Rosalia Rambles

Tag: reviews

  • Redundancy Review: Day 140-142, “Escapism”

    (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 fugitives and escapees, welcome to Day 140 to 142 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Coming back to write after a busy few days. On Tuesday I had no time to write between work slamming me down before going out with my dad for the evening, and Wednesday was trying to spend some social time with friends before once more playing Clair Obscur.

    And now that I finally have a moment to write I find myself mentally preparing for a trip to London tomorrow to go to Metal Gear in Concert on Saturday before returning that evening and hopefully heading out on Sunday to see a group of old friends.

    Hopefully I will be able to write in between all that, but honestly I am mainly looking forward to having some escapism for myself away from my work. 

    Time away from my desk has been the main saving grace of the stress I have been under lately, especially considering writing is still not coming as easily to me as I would like it to. Going out with my dad, immersing myself in a fantasy world, and taking trips away from the place I live have all helped me step back to gain some perspective on my current situation.

    Though, I have always been someone who appreciates good escapism – books, video games, or even just my own thoughts backed with some good music. Having the ability to disappear from the world for any length of time usually helps me out, but with the amount of pain I have been feeling lately, this is definitely harder than before.

    Sometimes I wonder whether I should be using words like pain, hurt, or any other synonym that can describe the emotions that my depression inflicts upon my soul. Part of me feels it would be better to not go into such detail considering this is a website that faces outwards as a representative of myself.

    But then I reflect.

    And know that out there, someone somewhere might need to hear what I have to say.

    As confirmation that they are not alone in this world, and that they can escape into my writings to get away from whatever may be causing them pain.

    It is a bit of wishful thinking, but it is the reason I believe the written word always needs to exist as an artform. 

    “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”

    I do not know how much of the latter I am able to do, but if I can at least achieve the former through what I write down and achieve some sense of relatedness within people who are reading, then I will consider myself successful.

    Even through my own pain, and as my schedule slips for all manner of different reasons, I will try my best to continue writing. 

    For both my and your escapism.

    Good news is that I at least have some kind of a review topic thanks to going out on Tuesday… if the schedule had held together then I would have actually had a decent week worth of review material, but alas, balancing everything that is required of me is still a difficult task.

    As part of my adventure out with my dad on Tuesday evening, we went to an Indian restaurant called “Mowgli”, a British chain focusing on street food style dishes. Everything above was paid for by my dad, so thanks for that!

    Specifically what was recommended to me by my dad was the Diwali Cauliflower and Yoghurt Chat Bombs in the first picture. The former is a delicately spiced half-head of cauliflower while the latter was a crisp puff bread filled with yoghurt and chickpeas which, true to the name of “bomb”, exploded into flavour once you put it into your mouth.

    The dishes I tried are in the second picture: the Mowgli Chip Butty and the Monkey Wrap. Both on a foundation of roti bread, with the former being stuffed with their signature fenugreek fries and an assortment of chutneys, and the latter being an open roti wrap topped with spinach & mint leaves, tandoori chicken, and the same assorted chutneys.

    The Monkey Wrap was definitely my highlight, especially as after taking one or two bits of chicken off the top it was the perfect amount of filling to pick it up like a giant Indian street food taco and eat it with one hand.

    Plus this definitely scratches the itch more for me than curry does. I am not sure what it is, whether I am yet to find the specific sauce that appeals to my palate but I have never developed a fondness for curry. Indian snacks and tandoori? Cannot get enough, but sauce served with rice or naan? Nope, never got a taste for it.

    That will do it for today, hopefully I will be able to write a bit more tomorrow, but unsure what the rest of the weekend will look like. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax and take heart that the weekend is soon upon us.

    For more information on Mowgli, visit their website here: https://www.mowglistreetfood.com/ 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 135, “Staying Sharp”

    (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 swordsmen and pikemen, welcome to Day 135 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Starting this one pretty late in the evening compared to how I normally get these done, had basically no chance to breathe during work today followed by a lunch where I was purely focused on recovery, before finishing up for the day and deciding that I wanted to focus primarily on eating for the night alongside playing some Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

    Absolutely fantastic game by the way, I am just over four hours into the game currently and I am having the time of my life. I think it might end up being too big to do a proper Redundancy Review on, but I definitely want to talk about it at some stage. The themes of the story, the writing, and especially the music are all top-notch with so much to say about all of it.

    But for now, I want to write. 

    I have talked at length over the last couple of weeks about what the “purpose” of the Redundancy Review is. Documenting change, giving myself the opportunity to look back on where I was, and to clear my head from a busy day – though there is one painfully obvious purpose I have yet to talk about.

    It keeps my brain sharp, and my writing skills in use almost every day, which I can see the results of in my everyday life… for the most part.

    When friends or my partner ask for writing assistance, it usually comes quickly to me, be it for a quick naming suggestion, help in jazzing up some paragraphs for a job application, or even for the rare commission. 

    However, the fun part comes when I am asked to write any form of professional email at work. Deep down I know what I need to write and how to handle myself in any work correspondence, having done the task for almost two years after my mentor let me get hands on with production work.

    But there is something that comes with doing that task that causes me to freeze up and overthink about what I need to write, performing several rewrites and word changes to make sure I am not coming off overly harsh, too friendly, or somehow sounding like I do not know what I am doing.

    This has reminded me of two pieces of advice that both my mentor and the producer I worked incredibly closely with have given me. The former comes in regards to me talking to her about my overthinking once:

    “Yes, I know you are an overthinker. That is why I do not give you the chance to think and give you so much to do so you focus on that instead.”

    Harsh? Yes… but she has a point. If I am given enough to work on, and the work is sufficiently stimulating to my brain, I find myself getting into a rhythm before long which seriously helps quiet my brain.

    The second piece of advice came as the producer and I talked about me going overly formal on client calls, making me wonder about the nature of professionalism:

    “Professionalism is delivering your points clearly and not saying fuck.”

    That one in particular has stuck with me, and it has actually helped inform how I handle professional interactions, letting myself sound more natural in how I explain things. I still go a little robotic from time to time, but my delivery has relaxed immensely.

    In a way it is funny, I always worried about my professionalism when it came to delivering my work output, which itself is delivered on calls where a large portion of my plushie collection is on show for my colleagues to look at.

    I do use virtual backgrounds when talking to external clients, as much as I feel like it would be a conversation starter.

    For now though, I keep myself sharp through writing these reviews… which I should probably try write a review segment for today…

    …yeah, let us have a “VThursday” as a complement to VTuesday, even though the name does not roll off the tongue the same way.

    This was something I actually ordered back right before I lost my job, a canvas panel from the “holoAnimArt” series, a collection of original art depicting Hololive members as the animals that they adopt features from for their VTuber model. Being a massive Shirakami Fubuki fan, as I have talked about before on the Redundancy Review, it was a no-brainer to pick up.

    I am surprisingly blown away by the quality of both the included print and the wooden easel it comes with for display purposes. The canvas itself has a loop in the back if I wanted to mount it on a wall instead but I really like the presentation of the easel, gives it a more rustic feeling that matches with the more realistic depiction of the Hololive member as an animal.

    The only gripe I have with it, and this is most definitely a “first world VTuber fan” problem, is that because of the size of the easel and the canvas it does not fit well onto my pre-existing, yet admittedly overflowing, Fubuki shrine, so I either have to display it on its lonesome or commit to doing a full rearrangement of my displays in order to build a better Fubuki shrine.

    You know, if that is one of the biggest problems facing me right now, then my life really is not that bad, for all the overthinking my brain likes to inflict upon me.

    But that will do it for today, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review, my every day writing practice. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax, it is Friday tomorrow, and the weekend is beckoning us ever closer.

  • 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 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 110-111, “Shark Attack!”

    (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 hammerheads and nurses, welcome to Day 110-111 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    After a long relaxing weekend where nearly nothing was able to bother me, I now return to my desk full of one thing…

    …estrogen.

    Yup, the best way to end a fantastic set of days in which I felt the best I have in several months is me entering into the week starting my period once more which brings paranoia and overthinking back into my mind. Yum.

    You would think after almost three years of being in this cycle, there would be some measure of “used to this” with the fact my body decides to destroy itself whilst throwing my emotions into flux for up to a week, but nope – it still hits like a truck each time and brings out the worst of my inner monologues to put me in a funk.

    I carry on though, in spite of everything that could hold me back, to continue writing the part of my story that I currently find myself in the midst of: one girl trying to find her way in a world that is rapidly changing around her, all the while trying to keep herself on a good mental path.

    And sometimes, part of that story is having a brain that decides you need to feel inexplicably worse about everything going on in your life as if there is not a long history of things going your way.

    So, rather than go into any of the thinkpieces or in-depth stories I usually like to tell, I am going to go straight into the review section of today, and in honour of Title Update 3 coming out for Monster Hunter Wilds, it is time to go over one of my favourite musical tracks from the game that got me into the franchise as whole: Monster Hunter Rise.

    Not only is this one of my favourite tracks, it belongs to a monster I think is in contention for being my all-time favourite within the series as a whole – Crimson Glow Valstrax.

    For those who might be unaware, I have a massive fascination with fighter jets due to playing a large amount of Ace Combat, and this interest made me fall in love almost immediately with Valstrax’s design, being a peregrine falcon crossed with a dragon and then because that was somehow nowhere near badass enough, throwing a fucking F-22 Raptor into the mix to form an absolutely gorgeous design.

    And that is just its base design, as the Crimson Glow (shortened to CG for ease) variant in Rise takes the base form of Valstrax, adds in an unstable core of dragon energy to increase its aggression, and make its theme a thousand times more terrifying – especially if you are fighting the Risen variant found within the Sunbreak expansion.

    If it were not for Rey Dau coming into the mix with Wilds, Valstrax would be my definitive favourite monster outside of my meme pick of Dodogama, but that is a debate for another time.

    As additional comparison, I will be comparing CG Valstrax’s theme to the original Valstrax theme from Generations Ultimate, found here. Note: I have not played GU (a cardinal sin, I know), so my impression will be solely based on how I react to the music.

    Right from the start, CG Valstrax’s theme presents an aura of intimidation with a choir coming in to herald the arrival of this magnificent creature before launching into the main body of the song, which honestly makes me feel as if I am being relentlessly pursued by an apex predator.

    This differs from how the original theme makes me feel, as the progression of the song makes original Valstrax feel like a regal creature – one that is still completely capable of destroying you, but one that views your encounter more like a dance, a coordinated exchange of blows with two equally matched combatants. 

    CG Valstrax has no such illusions, they are driven solely by the amount of dragon energy coursing through them, and they want you dead.

    This is best exemplified during what I refer to as “the chase” section of CG Valstrax’s theme, shortly after the chorus concludes. In the GU version, this starts at the timestamp of 1:15, and honestly, I think there is nothing much to say about what plays out here before it returns to the start of the song.

    There are strings, there is choral singing, but this section of the GU theme honestly lets me down compared to how the CG theme plays out at the timestamp of 1:40.

    It is entirely possible I am blinded by bias, but you cannot deny how much more impactful “the chase” section of the song sounds in CG Valstrax’s theme, this version is the whole reason I call it “the chase” because it actively sounds as if you are being chased down and the rapid notes of the choral singing is your hunter panicking as this out of control creature bears down on you.

    Ultimately though, I love both versions, as I love both versions of Valstrax for what they represent for Monster Hunter. Crazy ideas that sound silly on paper, brought to life through detailed ecology.

    Some might disagree and say that Valstrax goes too far along the line of silly, but when you look at the similarly bizarre but beautiful designs of “T-Rex with a flaming sword for a tail” and “wyvern that creates explosive scales out of excreted oils”, I think a peregrine falcon dragon fighter jet is right at home.

    That will do it for today, I need to get back to my day job. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope the Monday blues are not bringing you down too hard and that you can find some time to relax today.

    As a little bonus, OG Valstrax’s theme won the Hunter’s Choice Best Monster Theme award over a year ago now, and in honour of that it got an EDM-style remix which, like the main themes, sounds absolutely fantastic.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 107-109, “Disillusionment”

    (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 illusionists and conjurers, welcome to Day 107 to 109 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Been a few days since posting something, and that mainly is because my day job ramped up massively in the two days I had left of the working week. Usually I am able to write the majority of a day’s article during my lunch along with bits here and there as downtime between things loading or processing, but things got so hectic that I had no time during my rest periods, which led into wanting to prioritise rest after work.

    But now it is Saturday, and after a long period of sleeping in this morning, I feel considerably better in the energy department…

    …the mental department is a different story.

    The title of today’s review reflects how I am feeling in recent days, though I was also considering the title “Broken Reverie” to describe my feelings in a more accurate way. Much like previous posts, it is hard for me to fully nail down how I am feeling on a given day leading to me using my almost-daily writing practice as a rubber-ducking exercise on myself.

    Disillusionment sums up a lot of this year for me, in both my career and, given some of the events of last night, my hobbies as well.

    For my career, it is obvious. The collapse of my previous company almost right from under me shattered a lot of how I felt towards my relationship with work, even persisting into my current contract work. I still come in every day, and I am not half-assing what I do to keep my skills sharp… along with the fact I bleed QA even outside of work, finding bugs comes as naturally to me as breathing.

    Though something has changed, a very multifaceted change mind, but I will try break it down as best as possible.

    There is the loss of community. I loved the team I worked with prior to things falling apart, they were genuinely some of the most skilled individuals I had the pleasure of working with each morning, and the fact we could come together each day to make beautiful applications, striving for new advancements with each project, meant a lot to me. 

    There is the change in structure. Whilst my career is advancing within this new-but-similar venture, specifically in that I have ownership over a key part of the pipeline within the business model, the smaller structure is still something to get used to. This is not to say I do not get on with my current colleagues, in fact I like to consider myself fairly easy to work alongside – even with my somewhat neurotic approach to quality.

    And finally, there is the fact that redundancy/being laid off is a massive psychological wound that influences how I see the world of work now, especially during this time of trying to add AI into everything before the bubble bursts.

    Part of why I write the Redundancy Review is because I would not mind finding a career away from the tech industry as a whole. This is not to say I want to leave behind the industry entirely, as I do indeed have the skills to pay the bills when considering my half a decade in quality assurance right now, and there is no denying that manual, human QA will still have its place in the industry even with the prevalence of AI right now.

    But I know I can do things outside of the greater tech space, and as much as it feels like a pipe dream, I want to find something where I am not ultimately just doing it for the money. Something that I believe in, and feel comfortable putting my heart & soul into on a day-to-day basis, to try make my career make a difference to the world.

    For now, I can keep things going under the current status quo, but I know I can make things change in my future – for the better.

    That part of today’s story went a little longer than I anticipated, especially because I have not told the second part about disillusionment with hobbies yet.

    Specifically, Magic: the Gathering had their big MagicCon Atlanta event yesterday, which included a lot of reveals and previews of stuff coming in the next year, including more “Universes Beyond” content than initially stated.

    For context, Universes Beyond is MTGs name for when they introduce crossover content into the game, and for the first few instances of it I was either completely indifferent or actually excited for the product they were bringing out. Warhammer 40K & Fallout Commander decks specifically were two products I actually really liked and still appreciate today.

    But, over time they have been introducing more Universe Beyond content into the release schedule, with this current year having three Standard-legal sets and next year having four Standard-legal sets… and with each reveal, I found myself disconnecting further, my indifference turning into outright exhaustion over the properties being introduced.

    The Hobbit, Marvel Super Heroes (they are not even having the decency to port a full comic arc over as a proper story, just a collection of characters thrown into a set) and Star Trek, along with an unannounced set that is theorised to be the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

    This is not including what was announced as part of Secret Lair, Wizards’ limited run set of cards with exclusive art, including crossovers with Iron Maiden, Jaws, The Office, FURBY. All of which has got their selection of fans to be excited, and I am glad for them to be excited by these things.

    But I do not feel good about the direction this game is going now. There are so many products all coming out at once, so many properties being slammed into the game in the hope of making the line go up even further.

    It says something that after all the reveals were said and done, one of the first things out of my mouth was:

    “Well, at least it will be easier to save money next year.”

    I have genuinely started to fall out of love with a game that I have been engaging with regularly for over eight years now, and… whilst that genuinely sucks hard, I am trying to maintain some level of optimism.

    The first set of the year, Lorwyn Eclipsed, looks genuinely beautiful, and given the history of the plane it will likely feature my favourite creature type. I still intend to play the game with my small group as well, but next year I want to try use the reduced focus on MTG to try other things out.

    I want to engage with the Hololive TCG community in the UK, playing in more events and getting more to grips with the game on a serious level. Additionally I am considering making more investments into my food production-related hobbies, increasing my amount of baking equipment along with getting stuffed that will let me explore pickling, preserves, and more.

    Disillusionment can suck, especially when it shakes the very core of what we know is familiar. But it can also open doors, as once you snap out of the reverie, things appear more clearly before you, allowing new opportunities to be visible when they might not have been before. 

    …surprisingly profound statement to end the story today, even more so when I consider I am currently sitting in a dressing gown having done nothing today but vibe, play games, and write.

    I am actually going to post this one wholesale, as I think it deserves to stand on its own, and totally not because I have nothing to review because I am skint slash running out of ideas some days, nope, not at all.

    That said, I do need a thumbnail…

    …yeah, that will do. I guess. 

    Anyway, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. I am actually extremely proud in how this one turned out, so I hope you enjoyed reading it. Wherever you are I hope you are able to have an easy Saturday and can relax before the spectre of Monday looms once more.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 106, “Axolotl Duty”

    Redundancy Review: Day 106, “Axolotl Duty”

    (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 gardeners and farmers, welcome to Day 106 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Possibly going to be a shorter one today, as I was once more on axolotl duty for my parents, which is one of my favourite times if just because it gives me an excuse to both take a bunch of photos of Dottie and post those photos on the blog.

    He was actually very hungry today, which makes a difference from how he has usually been when I have come to feed him. I gave him a couple of cubes which he ate before heading off to continue packing my bag with the stuff I needed to bring home, only to return with him giving a very hard stare out of the tank to say he wanted more food.

    Axolotls supposedly have very bad eyesight, but both Cedric and Dottie make me doubt that statement due to how very clearly they look out of the tank when food is around. Cedric was often calm in staring out, being more like “Can I have some food please?” whereas Dottie very much has a “I did not say to stop feeding me” stare.

    An axolotl’s personality is always surprising to see manifest, and it is one of the things I would love people to know more about axolotls is that they can have surprising amounts of personality. Dottie definitely seems to be more reserved, enjoying his hiding spots of the log and the cave until it is time to be fed where he will then make his presence more known.

    But as usual when it came to visiting my parent’s place to do errands whilst they are away, a local takeaway for lunch was on the agenda, and given how regular I eat at Birches Bridge Fish Bar along with how disappointing the Papa John’s was last time, I decided to go a similar but different route by heading to Codsall Fish Bar instead.

    There is a certain level of spoiled to be had growing up with two fantastic fish & chip shops within walking distance of where I lived, though I have to admit that Birches was always my favourite growing up, and well…

    …my meal from Codsall today kind of proved that.

    In a way I went in mentally ready to compare it to my usual order from Birches, as I ordered a quarterpounder cheese burger with chips, topping that with mayo, lettuce, and onions. For context, my standard order at Birches is a double-stacked cheeseburger with chips, topped with garlic mayo, cabbage, onions, and jalapenos.

    To start, rather than being cooked on a griddle or flattop of some sort, the patty was put into the fryer. Whilst the staff at Codsall did a great job of making sure this was not overcooked; deep-fried burgers always come out tasting vaguely like a hockey puck, and sadly this was no exception.

    That said, the fact this was a floury bap rather than a seeded bun helped to mitigate some of this, and I have to compliment it not being a seeded bun because I have never been a massive fan of them myself. 

    I also need to compliment the chips, because whilst the burger fell below my expectations, the chips smashed them completely. So perfectly soft & fluffy on the inside with the right amount of crunch on the outside along with having the perfect amount of salt on them.

    For this burger meal plus two cans of Fanta (as I was really thirsty after the travel) cost me a very modest sum of £10, being £7.20 for the burger meal and £1.40 each per can. Despite the burger not meeting my, admittedly self-imposed, expectations, it was honestly a nice change from going to Birches and still filled me up extremely well – even struggled as I got to the last few chips in the tray.

    Plus, the fact the staff laughed at my terrible joke after I paid made the experience all the better:

    “Do you need a receipt?”
    “Nah, I don’t think I’ll be able to return this anyway”

    Managed to write a standard length review, which is pretty good going for a small evening of writing as I relax in bed, but that will do it for today. Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review, wherever you are I hope you are able to take it easy and eat some good food.

  • 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.