Cashius-
Uneven verse. On the technical side of things you had some standout bars with some fresh wording, rhymes, and delivery. There were a couple spots, though, where I could tell you were just filling in words and rhymes to get to your next plot point or truly inspired piece of writing. As for the story itself, it was okay. My only problem is that you played the foreshadow card so hard it was obvious halfway, if not before, through the verse that things were going to go pear shaped for our doctor friend. I'm reminded of this Simpson's clip;
You focused on the happy lifestyle so much that the reader knew what was going to happen. That can be salvaged, sometimes. The way you organized the twist, though, was also a weak point. It happens 2/3's of the way through and the reader just shrugs and says 'yup'. The end is a tack on to relate to the topic. This type of twist is hard to pull off originally for an audience who's used to reading text topicals/open mics. It's been done to death. The only way to make something like this work is with characterization; flesh out the doctor and the wife and make the reader actually give a shit about them. Give them nuances and character traits through subtle wording. But here, we go from exposition to the beginning of the relationship, to a marriage, to a murder in the span of a dozen or so lines without really knowing shit about the characters aside from their occupation, social status, and linen acumen. Even the characterization you do draw is one dimensional. Model wife, everything you want. Doctor hard up on his luck with women until he finds the right one. There's no meat to it.
I know I'm sounding extremely negative. I don't mean to be. You can only do so much with so much time to write for this. But a bit more nuance would've gone a long way here. Like I said; there was clever wording and rhymes sprinkled throughout this piece. Overall, though, it missed for me.
"She wants to honeymoon far away...While he'd prefer to lay low
It was worth the cake though...Spent the whole month sunning in Turks and Caico's"
Favorite line. Slick, clever.
Bags-
Pretty good. Touched on a lot subjects, got a little wayward for me at points, but you brought it home. The thoughts directed at Doris were a perfect capturing of the mundane rage induced by minutiae. The overall idea of the piece isn't something original or innovative, but you added personality and a touch of reality to the proceedings. You could almost read this is as 'Bags Attitude towards Netcees'. When you tried to get philosophical it got to be a bit pedestrian. The characterization, wording, and rhythm of the piece made up for that, though.
Pretty good battle. I have Bags taking it.