XI WK IV: Pharaohs Army (1-0) vs. Master Rock (2-1) (MASTER ROCK WINS)

[Frank]

Season 11 XI

VERSES: Thursday, January, 5th, 11:59 P.M. Western / 2:59 A.M. Eastern / 7:59 A.M. UK. 24 Hour Ext: Mod/Opponent Discretion

VOTES: Sunday, January 8th, 11:59 P.M. Western / 2:59 A.M. Eastern / 7:59 A.M. UK. 3 Vote Requirement Enforced/Penalty

MAXIMUM: 48 Lines: 64 IF AGREED UPON!

Goodluck! @Pharaohs Army @Master Rock

TOPIC:

[Master Rock]

On the road stoned, I walk along the path
as madness creeps in, it begins to take its grasp,
splitting up my better half,
dead or alive?... so you do the math
equating to the balance that's now getting slashed
renew my cells, I can finally shed my skin at last
the world slitters away, now... I'm stashed,
it's leaving me left to brush the dust of the day, sweep the trash
hourglass shattered the clash, cheers through distorted glass, all I'm left with is questions to ask, myself, What's exactly here?
I stomped through hearing my footsteps echo these cobblestones stained with the poured libations of spilled beer,
dead silence, I drown my sorrows for the casualty of another's fallen peer
brotherly extinct that thinly veers through the veil of timeless years
waving goodbye, my head down, however, I never purchased these tears
run away...
Have lost my mind despite these fears?
the spectrum of validity seems to be no longer defined
So just tell me why... I'm seeing these things,
the black crows, dark skies, and dead rose?
all grave images? yea... I suppose...
my mind... be distorted at times,
endlessly ticking deeper, I'm bending the hands that produce these wavy staticky lines
pasting me by, in a flashback... that was never mine
it's like I'm seeing some sort of loop of a rewind
Interscoping through these imprinted lines
to a place where my own reality is, but somehow I'll never find
so back and forth, I pace,
on the paved road, where ghostly images have taken their hast
and vanished without a trace, I'm puzzled by missing pieces, a faded jigsaw face, piece together every day's a struggle to determine where's my place
the pieces have gone and fallen misplaced while shadows move, and I run to chase, gone, now I question my own space, the ruins crumbled as the dimensional shifts into this story,
the ghost is the mist of the recording, frequencies paint the downfall of this quarry, blood sweat, and tears parts the allegory
Dantes peak while lost souls are stuck in this looping purgatory

[Pharaohs Army]

Time Lapse

A quick’n generic internet search tells me that the early days of photography was around the(,)EIGHTEEN HUNDREDS
When they MADE these HUNDREDS
Indentured servants on the 19th century FRONT STEPS
White-collared, “UN-DEAD” / Tiny Tims, Uncle Toms, Blue-collared Agriculture
Back Alley FLASH FORWARD to today. Empty & DECAYED w/ a dumpster NEXT to the
(flourishing) multi century Architecture!
Art is everywhere, as is, any good, chemistry hall lecture.
Indentured.
blue & white collar jobs? Fester!
Long hours for their investors!,, who never took a question.
Some pious nuns. who were left, off the guest-list.
Empty dumpster present day‘less it contains in-testines
We’ve all seen Cruel Intentions…We’ve all seen Seven
(One of my favorites ACTUALLY, but we’ll get in2 that (like)week 7!)
The end rhyme is the essence but we never leave you guessing
It’s what we call a session when u should never be stressin!’

My best estimation, is that the second picture is from 1979
Quite the exceptional time!
An empty ALLEY you can find;
The dumpster? Is empty. It has no intestines…no ill intentions.

We’ve only traveled a century. We haven’t traveled dimensions.
The quality - of the phoTOGraphy is somewhat, definitely, or never in question.
Never repeat the ending…
(Never repeat the ending)

A quick internet search tells me that the ge-ography of this area…
Is variable.

[Dope girl]

This is tough choice for me

Both had deep meaning to topic

Both had creative emotions

Both vs had enjoyment
Master Rock vs deeper



Vote-Master

[symetrik]

rock - let's be honest, first line started playing green day in my head fuuuuuck outta here. I think the grammar was rough, focus on your concept was locked in. some good (maybe unintentional) wordplay, "equating to the balance" while the world seems to spin around him. I felt like a lot of the rhymes felt forced, unnatural and just "wellp this word rhymes so I'll shove it in somehow", tense changes, etc. no stand out lines to me.

pa - honestly, I love the opening. c-notes printed first in 1800s is a dope callout, but I wish things weren't capitalized - it makes stuff more clear but also draws the eye a little too hard and I lose focus on the piece as a whole to either appreciate or frown at the "hey look at this". "Empty dumpster present day‘less it contains in-testines" was absurdly fun, I read it like five times. best line, closely contended by "We’ve only traveled a century. We haven’t traveled dimensions. The quality - of the phoTOGraphy is somewhat, definitely, or never in question." but again the caps throw it a little.

rock had good steady connection to his concept but PA's abstractions and back and forth with the timing/location/etc. and far better grammar/wording sold it for me.

vote: PA

[Adverse]

Rock - thought this had some pretty good pieces here and there but when it came to them coming together and making a bigger picture you left a lot to be desired. The ending was sort of unresolved and I would have liked to see it be more concrete, and some of the writing was super minuscule, but this was sort of engaging despite the aimless wondering of both the penmanship and your Character.

PA - I liked that you tried an original take though I’m not sure what it amounted to, it was all over the place at times it felt like there was going to be a storyline, then it was meta, then it just bounced all over the place so I didn’t dig it. Like I said the intention was good but the product left a lot to be desired.

Master Rock had the more complete piece. “Complete” is a word to be taken with a mountain of salt because neither verses were very complete, they both left a lot to be desired. But as far as just linear storytelling and being engaging I’ll take Rock

V/ROCK

[Diablo]

I liked this topic actually, it’s almost like a timelapse of the past and present, showing how everything changes yet somehow remains the same. It’s cool. The obvious take here is perhaps one linking those two different worlds, perhaps something to do with genealogy or family history, but there’s the opportunity to take us from the adult seen in the past and come to a resolution where he’s no longer around for whatever reason you wish. It’s really quite an open topic with many different avenues potentially to explore along the way in this one, a more left-field take could be perhaps to have the person be a time traveller - going back to correct a previous wrong, but what is it? And does it all go to plan, or does changing that fault later then change the course of his own history somehow unexpectedly? I think there’s quite a lot that can be done with this. Let’s see what you guys have…

Master Rock: I felt like your central character here has some form of drug-induced psychosis from smoking weed, that’s what I deduced at least, and as he was walking down this road (or perhaps even a metaphorical path he chose to take of his own willing) it started to become almost an echo chamber for the ghosts and mistakes of his past. The images became more vivid to him, though he wasn’t entirely sure how real everything he was seeing actually was, this is alluded to in the line with “Dead or alive?” where his uncertainty’s shown as well as “All I’m left with is questions to ask,”. I think you did well with that concept, even if it perhaps needed more meat on the bones to fully flesh out the idea in mind. The descriptions in the snippets of imagery we get as to these fleeting apparitions almost is where you probably excelled the most, going into detail on the dark skies and black crows etc. The closure at the finale reveals more, that this is in fact your own ghost caught between the ethereal realm and the present day - unable to move on and thus, stuck in purgatory between the two words with no real final resting place. It’s a true lost soul. The ending is polarising and intently so. I liked the concept for real and thought it was a good idea to bring out a lot of visual imagery for the reader along the way.

PA: I liked the direct approach you chose to take here, tapping straight into the visual seen and dissecting it somewhat in your minds eye through both its past and it’s present. I also liked that you chose to instead focus on the locational setting and it’s architecture, which makes up a lot of the image but perhaps isn’t where the viewers eye is first drawn towards in this. I definitely think Master Rock could have benefitted from what you started with here and used the location and it’s buildings more to build up the world his central character was cast in, that would definitely have added a stronger dimension to his own piece in my mind. I know he does bring up the cobblestones and so forth but it had a brevity to it I felt could have been expounded upon. The compare and contrast between the two different time periods is a huge part of the visual topic here for me and that’s definitely more the route I would have tied with having this topic, which again I felt you did more with incorporating into your piece here. The deciding factor here ultimately for me came down to conflict. Conflict drives great stories. While Master Rock perhaps had some niggles toward the beginning and it seemed more abstract, towards the final third and close he presented his conflicted character quite well I thought and ended strongly on the front - the conflict of him being trapped in eternal purgatory was the driving force behind it. With PA’s there wasn’t that conflict at its heart to really drive it beyond the realms of a comparative analysis between the two different time zones shown, it was essentially building the world around the character that Master Rock hadn’t quite managed to fully frame. It’s actually quite an unusual battle as I prefer PA in terms of his multies and world building, placing you firmly in that scenario and addressing it directly, but I also felt that Master Rock excelled here in terms of his concept, imagery, execution and even imagery wise I feel I give him the nod largely because of the dark visuals he presented. In truth I found elements of both I liked, but for differing reasons, what one guy perhaps didn’t have the other did and vice versa, making this a clash of styles for me. In the end I felt Master Rock had slightly more I enjoyed coupled with the storytelling verse which again I’m a fan of over the dissecting narrative approach from PA. I’m reluctant to call it personal preference as there’s elements to both I liked.

Vote - Master Rock

[Frank]

@Master Rock
WINS!