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.
Good morning constructors and builders, welcome to Day 259 to 286 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
On the plus side, it was only a twenty-eight(ish) day gap between posts this time!
On the down side, still a long ass time not to be writing anything.
Past me would have said “long time not to be doing anything productive”, but honestly, the reason I have been away so long is because I have been finding my own ways of productivity outside of my work that has kept me away from writing, alongside a holiday taken a few weeks back that served as a major reset to my system that has basically reshifted my current outlook on things substantially.
There was a lot of stress at my day job, which took priority during the day and I was working on other small projects at the same time, but after that holiday and having an extended period of time to just zen out not doing much put my brain into this current state where all stress and anxiety are basically on the back burner… which has led to me joking that I actually just burnt out the part of my brain that feels stressed causing me to be incapable of feeling it anymore.
Outside of the jokes, there is a certain paranoia that has come with this relaxed state: why am I not stressed?
It could be entirely down to the fact that I have spent the last couple of months dealing with stress meaning now that my body has been given the absence of stress it does not actually fully know what to feel. Or perhaps that these feelings of relaxation in the past have often been omens of impending doom on the horizon relating to job news so I am constantly thinking about what might be coming.
Whatever comes, I feel I am adequately prepared for it, especially when looking back to a year ago. A year ago I thought I was in a relatively secure position, some amount of savings, and things starting to settle right after a big move forward in my life – right before everything became suddenly unsettled with the collapse of the last company I worked at.
Sitting here now, writing a piece that was meant to start as something else and has now evolved into a reflective piece, I look over my situation seeing a much improved position. I would still be fucked six ways from Sunday if I were to lose my job again, but in terms of financials I would at least be able to take time for soul-searching in order to properly find out what I want to do next.
There is one thing I know I will always want to do in life though: build things.
What do I mean by that?
Well, it can mean almost anything in a way. When someone says they are building something, it can be a piece of software, a physical item, or the vague concept of a “brand”. Humans are creatures that enjoy building things, and there is joy to be found through the process of creation.
For me, I have several things I can build, and I have always found a fascination with being able to build things.
Writing on this site is me building my “brand”, one focused around human creativity, honesty in the face of adversity, and talking about my hobbies in a roundabout way.
But the hobbies I have are also about building. I am back into the flow of building Warhammer 40k models, something which I hope to finally talk about now that I have found my writing spark again. I play a lot of video games that involve building mechanics of some kind, more so now that my partner has tempted me to the dark side with playing Satisfactory. And I build complex flavours into the food I make on a daily basis when the passion and creativity hits me in the kitchen.
I will always want to build things, and I will always want to take the time to build those things because the journey of creation is what makes the final results satisfying.
And now, for the first time in… seventy six days fucking hell, it is time for the Redundancy Review to actually feature a review about something… though not about something I built, in fact the review topic for today was picked on impulse based on the route I had to take on my lunch walk today.
In the past, I was someone that went to KFC fairly often. The allure of a Zinger Stacker topped with a hash brown brought me in a number of times over the years, but as time went on, I found myself going less and less, with the times I did go back in often yielding disappointment as the quality dropped further down in comparison to the prices going up. It was only cause of a recent promotion I found completely by chance when checking the website to see what offers they might have that I decided to go in today, specifically because, as a self-respecting trans woman, I cannot pass up the opportunity for pickle-based foods.
“Pickle Mania”, as KFC is calling it, is a series of special menu items revolving around the humble pickled cucumber. A staple addition to most fast food burgers now brought to the forefront through a series of pickle-themed offerings, including a chicken burger with two types of pickle paired with a “creamy pickle ranch”, and pickle loaded fries featuring the crispy pickle pieces, popcorn chicken, and the creamy pickle ranch again.
But the one that caught my eye, both for being one of my favourite items of fried food in existence alongside the fact a mainstream fast food has put them on the menu were the frickles. Sliced pickle that are coated in batter and then deep-fried for a crunchy & briney bite that is hard to beat.
So naturally, I decided to try all three offerings. Loaded fries on the left pickle burger in the middle, and the frickles on the right.
Small aside, “loaded fries” is definitely a food trend right now, as I have seen several places do their own variations on the dish. I am not entirely sure where it has come from but considering the infinite possibilities for loaded fries and the fact it has been a concept long before this current trend makes me tolerate it a lot more than whatever the hell was going on with matcha or Dubai chocolate.
Anyway, I will go in order from left-to-right across the items, starting with the pickle loaded fries. These are standard KFC fries topped with the creamy pickle ranch, crispy pickle pieces, and standard popcorn chicken.
These were… alright. The crispy pickle pieces are an interesting take on pickled cucumber but I felt they lost a lot of what appeals to me in a pickle, they were not briney, they were not salty, they just kind of tasted like dehydrated cucumber more than anything else.
What stood out to me though was the creamy pickle ranch. Ranch is not a sauce you find often in the UK due to cultural differences but this tasted absolutely divine… provided you like briney/vinegary flavours as it was strong in the sauce, to an almost overpowering degree. Good for my tastes, but might not be to someone else’s.
Next up was the pickle burger, which kind of gave me the vibe of what a standard American “chicken sandwich” is like compared to the chicken burgers you often find over here. No cheese, just chicken, sauce, and two kinds of pickles: the crispy pieces plus your standard gherkins. This was also just alright, outside of the creamy pickle ranch it tasted like a standard chicken burger, which would be great if the price reflected as such, whereas this was priced at £1 more than other burgers on the menu.
Finally, we came to what I had come to try, the frickles. These were slices of pickle coated in a black pepper infused batter, which bizarrely did not come with a side of the creamy pickle ranch for dipping. Some places do their frickles as spears rather than slices, but I have a soft spot for slices, little discs of perfection.
Whilst these were the highlight of the spread for me, I do also sadly have to give them another rating of “alright” with an added “but” afterwards. As far as frickles go, these were not the best I have had, not the worst I have had either, just simply “alright”. That said, for the price of £2.49 for a small portion of frickles in KFC of all places, you could do a lot worse, especially when compared to the price of £8.99 for the pickle burger meal with a £1.99 charge on top of that to add the loaded pickle fries – on their own the pickle fries would cost an almost disgraceful £3.99 which I do not think is worth it on their own at all for what you get.
It is an interesting little experiment KFC has tried out with these ones, but sadly, it is not really enough to draw me back in regularly compared to the other places I can find lunch where I live. A shame, but we carry on.
First time in a while writing a proper review, hopefully I managed to get my points across without much rambling. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to relax with whatever brings you comfort in this weird, fucked up world that we live in sometimes.
Good morning cadavers and corpses, welcome to quite frankly an absurd amount of days between my last Redundancy Review and today of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
And now, a silly bit.
Charging to twenty days.
Clear!
Still not enough motivation, charging to forty days.
Clear!
Right, that should have injected enough life into things to write for a bit.
So… why the long unintended hiatus? Whilst I am no stranger to them, this is definitely up there for the longest one taken of this so called daily series.
In short: depression.
In slightly longer: depression plus inspiration.
In full long form: well, keep reading and I will get there.
Seasonal depression kicked my ass hard, as is noticeable from some Redundancy Reviews before my long break, which led to a lot of days blurring together as I tried to navigate through the wet haze of greyness that is the UK in winter.
And when I was in that mental state, I did not particularly want to write. Not because of lacking ideas to talk about, but more because I did not want to only talk about my sadness or mental condition, because I want to try focus on the positives rather than the negatives.
Which, yes, I know is a pretty shitty attitude to take towards myself. All of my feelings are valid, but, there was a certain guilt that I felt whenever I would open a document and start trying to write what my view on the world was at that given time when everything in my mind was just doom and gloom.
But, as much as I want to keep things positive and write Redundancy Reviews based on what good has occurred in my life recently, that does not mean I should suppress any inkling of negative emotion just to make “good content”.
Things have been tough lately, with my day job especially putting some strain on me for the bigger push to use AI tools in our workflows to try make things more efficient/productive – a total misrepresentation of the facts considering I feel what the tool is doing is neither of those things and just adds layers of complication that waste time in the fixes that need applying where we could have just made base level improvements to the current processes instead of introducing a hallucination layer instead.
There is a certain pressure from within my own psyche to be “grateful” for the fact I have a job currently, especially in the job market of today – and do not get me wrong, I do fully appreciate how lucky I am to have a job in the wake of a layoff when so many of my contemporaries in the industry do not, but “grateful” is not a term I would really use.
It gets me by, and I do at least learn new things even if I do not put much value on the skills I learn in navigating AI slop, but currently that is all I feel to my job: a means to an end.
The end in question is just getting to live my life as I want to, although with everything going on lately it has been hard to do that, with just surviving each day and getting to the weekend feeling like an accomplishment.
That is not to say that things are all bad. There is plenty I am actually finding enjoyment in outside of work, work is just this malaise over my brain that depletes what little energy I can muster.
I have got back into building Warhammer 40k models, admittedly an expensive hobby to undertake, but as I was looking at the various offerings of plastic crack that is available to purchase my conclusion was that I was fucked no matter what route I took and at least I had some familiarity with 40k from my past experiences. Built a full box of models over the last couple weeks with another one to start work on soon, not to mention painting which was one of my goals for this year.
My gaming life continues to be plentiful, having recently 100%ed the first Hades game before moving on to Mewgenics, with Umamusme sprinkled in and Monster Hunter Wilds returning for another round of buffet selections with how many new quests are being added in as part of the final update before the expansion drops at an indeterminate time in the future.
Finally had my first consultation for voice training, which should give me a boost in confidence and let me explore my identity a bit more.
Writing just… kind of falls by the wayside when things get intense and I want to focus on living. I suppose it is the dichotomy of being a writer in my current situation: my main body of work revolves around making “content” that takes inspiration from my daily life, but when my energy levels are low, I want to focus that energy on living rather than writing about life.
And if I do not have energy to write about life, that usually means I do not have the energy to write whimsical fiction of any description.
If anything, I just need to find a new source of whimsy for myself to latch onto, to hold tight in the darker moments.
Have a picture of some ducks that I took when I was out shopping with my partner over the weekend, they were pretty cute.
Think that will cover everything for the meantime, hopefully I can get back into some kind of groove after finally sitting down to write a piece and not let my true emotions get filtered out.
Regardless, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are safe, happy, and comfortable. Times like these are hard on everyone, and finding whatever small bits of hope we can hold onto can help make life feel that much more worth it.
(and thanks to my friend Rhys for checking in on me after noticing I had not written one of these in a while. Thanks man, it actually did kind of spur me to write again.)
Good morning latecomers and no-shows, welcome to Day 213 to 217 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Spent time over the weekend not writing to focus on spending time with friends and doing my own things.
Did not write.
Got too involved in games last night to take some stress off.
Did not write.
So tonight, after one of my regularly scheduled gaming sessions, I am forcing myself to write something before I do anything further for my own entertainment tonight.
Maintaining discipline is hard, especially when I work a full-time job in addition to handling day-to-day tasks, often leaving little time for writing when all I really want to do is play RPGs or watch cartoon horses run around a track. The ADHD does not help in this regard, though that affects both my personal and professional ventures.
It can sometimes be a blessing, usually when the hyperfocus hits just right to allow me to belt through a massive chunk of work in a short amount of time or hit the writing flow exceptionally well to the point I will ramble on for several paragraphs about whatever topic sits at the forefront of my mind, but this boon of hyperfocus comes with the downside of what it feels like to be at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Complete.
Shutdown.
No work gets done, no nothing gets done unless it provides the adequate of dopamine to kickstart my addled brain once more, and the worst part is when this state comes right after a period of hyperfocus – usually being knocked out of it by something happening in the middle of my work, or as is often the case nowadays, finding myself frustrated at something to where it snaps me out of my flow state into a short period of sulking where I need to do something completely different or else my brain does not want to cooperate.
This is where having a remote job with a flexible work schedule really helps me out, as I am able to take that time without a manager looking over my shoulders wondering why the hell I have stopped for a bit and get myself back into the right state of mind, along with not having to worry about not being able to stay later due to that interruption, I have the time to get my work done.
That freedom is something I definitely do not take for granted, and my working environment is what has allowed me to be my best self all this time because I am free from the psychological distractions that usually come from being within an office. Part of me wonders how long it would take to resocialise me if I were to ever work in person again, because I know I can be equal parts abrasive and weird when it comes to my working style, not to mention the copious amounts of swearing… did hit an extremely satisfying “son of a bitch!” during work yesterday though, that felt great.
Alright, that is enough sidetracking. It is very rare I managed to hit Tuesdays on schedule given recent slips so I wanted to make the most of it with a proper VTuesday segment, once more talking about a song, this time from a contender for my Hololive English kamioshi, Ninomae Ina’nis with Tako Takover.
On stream vibes alone, Ina worked her way into my heart with cozy gaming and art content, but she is equally talented as a singer, leading to beautiful pieces like Violet all the way to surprisingly intense pieces like Tako Takover.
And when I say intense, I mean there is a part of me that is dying to be in a crowd whenever this is played live because I feel the call & response and chanting would be absolutely insane to be involved in.
Right after the opening lyrics there is repeated chanting of “ICHI! HACHI! TAKODACHI!” followed by “INA INA INA”, which never fails to get me into the listening mood for this song, finding myself singing along very soon into the song…
…which is completely the point given the insanely clever lyrics written by fellow HoloEN member Mori Calliope, combining the beautiful puns that Ina herself is known for whilst weaving a story about the Tentacult rising to power in the world with Ina herself as the leader behind the new world order.
I am not immune to propaganda, and considering this is essentially a propaganda piece for a cult of weird little purple guys following a priestess of the Ancient One… sign me the fuck up.
In a way I am glad I fall for fictional propaganda more than I do real world propaganda because if I were not as politically aware as I am I feel I would have fallen into a cult or an alt-right pipeline by now.
That is entirely beside the point though, what is the point is this song is awesome, though, given it was composed by Aiobahn +81, composer behind Internet Yamero, a similarly intense and catchy song with crazy lyrics, it is no surprise.
Yeah no my brain has stopped working now. Listen to the song, or both of them, and feel the rhythm of the bass hit you, I guarantee either one of them will be stuck in your head after.
And I have to thank Ina herself here for posting a nice full size picture of the thumbnail of Tako Takover on her Twitter account so I can use it as a thumbnail.
That about covers it for today, hopefully I can keep the discipline up to get back to a reasonable schedule. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax and take the week easy.
Good morning nocturnals and diurnals, welcome to Day 211 and 212 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Missed yesterday due to being severely sleep deprived, and it is extremely late where I am as I attempt to write this so to keep a modicum of my streak up, should manage at least something.
Not having enough sleep is ass, especially when you are someone like me who tosses and turns a lot in the lead up to falling asleep and has a resistance to traditional sleeping aids, leading to me turning to CBD gummies to help lull me into relaxation enough so that I can start to get some proper shut eye in.
The downside to this is knowing when I should indulge in a cube of gelatinised weed or hold off and potentially suffer through the night so not to build up a resistance to one of the few things that can actually help me in case of actual emergencies – such as needing to get up early in the morning for travel or needing a proper night’s sleep before a big event the next day.
It also has a knock-on effect to my plans after navigating the main bulk of my day. I drift through work like a zombie due to my brain not even responding properly to caffeine in that state, and once that is over with I find myself with no notable mood or energy improvements, leading me to engage in solo activities rather than enjoy my time with friends due to how irritable lack of sleep can make me.
And finally, after navigating a day with poor sleep, I finally get ready for bed of the evening time, having dodged the dangerous trap that is an afternoon nap which could have jeopardised my schedule even further, and I fall into a deep & dreamless sleep for the required amount of hours… only to wake up the next morning feeling better but still like I am dragging a massive tire behind me for the day after.
Moral of this short story? Sleep well… easier said than done for many people.
But that short tale will cover for today, and help maintain my streak. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax in this cold weather and are able to find comfort in your own sleep.
Need a thumbnail, have this picture I took of a light snowfall as my partner and I were going for a lunch walk around Shrewsbury.
Good morning units and detachments, welcome to Day 210 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Missed a fair few milestones due to not having the energy to write throughout the majority of December, but considering I am reasonably on schedule this time we can commemorate thirty weeks worth of the review… provided my maths is character, I think it is because a Tuesday is a multiple of seven usually and 210 is a multiple of seven, so I am pretty certain I am on track.
Thirty weeks since possibly the most life-altering event I have encountered thus far, one that fully derailed where I was thinking I was going to go and shunted me onto the path I am currently on, a path that is currently serving me quite well even if I have my doubts about its longevity. It is weird to think that I am rapidly approaching the year anniversary of the titular event, hopefully I can stay on track to mark that as a milestone as well.
It is VTuesday however, and the first one of those I have got to mark in a while as well, though today it is going to be more of a general discussion about an aspect of VTubing before heading into the review.
Taking into account the origin of VTubing within Japan, it is almost impossible to talk about the majority of corpos and a significant number of independents without talking about what is often referred to as “idol culture”.
And no, this is not going to be a screeching mess of an article about how idol culture is burning out massive amounts of VTubers , if just because I do not consider myself educated enough about the culture as a whole to articulate proper criticisms that are not just my own opinion as a relative outsider.
This is especially apparent when you take a look at my history within idol-related media and find a fair few notable names lacking:
Never engaged with Love Live!, neither the game or the anime outside of Nico memes
Never engaged with Bandori outside of having a passive awareness of Chu2 and PAREO
And never engaged with Idolmaster to even know any of the characters by looks or name
All I really took an interest in growing up was many other people’s first exposure to what an idol is: Vocaloid, and by extension… Megurine Luka.
Yeah, no, for someone who started to interact with Vocaloid in their middle teenage years which was over a decade ago now dear god, Hatsune Miku was not actually the first Vocaloid to catch my eye, it was instead the elegant and graceful Megurine Luka I developed an attachment to first. Of course attaching to one Vocaloid almost makes it a guarantee that you will attach yourself to others which did happen to me eventually as well, it is just interesting to me I diverged from the norm from the offset.
This fascination started with Luka Luka★Night Fever, which I cannot mention without saying rest in peace to Samfree, the producer behind this song. I hope you are resting easy knowing you left an undeniable legacy on this world with your music. From the get go the song is catchy as all hell with fun and energetic dance moves, dance moves which started to develop my interest in the idea of learning idol dances like so many young weebs aspire to do.
In general, both back then and today, idol concerts are the driving force behind my semi-pipe dream of wanting to learn how to dance. There is something that just enraptures me about seeing the perfect blend of music, vocals, and dancing that makes me want to aspire to move like that myself… then the “pipe dream” part kicks in and outside of loading idol songs onto Beat Saber, I find it hard to find both the motivation and energy to learn, usually falling victim to my inconsistent sense of rhythm.
I eventually branched out a bit more into Vocaloid, picking up a few other favourite producers along the way, with special mention going to Neru (the producer, not the Vocaloid Akita Neru) for some absolute bangers of songs with absolutely heart breaking lyrics – looking squarely at you Lost One’s Weeping.
But as mentioned above, an interest in idols did not go far beyond Vocaloid as many of the other popular idol trends passed me by…
…until Hololive showed up in my life, and everything changed.
From that moment on, not only did I find a beautiful source of additional idol concerts to partake in, it massively expanded my world to finding other VTuber corpos and independent VTubers who provided similar sources of entertainment. This, combined with the massive boom that VTubing experienced over the early 2020s, made me fall in love with idol performances all over again.
Although this time, as someone with both a fully developed brain and a reasonable sense of their own gender identity, it made me fixate on the general look and style of idol uniforms as a whole – primarily because I really wanted, and still do, to wear one some day with the even more massive pipe dream of attempting to perform in one.
For now though, I am more than content to be in the crowd, waving my light sticks around, cheering “HAI! HAI! HAI!” or engaging in the ever so wonderful feeling of doing a call-and-response with whoever is on stage.
But Hololive is now not the only source of my idol entertainment, as I now find myself fully in the grips of Umamusume: Pretty Derby, a franchise that somehow finds the perfect blend of sports anime and idol anime to make for an absolutely exhilarating and whimsical experiences delivered by your Uma clutching victory from the jaws of defeat before going up on stage to perform in the “Winning Concert”.
Both in the anime and in the game I find myself singing along and cheering during the various performances, along with me and my partner groaning in despair when the anime decides to skip over winning concerts or dangle the hints of them in our face – special highlight here going to Next Frontier.
True to their name, idols give me inspiration. I see how hard they work, often in the face of odds working against them, putting in all their effort to put on shows both online and in real life, and I find myself wanting to strive for the same peak in my own life and my own art. This is definitely apparent in the music of one 2.5D fairytale idol, the ever lovely Phoebe-chan and her song “Bloom Again”.
It has only been recently that I have known who Phoebe-chan is, going back to her headline performance at the VExpo 2025 opening concert… though the funny part of that is my partner and I ran into her a short while before the concert. She was getting ready in the lobby of the hotel we were staying at, and, true to my partner’s fascination with frilly and fancy outfits, he stopped to talk to her whilst I went back to our hotel room, it was only later on that we connected the dots of what happened.
Her performance during the concert was a mix of heartwarming moments with her original music, talking about difficulties encountered throughout the year and wanting to grow beyond what had happened in the past, followed by absolute meme territory featuring a performance of Renai Circulation with Smash Mouth and Space Jam put into the mix.
From that moment, and compounding that with the small meet & greet she hosted the day after where we got to have a proper conversation with her and purchase some of her merch, I have found myself a quiet but dedicated fan of her work, resonating with the themes of growth, rebirth, and trying your best to go with the flow that she puts into her music.
I actually said to her during that meet & greet that I had almost cried during her opening concert performance, as what she talked about resonated deeply with my own experience of losing my job a few months prior. I bought her album at that moment and she offered to sign it, writing a lovely message in the top-left corner.
“Rosa, let’s meet again!! <3”
It is a simple touch, but that small signature does help keep me going on some rough days, especially as I would love to see her again at VExpo this year.
Plus her manager has the absolute badass name of “Steiner”, just such a powerful and cool name for someone to have.
That… once more went way longer than I expected it to, especially for one once more so off the cuff. All the same, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to find things that inspire you in your life, be they big or small, I hope something brings you joy and helps you find the strength to keep going.
Good morning hyperboreans and cryomancers, welcome to Day 209 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
As per the title, it is flipping freezing, one might even say fucking freezing… one is me, I think it is fucking freezing, I just do not like to put swears directly in the titles of articles.
Swearing within the body? Will do so to my heart’s content, but profane titles are off limits.
I guess I can use today to talk about my relationship with swearing. If you read enough Redundancy Reviews or know me in-person you know I am no stranger to flowery language, dropping “fuck” in every second sentence and having a love of a good “shit”, but where did my sailor mouth come from?
In a few short points:
Family
Work
ADHD
The first one is pretty obvious, whilst they started off pretty well with not swearing in front of myself or my brother, things eventually turned to infrequent swearing in front of us yet at the same time not wanting us to swear, before all pretense was dropped and swearing once more became a common feature in our household.
This alone was not enough though to get me to the level of swearing I am today, which is where work comes in, specifically, my old platform lead when I worked at Codemasters who went by the name of “Rye”. Was a lovely guy, really helped me out in the early days of me working there and was generally understanding when I messed things up or needed additional guidance.
Being from Coventry however, he was someone who dropped swears like they were treat-size chocolate bars on Halloween, and considering after a period of time I was working with him quite closely due to the Live Ops team being a smaller group, it was only a matter of time until I picked up his habit of profane language.
That said, he was not entirely responsible for me picking up that habit, and if anything, the line of work we both found ourselves in almost necessitated swearing as a coping mechanism for dealing with the deluge of shit we encountered on a near-daily basis. It was a running joke in our Teams chat that if it were not for the security locks holding our devkit consoles to our desks, they would have been thrown out the window long ago.
Quality Assurance is a field of expertise that requires a steady mind to stay focused on getting a bug replicated or an issue to occur on a long playthrough – cussing out whatever you are testing is a good way of stopping your brain from shutting off during the necessary repetition that this brings, which is where the final point of ADHD comes in.
It might seem confusing for me to correlate neurodivergence with swearing, but bear with me for a bit. My area of specialisation is within the Extended Reality (XR) industry as a QA tester, this often means I have a moderately heavy lump of circuitry and screens strapped to me head with a non-breathable cushion of foam pressed right against my face, leaving only a small gap where my nose is for moist air to escape.
Given that sometimes the experiences I am required to test will last me up to forty minutes at a time with very repetitive tasks or a large number of tasks, the only thing that can keep my focus is muttering swears under my breath or, as is often the case, venting my frustrations at the virtual avatars around me to once more stop my brain from turning off.
These mid-test vents eventually became a source of comedy when it came to watching back my test footage, as my creative application of language would often get caught by the Slack auto-transcriber, leading to questions about the suitability of the content if it featured such harsh language… before they realise that, no, the experience itself did not have swearing, the idiot behind the headset was the source of all that.
A lot of people consider swearing a dirty habit to have, especially in a professional context, but to me swearing comes part and parcel with the stresses that any job can bring, be it retail or corporate. The important distinction is knowing when it is the appropriate time to use curse words and when they should not be said under any circumstance. To reiterate a piece of advice I was once given and have brought up in a previous review:
“Professionalism is delivering your points clearly and not saying fuck.”
The line has often blurred for me given the fact I have been working remotely for so long, which I do worry has negatively impacted my socialisation skills for the day I might have to return to being in an office full time, but for now I enjoy the benefits of being a remote worker whose line of work allows her to curse to her heart’s content – which is a lot.
I did not plan at all to launch into an unscripted diatribe about the origins of my swearing habit along with defending the character of those who do swear in professional scenarios, but that is the beauty of the Redundancy Review. We have random topics at all times and sometimes they take on a life of their own.
It probably does not help my current situation that I am quite attentively playing through Nier Replicant “Ver 1.22474487139…”, speech marks added so as not to confuse the ellipsis that is actually part of the title with my habit of adding ellipses when a thought needs dramatic impact.
Through playing Replicant, I have once more come face to face with one of my favourite characters in gaming, a lovely, wholesome individual that goes by the name of Kainé…
…who has some of my favourite profane dialogue in all of gaming.
She is a character you encounter fairly early on in the course of the story, who eventually joins with your party after defeating a boss she wanted revenge on. Her NPC AI matches similar to what the player character is intended to be, a spellsword brawler who can dish out a good amount of physical damage whilst also using magic spells to support longer combos or enable quick executions.
True to form with any Yoko Taro game though, she has hidden depths that come to light as part of the multiple playthroughs required to fully understand the story, with her even getting an extended story in “Ver 1.22…” after completing the entirety of the original game.
Fun fact, this game is the sole reason that “hussy” features so prominently in my lexicon, due to the acidic banter that exists between Kainé and Grimoire Weiss, your floating magical book that is the source of all your spells.
This does remind me I should take more screenshots of the game after I make it through my first playthrough so I can have some material ready to use when I eventually want to talk about this game after 100%ing it, but at least I can use this review to post another one of my favourite lines from Kainé.
There is one more line that I consider my absolute favourite, but I will wait until the proper review to share that one.
I think that covers it for today, thank you for reading this surprise discussion of swearing in real life and swearing in video games style Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope the Monday blues of the first working day back of the year have not brought you down too much, and if they have, try turning the air blue with a bunch of swearing, that always makes me feel better.
Good morning workers and parasites, welcome to Day 208 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Tomorrow, I return to work.
Wah.
I cannot be entirely upset, there are several things that benefit from me having something to wake up to in the morning: taking my medication more regularly and at regular hours rather than whenever I wake up, the ability to groggily drag myself over to the kettle in order to make a lovely cup of “wake the fuck up” juice, also known as coffee, and getting the opportunity to technically have a longer day by being out of bed at a more reasonable hour.
Of course, there is still the main benefit of “they pay me for something I am rather good at”, which considering my invoice pay should hit sometime this week, I have even more reasons to keep myself going.
There is a harshness, though, of returning to reality once more, especially having been off since the 23rd sans for coming in on the 29th and 31st to help out some old colleagues who are working on a project. During my time off I have indulged in a lot of good food, a number of fun games, and somehow too much yet not enough sleep, it was everything I could have asked for and more.
But now I need to bring myself back down from my peaceful cloud and get back into the work mindset, however hard that may be. One of my goals this year is to find a new permanent and full-time job, be that in my current lane of QA or continuing the push to be employed in some formal capacity for creative writing or digital content creation.
Part of me wonders if I can achieve the high I have experienced through this time off in more frequent periods than just at the end of the year with the obligatory Christmas break, though I feel I am asking for the impossible without a sheer amount of socioeconomic changes in the world… it is too late for me to start getting political I am so tired and under several duvets right now.
Something I have started saying to myself recently is that my biggest strength and my most fatal flaw is that I am capable of being very lazy. It is something that enhances my point-of-view on a piece of software I need to test, having a similar amount of patience as a standard user who would get frustrated at the smallest inconvenience to their user experience, along with finding my own version of the golden path that might influence the overall design or expose edge-cases that could become serious issues later on down the line.
On the flipside, unless I am in the exact perfect mood to get something productive done, there is very little that can compel me to move other than a set deadline to get something done or the spectre of an extremely imminent deadline to light a fire underneath my ass. This is possibly what helped me in my interview a month or so ago, the practical task was to create a presentation for a solution to a set problem within half an hour – something that could be intimidating to others, but for me and my ability to rapidly produce presentations on the fly in my old role, it felt like second nature.
There is a certain amount of ADHD that contributes to that part of me, and given my dad has talked about these exact traits in himself from time-to-time combined with certain things my mother has said about her behaviour that I can see in myself, it is almost certain that my family is riddled with neurodivergence that has never been diagnosed up until now.
I hold a certain amount of pride in how I hold it all together as someone with a very much non-functional brain, addled even further by female hormones that make me happier than I ever have been but also completely destroy my ability to function sometimes. Given the several directions I could have gone, it is incredibly lucky I found myself in places where the weird ways in which my brain work not only benefit me, but also I have had the pleasure to work with people who have known how to direct my energy in the correct directions.
“I know you are an overthinker, that is why I do not give you an opportunity to think”
The above is a quote from my old mentor, who said that in response to when I mentioned I had caught myself overthinking on a task she had given me, accurately surmising something about me that I had not yet seen at that point.
Part of me feels I should write more, but another part of me is enjoying the comfort and security of my current situation, layered under three duvets, and wanting to make the most of a quiet brain before the storm inevitably kicks off again tomorrow.
Need an appropriate thumbnail though, and this image I have swiped off Twitter definitely seems to match the current theme.
That should cover everything for today, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to reach a similar level of relaxation to myself currently and that the impending Monday blues do not bring you down too much.
Good morning tyrants and despots, welcome to Day 207 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review…
…given the events of this morning the greeting seems very much on point with world events rather than the topic of discussion at hand… three days, all it took was three days for the world to start going to shit again.
Ah well, hopefully this is the year that various tyrants around the world finally start to choke it through various means, we just have to pray that whatever takes their place leads to a more fair world – and whilst I would love to include Starmer under the title of tyrant, he is more just a tosser than anything else, and I dread to think what a Reform government would look like.
Anyway, that got extremely political early on and whilst I could easily continue down this path, I want to try stay on topic.
It is the first Saturday of the year, and I found myself starting way later than I had wanted to initially. The plan was to go shopping at Asda early on in the day to do a proper food shop to restock the fridge followed by a good session of gaming, early in this case meaning around nine in the morning.
This did not go ahead as intended, as by the time my alarm went off I did not feel as if I had slept well enough, combining this with my partner telling me to go back to sleep it ended up being close to half ten before we started doing anything for the day.
I feel conflicted on how this morning went. On one hand, it is the weekend, and as someone who currently works a weekday job with regular hours, the weekend is my time to relax so I should not be putting pressure on myself to be insanely productive at all times, especially as someone who can, will, and has worked themselves into a state of severe burnout several times before.
On the other hand, I have essentially had two weeks off of work and my discipline is mostly definitely lacking right now. This had started to happen before my break as well, as I found myself starting later than my usual time in the morning due to needing a bit more extra sleep or finding it hard to clamber out of bed.
That lack of discipline can be attributed to seasonal depression though, something I am hoping to see the other side of within the coming months, alongside the usual end-of-year exhaustion that comes from working near flat out in the twilight months.
Hopefully I am able to get back into my usual routine given I have had plenty of time to rest, which has helped to clear my cough and stomach issues up extremely well… there is something to read into there around stress making illness worse.
Pacing myself as I ease back into work should help with rebuilding my discipline as well, there is a lot of stuff to do in the first month or so of the year with what the company I am working for intends to do but hopefully I do not need to go full tilt until two weeks or so in the future.
Watch as I have now jinxed myself.
Similarly, keeping a routine to my writing would help as well, not only to help reach my goal of 180 Redundancy Review posts, but also just for the satisfaction that writing brings, giving me a moment’s peace to reflect on things and put my words onto the screen.
I have a vague idea of what I want to be writing about for the next week or so, which should hopefully give me plenty of posts for the foreseeable future, but as we all know, my schedule is anything but consistent.
The good news is that some of these topics are from a backlog of sorts, and within this backlog we have yet another exciting episode of…
Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!
In the week just gone my partner and I took an excursion to a local venue called “Ribeye Shrewsbury”, a steakhouse which recently opened. We took advantage of a very generous gift from my partner’s mother to pay for the majority of this, so thank you very much for that!
For starters, my selection was the twice fried chicken, served with what was described as “chicken skin mayonnaise” which seemed like a spiced mayo with batter bits sprinkled on top, whilst my partner had truffle potato croquettes, served with parmesan sprinkles around the base.
Both of these were absolutely phenomenal. The chicken was extraordinarily crisp whilst being extremely juicy on the inside, the lightly spiced mayo only complimenting the flavour further with each delicious bite. Three very decently sized strips for £9 served as an amazing starter.
Though if I have to be honest, I think my partner won out overall. Something about the way the potato croquettes were prepared made their insides extremely smooth and velvety whilst the outside was delightfully crispy, the little parmesan shavings adding a much needed boost of salty tang to make the flavours of the potato pop. Three well-sized croquettes for £8 made for another good starter.
But whilst the starters were delicious, and something I could very much see myself munching on casually, they are not the reason one goes to a steakhouse. You go for the excess that comes with consuming a pure slab of beef, and these were our selections:
My choice was a 250g/8.8oz ribeye, cooked to my preferred doneness of rare, which might upset some readers to see, but to me there is no more perfect way of enjoying red meat than to eat it almost still alive and dripping with delicious juices. My partner’s choice of meat was a 300g/10.5oz sirloin cooked to a more sensible medium rare. Both were served with an upgraded side of beef dripping chips, roasted flat mushroom, and roasted cherry tomatoes on the vine.
Additionally, there was a side of six beer-battered onion rings and on my plate there was an added pot of bearnaise sauce, my preferred steak sauce of choice for rare meat.
When it came to starters my partner and I shared so we were able to try a little of each other’s, but sadly this did not happen for our steaks as we were fully engrossed in the sheer amount of flavour they contained for each of us. The meat was cooked perfectly for my taste, the chips were crispy with the perfect amount of finishing salt added to them, the mushroom was surprisingly flavour packed, and whilst I did not indulge in a tomato myself due to a dislike of whole tomatoes, my partner told me even they had a big amount of flavour to them.
The onion rings were perfect as well, they are sort of my side of choice when it comes to trying out a new place, with these being perfectly crispy, not soggy on the inside as some onion rings can be, and serving as the perfect extra touch to the meal, and whilst it was nice, the bearnaise sauce did not add a massive amount to my enjoyment of the meal, and especially considering the price of £4 for the small pot, it will not feature again if we manage to return.
Now, for the full price, which came to an admittedly eyewatering £109.55, which breaks down as follows:
Twice fried chicken: £9
Truffle potato croquettes: £8
250g ribeye: £28
300g sirloin: £35
Upgrading both of those to have beef dripping chips
Onion rings: £4.80
Bearnaise sauce: £4
“Golden Static”, which was a lemon and elderflower drink: £5.95
Small sparkling water: £2.80
Two glasses of Coke: £7.20
But, this price comes with two disclaimers, the first being that this was mostly paid for by the generous gift from my partner’s mother, who covered £100 of this cost. The second disclaimer is that we actually paid more than the bill price, paying an even £120 once the card machine was brought over.
The service was fantastic, and the initial amount did not include a discretionary service charge as many places around town do, so we figured we would add approximately 10% onto our final amount both for the sake of roundings, and because the staff were genuinely amazing to provide us with such a fantastic meal.
Will I go back to Ribeye? If the stars align to get another generous gift that would enable such a fantastic meal or if a moment to celebrate in excess comes up, but it will not enter into the regular visits such as Floro Lounge or Wimpy… two massive polar opposites in that statement.
But that covers everything for today, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax and enjoy yourself in the first weekend of the new year, taking things easy before work once more comes for us all.
Good morning starters and appetisers, welcome to Day 205 and 206 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
So starting my year off with period cramps was fun, and led to me using the first day of a year to just rest, relax, and partake in recreation. Sleeping in, followed by a shit tonne of gaming, capped off with a takeaway pizza and even more gaming – what is not to like?
But now, things are slowly starting to return to some kind of routine. My partner has received a new work schedule so we have a clearer idea of what kind of days off/holidays we can take in the near future, and I return to work in three days time to see out whatever might be left of my current contract.
I could spend more time relaxing, but I feel getting myself back into a writing rhythm is the best idea, especially considering one of my new bingo card goals.
Did one of these last year with my friends, and considering how well it went we have decided to do another round. I feel my card this year is a bit more toned down compared to the goals I set last year, there are some new ones entirely, some based around travel, and a couple of returning goals that I would definitely love to see.
So, I figured for the first post of the year it would be a fun idea to go through all of the goals, explain the logic behind them a little bit, and explore any challenges/obstacles I think I will encounter with them.
Starting from the top left, we have:
Set up spare room properly for friends who want to stay: Pretty self-explanatory, my partner’s gaming room currently contains a very nice bed frame we need to get a mattress for. Once that is sorted we can host friends travelling from abroad who need a place to rest or for anyone to stay over if they need space away from their current situation for a night or two.
VExpo 2026: Mentioned in my year-end ramble as one of my main highlights of last year, this year I definitely want to attend VExpo again and make it another weekend to remember. Financials and job situation might influence how it takes shape later on in the year, but I know I want to make it
Write semi-fictional story about being transgender: My mentor Gabi always told me to “write the bloody book already” whenever we talked about writing, and I definitely have the idea in mind for one. My goal is to write a story that can help those transitioning later on in life, creating something that helps those who start their transition past their mid-twenties or even later on than that, something that says “you do not have to have your shit together to make a change for your own happiness”. It is a story idea that has stayed in my mind, and it would be great to bring it to life this year.
100% Ace Combat 8: Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve comes out this year at some point, and given how much I absolutely love the franchise along with my goal to generally 100% more games this year, it would mean a lot to me to push for 100%ing the latest entry soon after it comes out… provided it does not get delayed for any reason.
Get VTuber reference sheet drawn up (Phox, Hina, Axolotl): It should come as no surprise that I have aspirations to be a VTuber myself, though I recognise it is a long journey to get to that point, hence why the goal for this year is set at a more reasonable level of just getting the reference sheet together. Additionally, I have not yet settled on what concept I would want to pursue properly, having the options of my phoenix-fox (phox) fursona, a character I lovingly title “Hina Relucta”, or some nebulous concept involving one of my other favourite creatures, the axolotl. Hopefully I can develop any of these out over the course of the year.
Write 180 Redundancy Review posts: Had to include my rambles as a goal this year, and considering I managed 120 posts last year, figured I would up the milestone a bit to make it 180, just under half the year worth of posts or averaging about one every two days. Of course it seems a bit silly to say “I will write a daily post about every two days”, but I want to be realistic and consider that the schedule will almost certainly slip throughout the course of the year due to any number of external stimuli.
Get a Switch 2: Simple and to the point, I would not be opposed to upgrading my Switch hardware to enable myself to not only play new releases that catch my eye, but to also enjoy previous entries in the Switch catalogue without dealing with the persistent performance problems that plagued the original hardware… looking squarely at you Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.
Visit Swansea again: Near to the end of last year my partner and I took a trip to Swansea for a Hololive Card Game tournament where we were the only two participants. This was a fun time not only for engaging in the event but also for exploring the town and spending time with my partner’s family, a fun weekend trip I would definitely like to repeat at some point this year.
Get back into miniature painting: The title is vague but make no mistake, this is me relapsing into Warhammer. I would like to actually make this relapse productive though rather than just chasing the need to build something with my hands again, hence why I have been building up a modest collection of old rulebooks from my glory days of playing the tabletop and would be looking to paint my armies properly as well. Fourteen year old me may have been onto something back in the day, so may as well see if she really did have the right idea.
Acquire clothing made out of exotic materials: What exotic materials you may ask? I am afraid that is for me to know and for you to guess fruitlessly… but considering I am already engaging in innuendo you can probably guess it is something that would not be leaving the house.
Start to declutter the flat/find homes for things on the walls: An extension to a goal last year to get more picture frames and hang cool stuff around the flat, this is to reduce the amount of general clutter around the flat by placing things in dedicated homes or by getting more wall mounted hooks to display things properly – specifically foam dart blasters, and potentially looking at downsizing the collection if space starts to become limited.
Host three board game/cheese board/cheese game/board board parties: Having a stroke near to the end aside, I mentioned that I wanted to spend more time with friends this year, and having made myself a modest cheeseboard at the start of the week has inspired me to host friends to play board games, eat cheese, or do both at the same time. For additional clarification: playing MTG Commander with my usual group does not count toward this goal, it has to be non-MTG games played for it to count towards the party goals.
Free Space: You have a free space in your bingo board that you do not know what to fill with? Why not Wynaut Zoidberg?
Go to Glasgow twice to see family: In the wake of my redundancy last year I resolved that I would spend a bit of time up north in Scotland with my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. It was an extremely fun time, and, finances permitting, I would love to spend more time up there with them, especially as my nephew is growing up extremely fast and it would be nice to be around more with him.
Go back to a full blonde dye job: Another returning goal, and one that is more personal to my look. Ever since dying my hair fully blonde mid-way through 2023 and feeling how much euphoria it gave me, I want to go back to it. This can be done at home or in salon, but given how much hair I have and how much of a nightmare it is to take care of on its own, I would rather leave this one to professionals even though the price increases dramatically for that.
Do my full write up on Expedition 33: Even when the dust settles after the new update, even when the conflict that the Game Awards inevitably brought is forgotten, and even when discussion of the game has likely petered out entirely, tomorrow comes. Expedition 33 was a major part of my gaming journey towards the end of 2025, and I still want to share my experience with it as part of my blog.
100% Nier Replicant and Nier Automata: Hideo Kojima is not the only Japanese game director I have a fascination with, as I also hold a considerable amount of fondness for the works of Yoko Taro, the creative mind behind the Drakengard and Nier franchises. 100%ing both Nier titles on PC is definitely an interesting undertaking, especially given the man’s fondness for insisting on collecting all weapons and playing the game multiple times to see everything in the story, but I want to push myself to experience both games – pain of poor game design choices included.
Acquire more houseplants: Green is good. Houseplants are good. I want to fill more of my living space with green plants and continue to let new life grow within the boundaries of this flat.
Find a new full time, permanent job: A goal that is at odds with one another, as fulfilling this sometime within the next six months would almost certainly kill the goal of writing 180 Redundancy Review posts this year, but getting myself back into full time and permanent work would do wonders for both my self-esteem and general situational stability that would enable me to continue living the life I want to.
Get down to a sub 100cm waistline: Yet another returning goal, but one I hold a fair bit of pessimism for. I definitely want to get my figure down to where it has been in the past, where I was able to fit into a large-size off the shelf cosplay back in my early university days. Simultaneously though, I know my love of food and treats will get in the way of that one massively without major life changes in terms of activity, but we will see how things go.
Visit Bristol: Bristol was a city I absolutely loved getting the opportunity to visit growing up, either going to a gig for one of my favourite bands growing up or passing through on the way home from a family holiday. Being able to return to the city as an adult and exploring the surrounding area with the resources I currently find at my disposal would be a fun weekend away, and one I know my partner would appreciate for other reasons as well.
Don’t be so hard on myself when things go awry: Nebulous? Yes. Difficult to measure? Yes. Something I want to try improve on nonetheless? Yes. When things go wrong my lack of self-esteem can and will punch me down severely if given the chance, and this year I would like to try hold myself higher when plans go off the rails or I need to adjust my approach based on changing circumstances.
Custom cosplay (Hololive? Umamsume? Rosalina?): The penultimate returning goal from last year, now with a bit of added flavour text. Previously I attempted to get a custom cosplay of Shiori Novella from Hololive English Advent which did not end well, but it has not disheartened me. I would still love to get a custom cosplay, though my options have expanded. Hololive is still included, but given my current addiction problem hyperfixation of Umamusme: Pretty Derby, there are definitely options I can take from horse girls. And of course, there is always the goal that would make my childhood self happy, cosplaying as Rosalina from Mario Galaxy – an oddly thematic one given the release of the Mario Galaxy movie coming this year.
Go to a furmeet: The final returning goal, and a simple one. For someone who is part of the furry community, I do not engage in as many IRL events as I would like to, which is something I definitely want to change in the coming year.
100% Armoured Core 6: And now the true final goal, a gaming related one to 100% Armoured Core 6: Fires of Rubicon. A series I have not engaged in before but has caught my eye solely for it being a mecha game and me having an absolute love of anything mecha, mechanical, or heavy weapons related.
That covers every goal, and that covers everything for the first Redundancy Review of 2026. Thank you for reading this edition, wherever you are I hope you have had a relaxing start to the year and that you have set yourself goals that are reasonable, achievable, and help to make you the person you want to become.
Rosalia Rambles 