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

Well, that was a wash.

 

OKAY, SO, outlining this to clarify it to myself since I realize I've being doing a lot of vague flailing and getting frustrated--

I've got two goals in mind with the jacket/vest thing - I want both ~style~ and functionality. For functionality, I want (some) warmth (but in the case of a vest: not too much! I want it to be wearable in summer), and additional pockets.

When I'm not at home I have on my person at all times:

• phone
• wallet
• passport (it's my photo ID)
• bus pass
• keys
• lip balm
• usually a few other odds and ends (energy bar, workshop ID, a candy tin that contains earbuds, fingerless gloves if it's chilly)

This is all quite a bit to fit into trouser pockets, especially since I don't trust keeping a wallet in my back pocket without a wallet chain as a tether (too easy for one to fall out or me to lose my grip trying to get it out). Further complicating things is how anything in right-side trouser pockets isn't easily accessible, since that's my cane hand.

Passport is really the only thing that can comfortably live in a right side trouser pocket. Wallet can, but it's bulky as heck and requires cane juggling when I need to get it out. Keys can if they absolutely have to. The other odds and ends can as well, although it's inconvenient, and they can live in a backpack or satchel if they absolutely must (and I happen to be carrying one). The rest must live on the left side.

A denim vest doesn't really have a lot of pockets, but a few flattish things could fit in the breast pockets. A decent Actual Jacket would preferably have an internal breast pocket to keep things in. 'Utility' vests might be an option, but only the boxy looking ones that aren't too boxy - the flak vest looking ones are Right Out. For summer, cargo shorts are a must - fortunately, I know where to get a pair in my preferred mid-calf length (the 40€ price tag hurts, but I know I can trust the quality).

So what I'm looking for is:

• A vest of sturdy material, in (in order of preference) a bright color/denim or black, without existing customization (no fashionable rips or pre-applied patches, maybe a pre-printed design on the back), with at least two pockets that can be fastened shut, in a men's style
• A light jacket to roughly the same specification
• a wallet that comes ready to have a chain attached (no DIY options!) and can hold a decent amount of stuff

Man, what even is my style. I can picture it but I'm not entirely sure how to describe it... and I'm not going to try now because AHHHH it's 11.20 and I still need to do a bunch of stuff before I got to sleep! D:

 

Ways to describe my personal aesthetic:

• Goth-adjacent grunge with a dash of rave kid
• Redneck punk really into chotwave
• 20 minutes into the future anime protagonist as designed by someone who grew up in a swamp
• Alleyway eccentric

 

I really like alleyway eccentric but idk how descriptive it is. It almost (but not quite) has the correct feel...

Wrong-side-of-the-tracks punk might be more accurate than redneck punk, come to think of it - there was a huge redneck aspect to where I grew up, but the class aspect was stronger, and still implies a lot of the same aesthetic while not discounting a more cityish flavor.

 

Alleyway eccentric has a sort of Fourth Doctor-ish vibe for me, tbh.

 

Hmmm. idk much about Doctor Who but I'm pretty sure that's not what I'm going for. Too quaint and British.

Back-alley eccentric is probably more of what I'm going for but also more hardbitten than I can really deliver on. Hmmm.

 

I am so glad I came up with Ripley as a character because it turns out he is p e r f e c t for a story idea I've been kicking around in my head. All of what I had for the protagonist was that he had to be a trans guy; I had some vague ideas for what kind of person he'd be but felt pretty lukewarm about them. Ripley's personality and interests fit into my idea far, far better, and give him more reason to go do story things that I was struggling to justify before. What better person to go poking the nose into the unsolved murder of a woman who was using his deadname than someone really into mysteries and the paranormal and not afraid to do a little trespassing and breaking and entering if needed? :D

 

Excited enough about this story I’m going to try banging out some of it on my phone keyboard!!! Might ignore some of my programming work to write!!!!

 

Gets to the streams unit in the Java course, is immediately that gif of John Travolta looking lost



A look at a few tutorials in English later I’m slightly less lost, but all the same

 

One of the clasps to the lid of my rocketship bento box broke ;____;

 

nooooooo :(

 

The brittle hard plastic was a mistake, clearly. T_T Not sure if the broken off bit is glueable or not - the clasp itself still moves, it's the little sticky outty bit that makes it clip to the rim of the box that broke. Maybe I'll try to fix it, maybe I'll just keep it as a not entirely sealable container for keeping leftovers in the fridge.

In other news, decided to hell with a new OS, after new glasses and meds this month shit's too expensive for me right now and I need other things worse. I'll back up the most important stuff on my drive to a portable hard drive and then do a brain transplant to the new computer on Monday, probably, and hope win7 doesn't throw a fit and I can get new drivers installed okay. I'll have to fiddle with my desk situation too, the case is a good two inches longer than my current one, which is currently sitting parallel to the wall.

Speaking of things I need.... ding! Ordered these (in black) just now, since it's quite abruptly gotten to late springtime weather here. (16C today!) Varusteleka's house brand stuff is usually really good quality, these should last me quite a while.

 

I've read through Meat and am about halfway through Candy and I'm so amazingly uncomfortable right now?? The levels of Peak Homestuck Bullshit are incredible. I... think I'm having a good time??? I'm sure as hell riveted, that's for sure.

And this (from here):


has made me just. Delighted. Of fucking course it'd be MGS, that explains SO MUCH about how much bizarre bullshit this is.

 

Spoiler: !!!!

TEREZI: 1M SO CONFUS3D 4BOUT WH4T 1 W4NT
TEREZI: UGH, 1 THOUGHT TH4T NOT K1LL1NG H3R WOULD M4K3 M3 F33L B3TT3R
TEREZI: BUT 1NST34D 1TS L1K3 1 R3TCONN3D 4 HUG3 CHUNK OUT OF MY SOUL​

YELLING

KARKAT: MEENAH??
KARKAT: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?​

YELLING INTENSIFIES

 

Spoiler: HOLLERING LIKE A WHOLE CHOIR OF ANGELS AT A FOOTBALL GAME

KARKAT: I MEAN...
KARKAT: HEY!
KARKAT: FISH ASSHOLE!
MEENAH: who me
KARKAT: YES FUCKING YOU. THE FALLEN FASCIST DIPSHIT WITH THE STOLEN RING.
KARKAT: GET THE *FUCK* IN LINE, BEFORE I *PUT* YOU IN LINE!
MEENAH: oh
MEENAH: oh wow
MEENAH: Y-ES
MEENAH: Y---ES SIR!!! 38D​

 

I love Aradia and Sollux and their whole Stadler and Waldorf: teenaged ennui edition schtick. :3 (Wait. Are they still teenagers, or did they get to grow up...? They seem to be kind of... outside of time.)

 

Stayed up late to finish the epilogue, am still liking it in the morning. Damn but I needed something really grotesque and weird in my life again.

I don't think it's unreasonable to have wanted or expected a happy ending (not that this feels like an ending), but I can't say I'm surprised by the turns the epilogue took on either path. Homestuck was always grotesque and uncomfortable and by god, Hussie and his crew are following through. (It does make me feel vindicated in how unsettled the Act 7 and the snapchat stuff made me feel, and I really appreciate that.)

My personal take: both paths are canon (especially as they both very clearly intrude on one another), but they aren't necessarily the only canon. I wish I could find it now, but I recall in I think Candy that there was some sort of line about potential selves? These are potential versions of the kids... potential versions as shoved around by a megalomanical, self-loathing neurotic control freak and an "I'm completely objective and above it all" cherub, that is.

 

It was exceptionally meta and disagreeable and I enjoyed the hell out of both parts.

I am deeply suspicious of the emphasis Rose puts on John's one choice being 'canon' considering that it's heavily implied in both Meat and Candy that she's been subject to Dirk's manipulations and influence for many months if not years and considering that Homestuck as a piece of media has already played fast and loose with the concept of canon, alpha timelines and meta.

It left me with the feeling of being set up for something. I'm not sure at this point if it's setting up a canon continuation or if it's just giving fanworks a shot in the arm.

 

I never, ever thought I'd write anything like this, but you know what my hands down favorite part of the epilogue was?

VRISKA. (Or should I say, (Vriska)? )

How she was important to LE's downfall but ultimately barely participated before she was yeeted through the black hole and onto Candy!Earth C was kind of delicious, but it was her conversation with adopted daughter!Vriska that was just... really good. How she couldn't bullshit herself when confronted with a version of herself that had grown up in a considerably more sane (if still pretty fucked up) environment, a self that couldn't be bamboozled with her big talk, and how she didn't seem to really want to bullshit all that much. Like the best person for her to talk out her bullshit with was a self that was more what she actually wanted to be than she'd ever managed, that she couldn't accuse of having grown 'soft' like she did her younger ghost self, a self that was actually... cooler than she was??? (At least, in her estimation!)

It reminded me of how I'd been talking with a friend about Undertale at one point, and we talked about how Undyne is the kind of person who now-(Vriska) likes to pretend she is. Seeing the epilogue, adopted daughter!Vriska is the kind of kid who could grow up to be someone like Undyne.

 

HOOBOY HAVE I HAD ONE HELL OF A BAD EVENING

I came home from a grocery trip and was like, hmm, I'm hungry, but I need to get my computer stuff done... I'll just eat an energy bar and some coffee and then make real dinner after I get this hard drive installed and all the dust vacuumed. :)

Yeah, no. Among an increasingly stupid series of events, my old computer just straight up and fucking DIED when I plugged a known good USB stick in. The USB ports on that thing have always been fussy and inconsistent, and I think the damn thing finally just threw a tantrum and crapped out.

I felt very ill indeed until I confirmed my old hard drive still works just fine, and now, six hours after I started I have the new machine more or less up and running. The video card drivers are giving me problems because of course they fucking are, but USB ports and ethernet works. I'll worry about the SSD drives tomorrow.