The Grouch's Trash Pile [Baldur's Gate 3]

I let my hair go for a few months so it ended up like, three inches long, and I could make it mostly presentable by combing the top backward (my hair is wavy/wiry enough it would just kind of stay poofed up, like I'd used product). It was kind of... 80s, but whatever. I didn't like it but I didn't hate it and since clipping my hair is SUCH a production number, I could live with it. But it finally got scrungly looking enough that I realized today I had to cut it for my mental health, so I finally bit the bullet and did it. I look like a jarhead again (or with these glasses, a 1950s dad), but I definitely feel better.

 

I have Indulged a little money for some goodies for my little possessed clown doll, so ofc the game has to come out with the perfect mount to tempt me further. ¬_¬ I'm not going to shell out for it since I have self-control, but I am grumpy about it lol

 

Ohhhh my GOD, brain

I have been stalled on and avoidant about a thing I promised to do for someone, even though it's something I LIKE doing, and I've been very hung up about it being hard to write notes when I'd have to keep switching windows back and forth between the thing and my text file, and oh woe is me I wished they used Scrivener so I could have the double pane view :(((

I finally realized I could just import the file into Scrivener

It's fine! It works great! It's not a big deal whatsoever! I am certain they wouldn't mind at all and would have been delighted if I'd figured this out weeks ago!

JFC. I clearly need a Sign over my desk walking me through the steps to figure out why I'm hung up on something because this keeps happening

 

Mimir found Madu in the ruins of the Weeping City, and his curiosity was piqued by how this large doll was so finely made and articulated, moreso than one would do for a children's toy, and yet didn't seem to be a normal mammet. After a cursory look-over he couldn't figure out what mechanisms, if any, would make it go. What was it for? He brought it out with him with the intent to tinker with it.

When he's not doing WoL stuff, Mimir putters around in the Ironworks workshop -- he may not work for Cid anymore, but they're still friends -- and there the doll sat for a few days while Mimir got some other tasks out of the way. Before he could examine it, however, Y'shtola visited on some errand or another and stopped dead, mid-sentence, to squint suspiciously at the doll. "Where did you find that?"

"The Mhachi ruins, why?"

"It has far more aether than even a mammet should... almost as much as a living creature. Dark aspected aether!"

They both stared at the doll, and suddenly it's eyes popped open and it exclaimed, "Aw hells, the gig is up!" before it tossed itself off the shelf and hit the ground running. It made it a whole three yards before Mimir grabbed it by the back of its coat and hauled it off the ground.

A lot of yelling, flailing, and fussing ensued until Biggs burst in and yelled at everyone to settle down. Once everyone had gotten their breath back, Madu explained that yes, they're a voidsent bound to a doll, no they didn't ask for this, yes ending up in this workshop was much of a surprise for them as it was for Mimir. They'd been in some kind of enchanted torpor when Mimir found them; being well away from those ruins slowly restored their senses, but not knowing where they were or who these people were was terrifying and so they stayed completely and utterly still... until Y'shtola rumbled them. (She was not apologetic.)

As far as they know, their body is not Mhachi in origin -- which makes sense, as they have no memories of that ruin being anything but a ruin and their doll body is in far too new of a condition to be that old. They do have hazy and unpleasant memories of the man who summoned them and stuffed them into that doll, however, and on one foot is engraved the mark of a particular Gridanian goldsmith who'd been executed for conjuring 'the dark arts', only for his body to go missing later.

They plead with Mimir and Y'shtola not to try to send them back to the void (horrible place!) nor destroy them -- even though possessing a doll isn't exactly being alive, it's a better existence than the one they had in the void. And, since the entirety of their being is now bound to the doll, if it's destroyed, it will kill them. They're pathetic enough in their pleading that Mimir decides to show them mercy, after a stern warning that if they go around trying to devour people he will smash them to bits. Fortunately for both of them, Madu has absolutely no desire to do that -- they can eat, somehow, and that provides enough aether to keep them going nicely. They're a tricksy little troublemaker, but they have no desire to get on Mimir's bad side -- not because of the threats, but because they feel like they owe him a debt for him rescuing them from the ruins of Mhach. They may have slept there until a falling piece of masonry crushed them... or the goldsmith, despite his tendency to leave his toys littered around the realm, may have come back for them.

Madu has something of a contentious relationship with Mimir and the scions at first, but it will eventually turn into a grudging friendship. Mimir is a grumpy old man but the antics of this little weirdo make him smile despite himself... even if they do sometimes smack him around the shins and tell him to stop brooding, old man!!

(In practical terms, I made one of Madu's retainers Mimir, and retainer fantasia'd one of his to be Madu. It feels a little personally weird that they're on totally different datacenters, but eh, it's not like it matters.)

 

I've recently started emailing with an old friend that I haven't talked with in some time (yay!). She's wonderful as always, but man she's into some woo-woo stuff, like the CE-5 Protocol (short for "Close encounters of the 5th kind", which is essentially trying to contact extraterrestrials via meditation). Her take on it is "it's great, so long as you don't fall down the rabbit hole" and she doesn't try to sell me on it, so I'm not too worried that it's anything beyond harmless eccentricity -- she's extremely level-headed in practical matters. Still, I had a "my goodness" moment when I looked it up.

 

Today I sat down in the later afternoon, went into a writing fugue, and came out six hours later slightly dazed and with a considerable amount of the first part of my current WIP rewritten. I've been a glacially slow writer for so long I no longer have any idea what a reasonable amount of daily output is, so I don't know if what I wrote was 'objectively' a considerable amount or just a considerable amount for me, but whatever.

Contrary to all traditional writing device, I get the best results if I go back and edit/rewrite a part that bugs me when it bugs me, otherwise it just becomes a distracting, discordant note that I get stuck on. In this case, a bunch of the first chapter(ish, I haven't been keeping track by chapters) was all basic set-up and very little theme, and I got to a point where I realized I absolutely had to have a lot more theme in there to be okay with continuing on with it in the rest of the book. And honestly, it's kind of fun/satisfying to go "Ohhh I know how to fix this!" and just do the thing.

I'm rambling, I should go to bed.

 

So millet, quinoa, or both are no-goes for me. I got some bread that looked like it might be similar in taste and texture to white wheat bread, largely rice flour with a small portion each of millet and quinoa... and it makes my mouth sore and raw. I might be able to get through the (fortunately small) loaf if I only have some every few days and brush my teeth IMMEDIATELY afterward, but... T_T

I just wanted to have some buttered toast for the first time in years :(

 

oohhh sweetie :( I'm so sorry.

 

It's funny but not at all surprising that the closest thing I've ever had to a self-insert character in any MMO has been my total gremlin mode lala. Like I said to some friends, from an in-story standpoint I'd never be up to being the kind of hero the WoL is and would be "Fuck this, I'm out" about a million times over before the WoL even bats an eyelash, but a weird little voidsent-possessed doll who's the peanut gallery for the real WoL? That's more like it!

 

Extremely tempted to put the full text of that novella I wrote for that game company up on my website. I got a runaround when asked about why it was still for sale and where the money was going ("I don't think it sold very well" that's not what I asked, I asked where the profits were going now that the company is defunct but sure, neg me about your failure to advertise it) so the last drops of my goodwill have dried up.

Well, no, I'll have to approach the guy with a list of very clearly defined questions that will be harder to accidentally-on-purpose misunderstand to figure out what the hell its status is and who I should be bothering about it. It's pretty pathetic that they told me fuckall about it, though.

 

go get their ass

 

Prayer circle for my sanity and health that I can sleep through J's snoring tonight because I sure as hell couldn't last night x_X

 

Unsuccessful :( But it was better than night before last's sleep, at least.

J's sick so that's part of it, but the other part that hit me earlier was that it's been REALLY FUCKING DRY, to the point sitting down at my desk resulted in major static and Gordon hasn't wanted to monopolize my lap even a little bit. I've got a pot of water simmering on the stove (even though that makes J fuss about energy costs) and I'm going to leave the bathroom door open when I shower to get more humidity in here.

 

If you've got radiators that are on you can also put a bowl of water on there to increase the humidity in the house :)

 

Oh that's a good idea! ... although I'm very worried about the cats causing havoc lol

 

There are special contraptions that you can hang on the radiators, but I have no idea what they're called

 

Or you can just hang a towel to dry over them. I've got a damp towel hanging at the corner of one of my radiators with the other end sitting in my flower watering bucket so it'll keep wicking and releasing water for longer and it's been working pretty nicely (granted, I am on the coast -- it's not quite as hella dry here)

 

This is an easier and cheaper solution :P