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.
Good morning collies and sheep, welcome to a megapost covering several days of VExpo for the Redundancy Review.
My arse is now firmly planted back down on my sofa which means one thing only: I have returned from my convention trip at VExpo, and in short…
Holy shit I had the best time of my life I want to do this again and interact with way more people it felt so fucking good to actually leave my hole to talk to others in this setting again.
So yeah, I had a great time, and I want to write a full recap of everything I got up to because there were memorable experiences, amazing artists & cosplayers, and unsurprisingly for a convention all about VTubers, a fair amount of scuff when it came to organisation.
Little bit of expectation setting to help contextualise my review, recap, and thoughts before we get into it:
This is my first convention in six years, so I am a little unfamiliar with how the circuit works nowadays
This is my first in-person VTuber event ever, so whilst I read a lot about other cons online, my IRL perspective is entirely fresh
I am one socially awkward fucker, so when it came to taking pictures with people I might have forgotten to ask their name/handle… or even tell them mine in some instances. I am adding tags when I can but no guarantees
I did not eat entirely right during the duration of this trip, which definitely made my experience worse in some regards but is entirely my fault
Time to start, let us leave no stone unturned as we head straight into:
Thursday, which was Day -1, I guess
My convention weekend started on the Thursday, with me working briefly in the morning before heading on to the train with my partner to head over to the NEC. Fun tidbit, my partner has never actually been to the whole NEC complex before while I am quite familiar from previous convention trips, so it was quite cute seeing him be in awe of the scale of the place.
Once I had whipped him around the centre, we went to our hotel which was conveniently located a stone’s throw away from the piazza entrance: Moxy.
I had booked this all the way back in February, knowing that VExpo was going to be my one big trip this year and I wanted a hotel close to the convention grounds, with Moxy definitely fulfilling the criteria. It was definitely a little on the pricey side for four nights, the rate being about £116 a night for the Thursday/Friday and about £140 a night for the Saturday/Sunday, coming to a total of £617.08 for the entire stay.
The most expensive part of the weekend as a whole, but considering how much my partner and I ended up going to/from the hotel over the weekend, having that as convenience was more than worth the price.
Plus as the photo dump is going to show, we had a great view of Pendigo Lake from our window.
After taking some time to rest and unpack our stuff, we went over to Resorts World, as I had only been once and my partner had never been. As we entered we were both taken aback by the scale of things, going up to the first floor where we noticed a guy from a distance wearing a Ceres Fauna bag.
I was a bit nervous to approach, but that is why I have my partner as the extrovert who adopted me, so he went up to initiate the conversation. Started talking about the merch he had on and it was only after he showed the Gigi Murin plush in the bag that things started to click in my brain.
“Wait a minute… you’re Aaron from HUKEC right?” (HUKEC stands for “Hololive UK Enthusiasts Community”, I am going to be using this acronym a lot)
It was, and we shared an amazing sort of manly handshake. The con had not even started properly, and I had already met someone new that I was familiar with. Thank you Aaron (@musclesap on Twitter) and your friend Alex for being the first conversation we had and for being the first of many to listen to my cosplay horror story.
Parting ways with those awesome people, we continued to wander around Resorts World, coming across the Hollywood Bowl arcade where we could have spent an inordinate amount of time and money, especially given the fact there was a Halo: Fireteam Raven arcade booth.
I played one quick round with a stray pound coin I found in a change giver that had seemingly been abandoned and got a decent distance, but considering some of the other booths here, this is definitely a place I want to return to.
When it came to food, I had one place fixated on my mind. A place I had not been to in over a year and one I regard as an old friend, even if the quality is not that great: Five Guys.
Are there way better options for burgers in this world? Yes
Were there way better options for burgers within Resorts World itself? Definitely
But something hits different about the foil wrapped delights of a Five Guys, plus I am extremely glad to see that they are still using fresh jalapenos whenever those are placed on to a burger, something that delivers a deliciously spicy kick with each bite. It is also good to see you still get an inordinate amount of fries with each order. Between two burgers, two “little” fries, and two freestyle drinks (of which I had like four), the total came to £42.90. Not terrible all things considered, and actually the cheapest evening meal of the weekend.
After eating we explored Resorts World a little bit longer, reuniting with Alex and Aaron to finish off our exploration with a short chat as we walked back to our respective hotels before my partner and I retreated to our hotel room to relax for the evening.
This version of events does not include the several people we ran into as we explored around and chatted to about VTubers and life, including one guy who I now know to be @Nostroscythe on Twitter giving us a great conversation with a beautiful message of “Live Hard, Love Hard”. I do not think we gave you our names properly dude, but you left an impact on myself and my partner.
(also I am like 90% convinced Obkatiekat was in the mix of that group as well and I only twigged that upon seeing a picture of them later, inches away from greatness without even realising)
The rest of the evening was uneventful, with me casting my phone to the hotel TV to watch Hololive VODs and clips whilst my partner went out to meet other HUKEC people at Karaage in Resorts World – thanks for taking care of him everyone.
So yeah, Day -1 of VExpo was eventful as hell and we have not even hit the main meat of the event and I have already written close to 1300 words this is going to be a long-ass writeup.
With that, we move into:
Friday, Dawn of Day 0
Friday came around, and after much needed warm showers & shaves, we headed out to the Wetherspoons in the piazza where we linked up with people from HUKEC having breakfast, I ordered a simple sausage butty which I added mustard to, though this was the most substantial breakfast I ate all weekend.
We talked about all manner of different things, our oshi, card games of all descriptions, F1, told my cosplay horror story once more – that last one did lead to a wonderful-if-maybe-unintentional compliment from a guy named Wes (@RacingGuyRyS on Twitter) when I double-checked with people that they knew what Shiori Novella looks like.
“Yeah she kind of dresses like you but different”
It was so off-the-cuff but so sweet, thank you dude for hanging with me and my partner.
After sitting and chatting for a bit we went back to the hotel to rest before going out to explore once more, eventually being merged into a large blob of other congoers going towards badge pickup, where I met a fellow Takodachi who complimented my Ina bag… before raising the stakes by showing me both his Takodachi tattoo and his Ina Ita Flag. I am so sorry I never got your name properly friend, but you were one of the (many) highlights of my weekend.
We arrived at badge pickup early, and waited around for a short bit for the queue to open, during which we met a wonderful Coco cosplayer (who I am really sorry I did not get your name) who I took a photo with and told my cosplay horror story, starting a wonderful trend over the weekend that whenever I showed a cosplayer the pictures, they went through the five stages of grief in rapid succession.
Badge pickup was also where we made another friend for the weekend, MurasakiTheGreat (same name on Twitch), due to the blahaj sticking out of their bag. They ended up becoming a recurring fixture in our weekend and were great company for me during the opening concert.
However, once badge pickup started, that is where the dreaded scuff started to creep in.
For the queue myself, Murasaki, and my partner were in for general entry, it moved pretty smoothly, and we ended up getting our badges & tickets relatively smoothly within half an hour… this was not the case for the Akasupa line, who were experiencing two hour waits as standard, due to scanner issues requiring manual data entry.
On top of this, there was additional scuff in the form of opening concert tickets initially not being given out as part of badge pickup, requiring myself to go back to pick them up from a different queue… where the badge pickup queue itself was massive due to the scanner issue.
Technical difficulties are a given, and as a QA I can relate to equipment failure, but communication on this issue could definitely be improved, especially as poor Mimi’s voice was definitely difficult to hear over the commotion sometimes. I am not sure if the NEC staff would have allowed a megaphone, but the addition of one would definitely have helped crowd control to a degree.
And on top of all this, there was additional scuff when it came about that they had run out of physical opening concert tickets to give to attendees, leading to them writing on “O.C.” on badges. This is definitely something I think needs to be fixed for next year, it is a nice touch to give out physical tickets as a souvenir but requiring the physical ticket for entry when it should also be tied to the badge I feel caused a fair bit of friction.
Anyway, doing a photo dump of all my badge related photos before we get into talking about the opening concert.
And can’t forget Pizza Express dinner even though I almost did:
Once 8pm came around, we were allowed into the opening concert and took our seats, my company for the evening being my new friend Murasaki. And for all the issues I personally had with badge pickup and all the issues I saw with Akasupas… this was an amazing opening show, and for someone who has been craving a return to live music, I could not have asked for a better show that relates to my interest.
(concert photos I took are definitely scuffed, and it does not seem like there is a VOD available on their channel, so hopefully I can recount the story well enough)
It started off with a wotagei performance by Aniwaza Team, who opened with Connect the World by HololiveEN… a damn surefire way to get my hype up for certain as I was singing along to every word and having the time of my life. Wotagei performances have definitely interested me, and this team being the opening act was a great introduction – the energy was fantastic.
After that, we had a full setlist from Phoebe Chan, the 2.5D idol, who did a frankly inspired performance of her “splitting” between a 2D model and her… 3D(?) person with them singing together for a good few songs. We actually talked to her about this performance at her meet & greet and she said it took a lot of rehearsal.
In general her performance was extremely meaningful to me, speaking a lot to the journey I have been on myself this year, and I am not ashamed to admit I nearly cried during some of the songs. It was absolutely fantastic, and I am so glad this show introduced me to Phoebe Chan.
I have to give a shout out to her performance of Renai Circulation though, it was an absolutely fantastic rendition of a well-known song within nerd communities as a whole but including both Space Jam and All Star in the middle of it was absolutely hilarious, catching me off guard and putting the biggest dumbest smile on my face.
Following Phoebe, we had a VTuber named Hiwamari on stage, performing a short setlist of three songs including one entirely in French which I think she said was from Genshin Impact around Fontaine? I will admit now to not really taking notes during the performance, only taking photos of talents before going back to enjoying the music.
Not much to say about her, but I definitely enjoyed the performance even if I was not massively following what was going on.
Up next, we had two performers from Phase Connect: Jelly Hoshiumi and Komachi Panko. I honestly cannot remember what they sang but I still remember enjoying it. I think that is the true joy of the opening concert for me and what I missed a lot about live music, because I used to find a lot of cool bands through support acts back in the day, and even if I do not fully know who people are, I will still vibe and sing along to my best ability.
After the Phase Connect people, we had Miori Celesta on stage, doing a short but sweet setlist of bardcore-inspired songs, which included a beautiful version of Scarborough Fair which she asked people to check out on Youtube, so I will include the link to that video as well.
Following her, there was a performance from three members of V4Mirai: Kou Mariya, REM Kanashibari, and someone who might be on her way to becoming a favourite of mine purely on aesthetics alone, Dr.NOVA(e). Unfortunately I also cannot fully remember what each individual member sang, but I do remember what the three of them sang together at the end…
…I do not recall the last time I sang along to Baby One More Time by Britney Spears but goddamnit if singing along to that with three beautiful VTubers performing it on stage was not one of the main highlights of my weekend. I will definitely be trying to find some time to see what the good doctor is up to in the future.
Moving on, after that we had Bonnie Barkswell and Reina Ronronea from Globie, with one song from Bonnie specifically staying in my mind because it was “Ahoy!!” by Houshou Marine, one of my all time favourite HoloJP originals and my first time ever doing the call & response section with a live crowd.
Holy crap what an experience. It felt so fucking cool to be cheering along with a song I have known for so long with a crowd cheering with me.
And finally, we have the final act, and the performer I was most looking forward to seeing perform given she had promised non-stop dad rock: the independent and resilient Matara Kan.
Even outside of my admiration for the giant cockroach, her setlist aligned perfectly with a good deal of my own musical taste. Green Day, Blink-182, Nickleback, My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park – she was going through all the hits of classic Guitar Hero and despite the butterflies in her stomach, I loved every minute of her performance and sang along with everything I knew.
Plus it was really sweet of her to dedicate her final song to her favourite, now-graduated, VTuber. I am sure wherever Nina Kosaka is now she would have loved that performance.
And with that, the opening concert came to a close. My arms were dead, my legs were dead, but surprisingly my voice was still holding up. Upon returning to the hotel and consuming a CBD gummy, it apparently took all of five minutes for me to go to sleep, giving me plenty of rest for…
Saturday: The Main Event
We woke up relatively early for a Saturday and started to get ready. Unrelated to anything in the convention, god it feels nice to not have to worry about hot water running out with a hotel shower so I could take extremely long showers compared to what I do at home.
I am actually very proud of my Saturday fit in all honesty, the stompers were a vibe as always, and the fact I was able to hook some of my plushies on small chains onto the corset D-rings of my dress let me represent some of my favourites without cosplaying – plus this outfit definitely has the vibes of Shiori’s detective outfit which is great.
My partner and I walked over to the convention to get let in shortly after we arrived, before instantly splitting up. He wanted to explore around, and I wanted to hit Artist Alley where I almost instantly bought two A4 prints from an artist called SnipSnip Studio… it kind of helped they were cosplaying Shiori so I was able to tell them my story, thanks for listening!
But then I instantly got distracted as I had noticed a Helldiver cosplay, and I knew I wanted to get a photo… not before engaging in a silly bit of roleplay though, because as soon as I got his attention I gave him the casual salute, and he reciprocated near instantly. I am so sorry I did not get your name, but thanks for taking a photo with me.
After leaving artist alley there was the Baka Itasha display with three gorgeous cars on display, one representing IRyS of HoloEN, one representing Dokibird of Independent, and the one I took… basically all of my photos of, representing Ninomae Ina’nis of HoloEN. I definitely regret not getting proper photos taken of all of them, and not taking photos of me with them.
I also took in the scale of the event after these photos. It has been an extremely long time since I have done anything like that, and the fact I was able to even stand in the hall after the shit year I have had made me so extremely happy… if a touch overwhelmed at times… okay I was a touch overwhelmed for the entire event but I still made the most of it!
Reunited with my partner near the entrance, I encountered someone I had in my mind that I wanted to meet: a cosplayer called Julibee I follow on Twitter. I told her my cosplay story and watched her process what I had just showed her along with the price I had paid before talking about if she knew any seamstress and finishing things off with a photo. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me, you looked amazing in your Marine cosplay and I hope we get to meet again some day.
My partner and I went for a wander afterwards, only to run into Merryweather walking around in his suit and fursuit head. I imagined it would be quite sweltering for him but as we were talking he was actively needing to air out the head and put a fan next to his mouth to help keep him cool. I did not get to say as much as I wanted to say to him, especially as a fellow writer, but thank you for taking a photo with me. I hope to see you again soon.
We continued to wander around taking in the sights and sound of the convention until I noticed a pair of cosplayers I had also wanted to say hi to, CloverClub and Nocte. I was admittedly a little awkward talking to them cause Clover did ask me to repeat myself when I was recounting my cosplay story, but thank you both for taking a photo with me. You looked amazing and, like with so many other cosplayers I took photos with, I hope to see you again some day.
After this, we decided to kill time until one of the few things my partner wanted to do came up, which was Phoebe Chan doing her meet & greet to the side of the main meeting space. We actually arrived as her and her manager Steiner were setting up her table, so we chatted briefly as that went on where I got to compliment her set. My partner bought one of her penlights whilst I bought her album and got it signed.
Especially with what you wrote Phoebe, I want to meet you again. It was an amazing time getting to talk to you and the words you said to my partner were inspiring.
With that wrapped up, we decided to return to the hotel for a short bit where any reasonable personwould have chosen to have a proper lunch in that moment especially considering there was the HUKEC meetup and my meet & greet with Matara coming up in the afternoon, but nope, Huel and a few doritos it was… next time definitely need to bring some proper snacks.
We rested for around three-quarters of an hour before heading back out towards the HUKEC meetup just outside the atrium, and… there is so much to talk about here so I will try my best to keep it concise holy shit I am writing so much I need to go on convention trips more often.
Across the near hour I was at the meetup for, I:
Talked to a bunch of new people I had never properly met before, including the Supreme Leader Boyfriend John
Took part in the HUKEC group photo
Gave a try at the HUKEC beanbag toss
Wrote a message for the HUKEC chain (I wish I got a picture of what I wrote, but I will explain it after)
Took photos with a bunch of cool cosplayers who I only got the name of one of
Got given a bunch of Hololive Card Game cards by a guy called Archie thank you so much again dude that was fucking insane and they will be put to good use
I will admit there was a time I was on the sidelines and I came close to crying, not from sadness or feeling overwhelmed (much), but just from sheer… positivity and inclusiveness, which got reflected in the message I wrote for the chain.
“Thank you for making my world less lonely – Rosa”
In general, I think those words sum up how the VTubing world as a whole makes me feel, especially with post-VExpo emotions. It was so amazing to meet so many independent VTubers along with fans of corpo VTubers, and I felt like I belonged regardless of who I was.
Anyway, HUKEC photo dump incoming. The Nakiri Ayame cosplayer is called Kat, but I did not get the names of the Gigi, Nimi, or Dr Fubuki cosplayers – my apologies to all.
My partner was pretty exhausted afterwards, so we did one more quick whip around the convention hall before I was going to walk him home. As we did so, we saw someone who I now know is called The Memestar queueing for a meet & greet carrying a 3D printed replica of the WunderWaffe from Call of Duty: World At War.
So we obviously had to get photos of him, and he very graciously let my partner who was leading the conversation hold it too. Very lovely to talk to you dude, especially as you were queueing at the time.
We walked back to the hotel, where I left my partner to rest whilst I returned for my meet & greet with Matara.
Now.
ANY REASONABLE PERSON would have changed out of the big heavy stompers she had been wearing for seven hours at this point and change into more comfortable shoes, especially as she was aware of the blisters forming on the back of her feet, but nope, I walked back to the hall in the stompers and queued for nearly two hours in them as well.
Thankfully I did have a nice distraction whilst queueing in the form of brilliant conversation with someone called ShizukaSilent and someone else who I once again did not get the name of, but thank you both for talking with me in the queue, and extra thanks to Shizuka for letting me take a 3D printed desk buddy mascot.
The queue came and went, and soon I was getting ready to meet Matara. I had in my mind what I was going to ask and talk about: considering her opening concert set was essentially a greatest hits of Guitar Hero, I wanted to ask her about if she considered adding Dragonforce into the mix.
That said, all composure went straight out the window the moment I walked in to the booth and the first words out of her mouth were:
“Ooo, you’re stylish”.
And followed up with:
“Rosa, oh that’s a beautiful name”.
I became a spluttering mess after that point, this beautiful and resilient person who I had just spent two hours queueing for complimented me incredibly sincerely and whilst I did get my question out and we chatted about Guitar Hero, I was so overwhelmed with happiness of getting to talk to her and say how inspiring she was to me.
I am holding a plushie up cause I got a little self-conscious about my smile by this point in the weekend, but I hope my cheeks show that I am absolutely over the moon right now. After finishing up I went to get my pen plotter gift as part of this meet, and was incredibly surprised with how the system worked… that said, there was a fair bit of scuff surrounding that too, but I will not dwell on it here because of the positive vibes.
By the way, your handwriting is beautiful Matara, and I am so happy to have this as a memory of our meeting.
Now, it was close to 8pm by the time I had finished my meet & greet and got my pen plotter gift, I had been in stompers for close to nine hours, and I was in abject agony. This presented a small problem, as I had booked a ticket to go see Idol Anarchy, the premium rock concert as part of the convention.
But I was tired, hungry, and in a lot of pain, so as we were leaving I asked a staff member if it was possible to give away my ticket. They came back and said it was, we just had to find someone…
…and there was a convenient Murasaki by the entrance who was happy to accept the ticket. Again, it was great meeting you friendo, and I hope you enjoyed the concert.
Free of responsibility and able to take the evening a bit more easy, my partner and I went to TGIFridays for a fantastic meal to finish off the day, an experience made even better with the energy of our waiter Dan that night. An absolute delight to be around which made the first solid food I hate eaten in almost eleven hours taste so much better.
We walk back to the hotel, and get into the lift with two other people from the convention. We strike up a conversation, and I think I am just chatting with two other attendees so I start talking about my meet with Matara.
And then I get hit with a bombshell.
“I’m Dokibird’s manager”
You’re fucking who?!
I might not have been able to win tickets for Doki’s meet & greet, but honestly, I think I got the next best thing in getting to meet Doki’s manager. We did get a photo together and whilst he did say that Doki technically doxxed him that day, I am not going to post it here. It is a little scuffed and I kind of want to keep this fun little memory to myself.
He did give me his card though, and this is a perfect physical reminder of that beautiful, random meeting after a long exhausting convention day.
Did not take long for me to get back to sleep, which leads us into…
Sunday Sunday Sunday
Sunday was a much calmer day, if by force because of how much physical pain I was in due to my own stupidity being in stomper boots for nine hours, and I had two meet & greets booked almost back to back with Elia Stellaria and Rin Penrose. Did not get a proper fit picture this day but it was a simple affair of representing two of my HoloJP oshi with a Shirakami Fubuki t-shirt and Shishiro Botan hoodie.
Unrelated, there was also a test of the UK emergency alert system happening at 3pm the same day, and the running joke throughout the day was calling it the “tea alarm”. Thankfully I was not a meet & greet by the time the alarm went off, but it was fun to discuss it whilst in the queue.
My partner went to a panel talking about the initial VTuber boom of 2020, whilst I was taking things a bit easier just wandering around both the regular and 18+ artist alley before finding a quiet spot to rest outside the convention… which did mean missing the absolutely hilarity of Merryweather coming over the tannoy which was apparently broadcast to every security personnel in the NEC.
I was given permission to announce me and Lumi's vtuber quiz, but due to a miscommunication it went through the emergency broadcast system. Apparently we deafened the entire vtuber concert hall, peaked every microphone on site, and blasted through the headphones of every security… pic.twitter.com/MV0TUUiKhO
It was so fucking funny to see if hindsight, especially with him coming on a second time to say he was not allowed to swear, so I am very glad it is immortalised on Twitter.
Once it came close to my meet & greet times, I decided to queue for Elia first and then loop round to Rin, which was definitely the right decision as I was able to double stack them near perfectly. I do have some issues with how the queue system was handled once again, but I will keep it to an ending scuff recap.
I will admit to only being a recent fan of Elia, mainly loving her aesthetic leading into researching her, and applying for her meet & greet on the off chance I got it… and I did, and it was actually one of the sweetest experiences I had over the weekend.
The moment I walked in she highlighted the fact I was carrying a plushie – a blahaj no less as I wanted to bring one of mine to meet Rin, and I just went with it, holding it up in front of me and waving with its fin. I talked about being a new fan and then led in with my question I wanted to ask her: what is her favourite cozy snack?
She went into full detail of whether we were going sweet or savoury, and it was absolutely adorable seeing her giving me every bit of info, where I eventually settled that I was going to get cookies after the convention as part of my wind-down, leading to the message she wrote on my pen plotter gift.
“You can have all my cookies”.
It is such a personal message, and combined with the fact she gave out little gift bags with her meet as well has cemented me as a firm Elia fan for the future.
I left Elia’s booth and instantly joined the queue for Rin Penrose, unsurprisingly I was not the only person carrying a blahaj with me. That said, it was certainly not seen as a detriment, as the friend to all plushies commented on it instantly as I walked in, saying “I see a shark”, which led nicely into my explaining that I had brought him for a blessing… leading to this wonderful exchange between us.
Me: “His name is Oculus”
Rin: “HIS NAME IS OCULUS!”
Me: “He lives on my work background”
Rin: “HE LIVES ON YOUR WORK BACKGROUND”
And that silly little guy energy carried throughout the entire meet, especially as they talked about rickrolling the Big British Concert audience before laughing maniacally, refuting my claim with “I’m just a little guy”, leading us to debate whether one can be both a little guy and evil before finishing off with a photo. I gave a bow to my prince before leaving to join the pen plotter line.
It took another three-quarters of an hour after queueing for almost two hours to get my final two pen plotters, but with that, my convention weekend was over. I left the hall to go find a quiet place to sit whilst my partner queued up to claim their pen plotter from Limealicious.
I initially did almost go back in to impulse buy some final merch from artist alley, but at a few minutes past five they told me the hall was closed to new entry – which was fully understandable, but it would have been nice to have this advertised on the Discord or Twitter in advance.
Once we had both finished our day, we went back to the hotel and decided: fuck it, we wanted to come home. We checked out of our hotel early and made the trek to the station home, with it only taking just over an hour to get back to comfy beds, familiar territory, and a greasy ass takeaway.
Before I get into discussing what was scuffed in terms of organisation, I want to preface: this was one of the best experiences I had in my life, especially after the year I have had. To hang around with VTuber fans and VTubers, to share my story with people, and to enjoy a wonderful weekend away, I could not have asked for a better time.
And I will be returning next year, as I want to continue being involved with the VTuber community as a whole within the UK and EU, but there are definitely some things I would want to see fixed/adjusted for next year.
Scuff
The main thing I would like to see adjusted for next year is better utilisation of the hall space along with implementing strong crowd control measures for queues across the venue. Initially I was floating the idea of suggesting that VExpo branch out across two halls but I think that would be a little excessive… unless the internal data suggests they could fill two halls in which case I am happy to be wrong.
But in general, I feel the meet & greet space could have been better spread out. Queues got extremely long, winding, and cramped throughout the weekend and having more distinct space for people to queue in would be helpful – this was especially prevalent queueing for Elia’s meet as we were within hugging distance of Vexoria’s meet.
Great for conversation, but it definitely made things feel extremely cramped at points.
Additionally, and it seems there is a lot of discussion in the Discord about this anyway, but the system for retrieving the pen plotter gifts was extremely flawed as it was stacking queues on top of queues, made worse so by the fact that only two pen plotters were running across the weekend. In VExpo’s defense, this is the first year they are running this system, so having the capacity and scale right first time was never going to happen, but if this system returns next year, they either need to massively scale up how many are running at any given time, or as they are discussing right now in the Discord, sending out pen plotters at a later date.
I am also not entirely sure if I want to call this next point “scuff” given it can very much be seen as a skill issue, but the necessity to queue for me – especially on the Sunday – made it hard to enjoy other programming at the convention, and I know I am not entirely alone in that feeling, especially considering some of the main stage panels on Sunday got knock on delayed because of issues over in the meet & greets.
It definitely would be nice to have experienced more of the convention, especially as I was initially very excited to try do the Balatro event on the activity stage but it clashed with both my meet & greet times, definitely some amount of skill issue at play there but still a bit of feedback to give.
If the internal data does show a second hall being viable, having the gaming area being expanded would be quite nice as well, along with having some dedicated events at the convention. With Hololive Card Game taking off in the UK quite well I can foresee a tournament taking place, plus if there were casual commander pods going on for Magic: the Gathering and I… somehow had a calm schedule, I could see myself jamming a game or two in.
TL;DR in case anyone from VExpo is actually reading (in which case holy shit I have made it): logistics and organisation were my main issue, there is only so much that Mimi shouting is able to do especially when technology is failing, communication and crowd control would very much be appreciated to keep things running smoothly next time.
Conclusion
This is the longest thing I have written in years goddamn. VExpo was a hell of a time for me, and that is with missing out on a lot of other small details such as being given business cards by so many indie VTubers who told me what their niche is, and the fun random conversations about video/card games I had every day.
Next year I definitely want to be better. I most definitely want to cosplay next year as well, and not having to deal with getting fucked around with commissions, and I want to push myself to be involved in more of the events as well…
…plus Hololive maybe I do not know maybe you could convince Liz to come along but that is wishful thinking. If VExpo 2026 was just more of 2025 with better organisation then I think I will still have a wonderful time.
Anyway, time to post just a small snapshot of my merch haul from the weekend, there is a lot of other stuff off to the side as well but this is the main bulk of what came from the artists.
Close to seven-thousand words in four hours… I think that is a record for me in terms of writing, and I feel I am still missing a bunch of stuff.
But I feel I should wrap up, if just because finishing off this recap will put a full stop on my weekend and I can start processing the post-con depression because I definitely feel that is going to hit hard.
If you have read all this way, then thank you. This is a long ass piece to read and I do not blame you if you needed to read it in bursts. The Redundancy Review should return to some kind of scheduled normality, and my written journey shall continue for the foreseeable future.
Good morning reclaimers and salvagers, welcome to Day 75 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
This whole cosplay debacle is still pretty raw in my mind as I write this. I feel a lot of regret about how things went down and what I could have done differently, which, in general I try not to dwell on regret as part of my life philosophy.
Is there plenty I have done in my life that I can and do feel regret over? Yes – but ultimately I try to not to let myself feel regret long. For all that I can regret, I am still in the position I am now because of my actions, good or bad, so spending time wallowing ultimately does not serve what I want to do.
It is just this specific instance and what the result of it was supposed to be that makes me wonder what I could have done differently as part of the commission process. Should I have messaged after the estimated delivery date passed, giving myself almost three months worth of time? Should I have pressed the seller more in general even though they said they do not give WIPs?
In general though, I mainly feel sad. This sadness prevails even as I consider the fact I have a backup plan for a cosplay that people in the community seem interested in, but I find it hard to discover the impetus to work on the cosplay or accessories because of how derailed my initial plan is.
Sadness is also what is making me struggle with wanting to write, even though a good part of the Redundancy Review is trying to capture my day-to-day feelings, from the highs and the lows, but the sadness usually comes with fogginess that can make it hard to sit down and write, even though I have demonstrated multiple times that I can utilise my emotions and channel them into my work, like with my anti-AI and anti-government rantings.
If I am honest, this is probably going to stay raw in my mind up until I get into the post-con depression phase of my convention, have greater sadness replace the current sadness and also go past the crux of what makes the current sadness so great.
I want to try to write every day up until my convention, especially as I have been slacking in recent weeks, and hopefully I can work through the sadness to do that.
Though, one thing that I always find it easy to write about is food… that is right, we are back with another exciting installment of:
Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!
I really like that I have made this a regular segment, even if I do not consider myself an official food reviewer of sorts, and more just a foodie who loves talking about the places she goes to.
And today we have another local joint known as “The Exchange”, a sort of fancier pub style of venue with food to match, offering up classics like fish & chips, burgers, and gammon.
We went there because I wanted to take my parents out to dinner to say thanks to them for helping me through things when it came to my redundancy and joblessness, from paying for meals out, to my mum providing me with food that would have been wasted off otherwise at her job.
For starters, I ordered a simple portion of southern fried chicken strips which came with a black pepper mayo. An incredibly generous portion of strips with a simple yet delicious dip, which when paired with the extremely reasonable price tag of £6.50 for this amount of food made for an excellent starter that prepared me well enough for my main.
Initially my partner and I had planned on ordering what is known as the “Meaty Boy Platter” off their menu and sharing that, but once we had conferred that we were both absolutely starving by this, we went for our own mains, which for me was a simple bacon cheeseburger.
Burgers for me are similar in a way to pizza, in that it is very difficult to make an objectively bad burger, instead variations in preparation leading to differing results. Regular readers will also know I have reviewed a lot of burgers as part of eating my way around Shrewsbury, and this one was… alright.
Which is a bit of a shame to say, because for the price point of £17.50 (base price being £15.50 and adding on £2 to add bacon & mozzarella), I was expecting something fantastic.
The burger patty itself was well cooked and seasoned, being extraordinarily juicy to the point I took my arm warmers off before consumption, but the cheese and bacon did not really add anything to the burger as well.
Whilst mozzarella is in contention for being my favourite cheese of all time, it is nowhere near the top spot as burger cheese specifically due to its mild flavour not really offering any contrast to the flavour of the meat.
Additionally, the bacon was back bacon rather than streaky bacon, matching the popularity of the cut in the UK, but emphasising why streaky is used instead as the thick meatiness of the back bacon kind of overwhelmed the beef patty in some bites rather than complimenting the flavour of the beef.
Finally, the fries were… good. The entire main I had was very middle of the road, being an alright burger served with alright fries. I think part of my mind was expecting something closer to hand cut chips rather than fries as part of the meal in a venue such as this.
Now, we get into a part of the story that is a little more difficult to talk about, and that unfortunately does not come with pictures because of what happened. After our mains were finished and we ordered dessert, we waited.
And waited.
And waited a little more.
Flagged down the assistant manager.
And waited.
And kept waiting.
Until fifty minutes later, we received our dessert. In the venue’s defence, they had a private function of twenty people booked upstairs and the kitchen definitely seemed to have got a little overwhelmed because of some plates being sent back, but it would have been nice to get a little more attention as part of the wait, especially as it was only after our dessert arrived that we were offered some free drinks as compensation.
However, I cannot complain too much for two reasons. The first being that our starters and mains were promptly delivered, and it was this private party that put a knock-on effect on the kitchen, leading to delays for both our desserts and other customer’s food.
Second being that because of how long we waited for the desserts, the manager comped them off our bill for us with his apologies. The wait was annoying, but it was incredibly appreciated to see the manager stepping up, taking responsibility, and making it right by us.
We were planning to return to The Exchange at some point anyway to try other options on the menu (mainly for myself to see what I might like beyond the burger), but the integrity of the management definitely cemented the idea of going back due to how well we were treated in the face of a problem.
…I should really do food reviews more often, they flow so easily for me compared to other topics, though I doubt my waistline would appreciate that fact… that said I have a food review lined up for tomorrow as well so look forward to that.
But thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review all the same. For all of you in the UK alongside me, enjoy the long weekend, for the Monday blues have no hold on us now!
Good morning flips and flops, welcome to Day 65 & 66 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Initially tried writing Day 65 yesterday as a semi-placeholder day, but I ended up being way too spaced out to finish writing anything. I am not entirely sure what was causing the space-out or the dizziness, but I can reasonably assume it is one of the bigger changes I have been working on in the background.
Recently had a friend compliment me on how I put stuff out into the open so willingly and they like that about me, with today’s topic being no different.
For about two weeks now, I have been weaning myself off my antidepressants.
Disclaimer: My words are not meant to be taken as advice to either stop taking antidepressants or decide not to pursue them. If you feel your medication is helping you, then continue taking it, likewise if you feel medication is what you need to help you. Always follow the advice of your doctor when it comes to antidepressant medication and consult them before any major changes.
Bit of context, I had been on the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) Sertraline since about November of last year, having had a mental breakdown around that time due to a large combination of factors and wanting to see how the medication would help me out.
In short, it brought my mood into a consistent “happy medium” point as I frequently called it – and for a good amount of time I was satisfied with existing in that happy medium. But as time went on and I became redundant, that happy medium was something I no longer wanted to have as my baseline.
With the way my brain works, combining a potent cocktail of estrogen, ADHD, and general mental fuzziness means my emotions fluctuate wildly throughout a day sometimes… actually hold on I have the perfect image to use this for:
Yeah it looks pretty much like that for me on a given day, whereas my antidepressants would stabilise my line in the middle. For some people, that is all they would need, craving stability and a mood that does not shift throughout the day.
For me though… it feels weird to say, but I want to try embrace all my emotions more – even the negative ones. I want to feel the highest highs and the lowest lows, not suppressing how I feel and just letting my emotions fly out.
It has been hard for me to embrace emotional expression, and to an extent I still find a fair amount of difficulty with it. Not so long ago I would suppress any negative emotion I had because I did not know how to process it properly, which inevitably led to things boiling over in my mind and causing me to lash out anyway.
That is not to say I am an expert at it now; because I am really not. Learning how my brain and emotions work is a long form process for me that I think will still take a significant amount of time to understand, but I want to learn about them in their purest, unrestrained form before figuring out how I want to work with them.
Similarly, I find myself wanting to embrace the flip-flop in my career as well. Right now my contract role is sustaining me in a way that is working, but I have ambitions way outside of the tech industry that I would love to explore as well.
As a massive VTuber fan, the idea crosses my mind of getting a model and trying to establish my own brand of content in a massively saturated market, not only for the potential niche I would love to try to fulfill, but also as a way of further introducing things that make me happy to other people.
I aim to continue improving my baking skills, along with working towards making homemade pickles and sauces with the aim I could one day sell them at a market of sorts, and of course writing work falls into this mix as well, either as a professional copywriter somewhere or just picking up odd jobs here and there.
My position in life right now is not entirely in danger, so for me, this is the best time to explore and try new things to see what I might want to do as a career outside of what has been familiar to me for so long.
For now though, I shall continue on the path I am currently walking, enjoying my card games, plushies, and everything else in between. The most important thing in between being food, which is a perfect and not-at-all awkward segue into another exciting episode of…
Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!
It has been a while since I have done one of these, and this time I hit up a proper local joint called “Bird And Beer”, specialising in fried chicken and beer, in case the name did not give it away.
This is a place my partner has been asking for me to try since he went while I was away in Scotland, and tonight we finally went out together as a treat. The menu is decently sized but offers all the favourites: strips, wings, burgers, and a good variety of sides.
Now, I am someone who appreciates the spicier things in life, and constantly tests my limits in regards to my spice tolerance. Usually I am pretty good with whatever I decide to throw at my mouth, esophagus, or stomach, having once tackled ghost pepper chilli sauce and enjoying it with some regularity.
With this in mind, I decided to order the spiciest sauce available on the menu to coat my chicken strips, “Cluckin’ Hot”, a concoction of fresh garlic, ginger, and Scotch Bonnet chillies, topped with jalapeno salsa, sliced red chillies, and chilli flakes in case you have not already regretted your life choice by ordering this.
Included in my spread was a portion of “Bird Disco Fries”, skin-on fries topped with melted cheese, yet more jalapeno salsa, and the mysterious “Bird Sauce”, which I did not think to ask what it contained. A bowl of fried pickles (frickles) finished off my meal, and were incredibly lovely, especially as I struggle to find these delightful treats on menus nowadays.
Okay, enough positivity and beating around the bush.
The Cluckin’ Hot sauce was quite possibly a mistake. To give the lovely staff at Bird and Beer credit, it was a flavourful sauce which is something that often falls by the wayside when it comes to places devising their spiciest sauces, favouring pure heat over taste.
I am not sure if it is the combination of the hot sauce with the fresh chillies, or the hot sauce with the jalapeno salsa, or the fact I ordered spice on top of spice, but something about this meal absolutely demolished me, to the point I was turning red, coughing, and slamming my fist lightly on the table.
It is hard for me to even pass a proper judgement on the quality of the chicken strips themselves because my mind has been so fixated on the absolute pain and suffering I inflicted upon myself with their spiciest sauce…
…only to discover it is not the spiciest thing they offer, and, in fact, they offer a Challenge Sauce made from Carolina Reaper and Trinidad Scorpion peppers, complete with some stories about past contestants who attempted the challenge and rightfully regretted it. The staff said they did not have any in stock currently but if they did they would have offered me some to try.
Not sure I would have taken it mind, considering that as I am writing this review some thirty minutes after consuming the devilish sauce I am still feeling the effects of it from my head spinning to my stomach very much not agreeing with my decision – time will tell how much I suffer later on.
As mentioned, the staff were lovely though. The service was on time, the vibes were immaculate, and in terms of eating out in the modern day, this was a fairly cheap meal, coming in at £57 before the service charge, which included two mains, two sides, two drinks, a pot of blue cheese sauce to mitigate my terrible decision making, and a dessert for my partner.
Which came in the form of a god damn deep fried Mars bar, a Scottish delight brought right to our doorstep.
The little bit I tried of it was amazing, the batter was exceptionally light and the flavour of the chocolate and the caramel melted together in this unholy log of deep-fried goodness was amazing.
I definitely will return, hopefully next time for something a little less painful and making it so I can enjoy the flavour of the chicken without re-evaluating every life choice I had made up until that point.
Food reviews are always some of my favourite to do, especially when it comes to reviewing local joints that definitely deserve the love. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review, I hope the weekend stays cool for you and you are able to relax.
Good morning gourmands and culinarians, welcome to Day 57 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
The title of today’s review is supposed to be read with a small hint of irony, given the fact there are no illusions about the fact I love food, having written about going to different places to eat and enjoying a wide variety of food types.
Though today’s review is a triple threat of food based topics, as I am currently writing this from my parent’s place on their stupidly powerful internet that I wish I had since they are currently away and someone needs to feed their axolotl.
Hi again Dottie, you might not know me as well as I knew my previous axolotl, but I still love you all the same. Axolotls are wonderful creatures that I really hope more people get to be familiar with, in terms of the widely-recognised leucistic variety that most people have as pets, to the wonderfully bizarre creatures that inhabit Lake Xochimilco.
I do still miss my old axolotl Cedric, even two years after the fact of her passing away suddenly she still lives in my mind, to the point that her name is now my official default for all axolotls. Feeding her was a delight as I had always fed her by hand, she would instantly spring to attention once I opened the tank and dangled the cube of bloodworms in front of her, though sometimes she would knock it out of my hand to come to rest in between my fingers.
I always liked it when she did that.
And yes, Cedric was a female axolotl with a male name. Dottie is a male axolotl with a female-coded name so it all balanced out in the end – even if the metaphorical implications of my parents having a transgender child and two successive axolotls with gender nonconforming names are not lost on me.
But outside of feeding amazing amphibians, there is a food topic from yesterday I want to discuss: I did a full meal where everything was shallow-fried, partially because my partner wanted me to make some panko-breaded chicken I had made a week or so back, and partially to challenge myself on frying different types of food & using a low oven to keep food warm whilst other pieces were frying.
It was… definitely an experience. Not pictured in the frame is a baking sheet ready to smother the pan in case I somehow managed to cause a grease fire, which I thankfully did not – singed myself on the oil a couple of times but nothing too damaging or severe.
Growing up I never really had access to fried foods at home due to the lack of appliances at my parent’s place, so this is all a pretty new experience to me. The final plate included the homemade panko-breaded chicken, breaded mushrooms, mac & cheese bites, hash browns, and half a homemade mozzarella stick (I did make two but the other one kind of exploded/melted in the oil).
In the last couple of weeks I have been trying to push myself in terms of trying new things in the kitchen, and outside of using a pan to shallow-fry stuff something else I struggled on in the past was the three-stage breading process, with I have got a little better on with this style of breaded chicken.
Knowing how to bread stuff properly leads on to my review topic for the day, and rather than the usual “Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury” piece, I took the opportunity of having to visit my parent’s place today to order from the local Papa John’s, specifically grabbing their cheesy jalapeno bites as they were my favourite side back in the day… the operative word in that sentence being “were”.
For a bit of context, I never really defaulted to Papa John’s when it came to takeaway pizza chains, always preferring either Domino’s or Pizza Hut, but it was my brand of choice when it came to hanging with friends and was even one of the meals my partner & I had during our first time together, leading to us have a nostalgic connection to the place…
…and upon trying these jalapeno bites for the first time in around a year, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.
They were… not even mid honestly, I would even go so far to call them bad compared to what I remember them being. In my recollection the jalapeno bites used to be these long, thin, strips of green jalapeno with cream cheese stuffed inside before they were breaded and fried, with my memory of them being what started my love affair with jalapeno poppers.
But these were… some kind of weird green pepper that I do not even think is a jalapeno with a miniscule amount of cream cheese. They did not have the specific jalapeno flavour to them and I actually struggled to finish all ten of these bites when before they would be gone before the pizza box had even been opened.
Especially considering the price of £6.89, which does not include any dip by the way when so many other sides do include a dip by default, and what is available from other takeaways not just as a side but as an actual main option for a similar price, the rose-tinted glasses for PJ’s have shattered hard for me, and I doubt I will want to order again.
Again, this review took far too long to write. My headspace for writing lets me finish articles at least, but getting it done within the span of an hour like I can usually do is oddly difficult for some reason.
Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review all the same. Go indulge in some actually decent food when you can, and especially share a meal with friends when the opportunity presents itself, those are some of the best moments you can have in life.
Good morning terraformers and landscapers, welcome to Day 54 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Yesterday was a seriously good day for me, like… it was the first day in a while that I felt extremely relaxed without the assistance of anything that influences my mood. I had a good burger brunch at Wimpy, I came home and played games with friends including an utterly cracked time at the Arch-Tempered Uth Duna Free Challenge Quest in Monster Hunter Wilds (that is a mouthful), and finished off the day with a lovely takeaway followed by a long cuddle session with my partner.
It was genuinely the first day since I lost my job that made me feel complete again. Frequent readers of the Redundancy Review will be familiar with my usage of the phrase:
“I feel as if my world has collapsed.”
Which was how I felt for the majority of the time that I have been writing the review. My sense of familiarity had shattered with the loss of my job and my worldview has been shifting & changing since that point to accompany that.
In that regard, I feel I have grown a little more cynical than I was before. For all my struggles with burnout & stress in my previous roles, I had always tried to see myself as an optimistic idealist who was willing to go the extra mile: putting in more time, saying yes to almost anything, and pushing myself beyond my limit to get the job done.
And in return, I got hung out to dry by a board of investors I only knew the name of through stalking the company on Companies House. All that effort and dedication yielded a great amount of personal development, but I still had to start from scratch until this contracting role came across my plate.
But I now accept myself for being more cynical, as this is most likely not going to be the first time I see a company heading into the shit in real-time. No matter where the wind takes me I will still give it my full-effort, just without dedicating my heart and soul to a role knowing it could all fall apart as fast as it came to me.
In a way, I have finished grieving for what I had in the past, and with that grief being processed I am starting to rebuild my world bit-by-bit, working towards the person I want to be again with a newfound sense of purpose & belonging.
It has helped me come to terms with my love-hate relationship with routine as well, along with redefining how I want to feel on a daily basis. Up until now, I had been aiming for a “happy medium” in a way, seeking out stability rather than letting myself experience intense emotions. In hindsight, this led to me suppressing a lot of how I felt on certain days which then led into intense negative emotions coming out more than anything.
Highs and lows are all part of life, and instability is not inherently a bad thing, especially if troughs are outweighed by the peaks. It is okay to be sad, and letting myself process this sadness is what I should be aiming for rather than trying to recover back to a middle point.
All this thought has reminded me that I had a severe mental breakdown in November last year due to work. The stress and strain of my new role slash responsibilities weighed down on me heavily to the point that I had no amount of focus to actually do my job, leading to me being put off work for a week to recover. That week was spent doing not a whole lot of anything, my main goal being to wake up and stare at the wall for a bit.
After that point, my craving for the happy middle point started, and that I feel did more harm than good for me. I should have let myself feel sad, to reckon with my stress rather than wanting to hide it away… I also probably should have taken more than a week off and more like a month, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Now I am in an entirely new chapter, and so long as I keep track of myself, however hard that might be, it is whatever I write in this chapter that will become my truth.
That was an intense amount of self-reflection, if still in my signature rambling style, but now it is time for the review, and well, doing a food review yesterday was so nice – I just have to do it twice! That is right, it is time for another episode of…
Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!
Though with a slightly different flavour this time around, as for the majority of these review subjects it has been me going to a sit-down location and having a meal. This time we are venturing into as yet unexplored territory but one I have been meaning to branch out into for a while: a takeaway review.
For a bit of background, there are a large number of what I refer to as “kebab burger pizza houses” in the UK. Takeaway establishments that do not really specialise in anything and instead offer everything.
You want a greasy pizza to forget a long week? Done.
You craving a low-quality burger to fill you up after a train journey? Sorted.
You require a doner kebab to soak up a night of boozing? No problem boss.
And there is a local joint simply called “Hyper” close to me that completely reshifted my perspective on how good a doner kebab can be.
A large doner kebab from Hyper sets you back £9.49, and as you can see from the pictures, they certainly do not skimp on the portion size or the salad, though it is what lies underneath the salad that makes this particular kebab stand out.
Whatever Hyper do to their doner meat makes it stand out beyond compare to other doner kebabs I have had… minus Shawarma King in Glasgow but they are in a league of their own honestly. It is perfectly seasoned, the shaved strips of meat do not disintegrate once they are placed onto the naan, and they remain perfectly juicy throughout – the addition of hot chilli sauce and garlic mayo only making it more of a greasy, heavenly treat.
The fact they use naan instead of the standard pitta bread that most kebab burger pizza houses do also deserves a highlight. Perfectly crispy, able to hold up to much more pressure and ingredients than a hollowed out piece of pitta, making the bread an integral part of the experience rather than just serving as a doner delivery device.
Pictured also are the sides my partner and I decided to get alongside our meal: chicken strips and mozzarella sticks. For all the praise I heap on Hyper, the reason chips are not pictured here is because the chips they serve are mid-tier as fuck, and often leave us dissatisfied more than anything else.
That said, the sides are perfectly serviceable but nothing entirely special to write home about either. No awards to be won by either but still delicious all the same.
Expect more takeaway reviews in future, enjoying good food is a major part of my life and I want to be able to share the joy I experience in trying things both new and old on this page.
Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. I hope you enjoy a sleepy Sunday wherever you are and the impending Monday blues do not get you down too much.
Good morning hyperboreans and ice climbers, welcome to Day 53 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Birthday party for my friend went extremely well yesterday, and I am going to include a picture of the picnic-ish spread I put together below.
So the bread and coleslaw are homemade with everything else being from the three for £8 deli/picnic section of M&S which made for a pretty diverse range of items included on the table. The bread went down an absolute treat as well, pairing perfectly with a bit of salted butter or a splash of my special “bread dipper” oil, vinegar, and oregano mixture.
The Magic: the Gathering section of the night went by incredibly fun as well, despite the bodge job format we created being a little jank with good pulls opened by all – even if the main hangout bit only lasted three hours due to my energy levels plummeting off a cliff the moment the game ended.
Which leads into how I am feeling today, that being extraordinarily relaxed without having imbibed any of my CBD gummies to reach this state of zen, and I honestly do not know what specifically to attribute it to.
Is it the fact I exhausted my social energy after a somewhat hectic week?
Is it me being comfy in my own space when a week ago I was up in Scotland?
Is it just my mind finally giving me a break and letting me rest without feeling guilty about it?
It could be any of those factors, but the main point is feeling relaxed and not having any major stresses coming in my direction currently.
Times like these do give me a chance to think though, and in something that feels hard to do in today’s climate, think towards the future. The world is in a fucked up place for a lot of different reasons, which makes it hard to make plans for the future when everything feels hopeless.
But even as it does, I still find myself wanting to move forward. To find a better tomorrow and work towards it, especially as a trans person in the UK. It seems like every day the ruling class wants to fuck us specifically, and every day I will find a way to continue living my truth and my best life – be it through pushing myself further into social deviance, looking for ways to support those who need it, or even just stubbornly refusing to bow to pressure and keep existing out of sheer spite alone.
As someone who once did not think she would find happiness and had a limited life expectancy beyond the age of twenty, I consider each day of life I have lived past the point I thought I was done a gift. Through hardship, doubt, and pain, I will keep moving on and writing this story.
No matter what.
But, now it is time to come to the review, and this time we return to one of my favourite topics. That is right, it is time for another exciting episode of:
Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!
When it comes to my food reviews, I have gone here, there, and everywhere thus far but one of the most common threads between all of my food reviews is the humble burger. I have had cafe burgers, restaurant burgers, and fast food burgers, but there is one place in town that I have a particular soft spot for that I have not talked about until today.
Yup, I am talking about Wimpy today.
Wimpy is a well-established fast food burger chain in the UK, claiming that they were the first to serve hamburger based meals all the way back in 1954,having celebrated their 70th anniversary last year as part of this history. It was only fairly recently that I have started going to Wimpy, and in the beginning I did initially have misgivings over the prices.
It eventually found a spot in my heart, and it is a place I return to for simple comfort whenever I need it.
Went out to Wimpy today for an early burger breakfast/brunch as I had found myself craving their specific brand of food, with me ordering a meal of Double Original Quarterpounder Cheese with chips and a coffee thick shake.
The thick shakes I have a particular fondness for, as the price of £4.50 for the amount you get in a glass and how incredibly dense they are, lasting well into my meal and beyond. The hit of coffee in this particular one is also fantastic, providing a much-needed burst of caffeine into my system early in the morning.
Shortly after ordering, my food came out.
Now, you might be wondering, why does this plate scratch an itch for me? On the surface it does not look anything spectacular, and in all honesty, there is not much glitz or glamour here. The chips are your standard fast food fries, crispy with a little hit of salt, and the burger is two patties with a processed cheese slice each, shredded onions & lettuce, and the special sauce in a floury bap.
But that is exactly why it satisfies me so much, because it evokes so much simplicity. It reminds me of food from a burger van at a local fun fair or school fete BBQ, the most no-frills meat imaginable prepared plainly brings me an immense amount of comfort due to that oddly nostalgic feeling.
It is a vibe I get whenever I visit Wimpy’s, especially later in the day when they turned the music on and it is a nonstop roll of hits from the 80s whilst I eat food that reminds me of simpler times, the perfect mood to set up for the day of relaxation I have had today.
That will cover everything for today. Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review, I hope you have a good day wherever you are and can take it easy this weekend.
Good morning backmarkers and wooden spoons, welcome to a rare double feature for Day 47 & Day 48 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Do not expect this to be a common thing, I mainly wanted to enjoy my remaining time in Scotland yesterday and did not have the energy or wherewithal to write an edition on my overnight coach home… where I got stuck next to a drunk and could not actually sleep at all… which meant I was very knackered upon my return home, conking out for around three hours before waking up now to commit to a review.
But not just any review, a rapid-fire series of reviews based on a bunch of things I did up in Scotland from stuff I ate during my travels up to things I found on my way, intentional or otherwise. No mental check-in today either because I am fully relaxed and just wanting to talk about a bunch of things all in one go. Ready?
Let’s go.
Arctic Coffee – Café Latte
A soft spot in my heart for getting a bunch of coffee down my gullet that is both economic and easily carriable in public places. Purchased for £2.35 from a Tesco Express, it kept me going on my early start journey to Scotland over the several hours I was coachbound.
Admittedly drinking one of these in one day (like I so often do) is probably not the best idea with its absurdly high caffeine content of 50mg/100ml, which makes it a higher caffeine concentration than most energy drinks currently on the market. Was it very much needed for close to ten hours of travel? Oh yeah, just not one I can recommend in good conscience for mimicking my methods.
M&S – Chorizo and Cheese Pot
Rather than buying a sandwich to carry on with me or risk rolling the dice on whatever might have been available at the extended stop location, I decided to buy a three for £8 deal on M&S picnic/deli snacks and carry those in my backpack as small things to munch on considering my hunger during travel can be wildcard unpredictable sometimes.
Though I have to say, I was a little underwhelmed by the chorizo and cheese pot. The chilli cheddar had a decent amount of kick to it but outside of that the chorizo was just passable really, it needed some kind of oil or marinade to really wake it up. Asda provides a similar product which is chorizo slices with manchego and I remember scarfing that down in no time at all. I will likely not buy this pot again.
M&S – Antipasti Medley
The antipasti pot however I will definitely buy again. Whatever the various foodstuffs were marinated in gave them an amazing flavour, and when it comes to deli olives & vegetables this pot managed to include one item I have an insanely soft spot for: marinated garlic cloves.
Something about marinated garlic gloves in a deli context just makes my brain go all happy. I am someone who loves garlic in general and being able to eat a whole clove packed with the flavour of what everything else was soaked in scratches a psychological itch that left me thoroughly enjoying each bite as I continued up north.
Happy Chippy – Pizza Crunch & Chips
One of the few things I requested of my brother as part of my visit was that one night we go to a Scottish chip shop and I try something I would not be able to find down south. Whilst the prospect of deep-fried haggis sounded… interesting, the moment he said the phrase “pizza crunch” to me, my curiosity was piqued.
It is exactly everything I would have dreamed of from a Scottish chip shop – a deep fried half mushroom pizza. Crunchy, crispy, and salty in a way that stimulated all of my taste buds, I could not have asked for a better welcome present to a country I need to visit way more often.
Stereo – Crimson Zero Mocktail, Buffalo Cauliflower Wings, and Double-Cooked Chips
Stereo was a place I had not even heard of twenty minutes before I patronised it, initially only looking it up as I was needing to find a place to go to the toilet and like any self-respecting trans woman in the UK, the prospect of going into a public bathroom terrifies the shit out of me. Stereo not only provided much needed relief with a gender-neutral loo, this vegan LGBT bar provided an incredibly wholesome lunch for a reasonable price of £21.75.
My cocktail was an alcohol-free drink called the “Crimson Zero”, containing Giffard AF Bitters, apple juice, sugar, and Franklin & Sons Ginger Ale. Considering I am not someone who imbibes ginger ale on the regular, this surprisingly hit the spot for me, providing a much needed cooldown after pavement pounding across town for a pee.
The star of the show was the Buffalo Cauliflower Wings though, florets encased in a delicious beer batter, drenched in a tangy buffalo sauce, and served with the sleepy hit of garlic aioli. It was a pleasant surprise to find something so delicious and filling as an incidental to my quest, with the salty chips just adding to the spectacle. I will definitely return to Stereo in the future, with full intention.
Heavenly Desserts – Cookie Blast Milkshake and Lemonade
After finishing my lunch and concluding my quest for shopping, there was one thing I wanted to cap off my Saturday excursion: a milkshake of some description. My first port of call in the St. Enoch’s centre did not have any milk in, so I took to Google maps to see what places were nearby that could scratch that itch. Ideally I would have wanted to find somewhere a little more independent, but considering the aesthetic of this place, it was a good time regardless.
The presentation really stood out to me here, as the tall and skinny glass is not something I have encountered when it comes to ordering milkshakes at a restaurant before, usually getting a wide brim glass with cream coming out the top. Though when I think back to that situation along with how far I had walked to get to that place, they could have served it to me in a paper trough and I would have gulped it down happily.
Lemonade added both to act as additional hydration and to fulfill the bisexual stereotype of having two completely different drinks to satisfy two cravings at once. For £10, I could have done a lot worse for myself in wanting a sweet treat, but I definitely want to explore more independent offerings next time.
Shawarma King – Large Mixed Shawarma Wrap
My final port of call for food before starting my travel home was a recommendation from my brother that paid off in spades. Before I had settled on my pizza crunch on Friday I wanted to try a doner kebab from Scotland, which led to me being told about Shawarma King – a multi-award winning kebab house just a stone’s throw from the city centre.
As someone who has frequented various kebab/burger/pizza houses in my home base of Shrewsbury, including one that completely reshifted my perspective on how good a doner kebab could be, I went in with fairly high expectations…
…and came out completely blown away.
This was my first time having a proper shawarma kebab as opposed to doner meat, and the quality difference was noticeable from the first bite. The meat was flavourful, juicy, and not at all tough, complimented by the soft wrap it was all wrapped up in, the salad and sauce bringing it home for a frankly transcendent experience of what takeaway kebab could be. For £7.50 as well, this wrap offered more than most places have presented for a way higher price, and I will return to experience the euphoria once more.
Outside Glasgow Queen Street – Stupid Bit of Pavement That Knackered My Ankle About a Year Ago
When I visited Glasgow about a year ago for my brother’s wedding, I ended up rolling my ankle on an uneven bit of pavement that really put a limit on my ability to walk around which hampered my exploration efforts with a friend of mine. I walked past that bit of pavement this time, and decided to exact my vengeance.
Take that, you shitty bit of nonoptimal infrastructure.
Finish
Eight reviews done in rapid-fire fashion covering various points of my weekend away in the northlands. I think that more than makes up for missing a day.
Thank you for reading this strange edition of the Redundancy Review. Normal service will resume tomorrow with Hololive Tuesday on the agenda once more. I hope your Monday is not too taxing and you find some time to relax.
Good morning cats and dogs, welcome to Day 46 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Not much to say today, I am enjoying my holiday in Scotland and spending time with my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. Once I wake up on Monday properly I intend to do a rapid-fire review of a lot of the things I have experienced up here because I have had a good time.
It has been a needed time. Having time away from home has helped reshift my brain on a few things I have been worrying about and given me perspective on what potential solutions could look like.
The review today is my brother’s black cat, Bella.
She is pretty darn cool. In general I love black cats and definitely think they deserve more love as the witchy familiars they are.
Bella warmed up to me very quickly, and I am glad because it was very nice to pet her.
Thank you for reading a very truncated Redundancy Review, I am off to continue enjoying my time away.
Good morning wanderers and travellers, welcome to Day 45 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
This review comes from the seat of a National Express coach as I head towards Glasgow for the weekend to see my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew for the weekend.
It was something I said I would do once my redundancy money came through, to make an effort to travel up north and spend some time with them since I have not really had a chance to do so after he moved up there.
The issue was trying to find the right weekend, usually being occupied most of the time with one thing or another, but my redundancy initially presented an ideal opportunity to take some time away.
I feel a lot better than I did yesterday, with my therapy session helping a lot in regards to organising my feelings and understanding specifically what they were – in a way, what I am still processing grief from my initial redundancy.
Whilst my contract work is entirely within my remit and an industry I am familiar with; I no longer have the relatedness of my colleagues like I used to, along with a good chunk of the work feeling hollow compared to what I was doing before.
Trying to disconnect myself from the role is helping to some degree, in that I am here to do what my terms stipulate and nothing more, but I do desire to return to something where I can exercise my passion properly.
The idea of becoming a more permanent freelancer did come up during the discussion as well, that once this current contract ends do I feel I would do better throwing myself into companies as a free agent, never staying in one place too long for risk of becoming bored or complacent again.
Part of this weekend is to do some soul searching away from home, using being in an unfamiliar place to do some proper thinking at the same time as not trying to think about work.
How delightfully oxymoronic.
Today’s review is going to be the exact spot I am sitting in, specifically, seat 2A of a National Express coach.
I have a particular soft spot for coach travel over train travel. The former definitely takes a lot longer to reach my destination, but considering the prices of the latter in the UK, the extra time spent is well worth the savings in my opinion.
Seat 2A is a lovely little tip I picked up from a travel blogger shortly after I had returned from a long coach trip last year, advising that reserving this seat provides extra legroom due to the assisted travel seat in front.
Ever since I strive to book this seat. Being around six foot tall usually means my legs can get cramped in standard seats, but with this lovely tip I can stretch my legs out without disturbing whoever is sitting in front.
It is especially good considering the length of my journey today, a lovely eleven and a bit hour stint with a handful of stops in-between. My Steam Deck is charged, my phone is loaded with music, and I got about a litre of coffee.
Let’s rock.
Thank you for reading this shorter travel themed Redundancy Review, I hope you can relax over the weekend and take whatever time you need for yourself to unwind. For me I am going to settle into my seat and absorb myself into my own world.
Rosalia Rambles 