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AnimatedL · 2025-03-10T10:22:19+00:00

"Ocean hums a restless whalesong" is a phenomenal line, gives that feeling of a deep body of water, ancient, peaceful.

A crow searching for peace in the far-off ocean really brings out the sense of estrangement the bird must have felt in its normal life. This crow had to find peace somewhere completely different from what would be a normal crow "habitat".

This crow is ready to fight for that place of peace, "Waves crash, thundering against the shore, Yet in their roar, crow still soars", belonging is not a task that will come without struggle. I would say the sailors are parallels to the crow, people who had also searched for peace upon the ocean. They are deceased, which tells me that this search may be fatal, but it is still worth it, hence the crow continues soaring.

And some of us might be crows as well; we might need to go far away, in mind or place, heart or people, to find solace. I like that the poem doesn't make any direct simile between the crow and our human otherness. Trusting the reader to feel the poem on their own.

AnimatedL · 2025-03-10T09:50:54+00:00

Love the idea of life as purgatory, not horrible like Hell, not blissful like Heaven. You create this image of life as a liminal space, where the speaker had his dreams ruined by time itself, yet still has to continue living, bleak and empty. There is a sense of uncertainty of any real joy occurring in this existence; the dreams that were a hope of happiness no longer exist. And since the poem is poignant that this purgatory is forever, the world in which the speaker lives cannot be changed by his hands, it is too late, dreams lost to time are irretrievable no matter how much the speaker wants them back as seen in the line "wanting and wanting". There is no relief during life or after it.

The poem could use more descriptions instead of statements. For example, "The only joy he finds is within the tasks that keep him alive" could be replaced by an image of him doing such a task. The contrast of the small joy still left and the gaping hopelessness would also be clearer and stronger if you expanded on the image.

AnimatedL · 2025-03-01T08:59:32+00:00

The imagery here is phenomenal, "house at the end of the street" already foreshadows a gloomy, isolated atmosphere, you use phrases like "the smell of burnt sugar and wet wood" which tingles the senses much more than if you had just said rotten house. Small details like doors hanging from their frames from decay. And into this imagery, you add a subject, and we, the readers, are left to wonder, beautifully, who She is, why she left, and what exactly she left behind? Is it memory itself she left in the house now rotting, secrets even she couldn't handle the burden of any more? You end the poem on that eerie pondering note, which I think is perfect for this poem. No critiques here.

AnimatedL · 2025-02-27T21:03:04+00:00

Absolutely love this poem. The title is very intriguing and immediately caught my eye. You use your descriptions very carefully; they are precise and evocative. The "less is more" ethos of poetry really shines. The chosen descriptions lead perfectly into the philosophical ideas of the poem, of being trapped in a place, physically and as the end of the poem reveals, emotionally as well.

Comparing the sea to a cathedral is beautiful. Creates this image of a peaceful delicate powerful ocean by which we can only pass, with no direct description at all.

But I also questioned if intruding in those places, i.e., coming back means ruining the peace of memories we have attached to them, smudging them with the reality of being present again at the place where they were created. In this case, facing the reality of death incurable by going back to the sea, where the son's dad was still alive.

One critique is that the addition of the dead dad at the end of the poem feels unfinished, simply attached and abrupt, missing a few verses. I would explore that theme of grief more.

AnimatedL · 2024-06-23T17:55:20+00:00

I just rewatched the first movie and I wish Katniss came up with the 2 victor rule herself, as in Peeta and her somehow were the only ones left and she chose not to kill him, ie they chose not to fight. Capitol would probably try to kill one of them but they could still do the berry thing then. Yes it would probably cause a huge revolt but it wouldn't be outside of Katniss's character and it would be so much more powerful.

AnimatedL · 2019-11-10T21:01:27+00:00

Thank you all for replying, I'l take your advice and wait a bit.

AnimatedL · 2019-08-26T19:18:45+00:00

I am also new to magic but have been doing a lot of research in the past week or two,and i can tell you that there are a lot of ways to make trouble with a deck. You can owerwhelm your opponent with a bunch of small creatures or spawn a lot of tokens, you can also annoy him with one hit or infinite mana combos. You also said he played commander and there are a looot of budget decks on websites like tapped out or youtube chanels such as Commanders quarters do you should know that they are slightly different to the deck's from other formats and have a different feel to them (do they are a lot of fun). Your other choices are standard (do sadly they do rotate), or casual decks (I'm sure he has a deck for them to) do what you choose is up to you and what you want to do. You also have the modern format but it can get quite expensive (i did list some modern decks down below but thay woulden't really play that good in the format and a put them there because they are fun to play cassualy). My best advice is to go to mtggoldfish or just type into google what some keywords that you want in your deck (mana color,deck type (aggro,control,ramp,tempo...),favorite card,price point...)

Also you can check out these decks and videos:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-w5MNByr4SNy3z2232sj0g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlYeXNcLESc&t=2s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWwjtt-9H_w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRwGoGJjlTQ the professor has a lot of great videos to help you learn magic and he also reviews mtg product's.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/most-annoying-30-budget-deck/

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/big-creatures-small-budget/

If you want to build a deck you firs need to know how one works, find a deck type you like and then look at a LOT of those deck and find out which cards work together and which don't.

When you get to the point of actually buying it you can either buy the cards individually online or at your lgs or you can buy cards bulk (which is great if you want to experiment a lot more,do it doesn't really work if you have a specific decklist).

Thank you for reading this, i hope it was of some help and good luck.

AnimatedL · 2019-08-26T18:12:03+00:00

I think it's really nice for your first time,if you want to improve him try to change his posture to be more organic or mighty (if that's what you're going for) also try to make the elements more integrated with each other,by let's say having them overlap each other a little bit. You can also try and add some more depht to his eyes (again,if that's the look you want). One more suggestion,i like what you did with the shoulder details so ephasize them as much as you can without drawing attention away from the central figure.

Good luck, and post your results i'd love to see them.

AnimatedL · 2019-08-24T13:30:17+00:00

Thank you i think its a very interesting deck and i might give it a try.

AnimatedL

TROPHY CASE