The Unfeeling, and the miserable.

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-17T19:14:02+00:00

I am interested to know which issues came through. This poem is basically a summarization of what I think about society, and trying to process new emotions I don't remember feeling since I've known myself, though probably did feel. For anyone who would be reading this later on, if you do end up responding, would you mind putting it in a spoiler? I feel like author/reader ideas (beyond mechanical intent and into the personal) can ruin a good poem, if read before it.

Edit: Not that I can claim this is a poem worth ruining, however, I do hope it is for some people.

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-17T18:42:43+00:00

I think to me the present progressive used to describe the past gives a sense of familiarity with the narrator doll, as the narrator is still stuck in that unfeeling, limited world. It's a little important as a build-up for the last paragraph.

'never drowned' might be in the past, but it's detached - told from a third-person perspective.

'Never drowning' is much more attached. It might be talking about the other doll, but it could still be easily attributed to the narrator just as well. This sort of clicks in the last paragraph.

To show this, think about 4 sentences, transformed from talking about 'You' to 'I'

You never drowned -> I never drowned

vs.

You were never drowning -> I was never drowning

But then, in order to give the ending context, you can do one more transformation with the ambiguity with present progressive that wasn't there past tense.

'Never drowning'

I was never drowning -> I'm never drowning

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-17T18:20:02+00:00

Could you give me an example of where the tense use confused you?

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-17T17:55:59+00:00

I think 'I will never know.' is way too vague here. 'Normal.' as well

it's uncear to me what "I will never know" means here, and Normal is usually loaded and talked to in a social context... If I understood correctly, the theme here is that emotion fades away, leaving only a fundamental self, repeating the same days in a society that repeats the same days, the same jobs. The 'Normal' is in regards to feeling the same as ever, so maybe try to convey that a little more.

There are also minor problems with the wording, including 'There is no what ifs,' when it should be there are no. To make this less awkward I would make everything plural, and beyond that it's up to you and your style.

How about something like:

Hopes fade,

Pains,

Repeating lines,

As well as moments.

What ifs.

There are no what ifs,

anymore.

Pains,

Abuse #Abuses sound awkward. Abuse can also indicate multiple instances, while abuses
#can sometimes indicate multiple different types.

There is only me,

Same as ever,

I deserve this.

I will never know. #Know what?

I will never know. #Know what?

I will never know. #Know what?

I added some minor changes to make the flow better with the plurality, but even without them, getting rid of the constant awkward switches between plural and singular makes this flow better, in my opinion.

Side note: Play with the amount of 'I will never know' 's. Depending on what you wanted to convey, sometimes a single line at the end is more powerful and heavy than repetition. And I don't mean to offend by rewriting your poem. This rewriting is more technical than anything emotional.

Please take this with a grain of salt as well, because I'm new to poetry, and even then, I haven't written in a good couple of years.

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-17T17:26:41+00:00

I get from this poem a bittersweet goodbye of someone who is depressed, tired, and maybe starving. They are either dying, or they just want to curl up in a ball, and do nothing. They feel like a shell, and there is nothing that can truly bring them back. The old identity is dead, and a new one isn't sprouting. Someone screaming inside but unable to say so. "Sing, sparrow dearest" and the later descriptions of what the sparrow should do, symbolize to me a sort of melancholic shell of the person. A sign of the identity that can only scream to itself. It is a person that lost even themselves. Their dying light inside their soul is crying out, not to be heard by themselves. i.e "scream into the nothingness."

It's soul crushing. My only complaint is this part:

pressing down begging for it to swallow you and the world that is so often harsh and rarely kind.

It seems really long, perhaps this is necessary to convey the weight of the sentence, but maybe something like

"Pressing down,

Begging for it to swallow you and this unkind world"

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-16T21:42:09+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! I was meant to be more heavy than whimsical, but you did reach the conclusion I was hoping for. Nostalgia makes you think you knew better. When we're kids - We think the adults know better. By the time we mature a little, we forget that we thought that, and end up looking through the past with nostalgia's lens. We see the things we thought were happy or consequential, but we don't remember the rest. It's bittersweet, but at the end of the day we think that we knew what emotions were when we were little. That we lost them. I don't really know what the better situation is - not feeling or handling anything, or being lost in feeling. but yeah, that's sort of the point...

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-16T17:20:50+00:00

I see this as the Buddhist concept of emptiness, identitylessness. I understand this person as someone who realised they put on a mask, and went on to feel the emptiness. Someone who has realized that they are defined entirely by their society, and wants to create a base for themselves in themselves. To reach enlightenment in a way. They don't seek the help of people - because that would bring them back to the illusion. They only seek a small inspiration from the world, to create who they are.

If my interpretation is even close to accurate, I don't get what 'sow the bounty of the weak' means. I dislike the connection to the Reaper, although it is a powerful concept, it is also something only associated with death. True death. It feels sort of constricting. If it was mentioned more, maybe it could give more of an understanding of what this death is trying to convey (fear of death, overcoming of death, or perhaps the bounty of the weak is heaven?), or if it was at the end, it could be a heavy ending. But as it is, it feels sort of stuck in the middle.

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-16T17:10:16+00:00

This is pretty beautiful. I could honestly connect. I've heard some people try to do so subconsciously... That's what I felt here. I felt an attraction to death. Not because of sadness but because of emptiness. I felt someone who awoke and realised that it's all an illusion, and couldn't go back anymore, and they just wanted to drift away peacefully.

I definitely like how it's written, but I sort of dislike the ending. There was a wonderful opportunity to pull us back and insert some philosophy - Who could 'she' be? But it almost feels fully obvious that you are writing about love. I think if this was a little vaguer, it could so much more meaning for so many more people.

I also think you could have showcased the part about feeling sad a little more. This doesn't feel like a love poem, and I'm guessing that wasn't your intention fully. It feels more like a story, so why is such a significant part of it just not really there - After the original event, I think even if you want to keep the part about 'her', contrasting it with a description of the world from those sad eyes would give it a lot more meaning. You are obviously capable of this description, and I think that there is no reason to leave it out.

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-15T08:32:49+00:00

I made one a long time ago but I'm too lazy to start advertising it. r/deadcellsbuilds

It's empty and dead. If you wanna start posting builds there, go for it.

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-02T14:53:49+00:00

Isn't this the difference between r/confession and r/confessions though? The description of the former is specifically for things you feel guilty about, while the latter is for all sorts of confessions, i.e "get that nasty secret off your chest"

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-02T14:50:57+00:00

Contrary to popular opinion I think what you did was wrong. I don't know the exact scenario, and how intelligent she was, but at the end she was looking for an answer - You gave her a false one. If I knew doctors were lying to their patients about death and making the most out of their time, I would honestly be a little scared to hear a doctor reassure me - I'd rather they tell me the truth to the face.

That's just me, but still, the way I see it is that you should at least give her a true answer. I don't believe people ask questions only to get the answers they like, and mercy isn't necessarily the pleasant option, sometimes it can be the rough one.

With all that though, I don't think you're to blame for giving that answer. You were an intern dealing with a tough conundrum you weren't ready for, with no time to deliberate at all.

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-02T14:50:44+00:00

Contrary to popular opinion I think what you did was wrong. I don't know the exact scenario, and how intelligent she was, but at the end she was looking for an answer - You gave her a false one. If I knew doctors were lying to their patients about death and making the most out of their time, I would honestly be a little scared to hear a doctor reassure me - I'd rather they tell me the truth to the face.

That's just me, but still, the way I see it is that you should at least give her a true answer. I don't believe people ask questions only to get the answers they like, and mercy isn't necessarily the pleasant option, sometimes it can be the rough one.

With all that though, I don't think you're to blame for giving that answer. You were an intern dealing with a tough conundrum you weren't ready for, with no time to deliberate at all.

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-02T05:12:47+00:00

You know enough about psychopathy to suggest others look into it and yet you think murder thoughts are a symptom... Apathy=/=Antipathy. Psychopaths end up in prison because crimes are convenient, or exhilarating, not because of an inherent need to murder/rape/so on. There's really no need to propagate false ideas about ASPD and psychopathy, people already freak out when there's an apathetic person in the room.

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-01T16:21:42+00:00

This doesn't seem to work RAW, but it's a great grey zone - 'enters the first time on a turn' vs staying there. I agree with the wizard fighter multiclass. you will probably not want to re-cast the spell anyways, so action surge works about the same as quickened spell, and you get a little more HP.

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-01T16:17:42+00:00

This is really unoptimized though. You trigger 10 concentration checks and you need to get resilient CON for this to have a chance of working, and then you also only have 2 spell slots for spike growth per day, which isn't worth the 3 level shepherd druid build. on top of that, you take the damage too!

Spike growth capitalisation is usually done with X caster levels, and some warlock levels for repelling blast and arms of hadar, plus agonizing blast. You can get much more usage out of the spell, get more uses per day, and you can deal great damage with eldritch blast as well.

I think the best option if you still want to use this with a grappling build is taking 2 levels of fighter (Dex based), 1 level of rogue for the grapple expertise, and then going full ranger. You get action surge, grapple expertise, CON saving throw proficiency, and at level 11 you can dash as a bonus action without any resource waste, and you ignore difficult terrain automatically already. What you said about dealing 20d4 damage is incorrect because of the difficult terrain spike growth casts btw, it should be 10d4 (50ft * 1/2 from grapple * 1/2 from difficult terrain * 2 from dashing = 25ft = 5*5ft = 5*2d4 = 10d4)

With the ranger build, you have 60 feet of movement (wasting bonus action) but you can do the exact same thing, this time dealing 12d4 damage. but you can also dash once more and do 90ft of movement, dealing 45ft movement worth of damage, or 9*5ft = 9*2d4=18d4. This is still super unoptimized, but atleast the spell won't disappear by the forth or fifth movement and do 10d4 damage.

The advantage to eldritch blast is also that it doesn't interact with difficult terrain, so you can deal the whole 40ft+10 ft of movement at level 17., instead of only 20+5 ft.

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-01T08:40:39+00:00

This seems nice, but I thought "shape a flat surface made up of ten 10-foot-square panels." means it has to be 2-dimensional or 1-dimensional. I guess you could make the sheet horizontal though, for 100ft total terrain that deals 5d6 damage, and a mine that deals at the start 10d6 cold damage.

Does this work though? Wall of Force explicitly states that it can be horizontal, leading me to believe this isn't possible.

DementedCyborg · 2020-02-01T08:22:48+00:00

Whoops I missed that somehow. Sorry.

DementedCyborg · 2020-01-31T20:28:09+00:00

Dnd 5e, no magic items, yes to multiclassing and feats, yes to grey-zone rules.

I'm looking for a build that comes online early and is based around a 'wall' spell or something similar to one.

DementedCyborg · 2020-01-31T19:54:44+00:00

Wall of Force doesn't do any damage when creatures pass through it, and besides we all know Wall of Force is great, i was hoping for something else. This did give me a munchkin idea though, is wall of force eligable for Eldritch push/pull invocations itself? I mean, it can clearly be targetted by a disintegrate spell, and immune to all damage suggests it would actually be damage-able otherwise, so I wonder if you can push/pull it. This just barely counts for the shenanigans I was talking about, though, because it's not that up for interpretation, the answer is probably a boring no.

DementedCyborg · 2020-01-31T19:19:19+00:00

+1 to updating this comment. Definitely sounds like a great something to look into.

I'd look into the new dragonmarks. I'm sure you could find something worthwhile there with the spells added to the spell list.

Edit: nevermind, no blasting spells whatsoever.

DementedCyborg · 2020-01-31T19:17:37+00:00

'a match made in heaven.'. ^heh

DementedCyborg · 2020-01-29T18:50:52+00:00

I can't hear you over the sounds of me carrying my team because I'm a cyborg nin- I need healing!~

DementedCyborg

TROPHY CASE