Rosalia Rambles

Tag: life

Redundancy Review: Day 327-328, “Good for your soul”

(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 serfs and peasants, welcome to Day 327 and 328 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

Yeah, I missed a day again. Yesterday ended up being a bit slow and a bit sad, partially driven by a touch of FOMO from seeing so many pictures of people attending the Hololive English All for One screening in London.

There was a brief moment where I was considering going to that, but it ultimately ended up not being that financially viable once I considered travel, accommodation, and various miscellaneous purchases along the way – which in hindsight considering I am getting shitcanned at the end of the month, was a smart decision.

It still stings a little though, being on the outside looking in, seeing so many groups of cool people come together for a shared event made my heart feel simultaneously full and empty at the same time. I have Vexpo this year, but considering my funds are likely to have an asterisk hanging over them for the near future, it seems like that will be my only VTuber related excursion this year.

Which, to be blunt and selfish for a moment, really fucking sucks.

VExpo was a damn near life-changing event for me last year, getting to meet several people with a shared interest of mine alongside having the opportunity to meet several VTubers I looked up to and meet ones that I only recently discovered. My survival comes first unfortunately, so it means a good four months or so of rooting for awesome people on the outside.

In the meantime though, there is definitely going to be a lot I do within the comfort of my local area to help my soul to recover from the tech industry, which does include keeping up with VTuesday segments to show my love of the VTuber space in whatever way I can.

Additionally, it means putting my energy into things that might not influence profit margins or return-on-investment numbers, but will influence the world in a positive way, whether in the wider world or within my local spaces. I should hopefully have more social energy once things fully process from my mind, which means I can work on projects with friends or just be able to host social gatherings with a bit more spring in my step – I have wanted to host a cheese-based gathering for friends, and sitting around eating cured meat and cheese to celebrate the next phase of my life sounds like one hell of a good evening.

I guess it all boils down to processing, and everyone processes differently. In a way I have not had much processing time at all due to how hectic my life was balancing my career and keeping up with the schedule I wanted to. Thankful for being able to write the Redundancy Review as a way of debugging my mind bit by bit even when everything feels full and overwhelming.

Not sure how today’s review topic will go, but there is a certain joy in me talking about weirdly specific topics, and despite having played-

(it says “Install” cause I primarily play on Steam Deck, and this was taken on my laptop)

-this much Umamusume over the last five months, I have only talked about it once on the Redundancy Review, and I do not even think I did a good job on that one knowing what I know now.

Anyway, today’s review topic is the Pretty Derby Season 2 opening credits, set to the song “Yume wo Kakeru!”, or “Run for our Dream!” as it is labelled in the concert theatre in the game.

Side note, the concert theatre might be one of my favourite features within the game that I cannot help but get irrationally annoyed over because of how limited the pool of vocalists for some songs are – especially in the wake of some later seasons and series of the anime having characters sing those songs whilst they do not have the same track in-game.

I just want to have my oshi Oguri Cap sing all of the songs, is that so hard to fulfill?

Anyway, back on track.

Having now watched basically every single piece of Umamusume media since I first talked about the Miracle Run in Season 2, I can say that whilst it still holds an important place in my heart, I can concede that the later stories are way stronger in terms of writing and pacing.

That said, I will not concede that Yume no Kakeru is the best opening track in the series. There is just so much joy and energy in the singing that really embodies the feeling of this being a song to sing alongside your rivalry, wanting to try your best and push yourself beyond your limits.

In terms of visual elements… it is tough to consider. Personally, I think the Season 3 opening nails the slice-of-life aspects the best, as the daily lives of all of the students at Tracen are half the fun of the series, and the short visual gags in that opening bring a much bigger smile to my face now that I have the context of having played the game.

There are a lot of fun visual elements to the Season 2 opening as well, a few of my favourites including:

Mayano Top Gun in her prime position of sleeping through the entire season because the real-world horse was not active at the same time as Tokai Teio.

Team Rigil warming up and T.M. Opera O just… doing T.M. Opera O things instead of warming up.

And Twin Turbo proving her nature as the ultimate front runner by being so clear of the pack no one can try catch up to her. That little dot on the far right of the screen is her.

But my absolute favourite visual element of this opening comes right at the end, where young Kitasan Black and Satono Diamond are seen cheering for Teio and McQueen, and these two were the entire reason I decided to talk about this opening because I wanted to use them as the thumbnail picture.

These two appearing as the “Come on!” cheers play out in the song never fails to put a smile on my face from how absolutely adorable they look.

If you are at all curious about Umamusume, I definitely recommend it. I am not someone who typically enjoys sports anime but I found myself enamoured from the beginning which only escalated into an obsession after watching Season 2, and well, after I finished Cinderella Gray I ended up going against my better instincts and getting into a fucking gacha game.

I can definitely recommend getting into the anime over the game – I cannot in good conscience recommend people to get into the gacha game, as much as I will jokingly tease my friends to join my club.

The anime can be found on Crunchyroll and Tubi with the Road to the Top OVA being available on Youtube. I… do not really recommend getting it through Crunchyroll as I do not agree with their business practices, so explore other options to find the platform that works best for you.

That should cover everything for today. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you have had an easy day, if you are in the UK I hope you have enjoyed the bank holiday as well.

May 4, 2026
Redundancy Review: Day 326, “The Severn Theatre Diaries”
(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 anthropologists and ornithologists, welcome to Day 326 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

Upfront, I am running on god knows how little sleep right now, I was up till like gone five in the morning because of some regrettable beverage choices throughout the day, slept in until my partner returned home from his holiday, and then went out to do errands even though the correct play was to sleep some more.

The show must go on though… well it does not have to cause I am the showrunner and I can just decide to do my own thing but I want the show to go on, especially cause there is a fair amount to cover.

Usually when I put the word “diaries” into the title of a Redundancy Review it usually means I have gone travelling somewhere to partake in an event, like with the “Vexpo Diaries” or the “Albert Hall Diaries” from last year – side tangent, still stupid proud of of how the Vexpo piece turned out, was the longest thing I wrote last year and I still feel happy reading it back.

It feels weird though, to be writing a “diaries” style segment on… me being in my hometown of Shrewsbury for an event. There is not really much to discuss in terms of travel or any novel aspects I encountered in a new place because I spend a good majority of my time talking about places around town anyway. The title remains though, as yesterday was a wonderful night out, even if I was all by myself.

Context: parents had booked this show in Shrewsbury, not realising they had double booked with another show on the same date. They offered the Shrewsbury tickets to me, and I accepted, not really knowing what to expect.

With any good excursion to the theatre, it is important to eat well before it, and given I was flying solo for the night due to my partner being away visiting his parents, I decided to go out for a meal and treat myself.

But I had a conundrum, one that only a writer could have… in that I spent most of the day procrastinating and lazing about only to go “shit, I should write something”. This led me to seek out a place where I know I would not be judged for breaking out my laptop to have a drink and rapidly do some writing practice.

When it comes to places like that in Shrewsbury, only one place really comes to mind: Floro Lounge. A place which acts well as a third space in that you can just keep ordering drinks and reclining into a comfy chair without needing to be moved on or rushed out cause someone else needs the table.

And they definitely do offer a good variety of food and drink options as part of that package, with my usual drink of choice being an Elderflower Cooler that is both bright and refreshing, and my dinner that evening was a “Diablo Smash Burger”, two thin and crispy burger patties with chorizo, chilli jam, and an added fried egg for good measure.

Fried eggs on burgers are one of my ultimate comforts, there is something so incredibly satisfying about the texture of a well-cooked egg colliding with the rich, crunchy beef of a smash burger. Add on some fries, onion rings, and mayo to bring it all together, and I had myself a worthy feast to prepare myself for the evening…

…that said, Floro Lounge is fucking pricey sometimes, and despite how good their burgers are, they are one of the most premium items on the menu, with my Diablo Smash plus egg and onion rings running me up £21.80, alongside £4.65 for my drink bringing my total to £26.45.

In a word: indulgent, and something that likely will not reappear in my habits once my final pay comes from, as that is an expense I most definitely can not keep up with, even if I do love reviewing food.

After finishing both my food and my short writing practice, I packed my gear up and took a short walk around the local park, somewhat of a mistake considering there is a music festival going on this weekend which I had somehow completely blanked on and realised a tranquil walk by the river was not in the cards, so I decided to head to the theatre instead.

Following some issues with my tickets and two trips on the stairs, I got myself seated and took a quick cheeky picture of the stage with the cover image of the person I was going to see: Hamza Yassin

He is a wildlife photographer, who has done work with the BBC, Channel 4, and many other smaller productions. Admittedly, I had not heard much about him before this show, and given that there was no photography or filming allowed as part of it, I was curious to see what was going to be put on show.

What I ended up watching actually blew my mind. I was fascinated from start to finish, both how he started out in the world originally coming from Sudan, to being the black sheep of his family in that he is the only one not to pursue medicine, and all of the weird and wonderful stories he was able to tell from his tenure as a wildlife photographer, including:
- Getting ticks the size of a grape stuck onto him from elephants in Nairobi
- Worrying he had habitualised an injured otter who had to stay with him for three weeks before it could go to a sanctuary
- Being put on assignment to Antarctica last minute and having to lie about having sailed in the past
- And many different stories about the trust that photographers put in local guides to keep them safe and inform them of opportunities
In particular, I was impressed at how he talked about the fieldcraft and tracking elements of being a wildlife photographer. Practicing your movements and understanding how an animal behaves so that you are able to get within such a short distance that your camera is able to pick up even the smallest details of a creature up close and personal sounds incredible, with the pictures to back it up.

I went in with no expectations, and came out having had a wonderful evening – I was even thinking to myself during the interval that my parents had missed out handing me these tickets, that this would have been an equally amazing experience for them.

And well…

…given that this happened to them on their night out, I think my evening was ultimately the more successful one.

Not really a travel blog like I have done in the past, but still a wonderful time out.

Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to take it easy and enjoy the weekend. Take in some sun, or take some time in bed – either is completely valid.
May 2, 2026
Redundancy Review: Day 323-325, “Sleep, and lots of it”

(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 nocturnals and diurnals, welcome to Day 323 to 325 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

Yeah, no, the streak broke, but the streak resumption is still way shorter than what it was before. In short: periods suck. Emotional volatility and feeling drained by most things led to writing falling by the wayside in favour of recovery, but some positive things did happen in the interim.

(end screen courtesy of my Gunlance friend, cause I was coming down so hard from the fight that I forgot to take a screenie)

Me and my group of Monster Hunter friends finally came together to get me to beat Savage Omega. It took one initial attempt to dial things in after having not played so long, but the attempt after that went as smooth as anything, with no faints and being done in a smooth sub twenty minute time.

It was one of the last things I needed to do to start considering my base game experience in Wilds to be “complete”, and I still love how Omega was implemented into the game from both the story and the gameplay perspective.

I should talk about Wilds more in future reviews, for all of its launch faults in terms of performance on PC, the experience I have had with it has been nothing short of phenomenal. In general I feel I should do more gaming-based reviews, or write more about games in general – try to inject some positivity into a space that can often be overwhelmed with negativity.

In general, I follow the logic that I am not a critic, nor am I qualified to be one. I exercise my critical thinking skills and can approach stuff from a critical perspective, but my intention is to hopefully have the vast majority of the Redundancy Review be more about personal experience than critique.

Outside of that I have been working hard on yet another Satisfactory engineering project, this time on a world my partner and I are playing together. I said early on that I wanted to handle the power generation for the world, and after some amount of trial and error I have been able to construct the first two floors of what I am referring to as “The Tower of Power”, something that will ideally be our central hub for power generation along with some smaller stations along the periphery of our world. It needs further refinement, but I am very happy with what I have been able to achieve in terms of engineering.

But overall, what have I been doing the most?

Resting.

Sleeping in late.

Enjoying my time with things.

Indulging in the things I enjoy.

Today I slept in till almost noon, and catching up on that amount of sleep feels fantastic. Given the nature of my work and life, I tended to run on a sleep deficit that often caught up with me very quickly in certain circumstances, leading to me constantly projecting the outwards appearance of being half asleep, alongside medicating myself heavily with various strengths of caffeine to have some measure of function throughout the day.

It is still scary to consider the prospect that I am about to be unemployed once more, especially given that I want to use this as an opportunity to grow into something beyond what I currently am – even if I do not fully know where I am going next.

For that though, I refer to an image that I have pinned in the DMs between myself and my partner on Discord. It is something that I am using as one of many guiding philosophies in how I am going forward in this strange new existence.

I am going to pursue myself, both to recover from the pain and heartache that giving my all into a career has inflicted upon me, but also to grow into the person I want to become: a healthier, more put together version of myself.

That will cover things for now, hopefully tomorrow brings about a more substantial Redundancy Review, especially as I am currently out and about with some tickets to go see a wildlife photographer give a talk, courtesy of my lovely parents.

Thank you for reading this short catchup for this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to take it easy this weekend. Indulge in your favourite food or drink if you can, you definitely deserve it after what came your way this week.

No matter what you end up doing, I am proud of you. Never forget that.

May 1, 2026
Redundancy Review: Day 322, “Comfort”

(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 duvets and blankets, welcome to Day 322 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

Today does not feel like a good day. A mixture of the events of last week combined with period brain descending upon me has led to my emotions feeling volatile and horrible, flip-flopping from anger to regret over being angry to overwhelmed and somehow finding every emotion in between that.

To this end, even after I dragged myself out of bed to play some Umamusume and watch the Helldivers 2 patch notes video with my partner, I find myself back in the same location sipping a delicious mocha and finding some weird inspiration to write about how I feel right now.

Period brain can do many things to me, but one of the worst things it does is turn the various negative parts of my mind up to eleven. Catastrophising gets amped up to the point that even the most minor inconveniences somehow turn into world-ending events, depression and despair make my outlook on things I enjoy turn into doom and gloom predictions of wondering what could go wrong, and as for my aggression levels, well, I will refer to contemporary poet Fred Durst to explain how it feels:

“It’s just one of those days where you don’t wanna wake up
Everything is fucked, everybody sucks
You don’t really know why
But you wanna justify rippin’ someone’s head off”

It is a rare occasion where I get to quote Limp Bizkit for something – I do not even consider myself a fan, but “Break Stuff” is an infinitely quotable song for moments like this.

So, what do I do when everything is fucked and everybody sucks?

I seek out things that comfort me.

Quick synonym tangent, I initially used the word “insular” to describe how I prefer to interact with things that comfort me, but I did not think that really describes how I view the situation, a point that was compounded further when I looked up the synonyms of the word and I did not really agree with any of them. Thesauruses are great, I know most people would use an LLM to do the task today, but that removes the joy of discovering just how many synonyms can exist for a word as the chatbot response will only cover the most popular.

Back on track – comforting myself is an activity I usually do in seclusion more than anything else. Whilst other people (my partner included) find comfort in getting out there and spending time with like-minded individuals, my comfort typically comes from being in a private space where I can engage in my hobbies.

Most of the time, this is me getting all cozy in bed with a hot mocha and an ice water, with me zoning out to streams or playing stuff on my Steam Deck. Long stretches of time where I can have no interruptions from the outside world where I can focus solely on immersing myself in another world.

Escapism would be the most appropriate term to describe this I guess, something I have talked about before last year with a Redundancy Review. It was the reason why, up until I got canned again, that I was looking at properly investing into cosplay more this year cause I view the idea of getting all dressed up in the outfit of one of my favourite characters as one of the ultimate forms of escapism.

Feels weird to say in a way, that one of my ideas of peak comfort is dressing up in an elaborate getup only to sit at home and do the things I would be doing anyway, but I think it serves as an important disconnection point to the harsh reality that envelops so many of us today. A persona, if you will, one you can put on or off at will to help feel like you are someone greater than you are… though I feel I lean more towards “magical girl” vibes than “superhero” vibes when the latter would be more appropriate to some.

This is also where my love of worldbuilding and elaborate details probably comes from. The notion of having a fantasy world where even the most minute details are thought through brings joy to my soul, where systems are thought through to try to give them as much grounding within the real world whilst retaining the whimsical aspects of fantasy.

And considering this is the first VTuesday I have been able to mark in a while, this also marks a good opportunity to talk about why VTubers appeal to me in the context of escapism.

Despite having never grown up as your typical “theatre kid”, being more the shy and reserved type, there is a certain appeal in the notion of regular people being behind virtual avatars. Whilst kayfabe is slowly becoming less of an “essential” part of VTuber culture, for better or worse, the characters that the performers embody can still carry a lot of emotional weight in their words and actions.

This might be why Hololive English Advent is my favourite unit of VTubers, as they blend together what I consider to be a perfect mix of the real person underneath combined with their lore and characters. Their personalities coming through on streams and them being the sweetest people ever contrasts wonderfully with how their original songs and stories go.

An original song is the topic of today’s review, the final part of Advent’s five-part story: Unchained

I reviewed Genesis what seems like a lifetime ago, and between then and now the remaining songs have come out of the series. Is it a little weird I am reviewing the final song without having covered the second, third, and fourth songs? Yes. Do I do anything in order on the Redundancy Review? You bet your sweet arse I do not.

Unchained I feel is an appropriate song to review both for a day like this and considering the events I have been going through recently. It is a song about escaping from any trials you have gone through before and living a new life full of freedom, hope, and expectation for tomorrow.

The first chorus in particular speaks to me:

“Now I feel so free, I can be who I am,

I know I’m not alone, I got a new life,

In the rain, the wind, and the sunlight.

You believed in me, and that’s where it all began

Now hope is everlasting, I can live my life with you,

Unchained”

With this next stint of unemployment, outside of some emotional volatility, there is much less fear than there was before. In a way, I do feel like I have a new lease of freedom compared to what I had before, and that no matter what days ahead I face, rain, wind, or sunlight, I have a life that I can truly call mine, one fully unchained from the past.

However… it would not be a Rosalia Rambles piece if I did not find some way to extract a trans allegory from this song, and by god the chorus definitely hits that criteria.

Being trans mean to live a true life unchained from the expectations of others, and in living that truth you live a happier life no matter what outside forces are coming at you – and believe me there are a lot of outside forces that want to bring you down if you are trans.

Transition is not a solitary thing though, or at the very least, transition gets a whole lot easier when you have supportive people in your life. Having confidants that believe in you and want to encourage you to be your best self can give you some amazing amounts of motivation to live your life to the fullest.

I also want to do a bit of analysis on the bridge, as I feel that is a wonderful sequence that speaks to the lore, and actual social dynamic, of Advent being a found family of misfits:

“Don’t cry, you can breathe free; I’m here if you need me

Let go of all your heartache,

We made it through, it’s the dawning of a new day

Feel the world’s embrace,

Oh what a joyful place

This is where I wanna be, so come with me;

Keep dreaming…”

First off, I have to gush about the first two lines sung by my absolute favourite sweetheart Shiori Novella. Her voice is so smooth and soft making these lines so comforting to listen to.

But all of these lines combine to give the vibe of Advent regrouping after they finally made it out of The Cell together, taking a moment to breathe and take in the world around them, seeing the beauty of nature once more before carrying on in the world, being free to dream once more as the group of lovable renegades they are.

God… for all of Hololive’s documented issues, I still find it so easy to support the girls when they put on massive projects and performances like this – especially knowing how bureaucratic it can get behind the scenes sometimes.

Thumbnail picture, swiped from the official Hololive English Twitter account

That covers everything for today, a somewhat rambly Redundancy Review for a very up-and-down day. Thank you for reading this edition. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax and enjoy the things that bring you joy and make life worth living.

April 28, 2026
Redundancy Review: Day 321, “Career Uncertainty, Part 2

(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 admirals and commodores, welcome to Day 321 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

Off the back of getting rejected for a job role I was pretty excited for, I continue to persist in my goal to write a daily series. Heads up that this edition might read a bit more like a rant in some areas, as I am going to be talking about career stuff as I briefly alluded to yesterday.

About eight years of my life has been spent either aspiring and studying to enter the tech industry, or working in the tech industry itself. As a twenty eight year old, this means approximately one quarter of my life has been spent in the tech space.

This started with me going to university to study Computer Games Technology, with the hope of becoming a games programmer of some description, either working on my own independent projects or joining some large studio to be a cog in the machine. Admittedly it started well, with both my first and second year having good results in what I was attempting to do with my coursework.

Not without struggle though. My second year in particular was plagued with a lot of struggle and tense moments as things heated up, particularly in the first semester more than anything else.

Third year… was the hardest. The first semester had me navigating a lot of personal issues that impacted my work in a negative way that whilst I was still fulfilling deadlines and getting on with things, I was not pushing myself on working on things that were not coursework, which is definitely one of the things that you need to succeed as a programmer by improving your skills.

With the gift of hindsight, whilst I knew how to navigate programming, I am not built to be a full-time programmer. The idea of spending a full work day sitting in front of an IDE (or more realistic to the modern day, an agent prompt window) did not appeal to me in the slightest.

This issue was compounded when my second semester was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing things online, disrupting the deadlines I had and disrupting the flow of the group I was working with at the time, causing things to fall behind.

I still graduated, with a First class degree no less, specifically because the module I scored highest on, as part of a course dedicated to building me up as a programmer more than anything else, was Consultancy and IT Management, which was around building a case study to upgrade a company’s IT infrastructure… which I feel reflects the current me pretty nicely, but is still funny to look back on.

As is evident from my many previous stories, I did not in-fact go into programming full time. Whilst someone in my life at the time tried to push me to work on personal projects so I could put together a more proper portfolio, the drive was not there, and I should have admitted that way sooner, both to myself and that person.

So I spent six months unemployed, trying to work on writing when I can but mainly resolving a bunch of personal issues more than anything else. COVID jobs market sucked, and I did have some interviews, but not much success.

That was until I interviewed for the position of QA Engineer at Codemasters, which I have talked about at length in my Day 118 Redundancy Review. This set the trajectory for where my career has taken me today, with a year spent in the games industry until I pivoted into working for an XR company that specialised in both bespoke VR content and an educational platform.

This is where I have spent the majority of my career, building myself up as a QA initially before my mentor Gabi took me under her wing and started to build me up as a producer as well… I should reach out to her again, especially now with shit hitting the fan again. She is one of the reasons I have as much resilience as I do today, and I still try to internalise one of the last things she told me when the company went to shit:

“You are a person worth knowing.”

I gave a lot of myself to that XR company, pushing myself beyond my limits and learning as much as I could with each project. I definitely pushed a little too hard in some instances, as I had to have at least two periods of leave that were due to the stress catching up to me… well, the latter one was purely stress, the former was due to me catching COVID and severely underestimating how long it took to recover – I kept coming back to work only to have myself punched back down by how sluggish my body felt, something I still struggle with today as I most definitely have some variety of Long COVID after catching it twice.

My aim was to make myself indispensable, if a little neurotic in how I approached things. Stubbornness is a genetic trait I fight against every day, and it definitely affected how I communicated with my colleagues at times, both in positive and negative ways. Regardless, I made my mark, and navigated responsibilities I would have never considered in the year prior.

But now we get to the hard details, and that is what it is like to work within startup/scaleup culture. I will try to frame this with the positive aspect first followed by why it can cause psychological strain in certain scenarios.

First off, team size. After coming from Codemasters where a single platform QA team would be around fifteen to twenty people at peak times with the greater QA team easily being one-hundred people and above, going to a company which never went above fifty people at the peak was certainly a cultural difference.

The primary perk of this was knowing who you worked with well, especially after my part of the company got reorganised into a proper studio team where we would have a general standup and retro alongside project specific meetings. This meant I got to know people on a personal level, learning about their hobbies, how they prefer to work, and who I could ask certain questions of. A lot of my old colleagues were incredibly chill people, and very supportive of me as a trans person – one distinct memory I have is absolutely bawling on the shoulder of one of them after I had to dip from a company dinner because of a murder mystery actor making a rather crass transphobic joke, which I spent a fair bit of time not wanting to ruin his very nice jacket with my snot or tears.

The main downside of working this way is that responsibilities had to be shared almost all of the time, often leading to moments where my plate would be filled with all different tasks that needed to be balanced or differing deadlines, requiring precision prioritisation in order to get things done, which I managed to do most days, but the stress definitely felt intense on some days, especially while I was working towards being a producer, often having to balance QA responsibilities along with my production responsibilities.

To bring things back to the positive, this does mean I can prepare, practice, and perform a presentation in a relatively short timescale, something I utilised in a recent interview to do the above in around half an hour. AI might be able to do a similar thing, but I can do it much cheaper with fewer resources, like caffeine and painkillers as opposed to context and tokens.

Second main perk is being treated like an adult in regards to working patterns. Codemasters offered me flexitime but this was a measured arrangement, where if I signed out early on any given day, I would need to make up that time later on in the week, or vice versa where staying late one night meant I could sign out earlier. Work is hard and intense within startup culture, but so long as the work is being completed by the deadline, I was free to work however I wanted, which is an absolute relief to an ADHDer like myself, as forcing myself to work on a pattern that is not mine does my head in.

Downside of this all? Overtime was very rarely compensated, partially due to the fact my compensation was already pretty generous, but this meant any time I needed to stay late or start early often resulted in nothing but a congratulations, which was actually less than what I got in the games industry, as I got time-and-a-half for any weekend work and double time for any bank holiday. Flexing my life for the needs of the business was also a requirement, which became particularly annoying on the day after my partner moved in with me, where I was supposed to cook our first proper meal together but ended up needing to stay multiple hours past my usual finishing time to help get something out the door, which ended with no result anyway.

(small aside: I do not believe in the discussion of wages being taboo. Possibly a Gen Z thing, possibly a leftist thing.)

And finally, the thing that I cannot highlight any positive for, or even try to talk about in a positive way: layoffs, and funding.

There is no way for me to discuss this part of working in a startup or scaleup without going overly negative, because this shit absolutely destroys lives, morale, and direction of a company. In my five year career, I have survived three rounds of layoffs, and being laid off twice. Two rounds of those layoffs have been in the XR industry, where I had to watch friends and senior colleagues disappear whilst I was still around, leading to some serious survivor guilt developing which got worse during the second round.

No one can dodge mortar shells forever, though it seems appropriate that for someone who survived layoffs three times, it would obviously take the nuke of administration/insolvency for me to finally get hit, leading to where we are today with the Redundancy Review and the “season 2” we are currently within due to the second layoff.

So, what is the moral of me running through this all?

Because whilst I can continue on in the tech industry, and there is definitely a real possibility I stick around if a good opportunity arises, everything I have run through has worn me down bit by fucking bit, and I am done. The games industry is undergoing constant shifts with layoffs, closures, and cancellations, the tech industry is going all in on AI which leads to fewer opportunities being created, and pretty much all of my friends have told me to move away from startup culture for the sake of my own health.

That leaves me contemplating going down the path of the starving artist, which has its own set of pitfalls and would lead to even more career uncertainty than I am facing right now….

…but when has that ever stopped me?

The world needs more LGBTQ+ artists making works public, especially trans artists to try show those falling victim to culture war topics that not only are we real people, we are also nothing like what the media portrays – I literally do not like going to the toilet in public at the best of times I am certainly not going to be doing heinous shit in a women’s toilet.

I did not intend for this to become such a long piece, but the words kept flowing as I kept typing, but now we need to do a review topic. Something shorter than usual, and I have something just for that.

This is a can of Poppi, a brand of soda that was launched in the US in 2018 as a “gut healthy” soda with it recently launching in the UK in Pret A Manger and Tesco locations. I saw it multiple times in my local Tesco express, but considering it is £2 for an individual can or £4.50 Clubcard Price for a four-pack, I never really had the impetus to try it until today, where I went to grab a meal deal lunch for my partner and decided to include it as the drink as repayment to myself for running this errand.

And I am very glad it came as the meal deal drink because holy shit I do not consider this worth £2 for a can and I would be at a stretch to pay £1.12~ per can in the four-pack.

Comparing Poppi to a standard fizzy orange drink in the UK, Tango and/or Fanta, it barely has any orange flavour to it, or even much fizz to it, kind of tasting like a squash made with an extremely flat sparkling water. I am someone who does not even like Fanta, but if I had to take the pick between Fanta or Poppi I would take Fanta every time.

But it is a healthy soda, so obviously it would not taste as good as a processed and high-sugar drink.

I will concede that point, but counter with the comparison I made. A glass of orange squash has more orange flavour, but would also have more health benefits in term of hydration and be substantially cheaper than paying £1.12-£2 for a can of supposedly “healthy” soda.

Note to self, Robinson’s Squash for a future Redundancy Review topic.

Just about 2300 words for today, the longest I have written in a damn while.

Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to relax and that the Monday blues are not hitting you too hard.

April 27, 2026
Redundancy Review: Day 320, “Calmer than Usual”

(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 salarymen and manufacturers, welcome to Day 320 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

Sunday is usually a day I prefer to keep quiet with minimal engagements, partially out of an existential dread that comes from knowing I have to go to work the next day and wondering what the hell is going to come across my desk when I do.

But now with the bizarre calm I find myself in from knowing my employment with my current company is coming to an end, today has been a mixture of relaxation and letting myself exist rather than worrying about what comes tomorrow.

It has however been plagued by a pretty annoying headache, so I have not been able to push myself to do the amount of things I have wanted to today. Specifically was wanting to make a roast dinner for myself and my partner but ended up changing plans to a much simpler leftovers meal.

Despite my pledge to wanting to keep this a daily series again, I find myself struggling to figure out what to write about for the “personal” segment of the review. Partially because whilst there is a lot I want to say about I feel in my current situation, I cannot properly express myself without getting sorely unprofessional in my conduct, and because it feels like very early days in these next steps.

I am relaxed, which I consider the important thing. I know there is going to come a point where panic will set in once more and I very much will need a source of employment to keep the lights on, but, for now, there is a certain peace in having space to breathe again and not worry about things on Sunday.

There is a joke to be made here about not worrying on Sunday because all I have now is time to worry about being unemployed, though I am going to remain on the optimistic side whilst focusing on writing, recovery, and slowly tuning up both the tech and the writing portfolio.

Though if I am honest… I have doubts if I want to carry on in the tech industry after all this.

If we include my time in university (bit of a stretch but stay with me), the year I worked in the games industry and the four years I have worked in the XR industry, I have an eight year career in tech.

And outside of the money, which admittedly is very good, there is not much that draws me in anymore, and plenty that is pushing me out.

I think I will talk more on that tomorrow – not exactly like I have much to do on a work day now.

Gonna reach into the backlogs for something to review today, which came from the local market about a month back… which means, I can finally do one of these again…

Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!

God, I missed doing that one.

Anyway, at Shrewsbury Market there is a stall simply called “Eat In”. It offers a decent variety of Italian ingredients for making pizza, pasta, or antipasto alongside offering Roman-style sourdough pizza by the slice, topped with your choice of oil or hot honey.

My usual order is a simple pepperoni slice, but on this day in the past, one pizza caught my eye and I could not resist trying it.

This is an XL piece of pizza topped with Shropshire ham and mushroom, which was then topped off with Kashmiri chilli oil, also made by a local trader. This cost me £6.80, which is slightly higher than what I would usually pay for my pepperoni sliced topped in a similar way, £4.50, but is also way bigger than that slice.

Pizza by the slice is something I wish more independent places in the UK would offer. There are not many options outside of Greggs, which is… passable but not really what I would be looking for in terms of a pizza lunch, and I do not exactly want to purchase a pizza from somewhere like Domino’s or otherwise as it is both a bit overkill and would spoil my appetite for dinner.

Eat In serves my needs exactly, and it helps that each slice of pizza is made with absolute love, having amazingly fluffy dough, a crisp crust on the bottom, and a spicy oil on top to bring out the best of the local ingredients.

Now I have made myself hungry damnit.

Ahh well, I can just go to the market on Tuesday and indulge.

That will do it for today, I am going to spend the rest of my evening relaxing and maybe jamming some Umamusume in before bed.

Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to rest easy knowing what approaches tomorrow. I hope that work is easy on you and nothing massively brings you down.

April 26, 2026
Redundancy Review: Day 319, “Eepy”

(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 baristas and bartenders, welcome to Day 319 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

Being upfront, I am knackered right now.

Saturday is normally a sleep-in day for me anyway, but things moved slowly up until I got the impetus to go shopping for the supplies needed for tomorrow night’s dinner and snacks for a film night with good company – said film night then taking up most of the time I could work on writing afterwards and now I am just lying here in bed typing out whatever my brain will allow me to.

Which is not a lot, honestly.

So uhh…

Here is one of the megastructures I have built in Satisfactory. I refer to it as the “Basin Shell”, because it is built over the basin of a large waterfall and whenever I build a structure in Satisfactory over water I tend to append “Shell” onto it after the Big Shell in Metal Gear Solid 2.

This was built as I severely needed to upgrade my power infrastructure going forward in order to accommodate the amount of structures I would need to construct and wanted to avoid brownouts or the fuse blowing wherever possible… there is a slight possibility I went overboard in this construction project as I was able to support a large factory in my home base and then build a massive shell project over another body of water, fully rig that up with power, and then nowhere near run out of power until I upgraded the grid yet again.

Building megastructures is the thing I enjoy the most in Satisfactory. I know the overall goal is “the factory must grow”, and Part A needs to make Part B and Part C, but there’s a certain satisfaction (get it) in building a massive structure that only fills one purpose rather than having new components introduced to an already spaghetti-like machine.

Maybe when I finally finish it, I will talk a bit about the other shell project and how it came together.

In the meantime, that will do it for today. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you can rest as well as I am going to tonight.

April 25, 2026
Redundancy Review: Day 318, “Season 2”

(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 slingers and flingers, welcome to Day 318 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

Two quick points of order before we get into the swing of things.

First, after a friend in a Discord server pointed it out, yeah, this is essentially Season 2 of the Redundancy Review. Hopefully now that we have been renewed for a new season we develop certain plotlines further and introduce yet more intrigue to the story.

Second, another friend of mine pointed out there was an amazing gif to use instead of the “what now?” one I used yesterday:

I think this one helps sum up how I am feeling with the spectre of unemployment this time around. During the initial period of redundancy there were some aspects of gallows humour in how I handled things but I was primarily navigating the difficult aspects with a heavy heart.

Now?

The idea of being unemployed still does not appeal to me, but if I have to be real, there is a certain sense of relief that comes this time around, leading to more gallows humour – I even pulled the sarcastic “What are you gonna do? Fire me?” on my boss when we were talking about my last few light duties until my time is up.

It feels weird to call this being “laid off” as well, cause I was a contractor, meaning my time could have been up at any moment due to the nature of the role – though I was under the impression that the ball could have kept rolling just a little bit longer.

But, the weekend is upon us, and I intend to spend it in the company of good people, enjoying good times, and eating good food.

Speaking of good food, it seems appropriate to christen the new season of the Redundancy Review with a food review, although not from my adoptive home of Shrewsbury this time so I do not get to do my usual intro.

Instead this review comes from Telford, a short hop on the train, taking us to a wide array of eating establishments including the subject of today’s review: Wingers.

Wingers is a chain of fast food chicken restaurants in the UK, and this was my first time trying it out, having caught both mine and my partner’s eye multiple times whenever we chose to go out shopping around Telford.

Now, even though the UK has a good chicken shop culture, I unfortunately did not have the blessings to grow up in an area with many of them, meaning all I really had to make do with growing up was KFC on the off chance I got to go to one. This influenced my outlook going into this as I assumed it was going to be quite similar to KFC.

It was not.

And I mean that in the best way possible.

My choice of meal was a four-piece chicken tender meal, which comes with fries and a drink, which I paid £2.50 to upgrade that to a ridiculously thicc Biscoff milkshake, topping things off with a dip pot of garlic parmesan sauce for £1. In total, combining my add-ons with the base meal’s price of £9.75, this came to £12.25. My usual KFC order of either a Zinger Stacker or a Boneless Banquet would come to around the £10-11 mark, making this just a hair above what I would pay there.

This was worth the small price increase.

First off, the chicken, which came drenched in Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo sauce. These tenders were absolutely massive compared to the mini-fillets you would get at KFC, they were incredibly juicy on the inside, with a deliciously crisp crust on the outside, even as the spicy sauce seeped in. Four of these tenders were more than enough to start filling me up on what was a somewhat indulgent lunch.

And then came the skin-on fries. I am used to KFC giving you a middling amount of fries as an accompaniment to a meal, hence why I was fully unprepared for the surprisingly large portion size that Wingers provided. I even commented as I worked my way through them that I felt it was almost too many fries to go with a lunch meal, but I persevered as they were absolutely delicious, if just a very bog standard fry.

The garlic parmesan sauce was… alright. It definitely tasted both like garlic and like parmesan but it did not feel particularly special, at £1 though it is hard not to complain, and it definitely added some complexity to the standard fries.

However, the true star of the show was my milkshake. I am somewhat of a milkshake connoisseur, self-described obviously, but I have tried multiple different shakes across many different fast-food establishments.

This was, hands down, one of the best I have ever tasted.

The Biscoff flavour was extremely pronounced, the shake itself was straw-standingly thick requiring several gulps of air to even get it to come up the straw, and considering I had picked the spicy sauce to go on my tenders, it was the perfect accompaniment to cool my mouth down.

Definitely want to return to Wingers if given the chance, especially considering with the portion sizes on the fries and how well four tenders filled me up, I feel it could make a surprisingly economical treat lunch for my partner and myself if we split a £13.75 eight tender meal between ourselves with only needing to add an additional drink.

This is… the first time since January that I have actually managed to post a Redundancy Review back-to-back. That is something to be proud of given the circumstances.

But that does it for today. Thank you for reading this edition of Redundancy Review Season 2. Wherever you are, I hope you have satisfying weekend plans put together. If not, and you are simply using the time to recover from whatever the week brought upon you, I wish you a restful time to forget the burdens of the world.

April 24, 2026
Redundancy Review: Day 289-317, “A New Beginning-wait I already used that title”

(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 unemployeds and underemployeds, welcome to Day 289-317 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

The title now makes sense again!

Though, that is because yesterday, April 22nd 2026, I was told that my role at my current company would be coming to an end May 31st, or more realistically, May 29th will be my last working day. But either way, come the start of June, I am back searching for a job in these crazy market conditions, fighting against AI at every stage and not knowing where my next proper paycheque will be coming from.

I intend to remain professional, as I am still supposed to be getting paid up until the end of this time period along with finishing up my last few responsibilities.

But, being completely honest… it hurts being back in this position. It really does. Ever since being made redundant from the previous company almost a year ago now, I have spent time trying to recover the trauma that redundancy inflicted upon me. Worrying about the future, trying to stay positive even in adverse conditions, and trying my best to make my own way in the world whilst everything feels like it’s collapsing.

I had started to recover from that, I felt more positive about the future. More often than not my brain was in a relaxed state rather than worrying about stuff, I was going on trips with my partner, enjoying good food with good company, and engaging in my hobbies more thoroughly than ever.

And even with the knowledge that I have two pay packets still to come, it makes me feel that I am back in that position a year ago, surrounded by the uncertainty of the current UK jobs market whilst the tech industry undergoes rapid change due to the implementation and proliferation of AI.

So, I ask myself the question that I asked right as the Redundancy Review started…

First, acknowledge that whilst it very much feels like the world has come to an end, it has not. Life will still move forward, and I knew that this was not going to last forever, even as much as I hoped that the business could continue with me for the foreseeable future. With that in mind, I planned for something like this happening, with contingency plans for finances in place to keep myself sustained during a long job search alongside whatever comes next.

Which brings me nicely onto the second point: what does come next?

Well for a start, I need to get back into the habit of writing daily Redundancy Reviews. They fell by the wayside as I navigated stressful work situations but now that those are seemingly behind me, I need to push myself to get back into that groove both for writing practice and to keep myself engaged on a day-to-day basis.

Alongside that, I need to take the plunge back into fiction writing. One of my goals this year was to write a semi-fictionalised story about my experience being a transgender woman, and I need to decide what shape and form that story will take. The general goal is a story that helps reassure trans people in my age bracket (the weird inbetween space of Gen Z and Millenial) that it is never too late to start, and that experimenting is how you get to become who you want to be. Aside from that, getting back into short, character-focused stories would also be fun.

Reminder that I am available for commissions still, if you look at the top navigation bar there is a “Commissions” tab that highlights the work I have done for others… I think I still have one I need to post too. Writing commissions are a good way for me to keep busy whilst earning some extra cash to help keep things ticking along. Get in touch if you want fiction, or even a Redundancy Review on something you are curious about.

But the main priority?

Healing, and deciding what to do next.

The tech industry I worked towards joining, the XR industry I have found myself a home in, and the startup culture I developed my edge in have all helped me advance my lifestyle and career, though it has come at an intense mental cost that comes with being a part of it.

Whilst I have the skills to pay the bills within that space, I need to seriously take stock of where I am in my life with perennial burnout alongside what career I can see myself being happy in for however long it would accept me. At this present moment, my thought is to just go all in on being an artist or entertainer, as several tweets I have seen throughout my time have said:

“Job market is shit one way or the other, so why not follow your dreams?”

I have nothing to really lose. If I end up facing down the barrel of a long unemployment period, I may as well put as much energy as I can into the creation of what I want my artistic legacy to be.

As many trans people have been told when considering a major life change: “Do not die wondering”, which ties nicely into the philosophy I used when starting out under the Redundancy Review banner: “Do not let it die in your head”.

Well, here’s to the new beginning. I hope you will join me for the ride.

Thank you for reading the inaugural edition of the second evolution of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are navigating this crazy world as best you can, and if you are like me and also dealing with the spectre of the job search: we are in this together. You are not alone, and even when it seems darkest, we are going to make it.

April 23, 2026
Redundancy Review: Day 287-288, “Warhammer Wednesday”

(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 commissars and ethereals, welcome to Day 287-288 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

Yes. I know.

It is a goddamn miracle.

I am writing an entry to the quote unquote “daily series” that does not have over the span of a week between posts. Praise God, Satan, Lathander – whichever deity you choose to follow in life, because Rosalia has chosen to ramble on non-consecutive days in the same week…

…so of course I am going to be launching a weekly segment in this post similar to VTuesday because I am incapable of learning my lesson, but this is something I have had in the back of my mind since the start of the year, and I finally want to make it official.

Wednesdays will now be “Warhammer Wednesday”…

…Warnsdays?

A slightly more catchy title may be in development.

Throwing it back to my bingo card for the year, one of the squares I put down on it was “Get back into miniature painting”, which was essentially code for “Start exploring Warhammer again”, as the hobby was an important part of my formative years growing up and I want to see it with fresh eyes.

Which leads us into the story for today, because I cannot really understate how important Warhammer was for my childhood when I spent damn near seven years playing it regularly before I fell to the dark side of Magic: the Gathering. It was even the first foray into fiction writing in my life when I wrote a short story for a local gaming event that had a writing contest.

The contest was pitched as writing something on the day between games, but given I was an overachiever I came prepared with a two page story about a Dark Angels Interrogator Chaplain getting ambushed by some Warp Talons… think I might still have the certificate I won back then somewhere too.

Pretty much every Saturday in my early-to-mid teens was spent playing Warhammer, initially 40k where an old friend first introduced me to it, which eventually shifted over to a period of playing Warhammer Fantasy for a period of time before it shifted back over to 40k up until I became the sole steward of the club and we started playing other games such as Star Realms, my actual legit favourite card game of all time.

Oh yeah, that is a pretty important detail – this Saturday club was hosted in my local library and after a period of time I was the volunteer running the group, a task I was wholly unsuited for when I started but eventually it was just sort of being the mature/organised one in a group of friends more than anything else. It is what gave me a fierce defense of libraries as third spaces, as my local was essential to my personal development.

Back at my parent’s place there are still tons of boxes filled with my old gear, often acquired through people not wanting their own old stuff and me picking it up at a cheaper price, or in one instance, just for a box of Maltesers. I should be reclaiming some of it soon to add to the collection, but my main joy in the hobby came from building more than anything, hence why painting is my goal as I was not the best at that back in the day.

To that end, what caused my relapse?

This battleforce box specifically, themed around the Farsight Enclaves of the T’au faction. I have always had a soft spot for the Farsight Enclaves as a faction, both for their bold red colour scheme and what they represent in going against the grain of an established society…

…that said, I also hold a great deal of fear for T’au for how utterly dominant they were back in my day of playing seventh edition due to how much they owned the shooting phase and could deal with all sorts of threats.

Or maybe I am just salty because I was a Dark Eldar player and got my shit handed to me on the regular due to the fact I used masochists riding in paper boats as my main fighting force.

Regardless, I figured this would be a good start for getting myself back into building. Geometric shapes and flat panels would also make for easy painting practice once I finally got around to it.

I will be covering the model I started with today, which is of the eponymous commander of the Enclaves himself, Farsight. For this model and the model I built after this I was initially using Citadel Plastic Glue, but I quickly switched to Tamiya Extra Thin Cement after remembering how utterly shit the bottles that Citadel glue comes in.

Even with inferior glue, this was a fun build to attempt. Everything came together relatively easily, which is to be expected for a kit that did not come with many spare bits on the sprue – very few places to experiment with posing or alternative weapon options.

There was something oddly therapeutic about getting to build a plastic model again, something that I spent so much of my younger years doing but now as a much different person, though still the same nerd at heart.

Not too much to say beyond that, it was easy to follow the instructions with the numbers embossed onto the sprue and the model came together in a way I am very happy with.

Later editions of Warhammer Wednesday should cover a bit more detail about how I wanted to put the model together, though progress photos for some later models are a little sparse, so hopefully how I have built them is enough of a story.

Right, I have made something that came out not long after my last post, do I have the momentum again or is this another false start? Only one way to find out, and that is to keep moving forward. Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you can engage in the hobbies that bring you the most joy, be they new or old, expensive or cheap.

March 25, 2026