We don't do that on RR in Topicals either, very rarely at least but it is definitely done in text battling for example, they go balls deep using bold, italics, colors, hyperlinks even pictures and shit. The most topicals get is color sometimes, like what I personally do sometimes is I will make my verse orange by default, and if there is a section which is distinctly different and brings more resolution to the piece I will color code it as royal blue. I also have color-coded dialogue in the past to make it easier to keep track of who is saying what.
I know 100% that people are intelligent enough to pick up on stuff, but aesthetics help, if your verse looks good it will be better received than one that doesn't, that's not even a conscious decision, we as humans just prefer things to look and feel pretty, just the same reason we like to vote for attractive politicians with deep voices, it is a game of aesthetics (shout outs to Zyzz RIP)
I know here almost no formatting etc is used and that's why I don't really do any here either because it's the style on NC but on RR the default is centered, one color for the verse and nothing else, some will push the boundaries and try things to make their verse more appealing etc. The writing always comes first but in a form so competitive we must do everything we can to improve our verse once the words and lines are as perfect as we can manage in order to take the W, that means making purely stylistic choices that are definitely not necessary but have been consistently proven to help.
I will do so! I'm in the planning stages, I will definitely invite others to guest star in recordings once I have established the channel at least a bit, I really want to be able to share the form and introduce it to people who might get involved or at least find it fascinating and want to read/see more and perhaps become voters/readers etc. I'm going to also record voice readings of certain verses of mine and invite others to do the same if they have verses they particularly enjoy. That's the future, I think. A hybrid style where we must both make it look/read nice in text but also read it in a recording to accompany the verse. The way I see it we can really push the form because what we have isn't some "different" form, it's a hybrid, it's combining the best out like seven or eight different writing disciplines ranging from poetry to freeverse to lyrics and short shories, it isn't any particular one of them, it's all of them, and that means we can adapt it really easily to other venues. I would actually be really interested to have an Audio/Text league someday, we're in talks to do that already, I'd also love to do a primarily text topical league where you are given an instrumental and you must write a text topical first and foremost that must also transfer flawlessly to audio as lyrics. I think that would be really dope, it would reward those that naturally have great flow in their verses and influence everyone involved to become better as lyricists, that will 100% improve how others see our form if they see all the ways our chameleon style can adapt.
Anyway, be back later - I'll try to at least record the first video! Hey, if you wouldn't mind, how would you define a topical in your own words? What makes a topical a topical? I will probably make a thread when I get back to get opinions/input to improve my definitions in the videos since I don't want it to just be me talking, I want it to be representative of the form itself and that means sharing the advice/views of the titans of the form haha
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