Rosalia Rambles

Tag: Music

  • Redundancy Review: Day 338-357, “Decisions, Decisions”

    Redundancy Review: Day 338-357, “Decisions, Decisions”

    (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 pots and kettles, welcome to Day 338 to 357 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    May 29th was the last day of my contract with my previous company. I leave on good terms and whilst I do wish things could have turned out differently, the nature of layoffs is to cut costs to give the business the best chance of survival when things get hard.

    So, what comes next?

    Decisions.

    Decisions.

    Decisions.

    Some amount of waiting as well, as I currently have two open job applications that I need to wait to see if I get an interview or not, but if those do not go my way for whatever reason, a lot of personal decisions for myself.

    One of the most pressing is deciding what I want to do as a career going forward. Early on after getting told I was going to be let go, I made a decision that I wanted to move away from the tech industry as a whole. My intention is to keep the door slightly open, partially because a good majority of my connections are within this industry, and partially because I feel I could jump back in if the right opportunity came along which somehow also managed to align with the direction I want my life to go.

    But that alignment feels unlikely to happen. Even with only a short amount of time to view myself from outside the tech industry, I can see a more positive future if I slowly start to decouple myself from the professional identity I have built over the last five years.

    Admin or communications are the main things that come to mind, if I want to redirect myself into a more corporate-style focus. Working with data, organising others, or being able to use my writing skills for a positive influence in an organisation.

    There is a perspective in my mind that putting myself back into a corporate environment is “stifling” my own potential, when all of my major skill advancement and career moves have been within the same startup environment, giving me the flexibility and freedom to build myself up within the same place by adopting new roles as they appear. 

    However, and this might come off as a bit controversial, but at this stage of my life, I would happily trade freedom and flexibility for a bureaucratic structure if it gave me even a modicum of job security, especially when it would give me a launching pad for the other activities I want to do in life. 

    My goal in life is to try be evolving constantly. For the last five years, this was a career-focused goal, of pushing myself beyond my limits in work, climbing the ladder, and seeing where I could end up in that regard.

    Having the ladder shatter beneath my feet twice within the span of the years has honestly left me kind of disillusioned with that whole notion, and has made me realise little time I have taken to evolve myself over the last two years or so. I have my Rambles, but I have not really taken time to develop it in the way I want to outside of a few standout Redundancy Reviews.

    I need to work more on original fiction, which was something I did tonnes of back in 2022, and gives me the ability to be more creative with my storytelling or work on writing prompts that I find interesting, or even just scratch out a random story based on the most simple things.

    Which leads in nicely to my other main decision: when do I want to go all in on job hunting again? Well, the most forward answer is: “Right now what the fuck are you talking about do you know how fucked the market is and how long it takes to find the kind of job you are describing?!”

    But, that is exactly why I am hesitating on when I want to dedicate myself to the job hunt, which is a full-time activity in and of itself. I want to recover from the stress of my previous role, I want to work on my own projects as an artist, and I want to be in the best position possible before I throw myself into the seemingly never-ending grind that is finding a corporate position in the current market.

    The obvious worry of this approach is financials. The cost of living in the UK is high, no thanks to successive governments not doing anything to help that in the slightest, and spending any length of time unemployed is not going to help my monetary outlook, especially as my partner is not exactly rolling in cash from his part-time job – though he is also looking for full-time work himself, which has its own set of difficulties exclusive to him.

    On the flipside though, in the face of several irresponsible financial decisions I have made over the course of my life, I think I have more of a safety cushion than my contemporaries in Gen Z, which gives me a surprising amount of runway for both job hunting prospects and working on my own projects.

    And that is assuming I do nothing at all, which would include not taking commissions (which I am always open for get in touch if you are curious) or selling any of my collectable items, which I am currently working through the notion of selling a good chunk of my Magic card collection.

    Not for overt dislike of the game, but more because I am sitting on a good number of expensive cards that are gathering dust in a binder, and that I am unlikely to buy any new sealed product in future because Hasbro’s management of the game has fully put me off investing any more money into it.

    The road ahead looks rocky, but when times look hard, I keep the immortal words of Phoebe-chan in my head.

    My love of VTubers will definitely keep my spirits up as I navigate the days ahead, segueing me nicely into a VTuesday segment where I am actually going to talk about something recently released for a change rather than picking something from the backlog of awesome VTuber-related things I want to write about.

    Specifically, the second original song from Densetsu.EXE, a VTuber idol group formed of Phoebe-Chan, Mint Fantôme, and Victoria Roman: “Burn On! Hot-Blooded Heroine”

    So, I have mentioned Phoebe-chan before, my partner and I met at her Vexpo last year with her opening concert performance leaving a lasting impact on me to the point I bought her album and my partner bought a lightstick. Specifically my partner refused to accept change from her manager Steiner which left them both a little confused before they just went with it.

    However, I have not ever mentioned Mint or Victoria, which for the latter comes solely for the fact I have not interacted much with their work outside of what they do with Densetsu.EXE, only really seeing bits of her from clips when they are all streaming together. Considering how much I enjoy her personality in those moments, think it might be an idea to properly sit down and engage with her.

    As for Mint, it is now a silly goal of mine to attend a Meet & Greet with her for the sole purpose of talking to a VTuber about Ace Combat, as she has streamed Ace Combat 4 previously and someone who sounds suspiciously like her has streamed Ace Combat 7, but I am sure that is completely unrelated.

    Whilst they are all nerds in their own right, they are still idols… even if this song is particularly silly more than anything else, looking to pay tribute to old Japanese sentai style shows… which I am going to be honest, I know next to nothing about so I can not really do a deep analysis on the aesthetics of this other than it is absolutely amazing to see the idols performing as heroes in their signature outfits with PNGs of their avatars imposed onto their heads, with special mention to Mint wearing the exact off-the-hanger cosplay that so many other nerds can buy. 

    I think the MV is also a testament to how far Steiner goes for the talents under his management. Both acting as director and starring in it as the main villain “Lord Loiter”, which is a fantastically bizarre name for something in this style, it really shows the dedication he puts in to helping the enable the girls to pursue more ambitious projects, shown in the fact that the explosions in this video are real and done with gasoline.

    In general, this MV is an absolute achievement for all the hard work involved by all parties, a beautiful display of what independent groups fo VTubers can achieve with the right backing and people behind them, producing high-quality works of art that show the passion that lies behind the screens and the dedication to get it done, though I think Steiner says it best himself.

    If on the off chance you somehow see this, please forgive me for including your spelling error GIF response – it was too funny to pass up

    Also dropping the thumbnail of the video for the thumbnail of my article, courtesy of the lovely Maid Mint herself.

    Much like how this segment started with Phoebe saying “Never give up, bitch!”, I strive to never give up on myself, as my idols show what they can be capable of when you keep on keeping on.

    Well, I got no excuse now, I am officially unemployed and made a declaration I want to try keep evolving my writing work, guess I got to try keep to it now.

    As always, thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are safe and keeping well. If not, then I hope my silly words about various topics have brought you comfort, if only for a short while.

    Keep going. I will if you will.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 329, “Tidying Time”

    Redundancy Review: Day 329, “Tidying Time”

    (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 caretakers and clearers (yes that is a word, I specifically looked it up), welcome to Day 329 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Spent a bit of today doing some cleaning, both of myself and of my living space, specifically starting to tackle clearing out the fridge and freezer in order to make space for various essentials I want to pick up in the coming weeks whilst I still make my current amount of money alongside tidying up the bathroom so I could stick the shower baskets back on to keep things relatively organised.

    Housework is always something I struggle to find the impetus for, possibly because of that old bastard ADHD. It never seems urgent in my mind, so it falls by the wayside in favour of other things, but simultaneously, I am a housework fiend when it comes to procrastinating something more important…

    …there is a joke in here about how my flat is going to be the cleanest it has ever been as I put off finding another job, but I do not know how confident I feel to make it.

    So instead I think I will spin it more into a general discussion topic, specifically along the lines of: What sort of timeline do I think I will find a new job on?

    The short answer is: “eeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?”, with the explanation to that answer and the long answer being one and the same.

    As I have mentioned previously, processing where I want to go next is the first priority, and given I am extremely privileged to have a good amount of runway to support a long amount of processing time, debugging myself and recovering from burnout is the key.

    At the same time though, I know this is also partially because I reckon a three-to-six month job search is going to be the optimistic end of the timeline, with upwards of one-and-a-half years being the middle ground between pessimism and realism given how rough the market is currently for job searchers, hence my logic of wanting to throw myself into writing cause if I am going to be on the search for a while, I may as well maintain a massive personal project.

    It is the advice that is always given to all walks of life in terms of career development: maintain a personal project. Artists of all flavours, programmers, and even quality assurance professionals such as myself are expected to work on projects or ideas outside of work hours to show your dedication to your craft, and it is the theory behind this that I have a love-hate relationship with.

    I get the logic behind it, promise. Working on stuff outside of work can help show employers what you are capable of in ways that cannot be expressed properly in an interview or job application, and it can be fulfilling to see a personal project through to completion – especially if you do so with friends.

    But at the same time, and especially with modern work culture, the idea of giving up personal time to go beyond work feels extremely unfair in terms of how it makes you stand out to employers. Heck the reason there are so many gaps of multiple weeks between Redundancy Reviews before I got shitcanned was because I would finish a work day and not even want to fathom doing anything that would class as brain stimulation – and I work remotely.

    Remote work means that I do not have to consider the same factors as other people do:

    • There is no commute to worry about, freeing up on average two hours
    • I live in a very walkable town that has numerous local amenities for lunch and food shopping, meaning I can do those errands on my lunch hour
    • During my breaks from work, I can make small dents into the housework list as a way to get away from the screen and decompress my mind
    • And because I only had a few meetings a day, I could spend my focus energy on actually getting the job done rather than having my social battery drain bit-by-bit

    All of these are an extreme privilege to have against modern work culture, and asking someone who works longer hours and also has to deal with a commute to give up their paltry time in the evening or any amount of time during the two weekend days they get to work on a personal project feels, in equal measures, performative and exploitative.

    There is also a prime opportunity for me to drag AI through the mud once more off the back of that, but I think I will save that one for another day and instead talk about VTubers that I like.

    Like Nerissa Ravencroft from Hololive English Advent.

    I ramble about Shiori Novella enough, but I have only slightly alluded to what I think about Nerissa. When Advent initially debuted she was actually the design I was taken least with, but as time went on and I saw how she interacted with the community on streams, I started to fall in love with how this silly goober functions, combined with her absolutely godlike singing voice.

    Her originals are wonderfully crafted pieces that resonate with different emotions in each piece, from alluding to the playful and seductive nature of demons in “Say My Name”, to diving deep in how it feels to reflect alone on mistakes and past trauma in the hauntingly poetic “In My Feelings”… and well, I could talk about Oyome Holic here too, but let us save that for a day where I am not writing this at past ten in the evening.

    This varied vocal energy is brought out in the cover songs she creates as well, with the two I am wanting to highlight showing both ends of the Vocaloid producer spectrum with “Birdbrain” nailing the esoteric and weird side of things (alongside nailing the scream right at the end of the bridge), and with “Rabbit Hole” utilising Rachie’s English lyrics being…

    …well…

    …Rabbit Hole is a hell of a good song, and I will leave it there to save myself any embarrassment.

    Outside of this though, the thing I admire most about Nerissa is her work ethic. She does so much behind the scenes to enable music and streams for the Jailbirds, and this definitely deserves to be recognised more because the effort put in even when the odds are against her is one hell of an admirable quality.

    Plus her obsession with Culver’s acts as great advertising for the American chain, to the point that if I somehow end up in the US in the future, I would love to try it out.

    Anyway, that’s my VTuber rambling at an end for today, not so much a review, more just an unstructured gush about the talents I look up to.

    Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope this week brings you peace and comfort where possible, or if you are facing hardship, that it passes by quickly without much weight on your soul.

    Keep on keeping on.

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

    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.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 322, “Comfort”

    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.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 213-217, “Getting Distracted”

    (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 latecomers and no-shows, welcome to Day 213 to 217 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Spent time over the weekend not writing to focus on spending time with friends and doing my own things.

    Did not write.

    Got too involved in games last night to take some stress off.

    Did not write.

    So tonight, after one of my regularly scheduled gaming sessions, I am forcing myself to write something before I do anything further for my own entertainment tonight.

    Maintaining discipline is hard, especially when I work a full-time job in addition to handling day-to-day tasks, often leaving little time for writing when all I really want to do is play RPGs or watch cartoon horses run around a track. The ADHD does not help in this regard, though that affects both my personal and professional ventures.

    It can sometimes be a blessing, usually when the hyperfocus hits just right to allow me to belt through a massive chunk of work in a short amount of time or hit the writing flow exceptionally well to the point I will ramble on for several paragraphs about whatever topic sits at the forefront of my mind, but this boon of hyperfocus comes with the downside of what it feels like to be at the opposite end of the spectrum.

    Complete.

    Shutdown.

    No work gets done, no nothing gets done unless it provides the adequate of dopamine to kickstart my addled brain once more, and the worst part is when this state comes right after a period of hyperfocus – usually being knocked out of it by something happening in the middle of my work, or as is often the case nowadays, finding myself frustrated at something to where it snaps me out of my flow state into a short period of sulking where I need to do something completely different or else my brain does not want to cooperate.

    This is where having a remote job with a flexible work schedule really helps me out, as I am able to take that time without a manager looking over my shoulders wondering why the hell I have stopped for a bit and get myself back into the right state of mind, along with not having to worry about not being able to stay later due to that interruption, I have the time to get my work done.

    That freedom is something I definitely do not take for granted, and my working environment is what has allowed me to be my best self all this time because I am free from the psychological distractions that usually come from being within an office. Part of me wonders how long it would take to resocialise me if I were to ever work in person again, because I know I can be equal parts abrasive and weird when it comes to my working style, not to mention the copious amounts of swearing… did hit an extremely satisfying “son of a bitch!” during work yesterday though, that felt great.

    Alright, that is enough sidetracking. It is very rare I managed to hit Tuesdays on schedule given recent slips so I wanted to make the most of it with a proper VTuesday segment, once more talking about a song, this time from a contender for my Hololive English kamioshi, Ninomae Ina’nis with Tako Takover.

    On stream vibes alone, Ina worked her way into my heart with cozy gaming and art content, but she is equally talented as a singer, leading to beautiful pieces like Violet all the way to surprisingly intense pieces like Tako Takover.

    And when I say intense, I mean there is a part of me that is dying to be in a crowd whenever this is played live because I feel the call & response and chanting would be absolutely insane to be involved in.

    Right after the opening lyrics there is repeated chanting of “ICHI! HACHI! TAKODACHI!” followed by “INA INA INA”, which never fails to get me into the listening mood for this song, finding myself singing along very soon into the song…

    …which is completely the point given the insanely clever lyrics written by fellow HoloEN member Mori Calliope, combining the beautiful puns that Ina herself is known for whilst weaving a story about the Tentacult rising to power in the world with Ina herself as the leader behind the new world order.

    I am not immune to propaganda, and considering this is essentially a propaganda piece for a cult of weird little purple guys following a priestess of the Ancient One… sign me the fuck up. 

    In a way I am glad I fall for fictional propaganda more than I do real world propaganda because if I were not as politically aware as I am I feel I would have fallen into a cult or an alt-right pipeline by now.

    That is entirely beside the point though, what is the point is this song is awesome, though, given it was composed by Aiobahn +81, composer behind Internet Yamero, a similarly intense and catchy song with crazy lyrics, it is no surprise. 

    Yeah no my brain has stopped working now. Listen to the song, or both of them, and feel the rhythm of the bass hit you, I guarantee either one of them will be stuck in your head after.

    And I have to thank Ina herself here for posting a nice full size picture of the thumbnail of Tako Takover on her Twitter account so I can use it as a thumbnail.

    That about covers it for today, hopefully I can keep the discipline up to get back to a reasonable schedule. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax and take the week easy.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 210, “Heart of an Idol”

    (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 units and detachments, welcome to Day 210 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Missed a fair few milestones due to not having the energy to write throughout the majority of December, but considering I am reasonably on schedule this time we can commemorate thirty weeks worth of the review… provided my maths is character, I think it is because a Tuesday is a multiple of seven usually and 210 is a multiple of seven, so I am pretty certain I am on track.

    Thirty weeks since possibly the most life-altering event I have encountered thus far, one that fully derailed where I was thinking I was going to go and shunted me onto the path I am currently on, a path that is currently serving me quite well even if I have my doubts about its longevity. It is weird to think that I am rapidly approaching the year anniversary of the titular event, hopefully I can stay on track to mark that as a milestone as well.

    It is VTuesday however, and the first one of those I have got to mark in a while as well, though today it is going to be more of a general discussion about an aspect of VTubing before heading into the review.

    Taking into account the origin of VTubing within Japan, it is almost impossible to talk about the majority of corpos and a significant number of independents without talking about what is often referred to as “idol culture”.

    And no, this is not going to be a screeching mess of an article about how idol culture is burning out massive amounts of VTubers , if just because I do not consider myself educated enough about the culture as a whole to articulate proper criticisms that are not just my own opinion as a relative outsider.

    This is especially apparent when you take a look at my history within idol-related media and find a fair few notable names lacking:

    • Never engaged with Love Live!, neither the game or the anime outside of Nico memes
    • Never engaged with Bandori outside of having a passive awareness of Chu2 and PAREO
    • And never engaged with Idolmaster to even know any of the characters by looks or name

    All I really took an interest in growing up was many other people’s first exposure to what an idol is: Vocaloid, and by extension… Megurine Luka.

    Yeah, no, for someone who started to interact with Vocaloid in their middle teenage years which was over a decade ago now dear god, Hatsune Miku was not actually the first Vocaloid to catch my eye, it was instead the elegant and graceful Megurine Luka I developed an attachment to first. Of course attaching to one Vocaloid almost makes it a guarantee that you will attach yourself to others which did happen to me eventually as well, it is just interesting to me I diverged from the norm from the offset.

    This fascination started with Luka Luka★Night Fever, which I cannot mention without saying rest in peace to Samfree, the producer behind this song. I hope you are resting easy knowing you left an undeniable legacy on this world with your music. From the get go the song is catchy as all hell with fun and energetic dance moves, dance moves which started to develop my interest in the idea of learning idol dances like so many young weebs aspire to do.

    In general, both back then and today, idol concerts are the driving force behind my semi-pipe dream of wanting to learn how to dance. There is something that just enraptures me about seeing the perfect blend of music, vocals, and dancing that makes me want to aspire to move like that myself… then the “pipe dream” part kicks in and outside of loading idol songs onto Beat Saber, I find it hard to find both the motivation and energy to learn, usually falling victim to my inconsistent sense of rhythm.

    I eventually branched out a bit more into Vocaloid, picking up a few other favourite producers along the way, with special mention going to Neru (the producer, not the Vocaloid Akita Neru) for some absolute bangers of songs with absolutely heart breaking lyrics – looking squarely at you Lost One’s Weeping.

    But as mentioned above, an interest in idols did not go far beyond Vocaloid as many of the other popular idol trends passed me by…

    …until Hololive showed up in my life, and everything changed.

    From that moment on, not only did I find a beautiful source of additional idol concerts to partake in, it massively expanded my world to finding other VTuber corpos and independent VTubers who provided similar sources of entertainment. This, combined with the massive boom that VTubing experienced over the early 2020s, made me fall in love with idol performances all over again.

    Although this time, as someone with both a fully developed brain and a reasonable sense of their own gender identity, it made me fixate on the general look and style of idol uniforms as a whole – primarily because I really wanted, and still do, to wear one some day with the even more massive pipe dream of attempting to perform in one.

    For now though, I am more than content to be in the crowd, waving my light sticks around, cheering “HAI! HAI! HAI!” or engaging in the ever so wonderful feeling of doing a call-and-response with whoever is on stage.

    But Hololive is now not the only source of my idol entertainment, as I now find myself fully in the grips of Umamusume: Pretty Derby, a franchise that somehow finds the perfect blend of sports anime and idol anime to make for an absolutely exhilarating and whimsical experiences delivered by your Uma clutching victory from the jaws of defeat before going up on stage to perform in the “Winning Concert”.

    Both in the anime and in the game I find myself singing along and cheering during the various performances, along with me and my partner groaning in despair when the anime decides to skip over winning concerts or dangle the hints of them in our face – special highlight here going to Next Frontier.

    True to their name, idols give me inspiration. I see how hard they work, often in the face of odds working against them, putting in all their effort to put on shows both online and in real life, and I find myself wanting to strive for the same peak in my own life and my own art. This is definitely apparent in the music of one 2.5D fairytale idol, the ever lovely Phoebe-chan and her song “Bloom Again”.

    It has only been recently that I have known who Phoebe-chan is, going back to her headline performance at the VExpo 2025 opening concert… though the funny part of that is my partner and I ran into her a short while before the concert. She was getting ready in the lobby of the hotel we were staying at, and, true to my partner’s fascination with frilly and fancy outfits, he stopped to talk to her whilst I went back to our hotel room, it was only later on that we connected the dots of what happened.

    Her performance during the concert was a mix of heartwarming moments with her original music, talking about difficulties encountered throughout the year and wanting to grow beyond what had happened in the past, followed by absolute meme territory featuring a performance of Renai Circulation with Smash Mouth and Space Jam put into the mix.

    From that moment, and compounding that with the small meet & greet she hosted the day after where we got to have a proper conversation with her and purchase some of her merch, I have found myself a quiet but dedicated fan of her work, resonating with the themes of growth, rebirth, and trying your best to go with the flow that she puts into her music.

    I actually said to her during that meet & greet that I had almost cried during her opening concert performance, as what she talked about resonated deeply with my own experience of losing my job a few months prior. I bought her album at that moment and she offered to sign it, writing a lovely message in the top-left corner.

    “Rosa, let’s meet again!! <3”

    It is a simple touch, but that small signature does help keep me going on some rough days, especially as I would love to see her again at VExpo this year.

    Plus her manager has the absolute badass name of “Steiner”, just such a powerful and cool name for someone to have.

    That… once more went way longer than I expected it to, especially for one once more so off the cuff. All the same, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to find things that inspire you in your life, be they big or small, I hope something brings you joy and helps you find the strength to keep going.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 147, “Dreams”

    (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 dreamers and nappers, welcome to Day 147 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Something I miss a lot from my recent experiences with stress is that I have not been having any dreams lately, which makes me a bit sad honestly – not that I can really remember most of what happens in my dreams anyway due to not keeping a dream journal, but the ability to go inside of my mind for a sensory experience before my alarm goes off to rouse me out of sleep is something I oddly enjoy.

    Still capable of having nightmares though, though admittedly they are as infrequent as my dreams right now which is relieving. Specifically when it comes to having nightmares I can struggle to differentiate between what happened in the dream and what happened in real life, something that has actually led me to believing what happened in the nightmare before I snap myself out of it.

    My fascination with dreaming most likely comes from my love of stories, the idea that I can go to sleep with the ability to experience an almost nonsensical story produced by the random thoughts my sleeping brain comes up with has a strange appeal to it.

    But, as usual with me being a writer, the title has a double meaning, as I want to ramble about what my dreams are in an aspirational sense, and why despite the fact they feel so far away right now, I want to keep working towards them. This is partially inspired by a conversation I had with a friend over lunch about my current situation in relation to job searching, personal pursuits, and life in general.

    Let me start with the obvious one: writing. I would love to be able to make it as a writer somehow, either as a freelancer with reliably stable regular gigs with clients who love what I do or as an in-house dedicated copywriter for some kind of digital agency, though I know in this current economy that is one hell of an ask, especially given my minimal experience as a formal copywriter. Plenty of examples and instances throughout my career, just harder to sell than someone who has been doing it a lot longer than I.

    It would also be nice if I could monetise Rambles in some way, which I sort of already do with commissions (contact me for commission rates, I would be happy to work on anything you like (yes anything)), but that is also a similarly tall task to make it support all of my expenses.

    For now though, Rambles is my creative outlet, something to keep my mind active and my skills honed against the tide of AI-generated content. Hopefully when my life calms down a bit I will be able to write more fiction and get to some of the more in-depth pieces I always promised myself I would create.

    My dreams are not limited to writing though, some of them are logical, some of them are… a little more esoteric.

    I would love to make my own card game one day. I have grown up playing all sorts of tabletop games, from starting out with Warhammer 40k in my local library, to being introduced to the GOATed deckbuilder that is Star Realms, before I was finally brought down to the gutter when I got into Magic: the Gathering back in 2017. Like most people who spent their time playing those sorts of games, I have ideas and concepts I would love to bring to life one day, from translating the concept of a fighting game to cardboard to making my own deckbuilder themed around aerial combat.

    There is also the concept of “dream cosplays” I would love to do. Obviously Shiori Novella from Hololive English is still right up there, especially given the events of this year where a commissioner severely let me down, but there is also Princess Rosalina from Super Mario Galaxy, the character who (sort of) gave me my name and acted as one of my first egg-cracking moments. So many amazing outfits I would love to wear and goof around in, making both my current self and my inner child extremely happy.

    And finally, the more esoteric one, well, at least it feels esoteric to me.

    I would love to learn how to dance.

    Not just any style of dance – I would love to learn how to dance like my idols in Hololive.

    Whenever a concert comes around, whenever one of the Holomems has a chance to perform live on stage, I watch their dances with fascination and glee, hoping one day I could learn to dance like that myself. Admittedly this did not start with Hololive, as this fascination dates all the way back to when I listened to Luka Luka Night Fever for the first time, but the interest in idol dances definitely ramped up with discovering Hololive.

    Which perfectly leads into what I want to discuss for today’s VTuesday, the first ever full cross-generation Hololive song: Shiny Smily Story, specifically the “call & response practice” version the main channel posted before 4th fes.

    The description does not lie. This is the idol song that represents Hololive, and even as new anthems for different fes and events come along, there will always be something incredibly special about what this song represents, either it be the highs of talents coming together to spread the joy of Hololive, or the inevitable lows that come alongside a graduation where a music box version of this song is used as backing over clips of significant moments.

    Reason I chose this version specifically as this is the most recent posting of the full version with subtitled lyrics, there is a version from when the song was first released back in 2020 but I have always felt a greater resonance with the translated lyrics in this version, so it is the interpretation I want to use for analysis.

    One of the first thing that catches me attention with these lyrics is the use of digital terminology as part of some of the verses, really playing with the fact that Hololive is an agency of virtual idols, examples including:

    “I tweaked the settings of my quivering heart

    So that I wouldn’t feel scared”

    “As I go, I’ll hit delete

    On any thoughts of giving up”

    I always love when Hololive, and hell VTubers in general, really lean into the digital space they occupy, utilising the unique nature of the medium to do interesting things, and small, cute little references to their own digital medium are very sweet.

    The next part I want to talk about is the bridge before the final chorus, and the other main inspiration behind the subject of today’s article. When I first read these lyrics all the way back in 2023, I felt myself tear up a little bit at their meaning, and honestly even two years later I still get misty eyed reading them:

    “I wanna take the stage I’ve dreamed of at last

    Shine with colors no one else has

    Cry my eyes out once in a while

    Get back up again with a smile

    Share the futures that we can see

    Make our dreams a reality

    It’s make or break

    Come on and take a leap of faith”

    There is so much meaning to me in these lyrics, both for what I see in my oshi Holomems and what I can see in myself. 

    For the former meaning, being able to perform on stage can be the realisation of a long-standing dream, with the bright & bold colours of their idol outfit on full display. It can be a long journey, one that will be marked with sadness and hardship, but should never be given up on, because there is a future where that journey pays off, and all the previous hard times show that you have made it, whatever leaps of faith taken paid off in the end.

    And as for the latter meaning?

    Well, I think I ended up summarising what it means for me when I talked about the idol journey above, with just a few context tweaks it becomes more personal to me.

    I know my long-term future is good, because I have the drive and work ethic to deliver what my future needs. There will be hurdles, roadblocks, and stumbles galore, but so long as I can roll with the punches and trust where my feet will land with each step, I am certain I will make it.

    There is not actually much else I want to say about SSS, that bridge covers practically everything else I could say about the song. Through highs, lows, positives, negatives, the dream will always be there.

    Do need a thumbnail though…

    Yeah, best fox friend will work.

    That will cover everything for today, and good timing cause it is almost 10pm here – damn work schedule. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax and look forward to the rest of your week. 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 145-146, “The Albert Hall Diaries”

    Redundancy Review: Day 145-146, “The Albert Hall 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 thespians and troupers, welcome to Day 145 and 146 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    I have returned from my trip to London and a brief excursion to hang out with my board game friends only to find myself afflicted with a pestilence alongside my period starting…

    …my luck is really something else sometimes.

    But, as is the overarching message of the Redundancy Review, we keep moving, even when the circumstances are against us, and considering how much I enjoyed writing the VeXPo Diaries piece I want to do a similar thing for the Saturday I spent in London going to Metal Gear In Concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

    Waking up

    As mentioned in Day 144, I did not have the best night’s sleep in the hotel bed. A shower was enough to shake off the grogginess before I sat in the bed and passed the time by writing that day’s review whilst watching old TV clips on Youtube. I was under the assumption that my check-out time was at twelve so I had plenty of time to relax and just exist in the pleasingly liminal space of my hotel room.

    Yeah, no, I double checked my booking, revealing that my check-out time was at eleven instead – a fact I discovered at quarter to eleven. This forced me to suddenly drop everything I was doing, focus on rapidly packing and getting myself dressed ready to leave. A ten-minute task all told, my previous experience of needing to run out the door when I was late to classes at uni coming in handy once again.

    Wandering around

    Given I was out of the hotel at eleven and my concert was not until half-two, I had a fair bit of time to kill, and given this was the first time in forever I have been to London without a work engagement, I was presented with the perfect opportunity to just wander around aimlessly using the tourist maps for guidance.

    My first port of call was getting to the Albert Hall itself, a task which only took me around twenty minutes to navigate, letting me grab a picture of the external TV screen showing Metal Gear In Concert being on that night

    I wish I had taken some more photos of the outside of the Albert Hall, as it is a stunningly beautiful building, but alas, my desire to keep wandering took over, leading me down towards the centre of South Kensington where my destination for a big lunch to fill me up for the day revealed itself.

    Honest Burger

    After trying Bleecker, you might have thought I would not be in the mood for another burger, but I am never one to turn down delicious meats, vegetables, and cheese sandwiched between two pillowy buns.

    Honest Burger is a place I have been curious about since seeing it on a Food Tours video, with a focus on simple ingredients to make something delicious. Given my intention that this was going to be my only meal until I got home that evening, I went a little indulgent with a homemade mint lemonade, a small portion of frankly massive onion rings, and the Honest Smash burger with bacon, served with a side of rosemary fries.

    This meal cost a total of £23.49, which broke down into £14.55 for the burger and fries, £3.30 for the small onion rings, and £3.50 for the drink, plus a £2.14 service charge which is listed as optional/discretionary but personally I believe they are a mandatory part of eating out, especially as tipping culture in the UK is not exactly strong. 

    Overall the price lined up with what I have paid for burger meals in London in the £20-25 range, and this was absolutely gorgeous. Again, I have to highlight the fucking enormous onion rings which were crunchy and perfectly seasoned, I could envision myself eating a full plate of those with a variety of dips. 

    The meal as a whole fulfilled its purpose, I did not need to eat the rest of the day minus a few drinks on the way home to keep my energy up.

    Albert Hall time

    Meal finished, I did a brief bit of wandering around and managed to get myself thoroughly lost meaning I had to rely on Google Maps rather than any of the tourist maps to find my bearing again, but I got my way back to the Albert Hall where the cafe bar was open meaning I could get my first (and only) coffee of the day in the form of a £4.60 mocha. Pretty standard for takeaway coffee in the UK, with a pretty standard taste that came along with it.

    Took a while for me to notice but the front desk was actually selling programmes, and as someone who loves little mementos and souvenirs from their nerdy trips I had to get one – especially with this gorgeous front art:

    Additionally I bought myself a t-shirt and a poster with the same art. I want the organisers to see this event as a success because this was an amazing experience I would love to see repeated elsewhere.

    The doors to the auditorium opened, and upon getting my ticket checked I encountered something I have not really seen before: I was offered a ticket to go down to the stalls instead. I had picked the matinee performance rather than the evening performance because I was initially intending to rawdog the entire event in a day before deciding to make it an overnight once I was re-employed, but it was surprising to have that as an option.

    I did not take them up on the offer though, as I was curious to see what my ticket got me.

    I think I made the right decision, I had an end-of-row seat and no one ended up sitting next to me, giving me a lovely bit of private space to immerse myself fully in the music.

    The concert itself

    I did not take any pictures during the show itself, initially I did want to quickly take some stealth photos to get good accompanying pictures for the article, but I found myself enjoying the show so much I did not want to look away for a moment.

    The structure of the show confused me initially, but once it clicked in my mind I was thoroughly impressed. Act I contained music from MGS3: Snake Eater, MGS: Peace Walker, and MGSV: The Phantom Pain – the story of Big Boss, the legendary soldier and clonefather of the protagonist most people know of: Solid Snake, which was the focus of Act II with MGS, MGS2: Sons of Liberty, and MGS4: Guns of the Patriots.

    For someone who has more attachment from the franchise for the Solid Snake games rather than the Big Boss games, I found myself enjoying Act I more than I anticipated, especially as someone who has never properly played Peace Walker. When the orchestra started playing the Main Theme of the game I found myself having this almost proud feeling upon hearing it, the whole “music that makes you patriotic for a country that does not exist” kind of vibe.

    Act II definitely resonated more with me, but because of my attachment to those games than the others I did find myself finding a few criticisms in the setlist… well, nitpicks more than anything else.

    First off, there was no Encounter. The first ever “ALERT” song in the franchise and it was not put into the setlist as part of MGS. It really could have replaced Mantis Hymn which would make for an absolutely exhilarating flow of music to go from Encounter to Hind D, but I recognise that Mantis Hymn is iconic.

    Another nitpick from the MGS setlist is the end theme “The Best Is Yet To Come” did not have a vocalist performing the lyrics, which is especially disappointing considering Donna Burke was one of the guest performers and she sang an English version of the song on the MGSV OST. I know it might have disrupted the flow of the show a little bit because Donna and Stefanie Joosten performed solos at the end of each act but this is such an iconic song due to the lyrics, and missing them out is a shame.

    For all of my other nitpicks though, they were blown out of the water with the conclusion of Act II: Metal Gear Saga, the main theme of MGS4 followed by Stefanie Joosten performing Snake Eater which was then followed up by Donna Burke performing Heavens Divide, a conga line of iconic Metal Gear songs all of which yielded massive cheers from the crowd.

    Speaking of the crowd, one funny audience moment during the MGS2 segment of Act II was someone wolf whistling when the cutscene revealed Raiden for the first time, prompting a wave of laughter to rush over the audience.

    The game footage being in the background was an extremely nice touch to the show, it helped contextualise the music in a greater way and helped the immersion, especially when my nostalgia neurons got triggered from hearing certain songs alongside certain moments.

    Overall, the trip as a whole was well worth it, and a nice time to actually get to explore London on foot without needing to worry about a work meeting or anything else… that said it killed my feet, even with me wearing proper walking shoes. For someone who will extoll the virtues of good public transport links I will seldom use them myself, preferring to walk almost everywhere within towns and cities.

    That covers everything for the Albert Hall diaries, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope the Monday blues are not hitting you too hard and that you are able to take some time to relax.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 133, “Never Lose Your Whimsy”

    Redundancy Review: Day 133, “Never Lose Your Whimsy”

    (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 partiers and revelers, welcome to Day 133 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Trying to write personal pieces whilst in the midst of an ongoing depressive episode is, unsurprisingly, extremely difficult. Striking the delicate balance between staying optimistic in this modern age whilst also maintaining a degree of realism is a tough task – especially when your brain is against you at every turn.

    Losing salaried employment hurt, and it is hard to not view this as an event that will have a negative impact on my path going forward. On LinkedIn I have seen many former colleagues who had been made redundant starting to get back into work, some after a period of one year or more, and I have also seen incredibly talented people stay out of work for even longer than that. That disparity in opportunity pains me to see, and does not help my mental state.

    Once again, I need to keep in mind that I am lucky to be in any sort of work to begin with, and that compared to a lot of my generational peers, I am in a remarkably successful position in terms of my career progression. 

    One fear I have come across in applying to jobs across the public sector is that I am too “tech-pilled” to make a true difference outside of the private sector. My cover letters & supporting statements usually read pretty intensely, talking about my experiences working on high-stakes projects and how I have pushed beyond my limits to deliver exceptional quality work, but usually struggle to write about how this experience will enable me to help people – which is what I ultimately want to do.

    In a way, this is another one of the many reasons why I keep wanting to write the Redundancy Review. I talk a lot about how I want this to serve as a living record of my story, documenting each up and down as I navigate my path going forward.

    But maybe, I also write this as a way to affirm my humanity. To remind myself that I am more than what I can write in cover letters, or what I choose to put on my LinkedIn. I am a writer who chooses to write about the vulnerability in human life, and whilst that may be a purely personal venture for now, I definitely know I will be able to use that skill in the future, to work towards something I know makes me happy.

    For all the challenges that are thrown my way, for all the hardships I endure, I never want to become cynical or jaded. If there is one thing to take away from the Redundancy Review it is that I love games, I love toys, and I love plushies – all things that some might see as childish pursuits, but to me they are what help remind me of who I am: someone who works not for power or titles, but someone who wants to embrace their silliness in all aspects of their life.

    I never want to lose that whimsy… a statement which ties perfectly into the topic for VTuesday today.

    For those familiar with the above phrase, you already know who I am going to talk about, but for those uninformed, say hello to Gigi Murin of Hololive English Justice.

    When Justice first debuted, Gigi was… admittedly extremely low on my radar, especially when looking at the rest of the lineup in the generation. I saw clips from her debut stream and appreciated her gremlin sense of humour as someone who shares it, but compared to the other members, I did not honestly pay her much mind.

    Then came the 21st September incident of 2024, where she dedicated an eight-hour unarchived karaoke stream to singing “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire with multiple variations on the setting she was in and the processing on her audio.

    I feel a lot of people became Grems (I had to capitalise this because Google Docs kept thinking I wanted to spell “germs” no matter how many times I typed it out) after that moment, and I would like to include myself among them, even I did not fully realise it at the time.

    On the surface level, that is all Gigi seems to be: someone who is very good at generating silly bits and running with them to an over-the-top degree, but once you start digging deeper into these bits you realise how exceptional her emotional intelligence is – every bit is well-crafted and layered, bringing comedy through absurdity that someone skilled at being a “professional idiot” can do.

    But there are two moments that stick out in my mind that shows the depth of her emotional intelligence, and were the moments that cemented me as a Grem. The first of which being a short speech in the after party stream of her 3D debut, which is where this article got the title. 

    “Never lose your whimsy! Never lose it. If you lose your whimsy, you become jaded and cynical, and then you start seeing everything in a negative light.”

    Speaking as someone who has talked about becoming jaded and cynical in the wake of a life-changing event, this… definitely speaks to me on a personal level, and it is something I have struggled to keep in mind in recent weeks. Negativity has a way of worming into my mind at the worst of times, and as I continue my search for a new permanent home there have been moments where I feel myself falling into hopelessness.

    But I still choose to create, being inspired by the VTubers I look up to. Seeing the time, energy, and effort they put into projects always leaves an impact on me, leading us nicely into the actual review topic for today, Gigi Murin’s first original song: I’ll still be here

    The moment I listened to this song and I found myself bawling my eyes out over the lyrics, I knew I wanted to talk about this genuine work of art. I have always had an affinity for stories about grief, ever since I had to analyse a poem about the subject as part of my GCSE English exam. There is something hauntingly beautiful about being able to turn the raw emotion of loss into artwork that can help represent how you feel in a given medium – be it writing, illustration, or music.

    “I’ll still be here” is a song dedicated to Gigi’s father, referred to as “gigipapa” in the description, with the lyrics being a beautiful story of how grief stays with you as the years go by, while the video depicts how your living space becomes neglected in the wake of a terrible tragedy.

    It starts off incredibly bright, with the Gigi we know bouncing around her room engaging in all different activities, before a Gigi wearing funeral-appropriate attire walks into the room, looking at her past self from before the funeral with an unknown emotion.

    She still tries to do the activities she was enjoying before the funeral, but there is a distinct lack of energy to all of them, simply going through the motions as her world does not feel the same as before the funeral, the mess slowly piling up across her room as she continues to try engage with life the same way she used to until it finally all piles up with funeral Gigi standing there in the middle of it all. Throughout this sequence as well the room is slowly getting darker as well, representing how dark the world can feel when you fall into a depression-like state, somewhere that grief can definitely take someone.

    After this sequence there is a lot of imagery one could read into and extrapolate what each moment means, but I am not going to do that. Gigi took an immensely difficult decision to share this part of her heart with us as fans, and it would be rude for me to speculate on what could be representations of very intimate memories.

    I will however, talk about the lyrics of the bridge that plays over these images, as they are incredibly moving and act as a general story about how grief can make someone feel:

    “I still go through

    A thousand miles

    The ups and downs 

    I did with you

    And I write down

    A million lines

    Of things that I 

    Could say to you

    And it’s so hard sometimes

    To just come out and say the words

    But I miss you

    So please don’t miss a single thing that I do”

    Grief never truly leaves someone. Its presence will shrink over time, but the memories of what you experienced with someone, everything you wished you could have said to them before they were gone, and the fact that even after any given length of time you still want to say you miss them will stay with you forever.

    But you carry on, not just for yourself, but for their memory as well. You push yourself out of that hole you find yourself trapped in to keep going, making the most out of life to honour those who have gone.

    This gets reflected in the music video as well, as Gigi starts tidying up her room to feel a bit more organised in her life, getting out of her pajamas and into more casual clothes, clenching her fists before she decides to leave the room, going off to clear her head and make the most of a new day.

    Around a day after posting the video, Gigi made a community post on her Youtube that goes into detail around the process of creating the song and her emotions around it, but I want to highlight a few paragraphs in particular for how they resonated with me.

    This is probably going to come off as a touch parasocial, but… even if Gigi does not know me, and likely will never know me on a personal level, I feel extremely “seen” by her talking about how she sees art: as something you condense all your feelings into, throw it out in the world as a ball, and soon wonder why the hell you just created what you did.

    But there is a reason, at least for me, and it is summed up wonderfully in her short sentence: a celebration of life that just screams “I will keep going”.

    To end things off, I would like to tell my own short story about grief, though, not in the sense of losing someone. 

    Back when I first started seeing my therapist, she often emphasised to me about the importance of giving myself time to grieve after major life events, including but not limited to my gender transition, changing my job, and redefining my relationship with my parents.

    It actually took me a long while to fully understand what she meant, and I was initially rather dismissive of this viewpoint. Why would I need to grieve something that was not an explicit loss of a person?

    As time went on though, I started to understand what she meant, and in doing so I not only felt my emotions open up a bit more, I became less harsh on myself. Grief is not limited as an emotional response just to the loss of an individual, we can grieve lost opportunities, lost connections, and lost potential.

    In grieving the small things, we learn how to move forward as the people we want to be while remembering who we once were, living out the true human experience of experiencing change, making mistakes, and growing into who we want to be. 

    This has been a very odd VTuesday, talking about a surprising number of heavy topics, but one that I ultimately hope carries a positive message to whoever is reading this.

    If you have read all this way, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to relax. If you are carrying any amount of grief, be it from the loss of someone you loved or from any other form of loss, I hope you are able to let yourself grieve fully, and find the strength to move forward still.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 129, “Adaptable”

    (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 thinkers and ponderers, welcome to Day 129 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    I had a good evening last night, where the anxiety I had been feeling throughout the week almost completely receded. I was able to be silly with my partner once more and we even played Monster Hunter Wilds for half an hour – a far cry from how active I have been in video games even within recent months, but still a positive amount of progress.

    Though I find myself needing to remember that progress is most definitely not linear, as I woke up this morning back to being on the verge of panic attacks and finding myself rotting in bed until the late hours of the morning, struggling to move for fear of the thumping in my chest becoming so much worse as my balance becomes unsteady.

    But I kept in mind the ultimate message of what the Redundancy Review represents: to keep moving, no matter the circumstances.

    So I went for a walk in the local park, walking alongside the river with a mocha from a small local stand, which was actually my first coffee since Monday due to how unsettled my stomach has been, though it was not even for the hit of caffeine. For once I wanted to drink coffee purely for the experience of drinking coffee, albeit my usual mix of chocolate and coffee.

    Fresh air was definitely needed, and even though I still found myself scrolling through social media on my phone as I sat on a memorial bench close to the waterfront; being away from my bedroom helped massively, and let me try organise my thoughts into something coherent.

    If there has been one thing that has carried me through my career, it is my adaptability. Through the games industry, through the extended-reality industry, and now as a contractor, there is no denying that whilst I will bitch, moan, and cry, I will adapt to the requirements of the role to step up to whatever challenge comes my way.

    Sometimes this does mean I need to break, because this is not the first time I have needed to slam on the emergency brakes during my career, in fact it was only during 2023 where I did not need to take an extended period of time off due to stress. But there is one common theme from all those breakages: I came back, and I carried on, taking on the lessons learned from that breakage.

    Each time I thought my world was going to end, I was reminded of why I am on this earth, and why I choose to carry on each time. I can look back on several incidents over the last five years that threatened to bring me down, and, with the benefit of hindsight, see that I have still made it through, in spite of everything.

    My redundancy will soon become another one of those points in my past, something that hurt me deeply in the moment it happened and threw me off the track for a period of time after it, but will eventually become a part of my greater story.

    For now though, it is still a traumatic thought in my mind, that even though there was nothing I could have really done to prevent it, and that it was not just me caught up in the wave but all of my talented former colleagues as well due to the whole company going into administration.

    But if I look back on my history, and keep in mind why the phoenix is part of my fursona, I always come back. Sometimes I need to reincarnate, but that is okay, because change has only made me stronger…

    …note to self write Redundancy Review about my fursona soon, cannot believe I have gone over four months and not talked about being a furry.

    Back on track, need to write a review segment for today, and given my partner & I finally got around to watching KPop Demon Hunters on Wednesday, I think I want to talk about my favourite song from the film: What It Sounds Like.

    Given that this is the finale song of the film, there is going to be obvious discussion of spoilers ahead for the remainder of the review. If you want to stop reading here, thank you for reading, and I hope you have a fantastic day.

    For those intending to stick around, let us get right into it:

    Bit of background context, KPop Demon Hunters is a film about three KPop stars, Rumi, Mira, and Zoey, who form the group Huntr/x, performing absolute bangers by day and protecting the human world from demons by night. Early on in the film it is revealed that Rumi is part-demon herself, with the story focusing on her struggles with her own shame in relation to fighting back the main villainous group of the film: The Saja Boys, demons disguised as a KPop boy band.

    There is a lot more I can say about the story, but I want to get right in to talking about the song, so in brief: Rumi gets revealed as part-demon to her bandmates, forcing her to flee and allowing the Saja Boys to bring Gwi-Ma, the Demon King, into the mortal world in an attempt to feed him as many souls as possible. Right before there is a mass sacrifice, including Mira, Zoey, and the band’s manager Bobby, Rumi returns to start this final song.

    It starts with her admitting she cannot hide what she is anymore, and starting to finally open up to herself & her band mates, with the second verse being:

    “I tried to fix it, I tried to fight it

    My head was twisted, my heart divided

    My lies all collided

    I don’t know why I didn’t trust you to be on my side”

    As someone who can bottle up things for long periods of time, I heavily relate to these lyrics, especially in the context of being transgender. For someone who accepted they were not cis around the tail-end of 2019 and only told the majority of their friend groups at the start of 2020, the last line of this verse speaks out to me, especially when, outside of my parents, everyone who I have told about my gender has accepted me without hesitation.

    However, given what I have talked about today with relation to my redundancy and needing to come back from things that bring me down, it is the first chorus that starts to hit home for me:

    “I broke into a million pieces, and I can’t go back

    But now I’m seeing all the beauty in the broken glass

    The scars are part of me, darkness and harmony

    My voice without the lies, this is what it sounds like”

    I almost cried hearing this part of the song for the first time, as I see so much of myself in these lyrics. My redundancy effectively broke me, it shattered my perception of what my life currently is, it put my self-esteem issues front-and-centre once more, and it made me fearful for my future.

    But ultimately, as much as I have spent the last week pining to go back to when times were simpler, I cannot go back. All I can do is make the most of what has been given to me to work with, which has formed the basis of the voice used for the Redundancy Review: a vulnerable look at my own progress, stumbles, victories, and everything in between. 

    Everything I have gone through has left an impression on me, and like Rumi, a lot of those impressions are scars/patterns that I could be ashamed of, but I should strive to own them, as they are not exactly going to go away any time soon.

    After this, Zoey and Mira join in with the second part of the chorus:

    “Why did I cover up the colors stuck inside my head?

    I should’ve let the jagged edges meet the light instead

    Show me what’s underneath, I’ll find your harmony

    The song we couldn’t write, this is what it sounds like”

    If it is not already clear, I love finding transgender comparisons in songs, and these lyrics are no exception.

    It took a long while for me to fully find a level of self-expression I was comfortable with, and admittedly, I have been struggling in the last couple of months to find the energy to express myself as a transgender woman outside, and even inside, of my flat. The last time I truly dressed as “myself” instead of just dressing comfortably in “egg” mode was VeXpo, but during that time I felt unapologetically me – even as I was walking around the convention hall with plushies dangling from my dress.

    No matter how messy it may seem, I need to push myself to go out dressed up as myself, because even if I do not entirely feel like it, because even at my messiest, the jagged edges of my expression make me who I am.

    The choruses after the first one carry a single variation in the final line, with:

    “The song we couldn’t write, this is what it sounds like”

    Changing out for:

    “Fearless and undefined, this is what it sounds like”.

    Whilst the first chorus relates more to Huntr/x’s story as a whole, given that they struggled to write a new song to take down the Saja boys, each subsequent chorus ending with “Fearless and undefined” shows that despite all the troubles the girls have faced throughout the story, and for all the uncertainty that may come in the future, they are together, and it is the struggles they have endured that will keep them together, even if everything feels “undefined”.

    I love this song so much, it has honestly been the song I have listened to the most from the film due to how much I relate to the lyrics. Though I still need a thumbnail picture… god this stuff is hard when I do not just want to screenie Youtube videos…

    Okay, swiped the album cover from the Amazon listing for the soundtrack, that should do it.

    Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to take a chill weekend, mine is going to be occupied with a trip to Swansea for card game related purposes, which should be fun.

    KPop Demon Hunters is available on Netflix here: Watch KPop Demon Hunters | Netflix Official Site