[Universe]

dead man

This is vintage deadman right here. I felt you were a little off last week but this is what I'm used to getting from you. The ease at which these words fly off the screen is always a sight to behold... literally every word matters and there is gems everywhere to be found. The way you quietly extend a rhyme scheme with just a word or two... the way you transition out of one so smoothly that it seems natural and not forced... It's like a treasure hunt, reading you. And I enjoy it each time... even the times I get lost, because you don't hold our hands through these and there's no 'X marks the spot' on the map. The narrative is what it is and we have to derive our own story from it.

This is both good and bad, depending on who you are and I guess, your mood. Your connections to the topics are usually loose at best, and there is an argument to be had that you write a general verse and sprinkle in relevant lines and concepts to match your given topic, but I for one, enjoy your approach and style. It's like playing Dark Souls - We drop right in with no instructions and find our own way through it, difficult yes, but well worth it in the end.

Especially when we get stuff like this:

"let you freeze. bone and muscle spasms
Metra traffic, stuck in transit
eyelid twitches / tunnel vision / "nothing happened". fuck it
bloody gash, paralysis you're walking backward
wheelchair-bound on army rations
stenosis twist your chiropractic
doublethink your heart imagine
like you never saw it happen"

Like, fuck. Who else could write something like this? Not a single one of us.

A pleasure, sir.


Frank

Like most, I didn't enjoy the presentation of the all caps but once you get into the vibe of the piece it actually becomes part of the narrative, which is dope af. Other than that this was standard Frank stuff, brilliance mixed with unadulterated chaos. A lot of it worked and was amazing, a lot of it didn't and just came off forced. Some spelling errors stood out in this one as well, cuz you know... it was all in caps ("SUICIAL")

I really did enjoy reading this, but your narrative always gets so lost within the constant need to maintain the rhyme scheme, which in and of itself would be forgivable if you didn't repeat so many god damn words. Do you not expect us to notice this? Or you just don't care? Either way, it's lazy writing. Beautiful, sure, at times... but lazy.

Honestly this was like reading a Sinacog verse before he fully transitioned from AJ The Menace - Like he was stuck right in the middle of the metamorphosis and we all got to experience the purgatory. It was absolute madness and I both loved it and hated it at the same time.

I get it now... Frank is John Cena. Love him or hate him, either way you WILL react. And in the end that's what matters.

Also what matters... line limit. I forgave you last week but I'm not doing it here. This is clearly over 60 lines, no matter how you say you structured it, and if we are holding hal0 accountable we need to hold you accountable as well. You can't write an entire bar and call it a line... you just can't. If you need line extensions every week you have to request them from your opponent; You can't just bully your way through this without any repercussions. Not when I'm around anyway...

Unfortunate, because as it stands I probably would've given you the W just on creative bravery alone... which it had in spades. This was a topical piece literally INFUSED with the narrative itself and was creative as creative gets in that respect. But guess what? Rules are rules and you will learn the hard way here.

Vote: dead man via DQ