JD - I think you bring something to the table that a lot of topical writers lack and the battle cats have in abundance. You want to make the individual lines quote worthy, almost in a setup/punch style like you would a text battle and concentrate less on making the creative part the actual story unfolding or character development etc. I’ve long been a fan of the approach because that’s also how I started originally, a battler that tried his hand at topicals. It put you in good stead here because you were able to pinpoint different little sections of the picture like the posts and the trees to the left and incorporate it into what you were writing about. Stuff like that won’t go unnoticed in here, but it’s definitely worth you looking at trying to think of a story arc or concept that has never been done before to your knowledge and trying to mix up the two things - develop a story with an unexpected twist or take, but keep that punchliney style to you that’s served you well the past couple weeks. The other thing I’d noticed is that you’ve written from the perspective of yourself the past two weeks, so maybe consider writing something from either a third person perspective, or as a female, or an animal or some kind of in animate object maybe? Try something different and a little more out the box in your approach while keeping to your strength of wit and wordplay. Just an idea for you in future weeks if you’re looking to develop further.
Bleak: This started off so good, then just kinda lost direction for me bro. There was a nice early flow transition through the lines into a shorter format than you opened with, I enjoyed the imagery of the “ashtray” reference. The ceiling fan line was a nice touch also, similar to what I touched on with John’s verse in its punchline-esque quality. More of that please. I like it. I enjoyed that you didn’t go with what was directly in front of you and tried a more original route, you toying with the rhyme scheme also deserves some credit for technicality because you did more of that than your opponent here, just not enough for it to be the deciding factor here because JD brought a very smooth and easily accessible joint that tied in a variety of factors from the image seemlessly.
Both guys had stuff I enjoyed but I edged it to John Dillinger this week.
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