Rosalia Rambles

Tag: Tau

  • Redundancy Review: Day 456, “I do not like social media”

    (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 posters and creators, welcome to Day 456 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Considering I am posting this article online, which I will then share to my friends over Discord and then post a link on my Bluesky account for the world to see, the title may seem a little weird. Admittedly, even though a lot of what I want to discuss has probably been said by people smarter than me, in more eloquent ways, I still want to write down my thoughts.

    Social media seems like a necessary evil in the modern world. You want to stay in touch with friends or follow like-minded people for your hobbies or interests, but wanting to do that comes at the risk of seeing the dregs of the internet appears to speak down on whatever you enjoy whilst being exposed to a non-stop stream of every single horror that exists in the modern world because a handful of old men refuse to give up their power or wealth.

    Personally, I am someone who has an unhealthy relationship with Twitter. I like being able to passively engage in the hobbies I have and seeing the interactions between the people I choose to follow, but in return I end up finding myself doomscrolling long past the point of being engaged and all it does is ruin my mood when I am already in an impaired mental state.

    The answer seems easy: deactivate my account like so many people I looked up to have done so before, but as someone who has had to battle various addictions before I know going cold turkey is not exactly the right option, plus for all its faults I do enjoy seeing both my interests and random fun things when the algorithm decides to bless me rather than curse me.

    I recognise this is hypocritical, though I feel I am not alone in thinking this way. To be a writer in the modern age requires the use of social media, and if you are wanting to make this your profession you have to use it to an extensive degree for the required amount of networking in order to land reliable gigs. I will not even lie and say I do not feel anything when I see my view numbers go up or I get engagement on Bluesky, because that dopamine hits like hell whenever I know people are reading what I have to say.

    This is not to mention that my current line of work – self-reflection blogs – requires a certain amount of conceit and vanity in order to make it work. I literally write about my day-to-day life whilst trying to put a positive spin on it all whilst behind the screen I feel like my life, the world, and everything in between is falling apart. For all the complaining I will do about social media feeling fake, manicured, or astroturfed I am equally as guilty for presenting a positive vertical slice when I spent this morning breaking down into tears for almost an hour because I realise I hate the person I am becoming because of the many blows I have taken in recent months.

    At the very least, I hope what I present comes off as more “genuine” than other influencers who might talk about similar things, and I am most definitely not under any illusion to call myself such a ridiculous title. I do not even feel comfortable enough to call myself a “reviewer” despite the title of my headline series being “Redundancy Review”, because whilst I can think critically and formulate my words into critique, I really do not think anyone should take my opinions too seriously outside of “hmm, that is an interesting take”.

    Part of my dislike does definitely come from lack of knowledge as well. Whenever I am putting together a Bluesky post for anything I have posted here I feel as if I am doing it all wrong. I write out a short, but hopefully entertaining, blurb on what the article is about, say what day I am on, and then add my least favourite part of any post: hashtags.

    At the very least, I appreciate that Bluesky has dedicated feeds for writing that my work can be pushed to when I use the tags “#WritingCommunity” and “#Writing”. After that, I usually add the tags “#WordPress” and “#WP” to try push what platform I am using… for better or worse, considering I have a lot of issues with WordPress as a whole but right now the sunk cost fallacy is what keeps me here for the time being.

    After that though is where the real struggles start, as I will usually put in two additional tags related to what I have written about that day. For example yesterday was “#Hololive” and “#HololiveEnglish” to push myself to any feeds that might be about Hololive related news.

    But then I never know when to add more tags, both for respecting character limits and because I do not want to overwhelm my post with SEO-ese to try to get as many hits as possible from as many feeds as possible.

    When it comes to learning new things, I try to do as much as possible by myself and attempt to feel things out before I resort to written guides, but there is little desire to work towards or style myself as a “social media expert”, especially when I try to keep my presence minimal for my own sanity… which is a shame, cause a lot of professional writing roles are very social media focused, and I feel I could adapt myself to those roles for the right price, but I think my wheelhouse for writing roles is admittedly smaller than I would like.

    This is not even to mention my intense resentment of LinkedIn as a platform. It says something when one of my career goals, outside of writing for a living, outside of having a nice steady role I can develop in, and outside of not fearing layoffs every year at a certain point, is solely getting the ability to abandon or outright deactivate my LinkedIn account because I see very little value in having a presence on that platform and absolutely despise the level of performative I would need to be in anything I post there.

    Of course I could make my personal brand on LinkedIn of not being like everyone else on there, but again that falls into the trap of any amount of social media presence requiring some amount of conceit to dare to be “different”, or to think any perspective I have is truly unique.

    But even if my experience is the same as thousands if not tens of thousands of people, there is still value in me writing my experience out, both to record how I am feeling and in the hopes that if it helps even one person feel better, I have done something right.

    I will probably never fully extricate myself from social media, especially if I want to keep sharing my writing, though I can definitely hope for a healthier relationship in future… I still probably will not upload any of my work to Twitter, existing on that site as a trans person of even the slightest visibility feels like it would destroy my psyche beyond repair.

    One of the main challenges that has been facing me during my long writing hiatus is a struggle to engage in any of my usual hobbies besides mindlessly playing Umamusume because it requires little brain power and gives me the required dopamine to stop my brain shutting off. This does mean I have a lack of topics to talk about for Warhammer Wednesday as I have not been building models, or basing models, or doing anything at all related to building things.

    In general it has been hard to stay on track with what I wanted to do with Warhammer this year because of the blows I have taken. Back in March when I was making progress on the daily and making preparations to start painting, I felt positive about the upcoming 11th edition and was considering getting in on the ground floor with the starter set before finding out what local play groups are in my area to start meeting new people. 

    Working on getting my army into a battle-ready state would still be the goal, as I feel going out to meet new people could help me out of this current rut, but there is a lot of myself I need to work on before I feel I could be ready to do that.

    For now, I will just share a progress picture of where I am at with my main T’au force. Plenty of infantry with both Fire Warriors and Pathfinders, a small amount of heavier infantry with Crisis Suits (with plenty in my pile of shame to be built), and two choices of leader in the form of Commander Farsight or my commander in Coldstar armour, not to mention plenty of drones for tactical flexibility.

    There is also an Ethereal that came from a cheap box I managed to find on Vinted pre-layoff which does not entirely fit in with a Farsight Enclaves theme army. There is a part of me that wants to use a craft knife to cut off the head and replace it with a Fire Warrior helmet to make a “rogue Ethereal” kitbash model, one who abandoned the main empire to join the Enclaves, but is required to wear the helmet to show their loyalty to their new side.

    Things still feel hard for me, but each day I wake up I have a chance to improve things. And even if I need to cry out a lot of my negative feelings, then I will do that in the hopes of letting myself heal from all the things that bring me down right now.

    Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to stay positive in the face of adversity. The world sucks right now, but we are still here. 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 365, “One Year On”

    (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 carousers and merrymakers, welcome to…

    Day 365

    …of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    A whole year has gone by since I started this series. What started out as something to act as daily writing practice has, for all intents and purposes, stayed exactly the same except for the fact it really is not daily anymore, except for when it is.

    Might be the energy drink in my system talking, but, I feel less pessimistic than I did yesterday anticipating this as an anniversary. Even took the time today to catch up with some old colleagues to see what they have been up to, which was nice to hear their voices again.

    Being upfront, I am someone who definitely does not network as much as they should: as a tech professional, as a writer, or as any of the labels I can ascribe to myself. I have a LinkedIn, but I feel anything I could write on my public page in any professional capacity would come off as performative more than anything else. I write the Redundancy Review, but I struggle to engage with other writers for fear of being disingenuous about their work.

    And well, I am a socially awkward fuck outside of all that. Even at meetups and conventions when it is quite clear I am surrounded by like-minded people who would be happy to talk for a little bit or accept compliments on their cool-ass cosplays, I find myself struggling to even approach them for a quick hello without my partner either acting as hype man, or starting the conversation for me for me to segue in.

    One of the many areas I have in the list of “things I need to improve about myself”, which is not to say I am not socially capable, more just… the initiation part is always the hardest – though I should get off this tangent now.

    It feels weird. Looking back on a year of events and activities resulting in a lot of ups and downs to find myself in a similar position to where I was when this series started out. 

    Out of a job, unsure of what I want to do with myself except writing as a hobby, and wondering what comes next.

    It was definitely a bit of a self-esteem boost when talking to my former colleagues and one of them saying that I should definitely be putting myself out there a bit more in terms of roles, and that I am capable for positions I have admittedly not been applying for.

    I think for the time being I will continue to vibe, letting nature take its course and seeing what appears. Anyway, having all this time for hobbies has been rather enjoyable, which brings us to yet another Warhammer Wednesday… the first consecutive Warhammer Wednesday no less. Even one where I will talk about a building project I have been doing.

    How unusual.

    What I have been working on this week has been a unit of T’au Empire Fire Warrior Breacher Team, one of the two ways you can build a box of Fire Warriors, as opposed to a Strike Team. Whilst I am aligning myself with the Farsight Enclaves and most likely running battlesuit spam more than anything else, it is probably a good idea to have a basic infantry unit ready to go for smaller games.

    Plus I found a great deal on an old “Start Collecting!” box on Vinted shortly before I got told I was being laid off, and they were included as part of it.

    For a bit of background, Fire Warriors are the bread-and-butter infantry of the T’au Empire, with the most notable iteration of them being what is called the “Strike Team” – wielding either pulse rifles or pulse carbines to unleash massive volleys of shots upon unsuspecting enemies who get close to the gun line. These were one of the main things I was scared of when facing T’au back in the day, as they could take out my squishy units from a distance with it not becoming much better on the charge, as being in closer range gave pulse rifles extra shots, leading to an overwatch that invariably did more damage than if I kept my distance.

    However, I am not one for a static gunline, and I would much rather my infantry be able to dish out good shooting whilst also being close to the enemy, meaning the “Breacher Team” with their pulse blasters feels like a more fitting choice.

    The sprue I am using comes with thirteen options for legs, though there are only ten bodies with which to build full models. 

    My main choices for legs were ones where they are either on one knee to take a shooting position, or bracing themselves on a “rear” leg to assume a standing but steady shooting position. They might not be a static gunline, but I love the dynamic posing that comes from crouching down or leaning back to absorb some of the recoil from the gun.

    Guy doing a reload has a relaxed posture, presumably further back in the gunline whilst his comrades coover him. The Shas’ui (leader) of the squad has his pulse blaster in his hands but is instead using a pistol, aimed slightly higher up to potentially interdict threats from above that might disrupt the gunline.

    Two models in the squad are using the legs that make it look like they are moving forward, but with both feet still on the ground. The remaining three sets of legs I did not use have more dynamic running poses with one foot being off the ground, which did not really align with how I wanted this squad to look.

    Especially with these two. When comparing them to the rest of the gunline which are crouching or leaning down, it feels as if they are a proper cohesive team. A sternguard holding position ready to engage any threats that appear whilst a vanguard advances forward, blasters at the ready to deal with whatever might appear from dark corners.

    Unrelated, I am not sponsored by Tamiya. I do however think it is the best plastic glue on the market both for securely gluing models together and for inhaling the sweet vapours of as you build.

    This has overall been a pretty fun kit to build, with a surprising amount of posing potential for static pairs of legs compared to the potential arrangements a team of Crisis suits could be put into. Painting procrastination will continue until morale improves.

    One year down, let us see what the next year shall bring together.

    Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope Wednesday has been kind to you. If not, the weekend is not too far away, and whatever you need to do to relax, I hope you are able to do it.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 287-288, “Warhammer Wednesday”

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

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

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

    Yes. I know.

    It is a goddamn miracle.

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

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

    Wednesdays will now be “Warhammer Wednesday”…

    …Warnsdays?

    A slightly more catchy title may be in development.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    To that end, what caused my relapse?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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