Rosalia Rambles

Tag: Review

  • 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 132, “The One Hundredth Post”

    Redundancy Review: Day 132, “The One Hundredth Post”

    (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 centurions and centenarians, welcome to Day 132 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    While it may be Day 132, this is the one hundredth Redundancy Review I have written since initially losing my job back in June. I could make a jokey comment about being a month out of sync, but I instead want to focus on taking pride in this milestone.

    One hundred posts.

    Across those one hundred posts is a variety of content and stories, building up a living timeline of what it has been like for a suddenly out-of-work technology professional to navigate an AI-driven job market before a miraculous opportunity to return to some of the people she knew landed in her lap, giving her the chance to keep doing what she does best and still learn some new things along the way – only to discover she might not be as fully invested in the sector as she used to be.

    Writing it all out like that makes me reflect on what the purpose of the Redundancy Review is currently, and how the framing of the story has changed as time has gone on. Initially I was telling the story of navigating a tough jobs market along with my aspirations of being a professional writer, telling a human-focused story about the infrequent ups and disturbingly frequent downs of needing to find a new source of income after a sudden.

    Once I had returned to work, the story focused more on my personal struggles, especially as I came to grips with falling out of love with a career I have been in for half a decade. I retired the call-to-action that was commonplace in my early reviews in favour of focusing on looking inwards about what I want to do going forward, talking about the comfort that my review topics brought to me more than anything else.

    I achieved my main goal for the year of attending VExpo around ninety days into the Redundancy Review, getting myself involved in an in-person event for a longstanding hobby of mine and getting away from everything that had been bringing me down at home, focusing on my own joy at being able to meet fellow nerds and talents.

    But VExpo also represented a strange turning point in my recent months, an event that brought me so much joy and reminded me why I kept going, but one I also feel put me on the path towards this spiral of depression I have been experiencing. 

    I know that sounds like a stretch, so let me explain.

    What started as post-con depression evolved into a desire to work harder to chase the feeling once more, disregarding how I might have been feeling in favour of wanting to push myself beyond my limits in the hopes of finding the stability I had when I worked a full-time, permanent job.

    This rightfully worried my friends, who saw me as someone who was already working themselves incredibly hard, and whilst they did not really host an “intervention” for me, one of my closest friends brought up their analysis on why I might have been pushing myself too hard which ended up hitting really close to home, and temporarily put me straight into taking the time to relax.

    Emphasis on the word “temporarily” in that sentence, as new sources of stress were just on the horizon so soon after I had begun reclaiming my peace of mind, leading me into my most recent spiral where all the worries started piling on top of me once more and my paranoia was well-fed in terms of catastrophising the situation.

    Which brings me to today, where I am looking back on everything I have gone through to get to a hundred posts across four months, thinking about my own purpose in this world and what the purpose of the Redundancy Review is.

    The Redundancy Review is about documenting change and progress. It is my creative outlet to tell my story as I go through the imposing and terrifying life transition I find myself in the middle of. But in writing on a somewhat regular schedule, it helps me keep in mind that this current crisis I find myself in is just that: current.

    Ever since 2021 began I have tried to commit myself to a path of continual self-improvement, in both my professional and personal life. In this period of time I have gone through several life changes, including a gender transition, and I have still made it out the other side.

    I will make it through this.

    The affirmation that carries me through all of these difficult times.

    I will make it through this.

    Time to head into the review segment, and this one also comes from my Saturday trip to Swansea, specifically the meal that I went out to with my partner’s parents. They were the ones to pay for this meal, so thank you very much for that!

    The venue chosen for the meal was a restaurant that goes by the name of “Las Iguanas”, a UK chain of restaurants that specialise in Mexican and South American cuisine. It is a place I have frequented with my own family, but neither my partner or their parents had gone to it themselves, making it the perfect opportunity for them to try something new.

    For me however, I pursued dishes that I knew, partly out of comfort, partly because when I am on someone else’s dime I try not to take the piss when it comes to ordering food.

    In that regard, my starter of choice was simple: loaded nachos. There are very few ways to mess up nachos, but so many ways to make them beautiful and this was a beautiful plate of nachos. Topped with both melted cheese & cheese sauce, pickled jalapenos, and the Mexican holy trinity of guacamole, salsa, and sour cream.

    There was the option for additional, more meaty toppings, but this plate did not need it, though I did make one additional due to a bottle of hot sauce on the table. Specifically it was a Carolina Reaper hot sauce with added black garlic, and in my quest for increasing my own spice tolerance, I added some to both my starter and my main.

    Speaking of my main, I ordered a simple burger, the “Gaucho Smash”, containing two smash patties topped with Monterey Jack cheese, bacon, lettuce, and pickled jalapenos. Did I need to add an extremely hot sauce on top of the burger having jalapenos? Nope. Did I do it anyway? Of course.

    Though it might have finally reached the “hot enough” point, especially as I could feel my lips burning shortly after finishing my burger off, desperately reaching for the last sips of my no-alcohol cider to cool it off. 

    The best part about the evening though? The company. There have been small moments of friction between my partner’s parents and myself, but this was an extraordinarily pleasant evening. 

    There once was a time where I thought I would have been able to leave family behind, and focus solely on my friends, but as time has gone on I have found myself maturing a bit more emotionally, recognising that whilst I still carry a lot of trauma for what happened with my own family growing up; anger takes up a lot more emotional bandwidth than joy, which makes my choice of what I want to experience easy.

    I think that covers everything for today, I am looking forward to providing another one hundred posts in the near future. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review, wherever you are I hope you are able to relax and not let the Monday blues take you over too much.

    For more information on Las Iguanas, visit their website here: The Best Mexican Restaurant & Cocktail Bar | Las Iguanas | Las Iguanas

  • Redundancy Review: Day 130-131, “Clarity From Separation”

    Redundancy Review: Day 130-131, “Clarity From Separation”

    (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 examiners and invigilators, welcome to Day 130 and 131 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    The moment I thought I could return to a reasonable schedule for posting, a short holiday took me out of the rhythm once more – although it was definitely a needed break.

    Specifically my partner and I took a whirlwind trip down to Swansea in South Wales, close to where he originally came to me from, with the trip itself having two main purposes:

    1. Visiting a local game shop down south to participate in an Official Hololive Card Game event
    2. Going out for a meal with my partner’s parents

    Outside of those two main objectives, having time away from my current situation in a city I have never been to before to try clear my head was my own personal objective. It was not my intention to have a career crisis before this holiday, but it oddly lined up that I needed to take some time away.

    Swansea is specifically a coastal city, and it has been an… extremely long time since I have got to see the ocean, to feel the sea breeze push against my face as my nostrils fill with the oddly satisfying scent of salt water. I did not even realise I had been missing it until it hit me once more, and it contributed massively to clearing my head.

    Over the last couple of days, I have talked with both my own parents and my partner’s parents about my career situation, explaining what I have been feeling and what I feel like my current options are. The result of these two conversations were largely the same, reminding me that I am extraordinarily lucky to have a job in today’s job market, but understanding that I might want to find more purpose within my life.

    My partner’s parents emphasised to me that I have had a lot of lived experience in regards to mental health problems and the awareness that develops from that experience, which I could use in combination with my transferable skills honed within the technology industry to advance into an administration position of sorts within either civil service or the charity sector…

    …which, yes, lines up with what I have been talking about in previous editions of the Redundancy Review, helping to cement that my feelings are valid, and that the main task I need to work on now is rounding out my skillset even further to be able to demonstrate I can enter into these roles.

    The time away also helped me define the “why” of this line of thinking, and it is a very simple reason: purpose.

    I feel I have lost my sense of purpose in life, primarily in the wake of my redundancy. The Redundancy Review has helped me keep a sense of personal purpose in mind, especially as I explore my psyche in each edition, and whilst I really enjoy getting to write these pieces, I have sort of come to accept that this website represents a living portfolio more than something that actually makes me money – which I am okay with, even though I would love to be able to support myself via writing.

    But this means I need to do a fair bit of soul-searching in order to find a new professional purpose, something that can pay my bills but also provide me with a good degree of satisfaction. Something that I leave on Friday feeling I have made a positive impact on the world by what I have been doing, and feel excited to wake up for it all again on Monday.

    It will take a while to find something like that for me, and there will be even more difficulties along the way, but I know I will make it through… I keep saying that a lot recently, possibly as an affirmation to myself to keep myself going.

    I will make it. 

    One way or another.

    Time to get to the review segment, and it is actually going to be a somewhat personal one. As part of my Swansea trip, my partner and I went exploring shortly after arriving to find a cafe or something for lunch. A fair few places my partner wanted to show me had closed down since he moved away but in our search, we came across a small Ukrainian cafe called Ruta.

    As a part of personal trivia, my grandad was Ukrainian, specifically from Lviv. He died when I was not even one year old, so I never really knew him, and growing up I never really had much exposure to Ukrainian cuisine, which drew me into wanting to try Ruta out, and specifically going for a traditional Ukrainian dish.

    The one I chose to try was called Zrazy, a potato-based dough shaped into a patty before being stuffed with minced chicken and cheese, topped with stewed mushrooms and served with sour cream.

    There is a lot I could say here.

    I could talk about how the potato dough was perfectly soft, or how the seasoning on the filling was perfect, or how the sour cream was the ideal accompaniment to this dish.

    But I want to relate this dish to what I mentioned about never knowing my grandad or having any exposure to Ukrainian cuisine.

    Despite that lack of connection, from the first bite I took… this dish tasted like home. It was wholesome, comforting, and filling. It might be a bit dramatic to say each bite healed my soul a little bit; but it genuinely did feel like that, it was a taste of a heritage I never experienced. 

    And it was extremely reasonably priced at £7.99, so like, even outside of the spiritual experience it was an economical choice for lunch as well. My partner and I intend to return to Swansea to enjoy more of the city, and I want to return to Ruta to explore even more traditional Ukrainian cuisine.

    Heck, I even want to learn how to cook Zrazy now to build that spiritual connection even more.

    That will do it for today though, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax before Monday is upon us once more, I know I am nervous to return to work after my stress leave, but I come back with a clearer head and wanting to push myself towards a better tomorrow.

  • 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

  • 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 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 119, “First Official VTuesday”

    Redundancy Review: Day 119, “First Official VTuesday”

    (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 modellers and riggers, welcome to Day 119 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Now that I am back on a reasonable schedule, this is where I can officially announce that the Tuesday review segment where I review something in the VTuber space (primarily Hololive but I am aiming to branch out) is called…

    VTuesday.

    Which makes far too much sense in hindsight for a title because it just rolls off the tongue so well whilst being on theme.

    Regular readers will know my love of VTubers, my most popular article this year was my story of going to VeXpo, a whole convention dedicated to the topic. So, I figured I would try my best to recount the story of how I got into this whole space all the way back in 2020…

    …bastard year that it is.

    It was definitely a slow start, as it was primarily just random clips of various HoloJP members such as Suisei or Korone… and Nyanners, cannot forget about Nyanners. Though the fascination truly began with the debut of Hololive English 1st Generation “Myth”, and who else but the legendary Gawr Gura.

    Though, in hindsight, I find it very funny that Gura was my primary entry point into this whole space, because while she was my first primary exposure; I actually found myself drifting to Ninomae Ina’nis as my favourite member of Myth for her cosy vibes, gorgeous art, and delicious puns.

    And of course, being involved in the EN side meant the door to the JP and ID (Indonesia) sides was soon to burst wide open through subtitled clips and watching streams of games where it did not really matter whether or not I could understand the streamer, I had a vague idea of what was going on.

    This was especially apparent when it came to Shirakami Fubuki from HoloJP Gen 1 playing Monster Hunter World. It did not really matter what she was saying, I could understand what was going on and follow her through the tone of her voice.

    Those streams in particular actually generated a meme between myself and my partner. During the fight against a monster called Seething Bazelgeuse, once the cutscene had ended, another monster called Dodogama actually started fighting against Seething, leading to Fubuki cheering on the fight with the phrase: “DODOGAMU!”

    Mix this with the fact that Dodogama is in contention for being one of my top favourite monsters, and it stuck with me ever since.

    So… why VTubers?

    What I am about to say will probably be a little parasocial, which is definitely an issue within the VTuber space with fans overstepping their mark, but hopefully as I explain it things will make more sense.

    Every VTuber I follow regularly, from the corpos to the independents, have had their own set of challenges to overcome, moments where they could have quit to pack it all in and try their hand at something new in life.

    But so many of them have not.

    And that inspires me so much. I have no idea who these people are, and quite frankly I have no desire to know who exactly is behind that persona – all I know is that this person has had their share of challenges and feels comfortable enough to talk about it with their audience.

    My oshis have never given up, and even through my share of challenges, through my very uncertain future, I do not want to give up. They do not know me, and they likely will never know me, but they still inspire me all the same.

    One person whose compilation videos have made it into my partner and I’s evening routine is Limealicious/Laimu. At VeXpo my partner only had one meet & greet booked with Laimu and after receiving a very sweet signed photocard as part of the meet he wanted to explore more of her content.

    Her, along with Dokibird, Maid Mint, and Snuffy, recently released a cover of the iconic first level background music from Sonic Adventure 2: Escape from the City.

    This is specifically a clip taken from Doki’s birthday concert at Anime Expo this year, which as one commenter notes is the first time that Laimu has sung in a proper context due to not being the type to do karaoke streams.

    All of their voices harmonise beautifully when they all sing during the chorus, though their voices definitely provide a different vibe to a usually hype song. To me this version feels oddly relaxing to listen to, which is not a complaint or criticism, I actually really like how this sounds to listen to.

    I have to give a shoutout to Snuffy’s singing as well. Out of the four she is the one I am least familiar with, but when she sings her sections she has such a refined singing voice that sounds so smooth.

    Can you tell I am not really musically minded? I love listening to VTubers sing both covers and their original songs, but analysing music is not really something I have a massive amount of experience in.

    Now just for the thumbnail…

    …she really does have such a pretty model.

    That will cover everything today, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. I have been off work today for stress-related reasons so it has been nice to just relax and think about VTubers for VTuesday. Wherever you are I hope you are able to take things easy and keep your effort for the week steady.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 118, “Career Uncertainty, Part 1”

    Redundancy Review: Day 118, “Career Uncertainty, Part 1”

    (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 diviners and cartographers, welcome to Day 118 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Things seem to be returning to normal for me now, I still live the busy life of a SaaS QA professional, but I do not feel the same amount of pressure as I was experiencing last week. 

    It is in this moment though, over four months gone since my initial redundancy and as the five-year milestone of my quality assurance career comes ever closer, that I find myself reflecting on where I am along with where I might want to go.

    I have been trying to write a “living CV” page on this website, though I keep putting it off in favour of other things, so now I feel it is a good time to start off writing a career retrospective along with talking about the moments of uncertainty that have come along the way.

    My career as a Quality Assurance professional started in March 2021, where I joined Codemasters Software Company as a QA Technician. I joined in the Xbox Functional QA team for F1 2021.

    Look, there I am in the credits!

    Honestly, even though it is over four years gone now, and the game is not even available to purchase on Steam anymore which really sucks cause I would love to revisit it for a review, I still hold an immense amount of pride for my first credited video game release – especially when I consider the amount of effort I put into that release.

    Codemasters was my first job ever, so I tried to push myself above and beyond to show what I was capable of. This inevitably led to me getting noticed by the higher ups, not only for my sheer amount of bugs being logged, but for the sheer tenacity I had when it came to throwing myself into test sheets.

    This led to me getting the opportunity to go into the Southam office for a week to try my hand at some audio testing in the, quite frankly beautiful, surround sound room at the recently refurbished QA building. Getting hands on with more specialised testing really left a lasting impact on me, especially as I got the chance to do this only one month into my job.

    Fun fact: this is actually the only time I have worked in an office/in-person setting, the rest of my career has been entirely remote, as I changed roles right as offices were beginning to open up again.

    After that, I continued grinding on. Helping out where needed with requests from my lovely & sweary platform lead (I call him that affectionately, we bonded over colourful language from time to time), continuing to plug away at my test sheets, and maintained the push towards the ever-approaching release date.

    As that time came closer, overtime became available to help push things over the line. Unlike other game development companies which might make crunch time mandatory; Codemasters was on an entirely voluntary basis, with you nominating yourself for certain days to work and it being up to the lead QA’s discretion on who would make it in.

    Now, as I have mentioned I was eager to prove myself and get stuck in.

    Perhaps too eager.

    So I put my name down for every available overtime day between the start of the final push all the way up to the day of the final Build Verification Test (BVT) being sent off to Xbox in order to get the discs manufactured.

    Nineteen days.

    Nineteen days in a row.

    Admittedly, the pay was good. We got time-and-a-half for any Saturday or Sunday work, and considering late May bank holiday fell during this time too that paid double-time – this led to me having enough to buy myself a proper gaming PC once the stressful period was over.

    That said… never again. Never again do I want to work to that same degree because I was thoroughly destroyed by the end of it all. 

    When the eighteenth day came around I vividly remember barely being lucid at my desk. I remember going into work, sitting at my desk, and around eight hours later I logged off before heading straight into bed before day nineteen started with a final rush to do a BVT.

    It was a hard push, and it definitely taught me one of my many lessons about listening to my body.

    Release came and went, but even as the needs of the team shifted with post-launch content on the horizon along with people being migrated across to other projects, my role mostly stayed the same, plugging away happily at my tasks.

    During this time period, a Senior QA Technician role came up within the company, and despite being relatively green I was encouraged to apply by the QA lead and my platform lead. I did land an interview as well where I was complimented for how I handled myself, but ultimately they wanted someone with more experience who could more reasonably step into a platform lead kind of role.

    However, once again, my tenacity and drive did not go unnoticed. Soon after this I was brought into a call with two other stellar QAs from the Playstation and PC team to be told we were going to be made “second-in-commands” for our respective teams, essentially being groomed for management type roles in the near future.

    This meant I was taking on more responsibility, though, given the fact our team sizes had shrunk massively due to projects elsewhere in the company, the team I managed to start off with was ultimately very small. Nevertheless, I was given my first exposure to what it took to organise a QA effort within a large-scale project.

    Though, it was not long though until new hires started rolling in to begin work on F1 22 (EA had decided to drop the “20” part of the name to bring it in line with their other sports franchises) that I got a chance to start guiding and mentoring fresh QAs… which did lead to a funny story.

    It was the week before the Christmas shutdown started, both the QA lead and my platform lead had used some annual leave to add some extra time to a well-deserved break – this left me the de facto “leader” of the Xbox team in their absence.

    One day, one of the newer QAs came to me with a question relating to specific Xbox console guidelines. I was unsure of what he was asking, so I said to give me a minute whilst I went to my platform lead…

    …oh wait, platform lead is not in. That is fine I will just go to the QA lead…

    …no he is not in either…

    …shit…

    …I am the one in charge, I need to get him an answer.

    I hastily searched through the very helpful glossary of Xbox terminology I had been provided at the start of my job to get him an answer, letting them log the bug report correctly and carry on with their day unimpeded.

    F1 22 started on schedule, and whilst I was still required to get F1 2021 over the line in terms of the final bits of post-release content – primarily battle pass stuff – I was still hard at work making my mark on the new project too, hoping to maintain my crown as Rosalia, Queen of the Bug Leaderboard.

    But… I was also wanting for more. First of all I wanted more money, as for all the above and beyond what I was doing it was still minimum wage for the time, but also I wanted a new challenge. Initially I did try branching out into writing roles once more but also kept applying to QA roles as well.

    I interviewed for Immerse, and shortly after I moved into my new flat early in 2022, I got the job offer from them which started my now nearly four year long stint in the SaaS XR industry.

    Although, I needed to tell the people at Codemasters that I would not be continuing my employment with them. Due to the nature of my role, a full-time contract which was periodically renewed, all I really needed to do was give notice that I did not intend to pursue a renewed contract with the company.

    What I did do though was call both the QA lead (who was my manager) and my platform lead. During the call with the former he knew it was coming due to being put down as a reference for one of my applications, but he understood that someone of my skills wanted to try out different environments.

    My platform lead had a very different initial reaction:

    “Who’s upset you? Tell me and I’ll thump them for you!”

    He was a very bombastic character, and even through those jokey moments he understood why I was leaving, wishing me the best.

    I left Codemasters end of March 2022, a week later I would start working at Immerse which began a chapter that has defined, and continues to define, my current adult life. But that story is for another time.

    Still got my name in the credits for F1 22 though.

    So, what does this all have to do with uncertainty?

    Because at every key story moment, from starting out to overtime, the senior QA interview to being the second-in-command, to even deciding to take the plunge to leave: I was uncertain.

    The title is a dual-meaning. I currently experience uncertainty about where I want my career to go in the wake of drastic changes within the last four months, but simultaneously, I have made my career in spite of uncertainty. 

    Even when presented with opportunities where I was never fully sure how they would go, I always said yes.

    When I was unsure on what I should be doing, my head was still down and I still moved forward.

    I am a career uncertain, and whilst I do not know what direction I may take next, I do know that my tenacious & enthusiastic spirit will come along with it.

    Maybe next time I will tell the story about how that spirit persists even when the flesh is spongy, bruised, and extremely tired.

    So many stories to tell, guess that is as good a reason as any to keep writing them down. To be honest the above does not even begin to cover everything I experienced at Codemasters that stuck with me, so even more reason to keep writing.

    But even though I have written damn near 1800 words, I still think I should get a review subject in here somehow.

    Yeah, let us go for the random object I had to hand – not like it is an uncommon theme on the Redundancy Review.

    Well, not entirely random, as when it comes to buying drinks there is one specific reason that comes to my mind whenever I need to buy apple juice.

    Last week was extremely stressful for me, balancing work, periods, and trying to stay generally healthy. Unfortunately for me, one thing always happens when I am placed under large amounts of stress: my stomach starts getting fucked up.

    One thing I have always found helpful in mitigating that is apple juice, especially a more “wholesome” brand like this Cawston Press carton where it is more likely to pure juice rather than from concentrate, it helps put my stomach at rest in a way that ginger or turmeric based products often struggle to.

    This carton specifically cost me £3.95 from a local and small greengrocer that I love going to for its wide variety of more off-brand products than you would find in a supermarket, plus shopping local is always the best route to take where possible. Admittedly it is definitely a steeper price that what you would pay elsewhere, but supporting local can be like that sometimes.

    Anyway, that will do it for today, it has still been surprisingly stressful even though I have managed to find the time to write today. 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 the week ahead looks clear for you.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 114-117. “Attempting to Stabilise”

    Redundancy Review: Day 114-117. “Attempting to Stabilise”

    (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 rudders and canards, welcome to a big catchup post covering Day 114 to 117 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    So on top of my period destroying my body entirely, this week was also one where my day job decided to massively ramp up for various deliverables, which obviously takes priority that day over my unpaid writing practice.

    Usually, I write the Redundancy Review during my lunch or working on it whilst I wait for apps to upload or process, with the final touches coming after I finish – such as getting the piece into WordPress and adding in the images before publishing & uploading to BlueSky.

    But given the intense stress of this week, I reprioritised my evenings into focusing on rest, even reducing the amount of complex cooking I was doing during the week and instead put my energy into making meals that did not require much effort.

    And even now when trying to write this out, I feel exhausted. Both mentally and physically, I am still trying to catch up with what happened this week to try get myself back into the mindset of writing every day to keep myself sharp.

    There are a lot of topics I still want to cover in my style, and I still have a lot of stories to tell, but for now, I think resting is the priority.

    Hence why today’s review is going to be a bit ramshackle due to the fact I will be pulling screenshots off of my hard drive from ages ago to help make my points.

    In the dark recesses of Rosalia Rambles history, there exists a review of Ace Combat 7, you can read it here if you so wish, but considering it is nearly five years old at this point, I think it is time I do it justice in my new style and with less of a critical stance & more of my ‘review’ stance.

    When it comes to niche Japanese franchises, Ace Combat is definitely up there for me. I got introduced to it by an old friend back during my uni days and, despite being very skeptical that I would enjoy the game, it instead became one of my favourite series of all time.

    Wherever you are, old friend, I hope you are doing well in life, and that you are happy. It really was all I wanted for you, even if I could not provide it.

    Ace Combat 7 is the most recent entry in the franchise, coming out in 2019, and whilst I have a very respectable playtime on PC; my first experience with the game came on PS4, which I think goes to show how much I enjoyed the game that I decided to rebuy it on a different platform and play through it all again.

    The goal of the game is good, clean, arcade-style flight simulator fun. There are twenty campaign missions ranging from your standard “take down bombers and escorts attacking your base” to “destroy the required amount of enemy assets in time”.

    Though, I do want to highlight the story of the game along with re-emphasising the year it came out. For coming out in 2019, there is a heavy focus on the usage of drones in war, including the inciting incident of the game being an autonomous drone attack being carried out in the “protagonist” nation using drones hidden in shipping containers.

    Considering that exact scenario has played out in the Ukraine/Russia conflict with the former side using that exact tactic on the latter, it feels almost spooky to revisit some of the themes in this game.

    If you care about spoilers, here is your small-scale spoiler warning for Ace Combat 7, skip ahead until you see an image of a glowing fighter jet, where I will change topic.

    During the game you see cutscenes of your rival ace, Mihaly, taking part in experiments that are providing training data to the drones. Once you get to the final mission, two advanced drones are revealed that are carrying Mihaly’s data, with the objective of uploading that data to drone factories around the world to mass-produce these AI-powered war machines.

    Again, this game came out in 2019, and to me having a plotline like this in a game about fighter jets feels ominously prophetic, bordering on Metal Gear Solid 2 levels of a plot being way ahead of its time.

    Simultaneously, there is writing that echoes the anti-AI sentiment of today through the message of drones versus human pilots:

    Screenshot grabbed from Ace Combat Fan playing Mission 18 on Youtube: https://youtu.be/l-f8ObKfJh0?si=MkBzUIw5sqsVHQHs

    Like with most games with a modern military setting, there needs to be a level of media literacy to both appreciate the themes whilst recognising that the game is acting as propaganda for various companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, this is often why when I talk about these games my general mantra for discussing them is:

    “War bad, planes rad”

    (thank you to Oboe Shoes Games on Youtube for that brilliant phrase)

    Even in the mission where the above sentence is spoken, you as the “protagonist” are in the midst of committing a war crime by attacking a site of historical slash cultural significance to pillage their supplies, so, the ahead of its time message is balanced out by the horrors.

    Anyway, that is enough story discussion, time to put up the signal that people can come back.

    Ahh, glowing X-02S Wyvern, you are one of my favourite stupid additions to the game in the form of DLC.

    Once again I show I am not immune to propaganda, but that does not minimise my love for this game. Planes are indeed rad, and getting to fly them in video games is one of the most exhilarating experiences I have ever had the pleasure of partaking in. Ace Combat 7 pushed me to my limits as I tried 100%ing the main campaign, doing all the side objectives, hidden aces, and in-game medals. 

    I still need to properly immerse myself into the multiplayer to bring up my Steam achievement count to the top, but I have proven myself in the way I want to, and that satisfies me.

    Ended writing way more than I anticipated about a plane game, but I think this has done what I wanted it to in getting the juices flowing again. Thank you so much for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review, wherever you are I hope you are able to make the most of a relaxing Sunday before the Monday blues come back at you.

    Ace Combat 7 is available on Steam, Xbox, Playstation, and Switch, so if my review has made you at all curious, give it a go!

  • Redundancy ‘Review’: Day 112-113, “Periods Suck”

    (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 lemons and bulls, welcome to Day 112-113 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Yup, still suffering from period-related issues. 

    Honestly one of the worst things when it comes to this regular stretch of time for me is not the pain, or the fatigue, or the emotional instability, or loss of appetite… writing it all down like this really highlights how much my body can shut down during periods and I should really not be so harsh on myself.

    No, the worst thing about this all is the persistent brain fog I get saddled with for around a week or so – it makes everything way more difficult for me.

    Writing is the biggest one, as I will often find myself sitting in front of a document trying to formulate what I want to write and feeling my brain either shut down entirely, or have it be a dedicated effort to force my thoughts onto the right path for long enough to string coherent sentences together.

    But it definitely does not stop there, as every part of my life becomes more difficult to navigate. Even a task as simple as sleeping can be disrupted extremely easily, which leads into a long series of knock-on effects into my day, especially at work.

    I still come in, and I still try my best every day, but my current situation in being in a smaller company makes the times when my period hits hard even more nervewracking. 

    In my current role I have a decent amount of ownership over a significant part of the business pipeline. This is absolutely great for my career progression, as it advances me into new areas and learning opportunities with each day, keeping my skills honed alongside exposing me to new areas of the business.

    Tech is a rapid-moving and near-hyperproductive industry, in a way this has tempered me to a fine degree which ties into how willing I am to be flexible on a given day.

    Jump on new release testing? You got it.

    Handle some ghostwriting for a LinkedIn post? I am your girl.

    Try something entirely new that will help the company? Happy to help.

    For as much as I hold some internal resentment for myself over what kind of person this has made me, there is no denying that I am in the position I am in today for that reason… although, this senior position comes with a downside when my brain is the way it currently is: there is nowhere for me to hide.

    Before, on my bad days, I had others around me who both understood what I would be going through, offering support and making up for whatever I might have been lacking that day. Do not get me wrong, the understanding is there with my current colleagues too, but the nature of the company and my position does lead to my bad days feeling heavier now than back then.

    I always got told one specific effect of going on feminising hormone replacement therapy (HRT) by doctors in the early days of my medical transition:

    “You will find your emotional range opens up, you may also find it easier to cry.”

    There is a point I want to make here on the former, but I want to poke some fun at the latter before I do.

    Yeah.

    Yeah it really is fucking easier to cry. 

    I find myself crying over the most minor of things sometimes, and this gets exacerbated further whenever my period starts because I will find myself crying over almost anything. 

    Bunnies? Bawling. Songs? Sobbing. Critters? Crying.

    (god I love alliteration)

    Anyway, back on track.

    My emotional range has opened up ever since starting HRT, but, and this is very rare for me as I do not keep up with the MCU at all, I am thinking of a quote from Captain America: The First Avenger:

    “The serum amplifies everything that is inside. So, good becomes great. Bad becomes worse.”

    Dr Abraham Erskine

    Going on HRT was one of the best things to happen to me. For all the challenges I have faced and the problems I still navigate today, I can categorically say I am far happier than I was when I started over three years ago.

    But at the same time, I am still trying to learn how to navigate an emotional range that is comparatively new to what I had before, and one that specifically amplifies whatever I am feeling – positive or negative.

    Very on theme for the overarching narrative of this blog though, feel once my mind actually unfucks itself to a degree I should write out an updated vision for what these pieces mean to me.

    Considering the day I have had in terms of work stress whilst managing everything I have written about above, I think a proper review topic is a bit of a stretch. Still need something to get a  thumbnail though…

    …yeah, after the day I have had and the fact I missed yesterday’s post (which would have included a proper announcement that the Tuesday review segment is now called “VTuesday” because god that makes too much sense in hindsight), I think I just want to ramble about one of my silly little VTuber displays today.

    Specifically this is my (almost) complete collection of Shirakami Fubuki merch. Fubuki is one of the longest standing Hololive talents, being a part of their first generation of HoloJP talents all the way back in 2018. Initially only finding her through clips of her speaking English at different points in games, eventually she found her way into my heart through streams and songs, quickly becoming one of my favourite Japanese members.

    Plus, she is a white fox, which I have to love considering my fursona is part Arctic Fox.

    Special shoutout to the card I have in the frame as well. Not only is the promo inside worth a considerable amount of money on the secondary market (thank you to Wes from VeXpo for pointing that out to me), the frame it is in possibly one of the best card display frames I have ever seen – it even came with a perfect fit inner sleeve to protect the card further whilst it is within the frame.

    The display lives on my Playstation shelf as well because it specifically ties into when Fubuki was once having problems with getting her PS2 to work for a stream, a little meta joke that, even after just explaining it, I am probably the only person who finds it funny.

    Anyway, that should do it for today. I am proud of myself for actually getting something out in the open today, but I am also very thankful to you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to find some time to relax, we are past hump day now, and the weekend will soon be upon us.