u/Kezbomb

In what wake did my passions drive

Thrashing, flailing through a life? 

And all that I chose not to do 

I wish to sit and speak with you.

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I will remember, and not condemn,

When, between us,

Those villages and keeps we built

They looked so beautiful—

 

Their walls …

Gardens of stone.

Erected in love,

So gracefully wrought—

 

But a brick is a brick,

A wall is a wall,

Together they brought us,

And now

 

Between us they lie.

Nations and mountains,

Full of other people,

I stand on one side and you the other.

 

Goodbye.

Feed back

Hi all,

My work gave me a £300 ticket to buy some new headphones. I already have Sennheiser HD 560S, and I love them, but I'm not going to pass up on the free money.

I'm looking for a nice listening experience that captures good, clear frequency range with a good soundstage over gimmicks. Microphone not required. Not fussy about wired or wireless, they'll be plugged into a desktop pc 99% of the time.

I will be wearing them for long periods of time so they have to be at least passably comfortable, but I'm really after the sound and spacial clarity. I live alone so open back is fine.

Mostly used for music (folk and classical), discord, and gaming.

Today I completed Icewind Dale 2, the last one as part of a 1.5-2 year effort to finish every Infinity Engine game. I'd like to leave some thoughts on each as a retrospective.

BG1: This was my second IE game, the first being Planescape Torment. I think it was the most influencial to the way I actually run tabletop games; to this day I think it is one of the best rpgs that gives you the feeling of an open world in which everything 'makes sense'. There is very little feeling of artifice because the stakes are smaller, more personal. There are no factions clamouring for you to join them. It is you against the world in almost every imaginable way.

BG2: This is my favourite of the IE games; I personally love high drama and BG2 does an excellent job of capturing it. Few rpgs 'feel' like I am playing a book or epic movie trilogy (ala LotR) but this game does. I also really dig the conan influence that is pretty much everywhere. My tabletop game got into epic levels around the same time I hit them in BG2; my own campaign draws on ToB in many ways. Though I think the main campaign is stronger structurally there is some very mythological and timeless about ToB's tone and writing.

Torment: I completed this one a long time ago actually, and it's due a replay. But it is a phenomenally written game; I did very much struggle with the clunky UI so I'd have done better playing BG1 and 2 first to understand the system. The Deionarra B-plot destroys me.

Icewind Dale 1: This is probably the prettiest of the IE games. I will admit that I really wasn't onboard with much of the writing but the atmosphere was lovely, and I appreciate the quick levelups in IWD 1 compared to the BG saga. Goes without saying that the ost is a masterpiece.

Icewind Dale 2 (with EE mod): An almost-as-good-as IWD 1 OST. Targos theme is up there with the best of them. The beginning is excellent, the end is quite good, and the middle is imo a pretty relentless grind. I skipped some content either because I didn't want to engage (the battle square) or because I found it hard to figure out what the game wanted me to do; some of the side quests that involve going back to npcs in specific orders, or talking to the same person multiple times, were quite unintuitive. I did like the main story of this one but it was imo missing an epilogue.

I intend to do a full replay at some point, probably skipping IWD 2. I absolutely intend to use Dragonspear UI in any game I can fit it into. Probably SCS as well.

Please let me know if you have any other mod recommendations for those games.

If life is a jigsaw then I play it blind.

Seeing only the scuffed backs as I

Press their faces into the floor.

Hoping they fit.

Hoping that their faces

In silent communion

Link,

And that as they bleed into each other

They form something beautiful.

 

But I can only hope.

This grey and jagged wall is mute.

It does not meet my gaze.

If life is a jigsaw then I play it blind.

Seeing only the scuffed backs as I

Press their faces into the floor.

Hoping they fit.

Hoping that their faces

In silent communion

Link,

And that as they bleed into each other

They form something beautiful.

 

But I can only hope.

This grey and jagged wall is mute.

It does not meet my gaze.

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There is no house here anymore

The ground will not forgive you—

Sullen tracts scarred by your grasp.

Laid bare, having bled,

The lives

That held this place together.

Held but a moment between your fingers. They

Congeal and blacken— you call it power:

Sweet for a time, but it will sour.

 

Afterwards (perspective of a painter)

There was a picture I wanted to make,

but never did.

Somewhere those feelings run,

And tell each other of what they found,

And where they hid.

I wonder which is proper— which is better?

To find a home or setting still,

Or let them wander on forever,

Beyond the places I forbid.

 

Anxiety Pseudo-limerick

There’s someone in the mirror—

I don’t think that it’s me—

Someone inside

Nowhere to hide

In my own company.

 

In memoriam

"It’s such a shame— oh, weren't you told?

I’m sorry sir, the news is old;

Unfortunately; anyway,

On to what I meant to say—"

 

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