Rosalia Rambles

Tag: writing

  • Commission: McGala-gear in MIG money marlarky!

    Another member of “The Seven” has found themselves in hot water after the trial of Cleatus McGala-gear concluded today, resulting in a settlement for the Elven Empire. Hoping to branch out into new ventures after the conclusion of the war he had secured planning permission to build a casino in orbit around Paradise One – difficulty was encountered from day one due to fierce yet warranted resistance from individuals within the Elven Empire.

    Trust was given despite tenuous tension from detractors, including organised protests from veterans of the war who decried the inflated egos of The Seven feeling they ignore the amount of Elven blood that was spilled in order to repel the Wrothians. Work continued up until the inciting incident that indicted the iconic individual.

    Witnesses describe a scene in which McGala-gear, in full view of onlookers, used a charm spell on an Elven surveyor hoping to distract from the disastrous deeds going on behind the scenes. The horror, dear reader, of not only trying to cover up one’s misdeeds but resorting to the mental assault of a proud, diligent, and loyal Elven official.

    Questions arose instantly. If a so-called “hero” was willing to stoop this low against trusted civil servants, what else has gone on behind closed doors? What horrors has this charlatan Cleatus inflicted upon the perfected beauty of Paradise One? Readers of a squeamish nature are advised to avert their eyes to what comes next.

    The sculpted terrain? Destroyed. The beautiful vistas? Tarnished. The health & safety code? Violated.

    Major Image Generators were discovered at the scene of this heinous crime, along with manipulative misdirection aimed at making monkeys out of our brave investigators. The former hid the crimes against nature, and the latter was a failed folly to lead legal efforts astray. Only the most luxury of dwellings were even remotely presentable, hoping to secure further investment for a stalling project.

    Thankfully, our supreme system of Elven justice has made right the extensive list of charges: embezzlement, bribery, the violation of a citizen’s right to peace. The casino project is now back in the rightful reach of the Elven Empire, and our noble leaders have publicly started to distance themselves from The Seven, finally reflecting popular sentiment in sensible policy.

    Cleatus McGala-gear read out a prepared statement after the verdict was handed down, through the gaps of his obnoxiously outdated shutter shades our photographer could see his shot & strained eyes as his voice trembled:

    “To the citizens of the Elven Empire, I beg you for forgiveness. I wish to not let this simple mistake of mine overshadow the good work myself and my compatriots have done for this galaxy. I wished to see this project succeed, and the stress of having to step in as a site manager was the reason behind my actions. I know this does not excuse what I have done, and I ask for privacy, respect, and patience, during this trying time for me and my family.”

    Inspiration

    So… this is my first bit of creative writing being published in… one heck of a long time, and it is also my first commission in a while.

    A friend of mine needed newspaper articles for his space-themed D&D campaign to show the impact of the party’s actions on the world and decided to hire me for them. This is the first of two articles with the second one to come sometime soon once the notes to write it from.

    This first one is based around the trial of one of the legendary heroes within his story who went on trial for making a botched casino project within the confines of the Elven Empire, specifically on one of their fabricated luxury worlds.

    Initially it was quite difficult to consider the tone I wanted to go for. I had all the events laid out for me, I just needed to put them together in a believable way for it to come across as an article that would be in Elven newspapers.

    And then a brainwave hit me.

    Elves in most fantasy worlds tend to be foppish creatures, vain & prideful to their cores, and when it comes to how they would be communicating a victory for their own justice system, it would read almost like propaganda in a way.

    Thankfully, I have played a massive amount of Helldivers 2 over the last couple of months, so writing over-the-top propaganda came surprisingly natural to me – now that I have pointed this out, you might be able to pick up on the influences within some of my sentence structure.

    And of course, writing a newspaper article means having an actually valid reason to use my favourite literary device: alliteration. If it is not already painfully obvious, given the website name and the name of my headline series, I am a slut for alliteration, there is something incredibly pleasing in being able to string sentences seamlessly with varied vocabulary, see?

    When one of my friends in this game gave me feedback as well, it gave me an interesting writing prompt based on these newspaper articles, so watch this space to see what comes of that soon.

    Commission information

    This was a commission, and I would like to take this moment to advertise my commission rates for fiction. For a 500-word news article like this, I charged £40. If what I have written interests you in getting something similar or you want my writing style for your project, consider hiring me! 

    I am also perfectly happy to be contacted with whatever your idea and budget is – I am fully willing to work with you to reach a solution that makes both of us happy.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 79, “Inevitable Is Anything But”

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

    Good morning programmers and developers, welcome to Day 79 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    It has been a while since I have talked about my feelings on Generative AI, and considering the last couple days have been dominated by my own personal stress, I have a feeling that getting some ranting out of my system will do me some good.

    To reiterate, I am anti-Generative AI in a lot of different ways. I take a dim view of chatbots, an even dimmer view of using them for creative writing, and an extremely dim view of using AI for image generation.

    But there is something I have always found fascinating when it comes to Generative AI discussions, and that is the topic of AI integration with everyday life being “inevitable” to some degree. From the soulless automaton Zuckerberg saying that anyone who does not wear AI-enabled glasses will be at a “cognitive disadvantage” to the universally unlovable Musk saying AI “superintelligence” is going to be here in 2030.

    And whenever I see comments like that, or hear anecdotally from people saying AI is here to stay so you may as well embrace it, I always think of one thing specifically relating to my personal situation.

    You want to preach inevitability to a fucking transgender woman?

    I want to highlight Zuckerberg’s comment in particular, as it continues to stand out in my mind as a particularly out-of-touch remark. What the hell do you mean by “cognitive disadvantage” you worm? All the GenAI in the glasses is going to be able to do is look things up for you that you can do on your phone right now, or are you so disconnected from humanity you need the machine in your glasses to translate emotions for you?

    This outlook does not even go in to the numerous studies coming out right now that are studying the effects of ChatGPT on cognitive function, or the utterly disturbing news around those who view AI chatbots as their friends and close confidants leading to heartbreaking suicides – all of these techbros are so devoid of ethics and so full of wanting to “change the world” that their contempt for the mass populace is showing even more than usual.

    To bring… a semblance of balance to this rant, do I think mass uptake of GenAI in everyday life is inevitable? No.

    But do I think it is here to stay regardless of how bad the bubble bursts? Unfortunately, yes.

    As someone who works in the Extended Reality (XR) industry currently, a technology that had its own bubble period, I can see GenAI sticking around for the foreseeable future even after the massive funding bubble that sustains it bursts and the development of all these new models slows down immensely.

    My hope is that it becomes like crypto and XR, where there is still enough of an ecosystem and demand for it that smaller companies can sustain themselves reasonably okay, but all of these giants like OpenAI, xAI, and most all of Meta collapse in on themselves… 

    …okay that last one is a little biased because I am asking for Meta as a whole to collapse rather than its AI division, but as someone who regrettably works very closely with Meta technologies on a daily basis there is a certain level of resentment I have for the company and Zuckerberg on a deeply personal level.

    I use the term “Human-focused creative” for myself on LinkedIn as part of my banner, partially because I know advertising myself as a Luddite on that AI-infested website would attract all the wrong kinds of characters, and partially because that is my stake in this great war between people and machines.

    It matters to me that humans create things.

    It matters to me that I can read the stories and experiences of other humans.

    I do not want to see machines telling stories, or machines trying to market products.

    If you care about the quality of your overall image, hire a human. No amount of savings that AI can bring will outweigh the work a human can produce.

    Does this put me at odds with like… 90% of the professional space who preach the gospel of using AI to streamline the job search in an effort to counter a broken market? Yes it does.

    But I am going to stand by these principles, in this space AI does not stand for “artificial intelligence”; it stands for “artistic integrity” – yes I know that sounds cheesy as fuck, embrace being a little cringey, all the best art is!

    Time for the review segment, and we are back to my favourite type of thing to review: food. That is right, we are back for:

    Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!

    And in this instance specifically, we are most definitely back as I am revisiting a place I talked about all the way back for Day 3 of the Redundancy Review, the lovely little sandwich shop known as Brambles.

    Specifically on my lunch walk today I was very divided on what I wanted to eat, whether to indulge in something greasy to help absorb the emotions I have been experiencing over the last week, or go for something simple to save my money for a takeaway tomorrow. Eventually I decided on the latter, and wandered over to Brambles to get a nice & basic sandwich.

    That is, until I noticed the specials board, and saw that for the hot special today they had Chicken, Chorizo, and Mozzarella available as either a toasted wrap or a panini.

    So obviously I had to get myself set up with a panini because all three of those sandwich fillings are among my favourite ingredients in the world, and for the price point of £4.80 it serves as a very economical lunch to boot.

    Brambles’ panini press is also one that comes with ridges which I especially appreciate, as sometimes when it comes to getting paninis from other places they tend to just be the panini loaf pressed down flat which gives it a crunchy exterior with the texture feeling just a little flat. 

    Outside of that, there is not much to say about it, which I think is its strength. When you use a simple selection of ingredients, the resulting sandwich turns out as greater than the sum of its parts, and there are very few sandwich ingredients that cannot be improved by the addition of fresh mozzarella.

    But that was not all I picked up this time, as a lovely baked creation on the shelf above all the sandwich ingredients caught my eye and, being a lover of the sweets adorned atop it, I just had to try it.

    This, is a chocolate brownie/cake (I honestly can not tell which, it sort of dances the line between both) topped with a chocolate icing and Rolos. For those reading who might not know what they are, Rolos are small chocolate swirls that are filled with caramel that are off the charts delicious.

    And £2.50 to get a cake with a wonderfully soft texture that combines two amazing sweet treats made it a no-brainer, serving as the perfect dessert for a lunch that helped ease the pain of the last couple days.

    That will do it for today, considering my period is about to start the writing may get a little more intense slash unstable in the coming days, but I am still keeping to my commitment to write something every day before my convention trip. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review, wherever you are I hope you are able to take it easy today.

    For more information on Brambles, visit their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/Bramblesshrewsbury/ 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 78, “Better On The Inside, Better On The Outside”

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

    Good morning homebodies and wanderers, welcome to Day 78 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    So with me putting together a cosplay at almost the last minute given my initial plans fell through, what I am technically going through is my first experience of con crunch.

    I do not know how cosplayers can do this on the regular. My head is in near constant pain due to worrying about needing to put things together and the stress of having things continue to go wrong even up until today is really taking its toll on me – not to mention this is compounding on top of work and personal stress leaving me paranoid about a lot of different things.

    But I carry on, I persist.

    Part of the Redundancy Review is recording how I feel on a daily basis, sometimes through the lens of an annoyed rant, sometimes through rambling self reflection. Today we are going for the latter, talking about what I have decided to title the review today.

    When it comes to improving myself, I simultaneously want to be healthier in body and mind. Over the years I have put on a significant amount of weight due to various coping mechanisms I engaged with both previously and persisting in to today, with the usual reasoning of everything that happened during COVID not helping the situation either.

    To put it in more practical terms, since 2017 I have added on about 30cm/12 inches to my waistline. My goal with slimming my body back down is to fit in to my oldest cosplay, Junko Enoshima from Danganronpa, and that goal stays in my mind when it comes to losing weight, even though getting back down to that point would bring a multitude of other benefits – the only one in sight is being able to fit into old clothes once more.

    I had committed to Beat Saber as part of a workout routine, but that fell off once heatwaves had started setting in along with getting ill again, and I keep thinking about restarting, which will probably be a post-convention activity at this point.

    But when it comes to being better on the inside… that has been a long time journey, and I am not really any closer to figuring out how to be so. My awareness of my own mental health stretches over twelve plus years now, and whilst I can definitely say I am in a far better place today than I have been at any other points in my life; the challenges that define my mental health have also switched drastically during that time.

    Academics, friendships, transitioning, career changes: all of these have shifted what battles I fight on a daily basis, and being real for a moment… I do not think I am winning any of them right now.

    I carry on, I persist, but ultimately I feel as if I am drowning most days. 

    I have always had a difficult relationship with my depression, especially as someone who experiences, for all intents and purposes, a life of relative comfort. On paper I very rarely have reasons to be sad, and yet the sadness remains, feeding into my stress & paranoia to make me feel I am in danger of losing everything that keeps me together right now.

    My hard work does not feel like enough some days, constantly feeling as if the immense pressure is going to crush me at any moment and I will find myself in a dark place very quickly.

    I am terrified of being alone again, but some days I feel like I am closer to that pain than ever before. I know it is ultimately all inside my head, but for all the therapy, medication, and healing I have tried through this long journey of having a shit brain, sometimes the hardest part is leaving my head for a short while to see that things are not so bad.

    It might just be the last three months talking in all this, even though I have said I might finally feel like I am healing from the initial hit of redundancy a few weeks back. Maybe recovery is a lifelong journey for me, or maybe I will never truly be the same again, building upon scarred tissue a new life with the pain of the past still prominently present even today.

    Or maybe I am just tired, in desperate need of a break I cannot take.

    Regardless, I will be here. A record of my every day uploaded for the world to see, a slice of vulnerability in the landscape of cultivated profiles.

    …feels a bit weird to go in to a review about shoes after baring my heart out about self-improvement, but that is the way we roll around here.

    Specifically these shoes are New Rock M-WALL373-S11 platform boots. I bought these ages ago back in March specifically to act as part of my cosplay for my upcoming convention whilst also finally getting a real proper pair of stompers that were not from AliExpress.

    Sizing was the primary reason I decided to purchase from New Rock, as an extremely tall trans girl my feet are absolutely massive and were even classed as wide when picking up male shoes back in the day, meaning it is extraordinarily difficult to find cute & stylish shoes that fit me – so you could imagine my relief when I found that New Rock not only included my size, it went beyond my size too.

    The boots are extremely comfortable, having plenty of space around my toes to ensure nothing feels pinched when I am walking around. The platform itself feels extremely solid too, and the bolts embedded into the side walls of it give the perfect industrial gothic look that I was looking for.

    And in terms of high-quality footwear that fits my feet, the price point of New Rock was not actually that bad, being €257.62 or around £222, a reasonable price for larger than normal shoes and with such good design.

    However.

    I live in the UK, and if you have paid attention to any UK politics within the last decade then A. I am very sorry for your loss and B. Brexit is a thing, which meant that, as New Rock is a Spanish company, I had to pay import tax on these, adding a lovely £54.30 on to the bill.

    But hey, taking back control am I right?*

    *this statement is a joke, if you have not already guessed that my politics are extremely left-leaning then I am clearly not doing a good enough job here.

    Think that covers everything I wanted to talk about today, thank you for reading this confusingly honest edition of the Redundancy Review. I hope getting past hump day has been easy enough for you, and that the weekend is not too far away for you.

    For more information on New Rock products, visit their website here: https://www.newrock.com/en/ 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 77, “Not Quite There Yet”

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

    Good morning knights and bards, welcome to Day 77 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    So despite a good day yesterday, my mental state is still in a severe amount of flux over cosplay shenanigans, which led to me having a bit of a breakdown over lunch due to cosplay stress compounding with work stress which shattered the thin veneer of mental stability I usually present with leading me into a bit of a spiral until I had some ice cream.

    In the midst of the breakdown though, my mind started having a thought about what my problem is, and, I think I found something I need to change.

    I am… extremely bad at giving myself time to properly process things, usually due to the pace my life moves out, and this lack of time means that I often rush past any attempt at healing, instead trying to find solutions or working on something else to distract myself from what hurt me initially.

    Again, this can be seen as an admirable trait in some instances, but a common running theme in what people admire me for is that it comes at a great cost to my personal sanity and comfort.

    Losing my job back in June hurt, and it still hurts today. I am working towards building myself up as a writer, a freelance software tester, and whatever titles any of the other hobbies I am exploring right now could bestow upon me… but the sense of self and belonging that came from that job is still gone. 

    And with this cosplay, I am working towards getting a backup plan sorted, and even when it comes to stumbles within that backup plan I need to be kinder to myself, because whilst I consider cosplay a big part of my identity; the actual act of putting together cosplays is something I am still inexperienced on even coming up to almost a decade since my first time cosplaying.

    In general, the idea of “being kinder to myself” is something I struggle with a lot anyway – in both my career and personal life. I often fall into this trap of needing to make myself perfect in all I do, finding my stride within the first try or else I consider myself a failure, all the while preaching a gospel about how mistakes and imperfections make things interesting.

    Hypocrisy is fun, especially when it comes to needless self flagellation… getting in all my big words today too.

    Anyway, I want to go play Helldivers after dinner, so, I am going to try wrap up this Redundancy Review with a quick Hololive Tuesday segment, which today is going to cover a rapid fire review of all of the items inside my mini Ninomae Ina’nis display on my big Kallax configuration.

    For a brief bit of context, Ninomae Ina’nis (or Ina for short because god that is a mouthful) is a VTuber within Hololive English 1st Generation “Myth”, and is one of my main oshis. I absolutely love Ina, her streams always give comfy & cozy vibes with delightfully fun tangents, and her sleepiness speaks to me on a personal level.

    As such, I have a fair bit of Ina merch, which I can happily say was all bought directly from Hololive via Geekjack without the need to go to scalpers on eBay like an admittedly-not-insignificant portion of the Hololive collectibles I own are.

    Up front on the left we have “SmolMyth” Ina Plushie, one of the first pieces of Hololive merch I ever bought because it was right around the time I had discovered Geekjack was an option for shipping to the UK. She has stuck with me ever since and now forms the cornerstone of my little display.

    On her right we have “Friends With U” Ina Plushie. Friends With U is a series of plushies that tend to be in stock more regularly for fans who might not be able to buy plushies as part of limited-time made-to-order milestone drops that talents usually do. Admittedly I am not the biggest fan of the halo on this plushie, it feels a little too flimsy and hard to position correctly.

    Sitting in the lap of both of these plushies is a Connect the World Penlight. When it comes to the headline Hololive English concerts, I am unable to attend due to the fact they are A. in the USA which I do not massively feel safe going to right now due to being trans and B. The travel costs are prohibitively expensive for my current situation. 

    So in lieu of attendance, I make an effort to buy the made-to-order/leftover merch from the concerts themselves, having done so for Connect the World, Breaking Dimensions, and the incredibly recent All For One. The penlight from Connect the World is actually the only penlight I own as well, something I hope to change given my upcoming convention but this one will definitely get mileage there as well in both the opening and premium concert.

    And finally, looming behind all of them, is the large Takodachi Plushie, specifically being the rerun version from Myth’s third anniversary merch in 2023… I absolutely love this thing. Whilst a lot of Hololive plushies are made more for display than cuddling, the Takodachi plush is absolutely one you can cuddle and it feels amazing to do so. 

    The outside is incredibly soft but the stuffing holds up to being squeezed amazingly, making it perfect to hold tight on lazy days where all you want to do is lie in bed, relax, and watch silly videos on Youtube.

    For someone having a bad day, the fact I managed to write almost a thousand words makes me happy, especially as it was quite easy to find my flow for this. Thank you for reading today’s Redundancy Review, I hope you are able to find relaxation and happiness wherever you are. Myself though?

    I am diving feet first into hell once more.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 76, “A Good Day”

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

    Good morning painters and lovers, welcome to Day 76 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Today was a good day for me. It is a bank holiday in the UK, and even though I am a freelance contractor who would not normally get public holidays, I decided to take it off anyway. Partially because of appreciating keeping some semblance of my old schedule as a tech worker, and partially because the events of the weekend left me thoroughly demoralised.

    Thankfully though, two of my closest friends (who coincidentally live upstairs from me) had the day off today, which made it a good time to play Magic: the Gathering together especially considering it is very rare we get the chance to start playing in the early afternoon rather than early evening due to mine and my partner’s work schedule.

    And despite the fact I was not the victor in either game, it was exactly what I needed today. Hanging out with good company, playing a game we all love, and ending it off by sharing a home cooked meal together. 

    Cooking is definitely how I show love to others, being stronger than actual physical affection in my eyes at least. Making a meal is one of the best things I can do for someone, and it is something I massively enjoy in trying to hone my skills in the kitchen and infinitely trying to get better with what I am making.

    Which y’know, ties into how often food reviews feature on the website. Whether I am making it or whether I am eating out, good food with good people is a cornerstone of my life, leading us very nicely into…

    Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!

    I mentioned in yesterday’s review that I had got another one prepared ready for today, partially out of feeling intensely on Sunday and wanting to find somewhere to have a treat lunch, realising I could make another food review out of it and capitalise on how easy they come to me.

    And when it comes to comfort food, pizza is the be-all and end-all for me, with myself having a soft spot for a local joint known as “Dough & Oil”.

    Dough & Oil is definitely more… hipster than other pizza places would be. WIth a small menu of pizzas along with minimal sides, the focus is more on quality ingredients and pillowy crusts than anything else. My pizza of choice? One known as “The Philipo”.

    The Philipo is the standard tomato sauce and mozzarella base, topped with spicy nduja salami and piquante peppers before being sprinkled with fresh pieces of rocket. The price point of this pizza is where the hipster element of the venue comes in, with this lovely pizza pie clocking in at a steep £15.

    On one hand, I can recognise this is extremely unaffordable, especially when it comes to pizza – the same amount of money can pay for a larger takeaway pizza that can become multiple meals or pay for several supermarket pizzas that can be stored for longer and make even more meals beyond that.

    But on the other hand, as a very infrequent treat, this pizza hit the exact spot I was looking for. Spicy toppings, an incredibly soft and flavorful dough, and hitting the craving for a slightly more luxury pizza. Specifically the nduja salami on this one hit my usual craving for spicy food perfectly, warming my mouth perfectly and waking me up sufficiently for the rest of the day.

    Somewhat related, I really wish there were more places to buy pizza-by-the-slice in the UK. When it comes to craving the comfort of a pizza at lunchtime, I find myself very thin on the ground for options. I am either committing to something like I did yesterday, sitting down for a proper lunch and a large-sized pizza, or I am scrolling the menu of the local Dominos to get a small personal pizza that hits the spot, but feels a little overkill for a lunch.

    And before anyone chimes in: no, Greggs does not count as pizza by the slice. It barely counts as pizza if you ask me.

    A venue like Dough and Oil I think would be ripe for such a business venture, serving delicious slices of specialty pizzas for a reasonable price to anyone who might be walking by.

    Side tangent over, finishing things off.

    Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. If you are in the UK I hope you have been able to enjoy your bank holiday, and if you are someone who has been working today, I hope things have not been too difficult for you.

    For more information on Dough & Oil, visit their website here: Dough & Oil

  • Redundancy Review: Day 75, “Back to Recovery”

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

    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!

    For more information on The Exchange, visit their website here: The Exchange | Kitchen & Cocktail Bar | Shrewsbury

  • Redundancy Review: Days 70-74, “Small Victories, Big Losses”

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

    Good morning bassists and drummers, welcome to a massive catch-up post for a bunch of missed days of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    A lot of what I write for the review is self-indulgent. I talk about my emotions, things that make me feel happy, and food I have eaten that tasted good. The entire series is a reflection of myself written down as a living record.

    And so, given the fact I took a very hard loss over the last week, I am going to take today’s catch-up post to let my emotions fly a little bit, because fuck me do I need it.

    There has been a lot that has gone wrong in my life, wasted my degree years due to stubbornness, losing friends cause of a lack of emotional intelligence, and going through severe periods of distress due to transition related issues.

    But I can comfortably say that the last three months of my life have been the worst period I have ever experienced – and that is fucking saying something considering how dark my mind got during my university days.

    Ever since I got the news that the company I worked for was in the shit, I have been fighting every day to try get small victories, and I should not minimise the fact that even small victories mean a lot when I have gone through what I have gone through.

    But for every small victory I feel like I take a big loss alongside it, and I am really fucking tired of that happening.

    Even in the last couple of days I have taken a small victory and a big loss simultaneously with my custom cosplay order falling through two weeks before my convention. The seller was courteous and offered me a full refund for my disappointment, which is the small victory, but the big loss comes from the fact this outfit felt like it was going to be the centrepiece of my convention holiday – something I have been looking forward to all year and now I have to go put together a backup plan in a short amount of time.

    I am not going to name and shame the seller. As part of the refund I agreed that I would not leave a negative review, and I am sticking to that. I would much rather move on and try make something positive out of this mess… finding yet more small victories.

    Every day feels fearful to me now, as if something has changed in my brain that has shifted my outlook from nervous optimism to outright pessimism. I had a breakdown on my partner last night and when I started talking about some of the fears I have about upcoming things, I said a line that breaks my heart even now to repeat:

    “I am wanting to prepare for the worst because that is all I can expect nowadays”.

    Making the best out of a bad situation should be an admirable trait, one I can take pride of, especially as someone who has lived in startup culture for the last three plus years and has made a name for herself of trying to be adaptable in times of crisis, knowing how to problem-solve my way out of anything.

    But I resent the fact I have become that person.

    I resent that I can never go long without needing to put out a fire.

    And I hate the fact that everything I am going through is making me a colder person and I do not know what to do to stop it – which I am not even sure I fully agree with saying cause the main thing that differentiates this period of time from the previous absolute worst time of my life is that I actually recognise I have people to live for now.

    I will keep going, I do not want to stop… but I am absolutely praying for a better season to come my way, because quite frankly, this summer has sucked.

    Going to keep it simple with a different review today, talking about another Stardew Valley save of mine that I have with a friend, this time on the Forest Farm layout.

    I have mentioned it in passing before, but I have an obsession with building infrastructure in video games. Paths, roads, transport structures, all of it is fair game for me wanting to make neat layouts & patterns in whatever I play, and Stardew is a game I find surprisingly useful for that purpose, especially when presented with the challenges of any of the nonstandard layouts.

    Forest in particular has been an interesting challenge, in trying to find the perfect blend of farming crops, farming animals, and utilising the main feature of the farm – that being renewable forage and hardwood options.

    Initially I had struggled with this task, especially when it came to building layouts that could work with the sprinkler patterns I usually use without actually having the sprinklers to plan out the infrastructure.

    But as with my mind itself, things start to make a lot more sense around Winter in this game, and without needing to worry about (much) crop watering and focus more on getting stuff organised for the next year, I feel a lot happier plotting out paths and working out where things need to go.

    On this map in particular, it is evidenced by the massive tree farm I am trying to establish in the top middle of the map. This initially started small scale with each tree type being vertically aligned which made collecting forage from the tappers a nightmare, but once I had established where the animal pasture needed to go a lot of space opened up which has led to the larger scale farm pictured above.

    There is definitely still a lot of work to be done on this farm, but considering this is only the end of Year 1, I am extremely excited to see where this goes next.

    Here is where I would usually say something about getting my rhythm back, but honestly, as much as the Redundancy Review will keep going, I am not sure how well I will be able to write individual days depending on my mood – I definitely want to try chronicle my convention holiday each day, but, we will see how it goes.

    Thank you for reading this far if you did, I hope you are able to have a relaxing weekend, a longer one than usual if you are in the UK.

  • Redundancy ‘Review’: Day 69, “Nice”

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

    Good morning swingers and mixers, welcome to Day 69 (nice) of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Day 69 (nice).

    A milestone I was looking forward to for a while.

    Not because of any significance. This day holds no relevance to my redundancy journey, or even to my personal journey.

    But I have been writing semi-regularly enough to reach the fabled funny number: Day 69 (nice).

    Yes I am immature as fuck for revelling in this, but goddamn this is a small victory I am milking to hell.

    That and I did not sleep at all last night because it turns out when you have been withdrawn from caffeine for a while that going back on it means you end up staying up till three in the goddamn morning just thinking.

    Convention anxiety is also not helping me right now, though my partner was once again there to talk me down.

    It has been almost six years since my last convention, and I really want things to go well as this is also my first time entering the VTuber space in an offline capacity – having been adjacent to the space since 2021.

    Yeah… nah, not feeling writing a proper review today. My head is too foggy from lack of sleep, so I am just going to include the definition of “nice” as my thumbnail image.

    69 days… nice.

    Thank you for reading this brief edition of the Redundancy Review. Hopefully you got a bit more sleep than me and can beat the Monday blues off better than I can right now.

  • Redundancy Review, Day 67, “A lot of spacing out”

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

    Good morning astronauts and stargazers, welcome to Day 67 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy review.

    Committing to a short one for a variety of reasons:

    • My brain is spaced out to hell right now
    • It is a Saturday and I would not mind continuing to relax especially after a somewhat stressful morning
    • What I want to review I have not taken time to do screenshots yet especially as it is from another game I have 100%ed

    So, I will do a short check-in and a short review.

    Last night and this morning were oddly rough, my emotions have been in a heavily spiked state leaning specifically towards the sad side of things, thoughts of being a failure, my writing not being good enough, and myself not being good enough for my friends. Thankfully my partner has been there for me to talk me down through it all, but it definitely still feels a little hard to bear with my own head right now.

    The spaciness I am feeling does not massively help things either, as in some instances I feel oddly disconnected from my body, leading my mind to just wander as I lie down and everything feels oddly floaty. It is entirely possible it is related to my antidepressant weaning, and that this is one of the withdrawal symptoms, meaning it hopefully wears off soon.

    But for now, I relax, and try my best to unwind from my work week – which non-awkwardly leads into what I want to talk about today: one of my favourite videos to have on in the background to zone out to.

    Defunctland is a Youtube channel specialising in documentary-style videos talking about various theme park-related topics, ranging from deep dives into the history of the Disney parks to one-off attractions at smaller venues. Kevin Perjurer is an absolute delight to listen to across any video, his deadpan delivery of certain lines adding to the humour of his witty scriptwriting.

    Specifically this video is one people might recognise, as it is the main video on his channel that went insanely viral, accumulating 24 million views in just under four years currently. Despite it being a little weird to say, it is a video I often find myself returning to for comfort, having watched it multiple times over the years.

    I can say the same for a lot of Kevin’s videos, but something about the FastPass one just brings a familiar feeling of comfort that lets my brain truly turn off and stop being so damn loud whenever I have it on. Whether it is the delivery of the jokes remaining timeless, or the fact there is so much research and effort put into each segment of the video, the movie-length nature does not put me off in the slightest.

    Since it is a video, I need to find a screengrab for the thumbnail of this post, and I know the perfect image.

    This is my favourite punchline to a joke in this entire video, I will not spoil it for anyone who wants to watch but if you do not feel like watching the entire thing (completely reasonable given its runtime), just watch from around the 57:00 mark for around a minute to get the full effect.

    Despite this essentially being a placeholder day, I am oddly proud of this one. It still feels like I put effort into it and fills the criteria of why my daily work has a “review” segment – to show off something that makes me happy, and today’s topic certainly does.

    All the same, thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. I hope you can enjoy a relaxing Saturday wherever you are and that the looming spectre of Monday is not bringing you down too much.

    For more information on Defunctland, visit their Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Defunctland/featured 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 65 & 66, “Embracing the Flip-Flop”

    Redundancy Review: Day 65 & 66, “Embracing the Flip-Flop”

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

    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.

    For more information on Bird and Beer, visit their website here: Bird&Beer | Fried Chicken | Craft Beer | Shrewsbury