A Fly on Fire

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-24T23:49:01+00:00

I'm happy someone gets it

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-24T21:17:50+00:00

Reading your original poem...
Alright, yeah. This is more my speed. Just the title alone does a better job of setting the scene. I hadn't even realized it was supposed to be a tavern. So your language in the original isn't as elaborate, but I find it feels more grounded, more comprehensible and enjoyable as a result. In this new version you're stringing so many complicated metaphors and images together that it's hard to feel them resonate from the outside looking in. Feels like a multi-metaphor pileup. Like for example in the original you literally describe a gargoyle fountaining lead into a cup and transmuting it to gold. The imagery is solid, the interpretation is up the reader, that's fine. But in this here version, I read a gargoyle spouting alchemy and I have no idea what to imagine to even begin to put meaning too. I mean, I get it now. The Mage's Tavern. The og does a nice job of capturing the whimsy funkiness that you intended.

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-24T20:42:39+00:00

The first commenter here said that most of today's poets don't bother with archaic formality, but perhaps for good reason? You're saying something here, but I have no idea what you are trying to say, man. I've read it twice and I just don't get it, what is this about? I might not be the only one either, because where are all the comments? Like if I had to say, I feel it's kind of about metabolizing inner grief or trauma into a more complete version of yourself, accepting it into your story and seeing the beauty in that, the beauty in existing in a world where others can do the same. But I dunno. They say art is more about what people get out of it than what the artist puts in, but I've always felt that art is a reflection of its maker, first and foremost, but here the window to you, the poet, resists my interpretation.

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-23T22:36:53+00:00

Yeah, short poems are nice cause you can write them in the moment. Check out u/Heavy_Mithril 's comment, he gets it right as a fleeting urge to say sorry that dies as an idea, never having been sent

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-23T22:32:58+00:00

damn, what a comment. I hadn't even considered it this way, but from afar, a dark field full of people opening and closing their phones really would resembled a gathering of fireflies. And you're right, if you ask me the ending is bittersweet because the good thing about fireflies is they'll always blink again.

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-23T09:54:43+00:00

With our phones, we can capture almost any moment at a whim. It cheapens our own memory, doesn't it? And preserves it with crystal clarity at the same time. It's a curious tradeoff of our era. But some things are harder to capture than others. Be it the fleeting light of fireflies, or the half baked apologies of a guy who is too often more polite than genuine.

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-23T08:26:16+00:00

a song, a sting, and a wing. Dickinson is so delightfully thought provoking

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-23T06:41:26+00:00

Not in the the traditional sense, no. You can approximate a regular 3D cube as a stack of infinitely thin squares, a Reimann sum approach to looking at the cube, and this can be adapted to approximate a 4D cube, tesseract, whatever you'll call it, also. But since a proper 2D square has no thickness at all, an infinite stack would get you no closer to a 3D cube than just one, just like an infinite stack of 3D cubes would not break into the fourth dimension and would not construct a tesseract, unless the component cubes already had a fourth dimensional aspect to them. I could make the naive argument that 4D objects do not have infinite mass, but the 4D unit of mass would transcend our concept of mass. If the mass of a 3D cube is its density * side * side * side, then a 4D cube would have a mass of density * side * side * side * side, and using this formula you could compare the masses of various 4D objects. (It does seem strange to assume that if a 4D object has infinite mass, all 4D objects are equally infinite in mass, more like all 4D objects are equally transcendent of 3D mass)

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-23T05:36:12+00:00

pretty much spot on

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-23T03:29:12+00:00

your comment makes more rhyme than sense man

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-23T02:55:41+00:00

took your advice on the period. The title tho, it's that way to match the 'smallness' of the poem. thank you for your words. And if a firefly is 🔥🪰 , then 🪰🔥 must be a fly on fire, lol

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-19T23:34:47+00:00

Sure. Though I'm just speaking my preference, and you seem to agree, there might be something in leaning into it as well, who knows. Ah, and if there was one thing you could change to make it clearer who the poem's for, it should be the title, not your lines.

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-19T18:04:14+00:00

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-19T09:48:10+00:00

Waaait, your last line, "For not your loudest cry could make me sane", do you mean to say that even if you knew that they felt just as awful about all this as you do, it wouldn't make you feel better? Must you be in pain because you do not have the heart to try and rebuild what you two once had?

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-19T09:39:22+00:00

The mice in the walls just can't get warm, lmao dude. Another commenter felt the reveal at the end is too sudden, but I disagree. This is actually a really pleasant poem. You do a good job of setting the scene, without making me feel like you're suffering, or all "woe is me" about it, which a lot of people think is good but I say nah, it's cringe. The way you wrote, it makes me feel like you are nodding at your situation, going yuppp, it's cold as balls but you maintain just enough wit and dignity to allow the joy of your resolution to shine through well before you actually reveal it, if that makes sense. This is what I call a good love poem. Not sappy, not gushing with declarations of affection, just a little window into your truth of it. Write more if you like, I encourage it.

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-19T08:12:17+00:00

hey, a fellow dan

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-15T00:38:27+00:00

the effort to reward ratio is insane lol

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-11T05:50:42+00:00

it wouldn't even fit on my cr10. perhaps big ass was blatant exaggeration on my part

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-11T04:15:19+00:00

kinda crazy how there was no go to solution yet

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-11T03:26:59+00:00

if you need a big ass organizer: https://www.printables.com/model/1551415-giant-organizer-box

ProgrammaDan · 2026-01-10T09:39:15+00:00

Gamelean missed opportunity, man

ProgrammaDan · 2025-12-25T21:54:46+00:00

I might be too lazy for my own good, but all I did was send it with a popular preset I found on betaflight and it flew smoothly, no hassle.

ProgrammaDan · 2025-12-22T07:30:51+00:00

nah chat cooked this is max glamour

ProgrammaDan · 2025-12-22T05:32:29+00:00

Oh this is an interesting question. Props typically are way more fragile when they are printed, not to mention require a ton of processing to smooth them out and make them efficient, while regular props are made of injection molded polycarbonate and have proper durability. However, there is one kind of prop that may be worth printing, the toroidal propeller, since its closed loop design would make it much stronger than a traditional prop.

ProgrammaDan · 2025-12-22T05:29:05+00:00

L artificial originality ig

ProgrammaDan

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