ATT Semi-Finals: MMLP vs Symetrik- OPEN FOR VOTES!

[sral]

Welcome, boils and ghouls, to the AOWL TAKEOVER TOURNAMENT 2024!

We have eight competitors with their eye on the semi-finals round. Only four will progress. Do you have what it takes to survive?

Due Dates:

Verses this week are due Friday and will be open until Sunday.
Battles that lack votes may close later.
One sided battles may get closed early.
Extensions are 24 hours

Line Limit: 16 Minimum, 32 Maximum

Topic:




@MMLP @symetrik

[MMLP]

Petr Cech

[symetrik]

Cheque

[symetrik]

need an ext, sorry

[sral]

24 EXTENSION GRANTED ONLY, BEST I CAN DO GUYS!!!!

[MMLP]

Yeah that's fine,

Im ready though when you are @symetrik

[MMLP]

If life is a battle field then our worlds the jungle.
A timeless unravelling of man’s eternal struggle.
Stuck in our internal bubble but with the doors off its hinge,
its a universal coupling of morals and sin.
Under the influence of god who returns his support
It’s something within us, which is what we further explore..
Foots in the door but we purposely fall when the times are bad,
turning the corner onto a righteous path.
Those once idle hands begin raising our spirits,
I was the right hand man that was made in his image!
Occasionally hitting the bottle and chugging away,
only appreciating its limits when coming of age.
I’d drink you 6ft under the table, smoking coffin nail sized cigarettes.
Eventually put in my place though, when dicing with death.
Sobering thought, is that times of the essence and with alcohol on my breath.
To find god, was the almightiest blessing who would then propose me a quest
My divine intervention,
an open express ticket through this hatch to abandon all my sins.
Being approached with intent as I sat up from my binge.
Just thankful it was him as he started to tower aloft
then asking for forgiveness, with my love life now on the rocks.
Drowning my sorrows in a pool of alcoholic tears
sticking my neck out but it was my head now, that was gone through a host of beers.
In a hallway of smoke and mirrors as we both trundled along.
Once the smoking cleared, that’s when I knew something was off.
Realising that this couldn’t be god and not to hold my breath,
As soon all wonder was lost, strapped up in a hospice bed.
That’s when I truly lost my head and it was like I was seeing a ghost
With his features exposed for all to see. He reached for his cloak.
A firm grip on my shoulder, the grim reaper was shown talking to me!
Reminding me, “Death’s Door is always open and its now time to reap what you sow”

[symetrik]

I already told the other officer,
I sat still on the bar stool, watching the wait staff operate,
still with no appetite to gain back the proper weight.
still with my eyes on the grandfather clock that oscillates,
and still with an alibi that my cancerous lungs corroborate.
postulate whatever - I’ve been here with a drink in my hand,
a doctor’s note of demands and my stick in the sand.
I ain’t budging, even though you think I’m the man,
so stand up and move, I gotta be sick in the can.
When I got back,
there was mozzarella and mustard served on a plate.
I pushed the dish over the edge and heard it perfectly break,
then apologized to the barkeep and had the courage to fade
back to my home for another night of learning from pain.
The urgency wakes me,
and I find myself handcuffed and covered in hospital sheets,
laying in more piss than the amount that EMTs probably see.
I’m fairly confident I’m dead and have the cause to believe,
cuz my nephew is beating my chest.
”you fucking asshole, it’s not optional… breathe!”

[Soule]

Hmm. Okay.

MMLP. This was alright. A little underwhelming to be completely honest. I dunno if you rushed it just to show up or if you didn't take your opponent seriously but it feels like you just posted the rough draft and skipped the editing process because it's pretty straight forward and simple. Ending was a little too on the nose imo.

Sym. This was brief. So my feedback shall be too. The flow was a lot smoother / quicker paced than MMLP which made the read better but the concept needed to be stretched out more and needed more depth to it. It started and finished before anything could really take place.

It was basically technique vs flow. Didn't care for either concept. I'll give it to MMLP for having a cohesive beginning, middle and end.

MMLP

[Dominate]

MMLP -

If life is a battle field then our worlds the jungle.
A timeless unravelling of man’s eternal struggle.
Stuck in our internal bubble but with the doors off its hinge,
its a universal coupling of morals and sin.

Okay… it flows and rhymes well and gives a clue to the direction you’re taking with this. The second and fourth line here are solid. I’m not loving the first and third. The metaphors are slightly cliche and the internal bubble and doors off its hinge ones clash, IMO. Also world’s, not worlds.

Under the influence of god who returns his support
It’s something within us, which is what we further explore..
Foots in the door but we purposely fall when the times are bad,
turning the corner onto a righteous path.


Okay, adding a spiritual and introspective element. The rhyme schemes are good - I see you - but I think the content is suffering a little for it. It’s very heavy on abstraction and metaphor, which is okay, but I think it jumps around a bit too much and needs a clarifying statement or two. Or at least to stick with one metaphor for more than half a line.

Those once idle hands begin raising our spirits,
I was the right hand man that was made in his image!
Occasionally hitting the bottle and chugging away,
only appreciating its limits when coming of age.

This is better. More grounded and relatable. Introducing a speaker. Rhyme schemes still strong. Raising our spirits is a good wordplay idea here.

I’d drink you 6ft under the table, smoking coffin nail sized cigarettes.
Eventually put in my place though, when dicing with death.
Sobering thought, is that times of the essence and with alcohol on my breath.
To find god, was the almightiest blessing who would then propose me a quest

Drink 6ft under the table and coffin nail sized cigarettes were both dope.
As was sobering thought with alcohol on my breath.
I think the rhyme schemes are hurting more than helping here though. A simpler scheme with a more consistent rhythm and more natural word choices would be so much better.

My divine intervention,
an open express ticket through this hatch to abandon all my sins.
Being approached with intent as I sat up from my binge.
Just thankful it was him as he started to tower aloft
then asking for forgiveness, with my love life now on the rocks.

Yeah look. Honestly as the verse goes on I’m getting more frustrated by the adherence to the layered rhyme schemes.
The clarity and wording are suffering. It’s not worth it.

Drowning my sorrows in a pool of alcoholic tears
sticking my neck out but it was my head now, that was gone through a host of beers.
In a hallway of smoke and mirrors as we both trundled along.
Once the smoking cleared, that’s when I knew something was off.
Realising that this couldn’t be god and not to hold my breath,
As soon all wonder was lost, strapped up in a hospice bed.
That’s when I truly lost my head and it was like I was seeing a ghost
With his features exposed for all to see. He reached for his cloak.
A firm grip on my shoulder, the grim reaper was shown talking to me!
Reminding me, “Death’s Door is always open and its now time to reap what you sow”

Okayyy. So it wasn’t god but instead the reaper. Alright.

I didn’t think this was as good as your last round verse. Probably because addiction and substance abuse and death and all those fun things have been written about so much more than aspirational octopi, so it didn’t have the same novelty factor. Which isn’t your fault, but I think the topic last round played to your strengths more than this one did.



Sym -

I already told the other officer,
I sat still on the bar stool, watching the wait staff operate,
still with no appetite to gain back the proper weight.
still with my eyes on the grandfather clock that oscillates,
and still with an alibi that my cancerous lungs corroborate.

Strong opening. The scene is set, we learn the character has cancer and has lost a ton of weight, that he’s transfixed by the clock (bc how much time does he have left?) And there’s the intrigue of him being questioned for something by an officer. All this with impeccable flow, clean rhymes, and word choices that feel natural while still being interesting. I’m definitely fucking with it.


postulate whatever - I’ve been here with a drink in my hand,
a doctor’s note of demands and my stick in the sand.
I ain’t budging, even though you think I’m the man,
so stand up and move, I gotta be sick in the can.

Good character development here, you can feel the bitterness and detachment. “A doctor’s note of demands and my stick in the sand”. Stubbornly continuing in self destructive habits even in the face of rapidly deteriorating health.

When I got back,
there was mozzarella and mustard served on a plate.
I pushed the dish over the edge and heard it perfectly break,
then apologized to the barkeep and had the courage to fade
back to my home for another night of learning from pain.

I like the mozzarella and mustard detail. The last 1.5 lines here really capture the despair of the illness.

The urgency wakes me,
and I find myself handcuffed and covered in hospital sheets,
laying in more piss than the amount that EMTs probably see.
I’m fairly confident I’m dead and have the cause to believe,
cuz my nephew is beating my chest.
”you fucking asshole, it’s not optional… breathe!”

Okay the first line here is good. Handcuffs - we’re getting back to the law enforcement narrative that was set up at the start. But then… ???
The second line was clunky for me. The detail that he’s covered in piss is fine, that fits. I mean the wording. Pretty much everything else you’ve written here sounds so natural. This line is a really notable exception for me.
The final two would be okay, except then the verse just ends and…
??
Idk. I read it back a few times and I don’t think I’m missing anything. I don’t know if the missing details/storyline are on purpose to reflect the confusion of being blackout drunk and nearing the end or… what. I wanted to know more about what he was being questioned for and why his cancer gave him an alibi. Maybe the officer was metaphorical? I’m sorry if I’m missing something. I like to think I’m not a complete dummy, but if there was a deeper meaning there I didn’t get it.

Really good writing but it felt very much unfinished.


Well this is hard. Bar for bar I thought the quality of Sym’s writing was considerably better, but his verse felt so incomplete. Whereas MMLP explored his idea more and the verse felt finished. And he still had things I liked. It just wasn’t at the same level.
Ehhhh idk. I guess at the end of the day I enjoyed sym’s verse more, so

Vote Sym

[sral]

I’ve got you both in the magazine

Close battle

Come on people, let’s round this one out so we can get that finals popping!

[Headless Verseman]

i'll vote later

[Dominate]

@Headless Verseman @Etherwave @Scar @Inno @Mike Wrecka

[Scar]

Mmlp - I really dislike existential rambles, I didn’t like it when Sacrifice did it and I didn’t like it here. Not to mention you used tropes like alcohol and that weird Grim Reaper twist at the end, which is very much a trope in my book. There was a strange disconnect to this concept. You went on a tangent about life but then it turns out that it was for nothing as the dialogue wasn’t about/with god but death.

Symetrik - this was like an outline of a story. I did like the imagery packed in there and only wished it was more developed as a story. So another death shit. It was a boring undeveloped one at that.

Vote mmlp, as much as I hate existential diatribes, I felt mmlp was more developed. Although sym had better imagery, he did not do much with it besides killing the character in the end, something MMLP also did so a wash in that respect.

V/ mmlp

[Dominate]

Originally Posted by Dominate

@Headless Verseman @Etherwave @Inno @Mike Wrecka

Be cool guys

[sral]

COME ON GUYS, HELP US OUT!!!!

[Dominate]

@Headless Verseman @Etherwave @Inno @Mike Wrecka

Don’t make me say rude things about your mothers.

[Etherwave]

I don't do tournaments anymore I said this. Good Luck though!

[Etherwave]

Also can't believe this is still open for votes I came to see who won wowwww

[Etherwave]

Ok ok. They both felt a little rushed. But it seems like mmlp got more into his story after a freewrite entrance.

Symetrik sounded a little forced in his verse.

Imma have to give my last vote to MMLP cause I'm not sure why Symetrik started at the end of a story. Why he was like this? I actually might want to hear more. But it just wasn't enough

In a hallway of smoke and mirrors as we both trundled along.
Once the smoking cleared, that’s when I knew something was off. I did enjoy this line from mmlp though. Great battle guys both pieces have elements of poetry and storytelling and I personally loved the topic here !

Gl!