 weary and wounded, welcome to another big catchup post for Days 379 to 415 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    It has been about a month since I have written anything at all, so I think the best approach is to run through what has been occupying my mind for that period of time:

    Several back-to-back heatwaves in the UK making it very hard to focus on the stuff I would normally enjoy and putting more of a focus on surviving through borderline extreme temperatures within my flat – seriously, some rooms reached between 33 and 35 degrees inside alongside high levels of humidity even with a dehumidifier running.

    I struggle with high temperatures, leading to scenarios where all I could really do was flop on the sofa in front of my, admittedly very nice, fan and play something mindless like Umamusume.

    In general I have been prioritising trying to take things slow and explore my options at my own pace… though admittedly part of that is down to sheer trauma more than anything else. There was a certain amount of pain that came from thinking about my current career situation and to some extent it broke my brain to the degree that one week all I could really do each day was cry and worry about the future.

    At both my previous workplaces, I feel that my potential was never fully able to be explored. Either through corporate bureaucracy taking hold which gimped my progression options when it came to my role with EA Codemasters, or through company financials forcing insolvency or my role simply not being required for the greater survival of the company.

    No matter what, none of these factors were within my control for career growth being limited, but it still leads me to have an ultimately negative perspective, especially when looking at the current job market in 2026.

    I know I still have a lot to give and to learn in my main field of QA, I know if I applied myself I would be able to continue growing myself as a producer or project manager, and I know that I have plenty of transferable skills thanks to my time in the tech industry.

    But I am scared of applying myself because of my past experiences, and even recently when I actually secured an interview for an apprenticeship position in food safety, an entry-level position that would be learning on the job in a way that I could utilise my insane eye for detail for benefitting the local area where I live…

    …only to get a rejection saying they went with an internal candidate who had more experience.

    That was insanely demoralising in a way that I am still feeling the effects of almost a week later, leading to me developing something similar to what I have used as the title of this review.

    Weltschmerz, a German word that translates literally to “world-pain”: a deep sadness of the insufficiency of the world. I log onto LinkedIn, and whilst I can see many people getting their bag in an extremely difficult market which gives me sparks of hope, I see just as many people talking about being caught up in layoffs and restructuring, joining ranks with people who have been on the search for a year or more. I scroll social media, and I see news stories of the world on fire, of people suffering, all the while political corruption is rife.

    When presented with this all, while trying to navigate my own difficult situation, it almost feels natural to shut down to some degree. I know a lot of the world’s problems are ultimately out of my control, and that focusing on them over my own situation is not helpful.

    But it makes it somewhat harder to plan for the future when I have no idea what that future looks like.

    All I can say for sure is that I will try to be here. Trying to write about my perspectives as one person in the middle of all this mess, navigating a world I feel increasingly unsure of, and trying to find a new way to survive.

    In a weird way, history repeats itself. As a teenager I was very unsure of myself in a similar way, and considering I always make the joke that my “trans age” is around the teen years due to COVID aging everyone ten years, the situation I find myself in as an adult has parallels to what I went through back then – the same thing rings true for both of them those times though:

    Only I can get myself out of this situation, and I have to move forward even if I feel scared.

    Does this mean I might have any semblance of a schedule going forward? We shall have to see.

    I think for the review segment I am going to do a short ramble about the most recent trainee I pulled for on Umamusme a couple months back, the pride of Edo: Inari One.

    Inari One was a trainee I was absolutely hyped to pull for. After watching the final episode of Cinderella Grey with my partner near the end of last year and having Inari One teased as the next main threat to Oguri Cap, with some insane demonic visuals accompanying her – not to mention some of the stills I have seen from the manga in regards to how she is portrayed.

    Obviously the manga/anime portrayal is going to be very different from in-game, but I was not prepared for how Inari One’s story was going to make me feel. A lot of individual Umamusume stories revolve around them overcoming some form of challenge, either physical or mental, over the course of their career. This can range from simple things like self-esteem, overcoming physical injury after a grueling race, or even going to helping an Umamusume work through an eating disorder developed through their circumstances growing up.

    Inari One falls somewhere into the former categories, with self-esteem and wanting to make her hometown proud being a focal point of her story, and a big reason as to why she pushes herself so hard.

    This all comes to a head in the career event “The Soul Behind a Festival’s Style”, taking place near to the end where Inari One is about to run the Arima Kinen – a very prestigious race in Japan’s racing calendar. Under some misdirection from the trainer, Inari One is taken back to her hometown, where everyone who has supported her since day one puts on a festival in her honour to remind her of why she is pursuing her goals.

    Initially, she does not take it well, telling everyone to stop the celebrations because she “flat out dropped the ball ‘cause I couldn’t shoulder the weight”, before going on to call herself “a lame-ass disappointment” with tears in her eyes.

    The event is stunned into silence, before everyone starts speaking in turn about how Inari One inspires them culminating in “Chief”, Inari’s trainer from before she came to Tracen Academy reassuring her that no one sees her that way, and that they are all proud of her for what she has accomplished, no matter what she might think of herself.

    Chief asks her to take all that weight off her shoulders, leading to the floodgates breaking and Inari One letting out all those emotions that had been building up over the course of the career, crying in the middle of the festival whilst everyone lets her process these emotions on her own.

    This scene culminated the emotional impact on me, and turned Inari One from someone I was curious about because of the anime into one of my favourite Umamusume, to the point I have used her in some of the competitive “Champions Meet” race modes even when she might not have been fully ideal.

    As someone who struggles with self-esteem and the way others see me because of my personal situation, seeing someone be reassured by their community that the work they are putting in is enough really hit home the first time… and then hit even harder today as I was grabbing the screenies to back up these points because holy shit relatability bomb right on top of my head.

    I very rarely put money into Umamusume, having only bought the selector vouchers during the first-year anniversary, outside of that I mainly scrimp and save carats over the course of months to be able to afford the level of pulls required to get a guaranteed chance of securing a trainee.

    But for Inari One, I managed to pull her three times in the gacha alongside getting to the pity pull, letting me upgrade her to four stars almost instantly. In a way, it might have been fated for me to pull someone so relatable to some of my current situation, just because I was curious about her story.

    The relatability of characters in stories can be surprising sometimes, and I hope one day I can once more find my stride to bring my own characters to life.

    In the meantime, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are keeping safe in the weird world we find ourselves in. If you are like me and also suffering from Weltschmerz, know you are not alone and that even when things feel bleak, we still have each other through all the pain and chaos.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 366, “Continuing as I mean to go on”

    (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 developers and promoters, welcome to Day 366 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    With the one year anniversary out of the way, things can continue rolling on – even if I am starting this way later in the day than I would usually do due to sleepiness, appointments, and social time with a good friend of mine.

    Speaking of continuing things, no matter how much writing advice is “oh do not use rule of three now cause that is an AI indicator”, I am going to keep using rule of three. Those chatbots are trained on data from writers all over the world, we had rule of three first, I am going to keep using it because I like the cadence of it and the clankers can take it from my cold, dead, and clammy hands.

    Plus I honour the Oxford comma, which surprisingly is not a feature of some AI writing. I once even had to point that out to the CEO of my previous company when looking at some social posts he had done for promotion and I could clearly tell it was done with AI.

    I should not chat too much shit about my previous work, as I did leave on good terms, but the prevalence of how AI was used on a daily basis did get to me a little bit as someone who dislikes GenAI entirely, from chatbots listening in on meetings to generate barely usable notes to another bot who translated tickets for the “agents” to pick up and execute.

    Probably a bit bold to say, but if I could find a job where I never have to hear the words “agentic” ever again, I would be extremely happy. Same goes for buzzwords like “ARR”, “grinding”, and whilst not a buzzword, “LinkedIn” is definitely up there as well.

    Can “deleting my LinkedIn” be considered a career goal? Getting to the point in my life where I would be able to never have to open professional Facebook ever again seems like a pipe dream, but one I would love to fulfill.

    I spent yesterday talking about how I am bad at networking, and then immediately started talking shit about the main networking platform for the tech industry. 

    For all the fluff that fills the Redundancy Review, I think my love-hate relationship with the tech industry is clear throughout the past year worth of articles. It has most definitely helped enable me to live my life up to now, and given me opportunities I would have never dreamed of… but at the same time I feel a need to recover from working five years in it and want nothing more than to escape to something more stable, if a little boring.

    …opening a cafe would not be stable, or boring, but it still speaks to me like a Green Goblin mask every so often…

    Well, until the day that I succumb to my intrusive desires to own a cafe, food reviews will have to do.

    And I am not doing a grand title of “Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!” because, quite frankly, reviewing food from Wetherspoons does not deserve that title, as much of a guilty pleasure as that place is to me.

    On Monday I hung out with a friend of mine to help them write a cover letter for a job application. We were initially thinking of going to a different place to sit, drink, and write, but it was closed for a staff party, so we ended up in Spoons instead.

    Which ultimately turned out to not be a massive problem due to the weekday “Club” offers that Wetherspoons put on, with Monday Club being a deal on the small plates they offer, being three for £10 rather than three for £14.99.

    I remember when that was the normal price, in the pre-COVID era. It actually used to be my preferred way of eating at the monthly nerd meetups I attended pre-COVID as it was a damn good deal for a university student and filled me up nicely, with an infinite refills coffee serving the rest of my needs nicely if at the cost of my sleep later on in the evening.

    Food from Wetherspoons is never going to be gourmet. It is not even really going to be massively flavourful. What it will do is fill you up for a cheap price with some weird comfort that comes from the lower quality.

    That said, the pizzas are usually some of the freshest things on the menu, and eight-inch variants are included in the small plates deal, so I had to get my usual of the Spicy Meat Feast. But I wanted something more, so I also included some chicken strips in the mix, which I then placed onto the pizza and rolled up to create the horrifying creation of the Spicy Meat Feast Pizza Chicken Strip wrap.

    And finally, came Wetherspoons “loaded chips”, the most basic chips in the world, haphazardly topped with melted cheese and bacon, served with a sour cream dip.

    Are these one of the easiest things to replicate at home? Yes.

    Is this somehow also a comfort meal for me? Yes.

    Probably cause it was the small plate I always ordered the most at my nerd meetups, there is something marvelously comforting about the simplicity of the plate, especially when you get a bite with all elements on it, it brings me back to a simpler time when all I had to worry about was the crushing weight of expectation at university rather than the crushing weight of surviving in the adult world.

    On that cheery note, thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are doing well. The week is almost over, and the weekend shall be upon us soon. My plans are very minimal, but I intend to take the time to relax all the same.

    I hope you can too.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 361-364, “Independent and Resilient”

    Redundancy Review: Day 361-364, “Independent and Resilient”

    (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 momos and roaches, welcome to Day 361 to 364 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Took time away from writing over the weekend, mainly cause I ended up being so damn sleepy after eating way too much both on the Friday and somehow the Saturday, leading to hermitting a fair bit outside of delivering some bread to a friend who was visiting town.

    But, considering tomorrow marks quite possibly the biggest milestone the Redundancy Review will hit – a year since starting – need to be back on track in order to hit that.

    It feels weird to consider that the most life-altering event that has happened to me is almost a year past now, having the company I gave three years to go under seemingly out of nowhere, leading me to navigate joblessness for the first time in four years, encompassing applying for redundancy payouts, going through nonsense at the Jobcentre (a place devoid of soul and emotion), and applying to all different sorts of roles across communications, admin, and my main area of expertise, quality assurance.

    Outside of the redundancy payments, the rest of the ventures did not have much success. I have talked previously how much I despise the UK benefits system, and this opinion has not changed over time, with me very much not looking forward to when I eventually have to go back into that system to play along with their demands to get a meagre amount of money to go towards bills and small morale boosts along the way.

    Though honestly, I am a long way off needing to play the Jobcentre game, both because I currently have too much saved for them to even consider helping me out, and with the way my final paycheck worked out I will not even be eligible to say I am out of paid work until July – which by that point, who knows what could have happened?

    What I wrote above comes off as fairly pessimistic, and well, being honest, I do feel rather pessimistic right now. In addition to sleepiness over the weekend, I ended up having a lot of negative feelings in relation to being unemployed, even going so far as to cry heavily into my pillow some nights because the loss of my professional identity ended up hitting way too hard.

    I cannot recall how much I have used that phrase in previous reviews since losing my job again, but that is probably the most succinct way of describing how I feel.

    The way I was conducting myself professionally was not really healthy for me. I was burning out hard, losing passion for the work I did, and coping through seriously unhealthy ways – but at the same time, to not have that in my life anymore leaves me extremely listless in a way that feels particularly oxymoronic. 

    It is painful.

    It is confusing.

    It makes me doubt my every move.

    And that is why I need to keep writing.

    Even when I do not feel like it.

    Even when the world feels painful.

    Even when what I have to say is negative and borderline vitriolic in some ways.

    Because I do not want to fade away… and if it were not for my writing, all of this would stay stuck inside me.

    I will make it through, no matter the pain, no matter the pessimism, no matter the cost. 

    It feels weird to try segue into a VTuesday segment after talking about such pessimism, but considering the individual I want to discuss today, I think it all fits.

    The title of this review is “Independent and Resilient”, which is the alignment of my independent VTuber kamioshi of Matara Kan, a beautiful giant roach woman whose perseverance has inspired me greatly.

    Formerly of the agency VShojo, which crashed and burned extremely hard just under a year ago, Matara has now been continuing to carve her own path as a fully independent VTuber. She was even a guest at Vexpo last year, taking part in both the opening concert and a Meet & Greet, both of which I had the absolute honour of attending.

    I mentioned it briefly in my Vexpo rundown, but it is worth re-emphasising that I got absolutely stunlocked by Matara as I went into the booth for my Meet & Greet with her. I had my questions in mind, I was ready to talk to her about different topics, I was a confident person who, whilst a little socially awkward, would be able to talk to a VTuber she absolutely loved.

    “Ooo, you’re stylish~”
    “Rosa? That’s a gorgeous name.”

    Ueigrhauairhgetiow4jrgutorhgier09ghonvjer09withugbnoq4rphjgb4508gh9ndsght0j

    Brain? Gone. Words? Fumbled. Feelings of flattery? Off the fucking charts.

    I still managed to ask my questions, but in part due to my brain going haywire and the convention noise spilling in a little bit, I do not think I fully processed what she was saying back to me.

    So I just ended up gushing.

    Loving her resilience. The ability to carry on in the face of hardship. I did not explicitly mention to her about losing my job, but I think I mentioned having my own hardships and being inspired by her carrying on.

    It was not even two minutes I got to spend chatting with her, as when it came time for the attendant to politely signal that I should wrap up whatever I was saying, I said my thank yous and asked for a photo with her.

    This is still a cherished memory.

    And I recently got around to finally framing the penplotter gift that came with that Meet & Greet, taking its spot in my, slowly forming, VTuber art and merch tessellation on the old fireplace wall in my flat.

    Independent and resilient… I will embody those words as best as I can going forward. Even when the days feel dark, I want to try hold myself strong in the face of uncertainty.

    I just hope this is not empty fluff I am using to hype myself up.

    Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are doing okay. Things feel tough right now, and if you are struggling against it all right now, I hope you find the strength to win your battles.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 360, “Not a Teenager Anymore”

    Redundancy Review: Day 360, “Not a Teenager Anymore”

    (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 valedictorians and salutatorians, welcome to Day 360 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    The initial concept for today’s piece was going to be a quick-fire review of each plate I had at the buffet I went to today, just going through one after another especially considering I have spent the full day outside going on a date with my partner.

    But inspiration hit me partway through eating at the buffet for a reflective ramble, and I want to see how far I can run with it.

    I was thinking about my previous record number of plates I have ever eaten at a buffet, which stands at a lofty six plus a plate of desserts, which I set when I was around eighteen or nineteen – it was definitely a pre-university event at the very least and I started my undergrad work at nineteen.

    Even today I consider myself a big eater, but my teenage appetite was something else, even if that appetite manifested as my eyes being bigger than my stomach more often than not. I would see the biggest plates on menus at pubs and go “that please”, I saw buffets as a way to challenge my previous record rather than ways to experience new dishes, and I indulged in junk food way too often, eventually leading to my weight struggles of today.

    The times of being a big eater as a teenager were not without consequence though. There are at least two hands worth of incidents where I would go out with family or on my own, eat far too much, and then immediately upon getting home my body would give me the signal that I had severely fucked up and was about to pay a dire price.

    Although I have to admit, having that number of incidents under my belt has taught me when to stop, and knowing when not to keep eating at risk of ruining a delicious meal by piling too much on top.

    Which definitely came into play today, as I blasted through plates one, two, and three. Upon starting plate four I quickly realised I was coming close to fucking up again, only really stopping myself properly when my partner told me to.

    I am not going to say that I am “getting old”, I would have particular friends jump down my neck for saying that. But it is time like these that I reflect on how tenacious and resilient I was as a teenager with the feats I was able to accomplish.

    Past Rosa is not a good person, and I am very glad I am not her anymore, though I have to be thankful for what she achieved. Windmilling seven plates at a buffet only to go home and be able to jam Binding of Isaac till three in the morning to unlock some of the hardest achievements in the base game at the time.

    I hope if she knew where she ended up, she would look at me with fondness.

    Anyway, back on track to actually talk about the plates I had at the buffet. The place is called “Umami: World Kitchen”, and me and my partner decided to go there today as a treat after having a day of shopping and watching The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act in cinemas (the review of that will come after the episode drops on Youtube – I may be a small creator, but I am not violating the request to withhold spoilers until its out). The price is £21.99 plus £4.75 for a bottomless refills soft drink, for two people plus a 3% service charge came to £53.75 overall, which is on the higher end for a night out, but considering the offerings available, I thought it was great.

    Plus part of the fun of buffets is seeing what food crime combinations you can create with each passing plate, with my first one being a bizarre combination of:

    • Pepperoni pizza
    • Mac and cheese
    • Garlic bread
    • Tandoori chicken

    And yes, I did use my pizza crust to mop up the leftover tandoori marinade on my plate, it was strangely delicious as a combo. Though, after putting my plate together I did realise my mistake of loading on the carbs early as opposed to trying out more vegetable and protein based offerings to ensure more room in the stomach…

    …so I said “fuck it” and just decided to keep going down the route of carbs just to see how much I could, following up plate one with a second plate filled to the brim with offerings from the nacho station:

    • Tortilla chips
    • Cheese sauce
    • Sour cream
    • Salsa
    • Jalapeños

    Nachos in general are something I love to have at restaurants. Neon yellow cheese sauce hits different in a restaurant and I do not want to pretend otherwise, plus the sour cream was thick as all hell rather than being runny, which made it perfect to dollop on top of the tortilla chips.

    Plate three came next, going with a decidedly American-style offering:

    • Double beef burger, with ketchup and mayo
    • Chips
    • Onion rings
    • Chicken nuggets
    • Buffalo chicken wings

    It felt a little weird that I could not see any cheese on offer for the burgers, but considering I had already gone a bit hog wild on this plate and previous ones, it was not too much of a miss. Buffalo wings were a bit… meh, not really sauced, or fried, or anything that makes a Buffalo wing a Buffalo wing honestly, though when it comes to buffets, I tend not to have too high a standard as I know I am paying for quantity more than anything else.

    Plate four came along, and considering the fact the list looks like this:

    • Stir-fried rice noodles
    • Sweet and sour chicken
    • Salt and pepper squid rings

    My appetite was definitely satiated and my overload of carbs finally started to catch up with me. I was barely able to finish this one, partially due to fullness, partially due to the sweet and sour tasting not all that great, when I finally rang the bell on the savoury.

    Not on desserts though, I was not about to leave without tasting some variety of sweet treats, with the plate including two pieces of vanilla cheesecake, two pieces of chocolate fudge cake, a piece of Eton Mess cake, and a soft serve ice cream cone that was split between myself and my partner.

    Overall, I think I did a respectable effort. Four-ish plates plus a shared dessert plate is an admirable achievement considering all I had eaten in the day before this point was a piece of rocky road, a few slices of chorizo, and a can of energy drink…

    …y’know, writing that down might not help the case that I have grown out of being a teenager. Oh well, I still strive for constant growth, meaning I will be constantly making poor decisions until I train myself into making the right ones.

    Bit of a weird ramble, some reflection, and a lot of food. Regardless, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you can enjoy the weekend. Take some time for yourself, and just let the world pass you by – things are chaotic and hectic enough as is.

    Some quiet time always does the mind good.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 359, “Walking”

    (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 striders and strollers, welcome to Day 359 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Today is a day where I feel very stiff and sore, primarily due to all the walking I have been doing for the last couple weeks. As someone who lives in a very walkable town, most of my errands are conducted with me walking all over the place to get what I need. 

    Though, my affinity for walking comes down to both enjoying the ability to take in the sights, sounds, and smells… alongside the fact I am a cheap bastard where if my options are to take a bus for fifteen minutes or to walk for forty minutes, I will inevitably pick the option that does not involve spending a small amount of money and instead put my legs to work.

    This came into full effect whenever I needed to take a trip to London for something related to work, where I would usually enter in from Victoria Coach Station and need to navigate to a more central part of the city such as Euston or Kensington.

    Most normal people would walk the short distance to Victoria Tube Station and take a Victoria Line train that would take approximately seven minutes to whisk them away to their destination.

    Me, on the other hand, who is both cheap and despises going on the London Underground with all my soul, will invariably decide that the almost hour long walk (or in real terms, anywhere between one-and-half to two miles) is the better idea, however bad it might fuck up my feet, my joints, or in the case of doing this exact thing in the summertime, my overall disposition and appearance when the sweat inevitably kicks in.

    However much I complain about the pain my legs and feet are in though, I do not think I want to change how I operate in the slightest.

    First off, I recognise the fact I am able to walk these long distances with only avoidable pain to show for it is an absolute blessing. Being able-bodied (if severely lazy) is something I do not take for granted and am thankful for every time I am able to breathe deep and pound the pavement to my destination.

    Secondly, and this definitely applies more to when I take this approach to navigating around a city, but there is so much to organically discover when walking around a new location. This especially applies to whenever I would walk around London as part of a work trip, as my usual plan was to commute in via coach/train very early in the morning – both to avoid normal rush hour traffic and because there was no value in me working for an hour in the morning to then spend most of my time travelling anyway – and do my best to navigate to where I needed to be using only tourist maps, seeing what places I could see as I made my way to the meeting venue.

    I also incorporate “getting lost” time into my schedule whenever I have to walk somewhere new, with the planning stage me being looking up how long the walk will take on Google Maps, subtracting about five-to-ten minutes to account for my naturally faster walking speed… and then adding on half an hour to take into consideration the fact I will get distracted and will find a place that catches my eye so I have to spend a short while browsing in there.

    This especially came to fruition when my partner and I visited Manchester on Good Friday for him to have an initial consultation with a dress maker, they had a lot of clients before us so asked us to leave a phone number and they would call us back when they were ready.

    Main benefit for me was that this dressmaker was based in a part of Manchester I had never been to before, so we were able to kill an hour or two by letting my instincts guide me around the city whilst I went “ooo look at that thing” and “hey I wanna go in here”, finding new places to discover and seeing how chain shops in a big city compared to the same I had back home.

    Of course by the time we returned to the dress maker my feet were absolutely shredded and all I wanted to do was sit on the floor for a little bit to let myself recover… and even then my legs felt like they were out of action for the entire weekend afterwards, but again, I recognise all my pain is self-inflicted.

    It is a worthy payoff though, cause I feel my legs are my best aspect – both in how strong they are when I actually put my mind to using them, and how fucking shapely they are because of how much I walk, naturally toning them as I go and making them look fantastic in leggings.

    Now if only I were not a glutton, then I might be able to trim my waistline down just on virtue of how much I roam.

    Think I will be grabbing something from the backlogs for today’s review, partially because I had an Umamusume idea to tie into glutton and legs cause they run, but I ended up getting too distracted and not taking the required screenshots or having the brain power to explain one of my favourite characters.

    So instead, I will be talking about a simple burger and chips I ordered from a small local cafe, about a thirty minute walk from my place: The Tasty Table

    This cost me £9.50, extremely cheap in terms of food, but there are no frills here. No Aberdeen Angus or Wagyu beef, no brioche or sourdough buns, and no triple-cooked duck fat chips. This is a catering style burger patty, with a slice of plastic cheese, served in a floury bap. Add in a bit of mayo for moisture, and you have the perfect brunch as part of a walk to go mattress shopping.

    Whilst it does not look impressive, and I have certainly eaten more flavourful burgers, it is important to partake in the simpler things in life, both to remember how good things can be, and to never forget where you came from. Simple burgers from small cafes are a particular pleasure of mine – I even have a pipe dream of opening my own cafe one day – and I will always savour the most basic ass burgers I can find.

    More of a story focused review today than an actual review, but I am still proud of it. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are doing well. Friday is upon us soon, and for me it is going to be a busy day, but I hopefully have a good idea to try make a good review out of it all.

    We shall see how things go.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 334-336, “Mission Statement”

    Redundancy Review: Day 334-336, “Mission Statement”

    (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 C-Suites and executives, welcome to Day 334-336 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Going to be another career focused ramble today, though one that hopefully ends off with a more positive message around my own work than anything else. 

    It feels easy to create career-focused articles right now because of how much is going on in my head surrounding my current career. Whilst there is a prevailing desire to leave behind startup culture with a greater motive of leaving the tech industry entirely, I cannot deny that the prospect of transitioning away from a five year career feels somewhat daunting – especially when that entire time has been spent within the corporate yoke.

    The problem in my mind is that I am far too good at existing in a system that I do not want to be a part of. This especially hits home when I reflect upon my own self and how people such as myself often struggle to meld within these spaces whilst maintaining the expectations of others.

    Or to drop the formal business speak: how the fuck has my trans and neurodivergent arse survived in this world for so long?

    In all honesty, the answer is most definitely privilege, in that my career thus far has been surrounded by people who either understood where I was coming from – my line manager’s last message to me at Codemasters was “I hope you become the person you want to be” – or had a natural curiosity about my situation and wanted to learn more from the source rather than making assumptions based on whatever the media is saying.

    Side note, if on the off chance you are somehow reading this: I am definitely the person I want to be Pete, and I hope the crazy world of EA has not swept you up too hard like it has done to so many of my other colleagues.

    People understood that my brain was likely going to cannibalise itself every so often, and when I brought up my concerns to the people responsible for managing me the response was usually:

    “Wow, that sucks. You’re still doing good work though so try not to stress too much.”

    Which does track. I will have moments where everything sucks and my mind is eating itself alive, but I still try to deliver. I guess allowing myself to have schedule slippages on the Redundancy Review now is a sign that I am being a bit kinder in terms of how I treat my work…

    …not a massive fan of the wording there, which is strange to say cause I wrote it, but I am not “allowing myself” to have breaks. The Redundancy Review is a reflection of who I am as a person, breaks in the schedule of the so-called “daily series” reflect how I am feeling in the current situation I find myself in, having lost two jobs within the span of a year.

    This leads nicely into what the title is about. One of the main things you come across when applying to corporate jobs is when you start doing your research on the company you want to join, which invariably leads you to a “mission statement” or “core values” page.

    Borrowed from my old haunt of EA

    They usually are one word titles followed by a brief summation of what it means to the company, and it is one of the easiest wins you can find in a job application or interview by being able to quote a company’s values back at them as it shows you took the time to learn about the foundation of the company.

    Considering I want to work on this site as a proper artist in the wake of this latest layoff, whilst simultaneously showing that even though I have made a public declaration to leave the industry, I still have the wherewithal to reinsert myself back into the corporate if needed: I am going to write a mission statement for Rosalia Rambles today.

    Rosalia Rambles is the personal brainchild of one Rosalia Butler, an introverted and slightly neurotic writer from the UK. Her headline series is the “Redundancy Review”, an (almost) daily series which covers her adventures navigating joblessness whilst also providing an outlet for her to gush about nerdy things. In addition to this, she is a passionate fiction writer with the ability to adapt to any genre and an underlying talent to try to make any piece of fiction trans allegory. 

    Going forward, she wishes to adopt the following values into her work:

    Humanity – The focus of the Redundancy Review is the human behind the screen. This means there will be no Generative Artificial Intelligence content hosted on this website, as to do so would be to sacrifice the integrity of the site as a whole. 

    Expression – Art is a reflection of the soul. Whilst there will be nuances in how certain topics are presented to maintain professionalism, ultimately this site is meant to be an expression of my true self. This means a decent amount of swearing, an unabashed joy in how I present myself as a trans woman, and very few filtered thoughts unless the situation calls for calm.

    Messiness – Humans are messy creatures, and any articles or stories will reflect that messiness by presenting an unfiltered view into the soul of an artist. I will make mistakes, I will not filter feelings, and I certainly will forget to correctly place images in the future. Mistakes are what remind us we are human: we make them, we fix them, we learn from them.

    Kindness – To borrow the guiding principle from my mentor: “Everyone shits. And how we deal with that is how we move forward as people.” I shit, the people behind topics I review shit, everyone shits. What matters is how we navigate the fact that everyone shits, with the overriding value of kindness above all else.

    Legacy – “Life isn’t just about passing on your genes. We can leave behind much more than just DNA. Through speech, music, literature and movies… what we’ve seen, heard, felt… anger, joy and sorrow… these are the things I will pass on. That’s what I live for. We need to pass the torch, and let our children read our messy and sad history by its light. We have all the magic of the digital age to do that with.” 

    …yeah that last is ripped verbatim from the ending of Metal Gear Solid 2, but considering I am a card-carrying member of the Cult of Kojima, I have no shame in applying some of his fantastic writing skills to my own work.

    In a sillier world I would add “VTubers” as a core value, but that is what we have VTuesday for.

    Raora Panthera falls into the same category as Nerissa Ravencroft to me, in that a new generation of Hololive talent debuts and there will be one or two members I am instinctively drawn to, but the remaining members end up standing out to me in their own ways.

    Specifically, what drew me in with Raora was twofold:

    • Her amazing Youtube shorts that either played around with her lore as a member of Justice, or just her explaining how to make various Italian dishes
    • Her streams of Monster Hunter World, which became frequent background noise during my work hours whenever she streamed it

    The latter in particular was very good at making me a fan, as I gelled with her personality very easily and I became familiar with her more nerdy side over time.

    Today’s review is about her second original song, “Draw.”, and I think it is a good example of being able to engage with art even if you do not fully understand it.

    Case in point, this song is in majority Japanese with no English subtitles available, and only a few English lyrics to go off to try to discern the meaning.

    Despite that, I consider this a beautiful piece of art about the nature of creation, and how art that comes from the soul is made with the purest colours.

    “All the pieces I picked up
    Unraveled within my own chest
    “It’s okay,” I whisper softly
    Saying it back to myself”

    To me, this English verse refers to the nature of an artist drawing inspiration from the world around them and using their heart and instinct to make sense of it all, reassuring yourself that art created from your own external stimuli is valid, especially if you use it to help you process the things you see.

    “All the colors I held back
    Start to gather in the hush
    “It’s all right,” the first light tells me
    Sending warmth into my heart”

    This verse refers to the artistic side struggling to express itself in the way it wants to. Colours in art can mean multiple different things, and can bring about many different interpretations, and it is good to let those colours out as an expression of yourself, letting whatever artistic muses you may have influence what you put down on your medium of choice.

    The main English verse though is what made this song speak to me:

    “Draw it slow, draw it true.”

    Art is an inherently slow process. It can take months, sometimes years, even decades for a work to reach its true completion, what matters is that the end result is true to the mind behind the work. Speed does not matter when creating works of art that reflect the nature of the soul, the key factor is that the end result rings true to the soul of the artist.

    “The effort you put forth to anything transcends yourself, for there is no futility even in death”

    Monty Oum

    Outside of the lyrics, the music video itself is gorgeous, reflecting what it means to be an artist with delightful visual references to programs, tools, and silly little doodles present throughout as well.

    I love the medium of VTubing, especially as VTubers from across the spectrum of corporate to indie all put in immense effort to their creative contributions to the world. I often use the phrase “digital puppetry” to describe VTubers to people who might not be familiar with the topic, but the medium itself goes far beyond such simplistic terms, as every VTuber is an artist in their own right, no matter what area of expertise they specialise in.

    A perfect blend of corporate speak and talking about the nature of being an artist, all the while affirming what I consider to be the “mission statement” of the Redundancy Review – this might be one of my best works yet.

    Thank you for reading today’s edition. Wherever you are, I hope the week is treating you well so far. The world continues to turn even if our bodies are catching up to that fact, and whatever we do this week, we can smash it.