AOWL Week 7: Cereal_Killa (1-0) vs. King Keith (3-1) [KING KEITH WINS, 6-4.]
 

16 lines minimum, 48 lines maximum.

Verses are due SATURDAY 3/30 at 11:59 PST.
Extensions are due SUNDAY 3/31 at 11:59 PST. NO LATER!!!

You must vote on at least 4 other battles and post links. For every absent link, you will be deducted ONE vote next week.
Voting ends TUESDAY 2/2 at 11:59 PST. (Unless otherwise it may be extended another day at the most.)

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TOPIC: All insanity meets awareness for but a single second.


Good luck to both participants. @Cereal_Killa @King Keith

im elbow deep IN this bitch..

lol

G/L dude..

...

..

VOTES:

vinzr vs que

zygote vs adonis

red glare vs frank

vulgar vs witty

topicaldood5 vs innovator

ink vs cdm

iambent vs split

You know this will be epic right? G/L homie.

TOPIC: All insanity meets awareness for but a single second.


Between Sticks & Stones Part II. 'The Mental Prison of the Mysterious One.'


ACT I. The Return.

drip....
drip....
drip....

in here darkness rules. welcome to my abode.
a basement filled with the stench of carcass fumes,
behold- the conscious tomb. a prison that harbors fools
who weild the sharpest tools. making cuts as smooth as
a barbers cool. the start of any martyrs doom.
within me lies a heart unscrewed.
a powerful mind.
a devious plan for a murderous time.
sticks & stones will certainly break your bones,
make the wrong choice & it's your life-

.... who dares to contest my throne,
who dares to pay the price?....


ACT II. The Investigation.

the victim's body, look there. our killer left another sign, a signature.
he's really good. too good. and every murder is done in particular.
note her body- it's obvious she had been held for weeks as a prisoner.
just as the previous instances, everything is done eerily similar.
he's very precise, discreet. leaves no trace, no clue.
i've studied each crime commited, not one fingerprint to view.
forensics is pretty baffled, it's as if nothing happened but an accident.
i know there is more to this.... i know i'm getting closer to unveiling the truth.


ACT III. Within the Depths of the Darkness.

you're in my world now, detective roberts.
who are you? reveal yourself!

here lies the problem for which there is no solution,
put your weapon down, within these bounds it is useless.
between reality & the illusion, what is real? for each is but a distraction.
see I feel the angst you have inside & it's that which will bring you to ruin.
what makes you arrive to that conclusion? i've finally got you. now freeze!
you have the right to remain silent. now down to the ground, on your knees!
detective, detective; did you not listen nor take heed to my message before?
you're in my world now. the real question now is, where is yours?


the detective took a moment to understand what was said,
his adreanaline pumped furiously, then he shouted,
PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!!!

Silence fell. Tension rose.
The mysterious one solemnly spoke:

sticks & stones may break thy bones,
but words shall never hurt thee....

sleep is the cousin of death. a dream is the furious sister.
you can't pay the reality check without cashing in when you kiss her.
that makes the moment that much important, that much clearer
the second the blade pierces the skin, & the hours it'll take to peel her.
the epidermic abrasions. deep, burning sensations.
the soft whimpers, persuasive. a sadistic liasion.
she quivers & gazes, picture the look on her face when-
she pleads for christ sake to keep me from the next bone I might break.
you can't connect the dots, nor is there ever a slight trace.
no evidence left behind.... you're out of your damn mind.
i'm a ghost in your world that you're unable to see,
detective, what makes you think that you have truly captured me?


ACT IV. A Revelation of the Past.

detective roberts:
a killer's mind runs like clockwork, their brain is as a mental asylum.
something triggers their nerves to attack any human beside them.
it's hard to tell whether they are ever aware of the actions they take,
sometimes that tiny window, that single second, could be the difference
between the decisions they make.
i've spent nights trying to understand how our murderer may work,
what's his next move,
is he insane? does he find pleasure in each victim he steps to?


ACT V. The Grand Finale.

detective, what makes you think that you have truly captured me?

It took a little bit for roberts to soak in what was said,
because so many thoughts were racing through his head.
he takes a second to observe his surroundings,
the darkness began to fade & what he saw behind it was astounding.
stood in the middle of what seemed to be a glass box, perhaps in the middle of an ocean?
he noticed that wasn't exactly the case, something seemed odd in this moment.
detective, as I mentioned before, reality is but a illusion,
the world you once deemed as fact is nothing more than a delusion.
you will never catch me in the midst of confusion,
keep up your investigation & you'll meet a crushing conclusion.

ACT VI. The Beginning.

The glass shattered to bits, detective roberts fought the waters
to reach the surface to breathe.....

.... detective, welcome to my abode. what brings you to me?




(alarm goes off)


ROBERTS!
ROBERTS!
what do you have so far on this serial killer investigation?


drip....
drip....
drip....

So tough...

CK - Great verse. Metaphors are tight, vocab is incredible, and the images are vivid. However, its very dense, perhaps denser than usual which was a bit of a problem for me as it muddied the message. I don't mind a re-read every now and then, but parts of the end I wasnt feeling as much. The rhyme scheme is very nice throughout, and the intro of the charged dialogue was masterful, albeit confusing on the initial read. Interesting peek into the insanity of characters we don't typically encounter, which i love. Also, in one part the comparison is to a surgeon, that line didn't work for me, but the rest of this is pretty awesome.

Quotes:

To nourish this land past its natal demand for more torture
And revive a supper of grandeur, to blanch every morsel [b] just wow writing here

A marshal in a stance of a westerner's dance n their culture
A lone star arming projectiles with the direction of a pulsar great extended here

Mannequins, with an average IQ of a Mongol cabbage dish made me LOL
Damaging, like gossip in a gospel of foreign languages
Savages in line for the violence of blackmagic-management

Keith - Wow, what a great story. Packed with suspense, using great imagery and flow, you have this knack for natural, no frills storytelling that I really admired and enjoyed. The end was a bit confusing for me, I felt like you had this tight narrative until the end where it trailed off into a mysterious place. But boy i loved this verse alot, very epic

quotes:
detective, detective; did you not listen nor take heed to my message before?
you're in my world now. the real question now is, where is yours? very creepy

sleep is the cousin of death. a dream is the furious sister. stroke of genius comparison here
you can't pay the reality check without cashing in when you kiss her.

Damn tough battle but

Vote - CK, for a dense verse that hit the topic well. Damn! BOTW so far.

cereal - same sentiments as the previous voter had. a little muddled here and there. overall i got the inner chaos of a lowest-common-denominator character in terms of civil rights, which i guess sort of deserved a little muddled chaos. but i would of course prefer more clarity. the flow was allright but in some places it was also scattered throughout. the sleep/waking contrast between the piece was your saving grace, and the concept was executed well, regardless of the chaotic imagery that i had trouble connecting to one another, let alone the overall concept. after a few rereads i can say that this was a solid verse, though.

kk- sleep is the cousin of death. a dream is the furious sister.
you can't pay the reality check without cashing in when you kiss her.
that was tight. this was really dope i thought. the cyclical evolution of a killer that i believe is the detective reaching insanity. excellent foreshadowing throughout the bit, i was thinking he would become the killer but the way you made it happen was refreshing. the imagery of the ocean and glass box and such was one of the best images of the week. so dope. flow was also on point. great verse i thought, good character development, and excellent story telling techniques

v - king keith. ck came correct but king keith went hard this week

Cereal_killa; colorful post. You wrote from a blue perspective, no greens to show case intellect? no browns to showcase groundedness? no pink this week? I'm sorry, if your using colors, they should be on point. I see you used purple to contrast blue, as in bruising. But the blues weren't color phased correctly - Light to dark, rather dark to light. Things to think about... You lost track of your original idea a bit. Red section was my favorite.

King Keith; You ventured to that realm on this one. Longest written of the season; and perhaps one of the most intricate. As a matter of fact this is the most animated match up in the history of the AOWL; color wise; format wise. Two pioneers here. Ra, what I found is writing mags seems to help your writing. Is this not true? Completely flabbergasted here. Epic piece from Keith; his best to date.

I'm voting for King Keith here. Cereal_Killas nice; Not sure if he is gay and black but that hasn't nothing to do with this. I am color blind. The decision boiled down to cohesion. One verse was easier on the eyes;

CK

your word use was dope all around first off...rhyming i gotta say your inners flowed nicely and your scheme was just flawless
you kept that shit going through out the entire piece. the last line in the first little section..the wakeful sinnerr line...man
that had some great imagery to it. and it kicked your piece off nicely..through out the entire piece you kept it pretty consistant
with the story...but the first couple of lines from "my waking life" the first couple of lines you go on a self hype type of shit
then quickly go back to the narrative style you had going...kind of threw me off..great piece tho.


KK..K?

yo this was weird..i aint gonna lie i had to read this shit a couple of times. if this what meant to read like a dream....it did. it faded in an out
at times i felt a little lost...not with your content but im thinking its more the transitions from stanza to stanza. tbh after a few reads it grew on me
and the imagery you painted started to come out more clearer..only thing tho WTF is the drip drip for?..im sorry if its going over my head..mechanically
this was dope i mean the flow was vrry nice man..got a bit bored of tions but thats just me..im taking away from your piece with that..just pointing it out
so you know im pissed about it.


overall


this was a dope battle...i thought both came with some cool shit..i thought both confused me a bit..in the end tho ama choose the best story..and i thought keith
brought that to the table it was original, it flowed well and even tho i got lost at times, the story was pretty consistant and came through fairly clear..i felt like CK
stumbled a bit towards the middle end...good shit tho folks..keith.

Holy fuck. BOTW from what I've read so far.

CK: I've quickly become a fan of yours. You know how to tell a story while making it enjoyable with great mechanics, word choice and surpringly your font choice lol. Really an epic piece of writing which I felt began to fall off towards the middle but imo picked up again and finished strong. Great piece.
KK: Damn Keith. This truly was an epic. Great story lined with suspense throughout. Your rhyme scheme was simple imo but you made it pay off. I think someone else quoted the "sleep is the cousin of death" line and that's a perfect example. A simple rhyme with some great meaning behind it. This is the best piece I've seen from you and dare I say it VOTW. Props.

I gotta give my vote to King Keith but props to both of you.

Editing vote later. Bump for now

As I do not have time this week, I will vote on battles that need votes opposed to required..

CK - The second stanza reads as a dead man in a tomb coming back to life, almost explaining a zombie returning from the grave, truly different and abstract, proceed. Abstract is the key word, I don't know if anyone, myself included will fully grasp the concept, but here goes. A man, or women, struggling with coming out of the closet, eventually does come out and is met with much adversity. From a god, from the people, and the struggles before were nothing from the struggles of "the now" and the path that lies ahead. I'm sure something in there is correct, surely not all of it. but I loved the diction, you take pride in each words placement, you carefully and intricately place a phrase or word or saying that not only rhymes, but holds multiple syllable rhymes and most importantly has great meaning for the grand scheme of things. Many posses one and can become elite in topicals, you, at least in this verse, possessed all three and exceeded my expectations of any writer. Great verse son, but better writing. I will say I'm not sure where the zombie comes into affect of my interpretation, because I, clear as day, got a vibe that a zombie was enjoying the morsels of the flesh, which I suppose could be a sexual innuendo which i missed. Did not like "Fight fire with fire in my holster"

KK - A story of a killer holding the detective captive in his mind for short banter. From what was revealed in part two, not having read part one, I gathered enough information from early on in this piece to say with near certainty that the killer is the detective while asleep. It's tough to write a true story with multiple parts to it and keep the reader interested, you did this well, but as I'm guessing the grand finale it will later hurt you if ever finish it. Didn't like the word choice nor the choice to split this line into two lines..." making cuts as smooth as a barbers cool"...Did not like the revelation as it changed the original main character voice, but I assume it was there for part one's sake, yet didn't truly fit in this IMO. I will say its very hard to use actual conversations and make them rhyme or even fluid while maintaining a conceivable conversation, and you did very well twice in this verse alone. Loved the "furious cousin" bar, shit was fairly ill.


All in all here are two amazing verses, when matched against everyone else's in the league this week each would come out with a winning record, yet you face off. A true story line, vs. a abstract verse filled with whatever you take it as. One straight forward, one beating around the bush. Both written extremely well, one had more errors, and had less degree of difficulty as far as structure and rhyme schemes go IMO. Vote CK, battle of the week!

4-2. More votes.

very nice battle. this topic is up my street so was def feeling it. both verses are up with the best I've seen out of what's still open for votes.

CK - loved how you tackled the topic as a whole, as well as the fact you had some nice one liners (eg the propaganda/freedom of speech line). flow & vocab was on point & impressive throughout. it's not easy to portray chaos without becoming chaotic, and I felt you did slightly lose focus in parts, but certainly not so much that it was incomprehensible.

KK - now.. I didn't see part one.. & I don't really feel like searching for it, so I hope that doesn't count against you when I start reading. that's the risk you take dropping a 'part 2' in a league I guess. also, structure-wise I'm not a fan of the splitting a verse into 'acts' or whatever... let the story tell itself... anyway... that's just my opinion, I won't hold that against you here.

dope story, loved it. thought it was very cleverly done to play with the classic 'it's a dream' structure by using the dream as a way into (what I take to be) a split personality.. flow and vocab wasn't as impressive as CK's, but then you made up for that with amazing storytelling.. a proper masterclass..

damn, this is tough.. def the 2 best verses I've seen recently, so props to both writers on that. gotta choose though, and my personal favourite was written by.. King Keith

Wheat_Slayer:

for most of the topical, I thought you wrote this from the viewpoint of a vegetable? it was awesome use of language. the overall meaning's lost on me. you played so many different roles, your narrator did i mean. I think you danced around the fire so much you forgot you had marshmallows to roast. i thought the structure was dope but it was too uneven for me to comprehend what was happening literally figuratively or metaphysically. even the part in blue at the end (moment of clarity?) felt like it transcended reality and irreality and simply hung in the nonbalance.. like a fragment of the animus or a misplaced identity you'd take on as a kid, and haven't needed since you stopped seeing dragons chasing down the landscape from the window of a schoolbus.

KK:

is this Silence of the Law-Abiding Citizen?
that was uncomfortably intricate. lol. we took a similar direction with our twist ending, yours was smoother. also i thought your characterization was very carefully planned and so the end is kinda anticlimactic for me. I guess the whole "reality is nothing but a figment of your imagination" shpiel is mad old for me... the slightly unspoken "words'll never hurt you/ me" confused me a lot as well.



SO.

at the risk of looking like the stupidest person here with the worst imagination and poetic foresight, i will admit i have literally no idea what the fuck is happening in either piece and am left with a series of strangely interconnected images. Apple_Jacker's language and carefully constructed metaphors struck me in a more pleasing manner... I can see the nonsensicality of insanity drift between Zzzquil overdose dream images... and come together in a realization... and it confused me but also enticed me, where Keith's felt very cold and not alive, not robotic, just mechanicall....

so tough vote. very good/close/strange battle.

V/ Corn_Popper

cool battle. not big on the topic

ck
straight to the point, dont like the way you came off so fillerish. had a verse pack jammed with elaborate vocab that felt unneccessaryt and reads silly in a lot of areas. just overkill with that imo. makes a verse sound to forced (in this case' anyway).

kk
didnt like the way it was sytructured into a script?play format. but to tbh, dont think it really hurt you this week. cool approach and did well with the content. thought you stole this one pretty easily tbh

ck. you had a lot of cool shit going on man, but all that extra vocab and silly shit -save it for the om, in my eyes it hurts a league topical verse to add so much garbage to it. just my honest opinion -no hate, not even really sure who you are anyway.

vote king kieth, easy inmyeyes

I'm voting CK

On first reading... It's so dense that the mind just wants to.. lol... go numb. I think you have to allow breathing room. So honestly I stopped paying attention for a while and skipped to KK.

And with KK... the structure man.. it was a turn off to. These verses were not that easy to get into. But I persevered. Since you guys gave the effort so would I.

What it boils down to me is on merits.

It feels like KK tried to ... fast talk me, into believing there was a grand story being told.. with some certain words or phrases... but when I really looked at the substance it didn't really have much but the surface.

Now CK... there was a lot of intricate stuff, real subtle stuff... and also having to contend with the perspective shifts, you really flooded me and I had to go back and slow down and read slower... but then it all started to emerge.

"Neglected like copra, my coconut’s turned to chocha"

Case in point, at first I didn't know what the fuck was going... but then after rereading, it was like I had my 3d glasses on.

Vote CK - offered me a meal... that I had to chew on, but it's more filling.... KK to me gave me soup with some interesting flavors.

sleep is the cousin of death. a dream is the furious sister.
you can't pay the reality check without cashing in when you kiss her.
that makes the moment that much important, that much clearer
the second the blade pierces the skin, & the hours it'll take to peel her.
the epidermic abrasions. deep, burning sensations.
the soft whimpers, persuasive. a sadistic liasion.

I agree though with Split... this part gave me some goosebumps... it made me think about the moment before you go for that kiss with a female, like it's all or nothing man do you have the courage.

Great battle, CK.

KING KEITH WINS, 6-4.