Rosalia Rambles

Tag: redundancy

  • Redundancy Review: Day 134, “Self-Expression”

    (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 impressionists and pointillists, welcome to Day 134 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    One of the first things to fall for me when I enter into a depressive spike is my outward self-expression. My appearance starts to falter as I neglect doing a proper hair wash and shave to use what little energy I have on not smelling like the dumpster I feel I am, and my choice of clothing goes from the goth-lite style I typically enjoy to simple hoodie and joggers.

    It definitely helps me to cope with the depression, I do not need to put much mental effort into deciding what I want to wear and can instead direct that energy into making sure I can do what is absolutely essential for the day.

    In a way though, it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. I find myself falling into a state of depression, which makes my self-expression slip, which worsens my depression because I struggle to feel like myself, which makes it harder to find the time to dress up all cute and fancy without it feeling like an obligation.

    Writing definitely helps ease that feeling, or at the very least make me feel as if I am able to keep up with a form of self-expression, even if that mostly boils down to letting the words flow out of my head onto the page to make things more quiet up top – very much needed because of how noisy my brain feels right now.

    On the plus side, I know my employment will at least last for the rest of the year, with some amount of uncertainty about what might come next depending on the work output of myself and the people I work with. It provides comfort and anxiety simultaneously, the former from the fact I know I can at least see out the rest of this year working towards a goal, and the latter from once more facing down the barrel of uncertainty in a highly competitive jobs market.

    God this is turning into a proper ramble, I am struggling to keep my head focused on the task at hand and I keep veering off topic to talk about everything going on.

    I think I am just going to do some affirmations before I head to the review segment, both for myself, and anyone reading who may need it.

    It is tough to carry on right now, but I want to keep moving forward.

    There is still so much room for me to grow, I can keep growing stronger.

    My career has not peaked, I still have so much more to give to my field.

    Everything I have been through has helped me become who I am today, I am the net result of every victory and every defeat.

    Things feel overwhelming right now, but I will keep going.

    There is still so much beauty in this world I am yet to bear witness to, and I want to be able to put my own stories into the world.

    I teared up a little bit writing that all down if I am honest.

    Anyway, time to go into the review segment for today, which… is less a review, and more just a discussion about my fursona.

    Meet Rosa, the Arctic Fox & Phoenix hybrid. She is essentially my “truesona”, being a reflection of myself more than an actual character I would embody, down to her having similar proportions to what my actual body looks like IRL. This reference sheet was drawn by my friend Ely, who I think did a fantastic job with the entire thing.

    So, why did I make the design choices that I did with her?

    Part of it comes from my background in playing Monster Hunter. In both Rise and World I had armour & weapon setups that focused on the idea of fire (or blast, in this case) and ice, which slowly evolved into becoming my signature loadouts with me even developing lore based around the two Elder Dragons that the weapons were derived from.

    This elemental aesthetic inspires not only the animal choices for the fursona itself, but for the colour detailing on her as well, with the orange & blue markings representing her two elemental affinities, the colours being matched in the eyes two.

    Fun fact: I have given enough of my characters that are supposed to represent me heterochromia that I have had to write a note down that reminds me which eye is supposed be the chromatic one, as it is always a blue right eye with an unnatural colour for the right eye – orange for the fursona, and pink for any of my Monster Hunter characters.

    But I want to dive deeper on why the phoenix was chosen as one half of this hybrid. The arctic fox part is easy enough to explain: it is a creature associated with cold environments and I absolutely love foxes.

    The phoenix has a lot of personal connection to me though, and it started long before I became a furry.

    Initially, my connection to the mythical creature came through my first D&D character, Marieya Ebontide, someone who I have written a lot of fiction about and still need to give her a proper ending. After coming up with a part of her backstory on the fly for a nothic to dig into, that small fact soon evolved into developing her as a sorcerer suppressing her powers, gifted to her by having the soul of a phoenix.

    Over time, I found myself connecting with the concept of the phoenix more. I related it to my own challenges, how each time I got brought down to my lowest point I would always find a way to rekindle myself to come back stronger than I did before.

    Fire dims, colour fades, and feathers shed – but nothing lasts forever, and whatever is bringing me down low fades, letting my flames reignite once more to let my true nature shine through.

    I will finish up this review by going into the painful and excruciating details as to why my truesona has wings…

    …wings are fucking awesome.

    Simple as.

    While they do a good job at helping hammer home the phoenix aspect of the character, they are mainly there for being damn awesome, even in the small amounts of lore I have written for her I specify that they are not flight-capable wings, primarily there to add lift to jumps or stabilise herself during acrobatic manoeuvres.

    That pretty much covers it all for today, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you have been able to get past the hump day feelings and are able to look forward to the weekend coming soon.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 126-128, “Even in the face of adversity”

    (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 villains and adversaries, welcome to Day 126 to 128 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    The core of the Redundancy Review has been vulnerability, about showing the core of myself to the world, to talking about things that worry me and making a written record of my feelings.

    With how deep my recent depression has been, and continues to be, I think it is the right time for me to vomit words onto a page in the hopes of unfucking my brain just a little bit.

    So here goes nothing…

    At my core, I am a deeply insecure person. I am plagued by impostor syndrome on the daily, which infects my work, my hobbies, and my general being. There is a constant nagging voice in the back of my mind telling me that I am not good enough for my current field, hence my desire to switch out of the tech sector into something else.

    Like with a good deal of people in the modern age, I worry about what AI means for my job, about whether or not the field I have worked in for the last half a decade is about to be automated away entirely, even as discussions of the issues of the sustainability of the technology rage on. I know AI can be a helpful tool for doing away with menial and repetitive tasks that reduce friction, especially in creative ventures, but right now I feel the technology is being abused too much for the optimistic view to take hold.

    Most of all, I feel worried that I am going to lose what I currently have: my partner, my friends, the lifestyle I lead. Even when presented with evidence to the contrary, I find myself losing to the throes of a panic attack as I scream and cry for the pain overtaking my body to stop.

    I hold an immense amount of pride for the point I have managed to get my life to. I moved out shortly after turning 24, moving into my remarkably successful tech industry job around the same time… which did end in the redundancy that started this series but let us ignore that bit right now. Mixed in with all those big changes was me starting hormone replacement therapy as part of my transition into being the person I wanted to be, a decision I have never regretted or feel I ever will regret.

    For someone who had to rebuild the core of their life post-university due to having grown disdainful of the subject of their degree, I have done extremely well for myself. Ironically I have found myself reapplying some of my degree knowledge as part of my current contracting role, specifically in the usage of the Unity engine – some habits die hard I guess.

    But now I find myself almost at a crossroads, unsure of which path I want to walk down. Do I fully commit to the quality assurance route, upskilling myself in automation testing and utilising the fact that I do still have a programmer’s brain for good by hardening my skillset to find even better roles?

    Or do I walk away from the path I have travelled so far down to see where the road might fork, seeing where I could put my skills to the test in new sectors, such as charity or civil service?

    At the same time I need to ask myself the question of what this all means for my writing. I still want to tell my stories, even when I find myself with limited time on my hands due to the stresses of this world along with my own mind fighting against me, meaning I wish to pursue the mythical “work-life balance” that so many in the tech industry want to talk down on.

    All of those questions need answers, but they are most certainly not simple answers. So what do I do in the meantime? 

    Same thing as I did when I started working in the games industry, not knowing where I could end up.

    Same thing as I did when I transitioned over to the technology industry, and was unsure of my place in such a competitive industry.

    Same thing as when the news of my redundancy hit, and I did not know where my next paycheck would be coming from.

    I keep going.

    Even in the face of adversity.

    Even when my own insecurities are eating me alive.

    Even when I do not know what path the future will hold.

    I try my best to keep walking, with all the depression, uncertainty, and pain that comes along with navigating the current state of the world.

    And in honour of that, I think I want to talk about one of my favourite pieces of music as a review topic.

    For those unaware, I was just ever so slightly an emo kid growing up… yeah, I know, shocking, a trans girl grew up listening to emo music, in other news a fork was found in a kitchen today.

    But I was definitely someone who, in addition to a healthy diet of Dragonforce and video game OSTs, enjoyed the music of My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park (RIP Chester Bennington), and the subject of today’s review: Three Days Grace.

    What started my interest in the band was, of course, the absolute edgy banger of Animal I Have Become, the background track to everyone’s favourite AMV back in the day. But much like my love of Dragonforce, I went beyond the songs that everyone on the internet knew and looked further into their discography, leading me to discover Life Starts Now.

    It… is actually hard for me to do an in-depth lyrical analysis on this, because I think the entire song is a beautiful tale about never giving up and carrying on even when everything is against you, that it is never too late to change the way you have been living to make a new start. 

    I always like to look at the framing of the song being a conversation between two long-time friends, where one has gone through so much and is desperately tired, whereas the singer is trying to convince them that they have already been through so much that they survived through, that making another fresh start is not exactly going to hurt, and whatever comes next they will likely survive too.

    However, I do want to highlight the bridge, and do a little bit of my own analysis from my viewpoint on it:

    “All this pain

    Take this life and make it yours

    All this hate

    Take your heart and let it love again

    You will survive this somehow”

    There are so many ways I like to interpret this. The fantasy nerd in me loves to see this from the perspective of a warrior sacrificing themselves for their companion, giving them another chance at life while also telling them to not let hate consume them, to choose love instead to overcome the grief.

    But the more reasonable interpretation is the singer telling their friend that for all the pain they feel, for all the hatred they might feel at the world, and for any hatred they may feel at themselves, none of it is worth holding on to. As someone who has had to overcome many traumas in the course of their life, I know that holding on to pain and anger can very often be a choice, at least in my situation.

    Life got a lot better for me once I stopped being angry at the things that were tying me to the past, though this is not to say the emotions are not there within me – they most definitely still are. It is just that I try to live my day-to-day life without holding onto them, and in a way, I have to try apply that same logic to the feelings that the redundancy gave to me.

    It will take time, but I will survive this somehow, because through each moment of pain & heartbreak, there is a chance for life to start anew. I just need to be ready to meet that chance.

    Took a few days off work and off writing, and I feel I have come back still as strong as ever. Though I need a thumbnail picture…

    …yeah, that will do. Friend of mine sent me this image earlier in the week to remind me that I am still able to be successful, even if I do end up changing tracks.

    Thank you for reading the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to feel relaxed. If you are fighting your own battles, please know you are not alone in any of them. Help is out there if you need it, and the world is brighter for you being in it.

  • Redundancy ‘Review’: Day 122-123, “Life is Precious”

    (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 staircases and escalators, welcome to Day 122 and 123 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Yesterday… was stressful for a lot of reasons. My partner ended up having a rough start to their work day which made them come home early, my old roommate had a bit of a crisis on their hands due to numerous factors, and this was all in addition to managing my contract workload for the day.

    Hectic is at least one of the words I would use to describe what went down, and that is without discounting all of the feelings I have been having regarding wanting to change my current position in life.

    Job is definitely on the higher end of that priorities list, which I am taking steps in a positive direction to try find myself something new. Surprisingly I have actually been invited for a phone interview on Wednesday for that CEX Store Manager position which is the first interview I have gotten since I was made redundant, so… there is at least some comfort there that I am still able to get interviews.

    What I am more optimistic and interested in however is an informal chat with someone within the Care Quality Commission to talk about a role I am going to be applying for there: Application Analyst.

    Part of the career chat I had with my friend on Thursday was taking a look at my current skillset and determining what sectors I could find myself thriving in. As someone who has worked in Quality Assurance for five years with production experience sprinkled in for the last two years, the amount of transferable skills I have picked during that time is surprisingly plentiful.

    Adaptability is high on that list, especially from having worked in the technology start up space for the last four years. It is an environment that hardens you, one way or another, and requires you to stay adaptable or flexible to the shifting needs of the business. Everyone needed to chip in on different things at varying points – with me usually being one of the first people to say yes to trying something new, becoming familiar with that side of the business fairly quickly.

    This is a trait that has carried me throughout my career honestly, as I was always the first to put myself forward for new things at Codemasters, which led me to testing audio, back-end data analysis, and eventually becoming the second-in-command…

    …it then got turned up to eleven working at Immerse, and even now working the contract role. Learning new things makes me incredibly happy, and that joy has carried me to a successful career.

    All I need now is something a bit more permanent, as I do not think contractor life is entirely for me in the four months or so I have been working in it. I have definitely learnt a lot, but I want to push myself towards a permanent, full-time role in a different industry now.

    So… what does this have to do with the title? Well, because that was just a job search update segment, but I have a personal segment I want to write today as well.

    Over these last five months, things have been a massive rollercoaster for me. What started as a month long process of limbo wondering what would happen to the company I had called home for just over three years turned into the redundancy announcement that kickstarted this series, and my greater search for a new place to call my own, before I got the contract role that is currently sustaining me.

    In this time period, I have experienced great highs, terrifying lows, and almost everything between those two points. My situation is stable right now, remarkably so even given the circumstances, but at the same time I spend a lot of my time paranoid that this might be a turning point in my life where I suddenly am not worthy enough to keep going, that my head will sink below the water at any moment.

    This led to me seeking comfort in an unusual source: my brother. We have a good relationship, although we do not talk as often as I feel we should, there is a lot he has helped me out with over the years and I feel incredibly lucky to call him my big brother.

    I asked him how he keeps his head above water, and how he perseveres when everything feels against him, with the advice being given being oddly profound:

    “The simple answer on how I keep going is that I simply refuse to drown. I have, currently am, and will in future feel like I’m drowning, and that everything and everyone is against me. But I also recognise that if I let the water take me, I’m out the game, I don’t get to play any more. That means no more prizes, and you can’t get back in the game once you’re out. You can always come back from the lows to get to the highs if you’re willing to dig your heels in, but you have to be in the game”

    It feels silly to say, but his blunt way of speaking really helped me out and made me reflect on these last five months.

    My redundancy was my lowest point, and I genuinely felt like my entire world had collapsed in the wake of it…

    …but I kept going.

    My life is precious, and there is still so much love I have still yet to give, not just for my life, but for the lives of all of those around me. There is a beautiful network of people around me who support me, and I want to be able to support them through their highs & lows, just like they have done for me.

    Things feel hard right now, but I want to keep going. Even when my paranoia presents the worst case scenarios for me, I will keep fighting through.

    I guess I need to try write a review segment now. It has honestly been hard to keep up with doing them in recent days due to everything going on in my life…

    …no, I am sorry, but I do not think I can today. Too much has been going on, and whilst I still want to put my writing out there for those who may need it, I cannot bring myself to focus on a ‘review’ type segment right now.

    Have a picture of this big, beautiful, and badass pizza I made last night. Homemade dough and all. It is taking me a while to get the proper formula down, in that I am aiming for a New York-style thin crust and am usually ending up with a Sicilian-style thick-yet-airy crust, which is still plenty delicious but not the effect I am ultimately wanting.

    Baking in general has brought great comfort to me ever since my redundancy, not only as a way of learning something new but to work to create something that I can use to bring joy to others, be it through bread, cake, or to make the usual Friday night pizza my partner and I share all the more loving by the homemade touch.

    If you have made it to the end of today’s Redundancy Review, thank you for reading. Wherever you are, I hope you are safe, happy, and comfortable, able to enjoy the weekend. If not, then I hope you can try find comfort when it is possible, and I am glad you are still around. 

    Keep on keeping on, I will if you will.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 120, “Four Month Reflection”

    (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 clerics and healers, welcome to Day 120 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    120 days since I was first made redundant. Four months worth of thinking, reflection, and trying to figure out where to do next. In terms of actual posts, this is the 92nd Redundancy Review since this all kicked off, so only off by a factor of about thirty days due to holidays, breaks, or just not feeling the flow.

    In those four months I have fought the government for what is rightfully mine, waded through job boards in the hope of finding something new, expanded my horizons beyond QA to see what I might be good at, and have now found myself back in the life of a SaaS QA tester within the greater technology industry… for better or worse.

    Part of what drove me to start writing a career retrospective at the start of this week is the fact I am growing incredibly weary with the tech industry as a whole. The start up culture, the grindset mindset, the need to build & scale fast with less… all of it has started to wear me down.

    If we include my time at Codemasters, I am coming up on having worked for half a decade in the technology industry as a QA, with some production on the side. This comes back to something I said I need to keep in mind off the back of my redundancy, that it was a traumatic event, and it is okay to let it change me. 

    And one of those things that might need to change is my career as a whole.

    I have already started to explore other options in addition to balancing my contract work… on top of balancing maintaining a good posting schedule… on top of trying to maintain an amount of social life and relaxation time…

    Being real, things feel hard for me right now. Over the last couple of days I have found myself crying at my desk more often, with even the most routine of work tasks overwhelming me. In between uploads, downloads, or waiting for processes to finish, I take moments to let out little sobs, which shows to me that it is not the challenges of the work getting to me, it is just the nature of the work itself.

    And the mental separation I try to impose on myself that this is a holdover contract role, that it will not be forever is slowly starting to break down as I realise I have fallen out of love with the greater industry as a whole, and to ensure longevity in my future; I need to make a change to one of the biggest parts of my life.

    Saying goodbye to an industry that has honed me, hardened me, and shaped me into the person I am today.

    This is not to say I am going to move away from technology as a whole, because I am perfectly willing to do a job that mostly revolves around a computer, and there is no denying I have made a good career in QA with how long I have survived in such a competitive industry, especially in the recent years of a turbulent job market.

    It is just a matter of deciding where to go, with my current avenues for exploration being in insurance, civil service, and I have also signed up for a charity jobs board – both for QA and writing roles.

    There is a part of me that thinks I am “limiting my potential” by choosing to walk away from tech, that if I committed the energy I am using to look elsewhere to doubling my effort into the tech industry, I could stand to make a lot of money by pursuing even more elite roles within the startup space.

    But the redundancy has changed me. I am distrustful of investor groups, the primary way such companies would be funded. The need to keep scaling up and making things even bigger rather than focusing on steady outcomes is incompatible with my current life philosophy.

    I need to move away from what has been a significant part of my life and enabled my growth into who I am today, to heal from the pain that growth has been accompanied by, and start a new chapter of my life.

    Ultimately, I am still quite young, having not even hit my thirties yet. In a way my professional life has only just begun, with the role I was made redundant from being only my second job ever. 

    There is so much I can do, I just need to find myself to find out what I want to do.

    In the meantime, my contract can hold me over, and whilst I do not want to maintain the grindset mindset, I am also not someone who can half-arse a job. My safety net is actually stronger than it was before my redundancy too, so I am in an extremely lucky position to not be pressed against the wall.

    Ideally I do not want to eat into the safety net and I can transition from my contract into a new role, but I am prepared for any eventuality.

    No matter what, I will continue to write. This story still has several chapters to write, and the stories inside my head still need to be told. 

    Time to get into the review, and I think it is time to introduce a somewhat new topic to the Redundancy Review: hot sauce.

    For those who have been around for the somewhat regular food reviews, you will know I am a little bit of a spicehead, and this definitely extends into my home life as I have a very decent collection of hot sauces within my fridge. Today’s hot sauce is made from one of the spiciest peppers in the world: Bhut Jolokia, more commonly known as the Ghost Pepper.

    This specific sauce is from a small UK brand called Mahi, and this was one of the three hot sauces in their “Discovery Pack”, a bundle offer for those wanting to explore more options in hot sauce outside of the main brands in the UK. 

    With it being such a spice forward sauce, there is actually a pleasing acidic bite that announces itself first before the heat ramps up, though it is actually variable how much heat will be delivered with each taste.

    Sometimes it will be a pleasant warmth that accompanies the acidity.

    And sometimes it will be a deliverance of heat worthy of the nickname my partner gave to this sauce after one accidentally trying it: “Death Sauce”.

    £7.50 plus shipping was the price for the pack of three sauces, and it came in a very attractive box which included a catalogue of Mahi’s other products, most of which I will definitely want to try in future because of how nice everything included in the box was.

    This does however include a Trinidad Scorpion sauce, which is supposedly even hotter than the Ghost Pepper…

    …oh well, as I often yell before doing anything stupid, DEATH OR GLORY!

    That should do it for today. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax and that your path ahead in life is clear, if not, then there is nothing to fear. You are in good company with that, and as we all know, not all who wander are lost.

    For more information on Mahi’s products, visit their website here: https://saucymahi.co/ 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 105, “Gaining Clarity”

    (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 soothsayers and oracles, welcome to Day 105 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Being real it feels weird to be saying “one hundred and” each time I start off a new review past day 100, I did not think I was going to be keeping up all this time. I guess it goes to show even when the schedule slips and I miss a day or two (or three), the passion & care for my craft still persists.

    That said, there is actually a job search update. You know, that thing I said I would be doing a segment on during each review before it fell to the wayside and I found myself a role so itself became a redundant segment in an article series incited by redundancy?

    There are just moments where a silly thought comes into my head, and writing it out makes it sound even sillier but I absolutely love how it came out. The above is one of them.

    Anyway, back on track. Ended up applying for a manager position at the local CeX, which for the uninformed is a UK chain of technology exchange shops and it is pronounced exactly how you want to say it. For those of you who doubt the pronunciation or want to avoid saying it, the wi-fi networks in a shop are:

    • Protected CEX
    • Unprotected CEX

    I do not think any picture could be clearer than that on how the company wants the name to be pronounced.

    It is very unlikely I will get the position, considering whilst I have a wide raft of management skills along with generally transferable soft skills, I am an outsider applying to a retail environment, something which I genuinely have no experience in.

    In a way I feel it is a rite of passage I have missed almost, in that I never did any sort of retail role before landing in my current field, and my return to the tech industry came before I would have been eligible for temporary Christmas roles around town, so, if this somehow goes somewhere it would be my first shot at retail.

    But again, there are plenty more higher qualified candidates than I, so I doubt it will go many places.

    On the plus side today, my mentor figure got back in touch with me today to both give a compliment on this blog and to reassure me we were still on good terms, hence the title of today’s edition.

    That said… I am extremely exhausted for some reason, so I will do a short review for what I will now likely be calling “VTuber Tuesdays” for the foreseeable future because even though it will be predominantly Hololive, there will be days where the topic is just something VTuber related.

    Today it is the fact I had the Vedal plushie arrive and the packaging it came in absolutely made me laugh.

    Free him. Please.

    In all honesty, this is such a high quality plushie. The shape is absolutely perfect to what I would want a Vedal plush to be, in that I can hold him like a burger and it feels right to do so.

    But not only that:

    He balances perfectly on the Neuro-sama plush I have.

    It could not be more beautiful if I tried.

    Anyway, that is me, I need to sleep. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to get some good sleep yourself, no matter the time of day.

  • Redundancy ‘Review’, Day 104: “Despite Everything

    (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 humans and monsters, welcome to Day 104 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    For someone who consistently wishes that the Monday blues do not hit people too hard whenever she signs off a Sunday article, god damn do I feel like I have been hit by a truck today.

    All of a sudden last night my impostor syndrome flared up something fierce, not only making me doubt the efficacy of whatever I am doing on this site, or if I am even worthy enough to hold my current position within QA.

    The answer to the latter is simple: yes, yes I am. My brain is just stupid and exhausted from constantly worrying about the situation I am currently in which causes me to ignore my track record as a QA professional and that I would have not sustained a close to five-year career if I did not have some amount of pride or professionalism in my work.

    That, and I am a magnet for bugs no matter what I play… though it seems to happen a lot more randomly in EA games which is very thematically appropriate given my history with the company.

    One way to prove that taking time to rest is helping my brain redshift on what things mean to me is that my body’s response to these feelings is not feeling the need to push myself further, in fact, it is quite the opposite – I feel myself slowing to a crawl, but still trying my best to move forward.

    I think that is all I can really ask for given the year that I have had, that I can keep moving forward and do so with the acknowledgment that I am still here today, even when there was so much that could have brought me down for good, not only in this year, but in so many years prior.

    Considering Undertale’s tenth anniversary was over the weekend, I think the image is pretty thematic.

    Even though I was never really part of the fandom surrounding Undertale and everything that came with it, it is hard to believe such an impactful game is already ten years old. Ten years ago I was in sixth form (name for British education from 16-18 in some schools), possibly some of the worst years of my life due to academic stress, identity worries, and trying to navigate a much lonelier world than I had before.

    When one day, I reconnected with a friend on the bus home from school, talking about some of the stuff I had been up to and what he had been up to, with the conversation eventually turning to Undertale. I mentioned I had heard of it but had not really seen anything about it at all.

    It was given to me as a Steam gift later that evening from that same person… wherever you are right now Sam, whatever you have been getting up to… I hope you are living a fantastic life, and know that I still treasure the memories of our friendship.

    Undertale appeared at one of the lowest points of my life, and even if I only played through it once (neutral route into Pacifist, cause good god I did not have the mental fortitude to do Genocide back then and I certainly do not have the cojones to do it now), the experience still left an impact on me. 

    I still listen to the music, and those immortal words in that screenshot still stick with me today.

    Despite everything, I am still me. I am still keeping on, even if the last ten years have changed me drastically. And that is something that is worthy of celebration.

    Not really a review per se, more just a story that still holds significance in my mind and in a way is topically relevant to recent events. Fuck it, I will put the inverted commas on and post this up, cause I appreciate what I wrote today.

    And I appreciate you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope your Monday blues are not hitting too hard and that you are still able to get things done today.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 100, “Stories”

    (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 playwrights and screenwriters, welcome to… Day 100, of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    There have been a lot of milestones on this journey, from marking months past the inciting incident, and to celebrating Day 69 the only way I knew how (immaturity), but Day 100 feels incredibly significant to me.

    It is difficult to consider how much my life has changed in the hundred days since I was first made redundant, and honestly, I have the Redundancy Review to thank for giving me a timeline to work from because otherwise I would not have kept track of how much time had actually passed, as it feels recent and distant simultaneously.

    But for all the hardship, all the good times, and the self-doubt that continues to pervade my system every day… I am still here. The story has not yet ended.

    And I want to dedicate today’s Redundancy Review to that topic: stories. It is a word I consistently use on this blog, with “storyteller” being my preferred title to describe what I want to do in life.

    Even if the current form of my passion for writing came to me later in life, I have always had a fascination with stories. To my best memory (curse you depression and neurodivergence causing me to forget things), I was always a kid who liked immersing myself in stories, either real or made-up. I remember enjoying creative writing assignments more than most, and even if I was not the best at literature analysis; discovering the story within a piece of writing fascinated me.

    Stories are an essential part of human existence – millions are generated every day by people around the world, whether they realise it or not. A lived experience will one day become a story you tell to others, the hardship of today will eventually become something you laugh about in the future, and the missteps you make now form their way into a cautionary tale for the future.

    This is the core of the Redundancy Review, the story of one girl trying to navigate her way through an ever-changing world whilst she grapples with her own life being disrupted drastically. Even if the schedule slips and I end up missing out a couple days of a so-called daily series, it still forms a part of the overall story about what I am going through.

    There will always be more stories to tell, and be they fact or fiction, I aim to be around to tell them.

    In a way that is what the review segment really is as well, a story. I never claim to be and do not want to be seen as a critic, because ultimately whilst I will give my opinions on the topics I talk about, there are far more qualified people than me to give proper critique. 

    I still aim to provide information for people to make up their own minds, but ultimately what I am doing is telling the story of the experience whatever I am talking about gave to me – hence the esoteric range of topics from music, gaming, and whatever I had for lunch on a given day.

    Which, yes, does defeat the purpose of this being called the “Redundancy Review”, but “Jobless Journal” would make less sense considering I am in full-time work currently and “Severance Stories” makes even less sense when you take into account it was the entire company imploding and several other of my colleagues getting caught in the crossfire.

    Anyway, back on track.

    Initially I was struggling to come up with a review topic for today, but a sudden brainwave gave me the perfect topic for today, given that it is a cover of a very popular Vocaloid song that specifically changes the ending lyrics to be a bit more heartwarming than bleak compared to the original.

    The song in question is Rolling Girl, with this cover being by Lollia and RichaadEB specifically.

    Content warning ahead: I will be discussing both the cover and the original which cover very bleak themes of failure, depression, and suicide. Read ahead at your own discretion.

    This song has appeared on a previous Redundancy Review back on Day 28, but did not give it the level of coverage it deserves due to feeling a bit shit at the time. Time to make this right.

    For background information, Rolling Girl was released in 2010 and was composed by famed Vocaloid producer wowaka, who sadly passed away in 2019 from heart failure at the extremely young age of 31. Rest in peace dude, and know your art is still being appreciated a decade and a half later.

    When it comes to the main bits of lyrical analysis, I will be using Lollia’s cover since that is the version I want to focus on, however I will link a version of the original PV here and a link to the Vocaloid wiki with approved English lyrics here for people to get the full picture of what Rolling Girl is as a song, along with using those approved lyrics for comparison.

    There is a certain sense of hesitation I get talking about this song, due to the themes it contains and how I relate to them, so I will try my best to do it justice.

    At its core, Rolling Girl is a song about someone who is failing over & over again, with these repeated instances eating away at them until it becomes far too overwhelming:

    “All the noise

    Slicing layers in her heard

    Has her screaming away

    Has her screaming away”

    This is a feeling I can relate to a lot with the song, when my brain gets full of negativity it feels like a massive cloud of noise that just eats away at me inside, though it often gets to the point where I cannot say anything at all due loud everything is to me.

    Throughout the song there are instances, mostly during the chorus, where the protagonist (Miku/Lollia) is talking to a figure. It is during one of these instances where I want to highlight a difference in the approved English lyrics to Lollia’s lyrics and how her creative input makes the song far more devastating.

    In the original version, the first chorus ends with the lines:

    “‘How about now?’
    ‘Not yet, we still can’t see what’s ahead yet. Hold your breath now.’”

    I interpret this as Miku talking to an embodiment of her depression, though I cannot decide what exactly I think the topic at hand here is:

    • Is her depression asking her if she wants to end her life, and she wants to hold on because she does not yet know what is coming?
    • Is her depression asking her if she wants to carry on, but she is too far in her own mind to see what is ahead so cannot provide an answer?

    I personally lead towards the latter, as I feel the original Rolling Girl works better with its ending to look at the earlier parts in a more hopeful manner to give the finale even more impact, but we will get to that soon enough.

    Lollia’s version leaves very little to interpretation, but I love how brutal and raw these lyrics are:

    “‘Are you better now?’

    ‘No, I don’t know how!’

    What’s the point in living if pain’s never ending?

    Please just let me stop my breath right now.”

    Holy fuck the content warning was definitely needed. The first time I heard these lyrics with this cover I had to pause because they are so insanely hard-hitting for someone who has struggled with depression, but they show the creative power of interpreting Vocaloid songs into another language to give them even more impact. 

    There is very little room for interpretation here, and I absolutely love that.

    Going to skip ahead a bit, not only because I feel myself quivering a bit talking about these topics, but so I can get to the bit I truly want to talk about: the ending.

    This will start with me talking about the approved English lyrics version on the Vocaloid wiki:

    “’How about now?’

    ‘Just a little more, we should see something soon. Hold your breath, now.’

    One more time, one more time

    ‘I’ll roll along again today’

    The girl said, the girl said

    Breathing laughter into the words!

    ‘How about now? OK, you can look. You must be exhausted too, right?’

    Stop breathing, now.”

    When combined with the PV, the most common interpretation of these last lyrics are that Miku has finally decided to end it all, with her embodiment of her depression comforting her in her last moments, commenting that she must be exhausted from failing so often, and finally telling her to stop breathing. A tragic end to a song that has hope spots earlier on.

    But… Lollia’s cover takes a different approach, one that gives an initially tragic song a far more hopeful ending compared to the original, though starting off in a similar way:

    “‘Are you better now?’

    ‘No, I don’t know how!’

    Maybe one day you’ll see how well I’m improving

    Please just let me stop my breath”

    Before erupting into something beautiful:

    “Not now.

    Just once more, just once more

    I will roll again today, I know for sure

    Oh that girl said, what she said

    Playing every word and playing to pretend

    ‘Just once more?’

    ‘No, no more!’

    ‘Take my hand and come with me’

    ‘Tell me your story’

    ‘Please just let me hold your breath for now.’”

    Over four years later, the way this version of the song ends has stuck with me, and how it completely changes the interpretation of the figure the protagonist is talking to. In the original, it is an embodiment of depression, waiting for them to give up but also providing comfort to them in their final moments.

    In Lollia’s version, it very much seems to be a close friend, not wanting the protagonist to suffer any longer, but also refusing to let them go through with suicide. Letting them stop “rolling”/failing, and asking to be told their story, saying that they will hold their breath for now, a line that can be interpreted as this person wanting to keep their friend holding for as long as possible.

    Quick picture for the thumbnail, with the touching tribute to wowaka at the end of Lollia’s video serving nicely.

    And we come back round to how today’s edition started: stories.

    Everyone has a story, through highs and lows, through happiness and sadness, through joy and sorrow. Everyone’s story deserves to be heard, and I want to continue telling mine through the medium I have chosen, for as long as I can be allowed to.

    For anyone reading today’s edition, thank you.

    For anyone who has been a long time reader, thank you.

    For anyone who has only just discovered me, thank you.

    Thank you for being here.

    Thank you for continuing your story.

    And thank you for taking the time to read mine.

  • Redundancy Review: Days 70-74, “Small Victories, Big Losses”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning bassists and drummers, welcome to a massive catch-up post for a bunch of missed days of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    A lot of what I write for the review is self-indulgent. I talk about my emotions, things that make me feel happy, and food I have eaten that tasted good. The entire series is a reflection of myself written down as a living record.

    And so, given the fact I took a very hard loss over the last week, I am going to take today’s catch-up post to let my emotions fly a little bit, because fuck me do I need it.

    There has been a lot that has gone wrong in my life, wasted my degree years due to stubbornness, losing friends cause of a lack of emotional intelligence, and going through severe periods of distress due to transition related issues.

    But I can comfortably say that the last three months of my life have been the worst period I have ever experienced – and that is fucking saying something considering how dark my mind got during my university days.

    Ever since I got the news that the company I worked for was in the shit, I have been fighting every day to try get small victories, and I should not minimise the fact that even small victories mean a lot when I have gone through what I have gone through.

    But for every small victory I feel like I take a big loss alongside it, and I am really fucking tired of that happening.

    Even in the last couple of days I have taken a small victory and a big loss simultaneously with my custom cosplay order falling through two weeks before my convention. The seller was courteous and offered me a full refund for my disappointment, which is the small victory, but the big loss comes from the fact this outfit felt like it was going to be the centrepiece of my convention holiday – something I have been looking forward to all year and now I have to go put together a backup plan in a short amount of time.

    I am not going to name and shame the seller. As part of the refund I agreed that I would not leave a negative review, and I am sticking to that. I would much rather move on and try make something positive out of this mess… finding yet more small victories.

    Every day feels fearful to me now, as if something has changed in my brain that has shifted my outlook from nervous optimism to outright pessimism. I had a breakdown on my partner last night and when I started talking about some of the fears I have about upcoming things, I said a line that breaks my heart even now to repeat:

    “I am wanting to prepare for the worst because that is all I can expect nowadays”.

    Making the best out of a bad situation should be an admirable trait, one I can take pride of, especially as someone who has lived in startup culture for the last three plus years and has made a name for herself of trying to be adaptable in times of crisis, knowing how to problem-solve my way out of anything.

    But I resent the fact I have become that person.

    I resent that I can never go long without needing to put out a fire.

    And I hate the fact that everything I am going through is making me a colder person and I do not know what to do to stop it – which I am not even sure I fully agree with saying cause the main thing that differentiates this period of time from the previous absolute worst time of my life is that I actually recognise I have people to live for now.

    I will keep going, I do not want to stop… but I am absolutely praying for a better season to come my way, because quite frankly, this summer has sucked.

    Going to keep it simple with a different review today, talking about another Stardew Valley save of mine that I have with a friend, this time on the Forest Farm layout.

    I have mentioned it in passing before, but I have an obsession with building infrastructure in video games. Paths, roads, transport structures, all of it is fair game for me wanting to make neat layouts & patterns in whatever I play, and Stardew is a game I find surprisingly useful for that purpose, especially when presented with the challenges of any of the nonstandard layouts.

    Forest in particular has been an interesting challenge, in trying to find the perfect blend of farming crops, farming animals, and utilising the main feature of the farm – that being renewable forage and hardwood options.

    Initially I had struggled with this task, especially when it came to building layouts that could work with the sprinkler patterns I usually use without actually having the sprinklers to plan out the infrastructure.

    But as with my mind itself, things start to make a lot more sense around Winter in this game, and without needing to worry about (much) crop watering and focus more on getting stuff organised for the next year, I feel a lot happier plotting out paths and working out where things need to go.

    On this map in particular, it is evidenced by the massive tree farm I am trying to establish in the top middle of the map. This initially started small scale with each tree type being vertically aligned which made collecting forage from the tappers a nightmare, but once I had established where the animal pasture needed to go a lot of space opened up which has led to the larger scale farm pictured above.

    There is definitely still a lot of work to be done on this farm, but considering this is only the end of Year 1, I am extremely excited to see where this goes next.

    Here is where I would usually say something about getting my rhythm back, but honestly, as much as the Redundancy Review will keep going, I am not sure how well I will be able to write individual days depending on my mood – I definitely want to try chronicle my convention holiday each day, but, we will see how it goes.

    Thank you for reading this far if you did, I hope you are able to have a relaxing weekend, a longer one than usual if you are in the UK.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 27, “The End Justifies The Means”

    Redundancy Review: Day 27, “The End Justifies The Means”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning sharks and seahorses, welcome to Day 27 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Writing this a lot later than I usually do due to a mix of calls and appointments this morning around different topics which I wanted to tackle before getting my thoughts in line to do the mental health check-in portion of the review.

    I have been presented with an opportunity to do some contracting work which, whilst not entirely in my wheelhouse or interest, is in my area of expertise, that being Quality Assurance. 

    My main feelings around continuing QA work are what the title suggests, being the means that can help justify the way I want to live my life now. My ultimate goal is still wanting to be a writer for hire, telling my own stories whilst helping others to tell their own. If freelancing in tech can help enable that lifestyle, then it is something I should pursue…

    …which I recognise goes against my entire discussion on my burnout a couple reviews back, but the benefit of this being a contracting role is that I would be able to back out if things became too much for me. Even if it was just for a short while, it would get me some additional experience both as a QA and getting more familiar with the freelancing way of life.

    The Redundancy Review would continue even upon taking the contracting role – there is no stopping this train now, especially since the role would let me fund the “eating my way around Shrewsbury” reviews far easier, which are honestly some of my favourite pieces to write.

    There is some part of me that wonders what it would be like to try position myself as a professional food critic, but the problem with that is I love food too much to want to try criticise it intensely – even the most subpar food I will still find things to love about, and in a way I have not forgotten my student days where things such as the “lasanwich” and the “chicken kyiv burger” brought me incredible amounts of comfort.

    I strive to find the positives in everything, and unless something made me physically sick, I would want to try to express those positives.

    Even as I begin to enter into contract work, I will keep myself available for writing work, which if you are reading this and want to hire me, please do! I am available for professional scripting, transcription, and reviews of all sorts, do not catch yourself putting inadequate AI-generated copy out there – invest in a burgeoning writer today!

    Today’s review is another homeware/furnishing review, but one taking a very different form from a flatpack. 

    3M Command Hooks/Command Strips are one of the most useful pieces of kit as someone who rents the place they live rather than own, as like most renters, I am terrified of actually putting a hole in a wall that is not mine. 

    Command products are a godsend in that regard, with all different varieties being in different locations. I have used Small Clear Wire Hooks to build a makeshift tool rack over my hob, and the decorating clips allow me to hang fairy lights around easily, letting me live out my dream of being an e-girl through the aesthetic.

    But today’s subject is a bit more heavy duty than those two, and is used in a very unique and novel way.

    3M Command Large White Wire Hook has a weight capacity of 2.2kg, making it more geared around holding heavier objects with the suggestion on the packaging being a dustpan and brush, whilst also being able to go up to backpacks, bags, or cumbersome tools that are hard to store elsewhere.

    So, what do I use them for?

    Creating a makeshift armoury behind my bed and desk of course.

    These hooks are the absolute ideal way to mount up Nerf guns without drilling any holes to make mounting posts. The main body of the hook is long enough to guide it through the sling points of more slimline blasters, meaning the second hook can be positioned to support another section or be put through another sling point to make a rock solid mount.

    The application of the adhesive strip is incredibly straightforward, with the body of the hook itself being able to be slid off to remove the strip when needed. Each pack comes with two strips so the hook is able to be removed and reapplied elsewhere if they need to be repurposed.

    My guns have been mounted for a period of over four months now and I have not had any issues – a relief given that three of them are mounted over where I sleep, meaning I have not had any rude awakenings. With how well the initial mountings went, I am definitely looking forward to investing in more and expanding my armoury wall.

    That does it for today, thank you for reading the Redundancy Review today. These will continue until morale improves, so I look forward to continuing this journey with all of you.

    The Command Hooks mentioned in this review and many other fine products are available at B&Q in the UK: 3M Command Hooks and Hardware at B&Q (not sponsored, just a fan)

  • Redundancy Review: Day 21, “Community”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning rebels and ruffians, welcome to Day 21 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Numbers are really getting up there now. Not only is it the three week milestone reached, it is now the month of July, a time where I was supposed to actually be off work to wait out the heat… funny how that turned out.

    I continue to be surprised with myself that I have made it this far as well. My redundancy has caused a lot of mental stress to occur which has had the knock-on effect of making certain habits slip some days, but each morning I still get on my laptop and start writing through the grogginess.

    My road trip yesterday had a lot of different conversation topics, but the most interesting of which was finding bits of inspiration for how my voice as a transgender woman can influence my writing and stories.

    Transitioning is… messy, to say the least. There is plenty of advice from elder trans who have come before you but ultimately anyone who walks that path is going to encounter some challenges along the way, and I think that is one of the main points that needs to be amplified in today’s world.

    It is a scary time to be trans, with rising negative sentiment amongst politicians and news media potentially intimidating others to remain in the closet whilst simultaneously making already out people feel uncomfortable in the world they reside in.

    For both parties, I have a message, and whilst I may just be one person, I want to use my voice for good:

    The world is better with you in it. Do not let the ruling class tell you otherwise. You are important, you are valued, and you are beautiful – however you present yourself, you are amazing for living your truth.

    Finding strength in community is what can get us through hard times, and community can take many different shapes. It can be a group of former colleagues banding together to offer each other support during a hard time, it can be a collection of trans people coming together to build everyone up to be their best selves, and it can even be your close group of friends – a found family through shared interests.

    If that impassioned speech resonated, you would be impressed what I can do on other live projects – why not consider hiring me? I put my heart and soul into my work every time, leaving an emotional impact on the reader, or using my inherent sense of logic to write clean, consistent copy for professional projects.

    With us reaching Day 21, and noticing a trend in my previous entries, it is time for another Hololive song review, one that ties in to the themes of community and found family.

    In case it is not already obvious from this being the second group song I am reviewing from them, Hololive English Generation 3 “Advent” are my favourite group within the organisation. Their style, theming, and group coherence made me fall in love from day one with that love never once dimming throughout.

    “Rebellion” is their debut song, released just under two years ago at time of writing. True to their lore of being fugitives the song talks a lot about breaking out of cycles & systems, being freed from cages, and lighting fires in their hearts to embrace new found freedom.

    The rhythm of the song also helps highlight the ever present theme of “dance”, with the word appearing several times during the chorus. With its heavy usage of synth it really does sound like a song that could be played in a club, dancing the night away to a song about breaking free.

    With each Hololive song review I tend to highlight a specific segment of the lyrics, and this time is no different, with me wanting to draw particular attention to the bridge before the final choruses:

    “I know that I can still be

    The future of this story

    I know that I can be free

    The one and the only

    They tell me that I’m crazy

    I’ll never let them stop me”

    It says something that I did not need to go back to the music video to get those lyrics right – this final part of the song before launching back into the chorus is slower than the rest but it is the part I always like to listen out for. 

    Advent’s declaration of wanting to be free in their own story and not wanting to listen to those that put them down resonate heavily with my own experience within life, never wanting to be told to stop. Hearing those words each time I revisit Rebellion brings me immense comfort, much like any time I engage in Advent’s content.

    One final thing, knowing that I need an image for the thumbnail…

    …god Shiori is so pretty, I can not wait to cosplay her.

    That brings us to the end for today. Thank you for sticking with me for three weeks thus far, take it easy whatever you do, and have a great day!