Week 2 - Pancakebrah (0-0) vs. King Ra (0-0) - KING RA. WINS 5-3

[Mike Wrecka]

Season 2

Rules

Verse Due Date - Thursday 23:59 PST

Voting Deadline - Sunday 23:59 PST

Line Limits - 16 - 48 Max can be higher if both agree

Voting - Must vote on 3 battles and post voting links in this thread , preferably edit it in the check in

If you don't vote on 3 battle you will be given a loss
If you lose by votes and don't vote on other battles you receive a one week suspension


Topic

When you win, nothing hurts. - Joe Namath




Good Luck @PancakeBrah @King Ra.

[PancakeBrah]

Letter #4/Imagination
When you win, nothing hurts.

Letter #4
"Nikole,

Your attention wanes. The last three of these I spelled in vain,
left unresponsive towards your weathervane.
Tepid, ensconced in my own predicate nonsense,
I sift through your 'Okay' and 'K' menagerie posits,
perched and so lofted,
to find a glimmer of chance. I'm Godless.
I'm rereading periods and pauses. Editing my myriad of clauses,
taking your speech as the gospel,
and looking for meaning in the brief responses I'm lost in.
Do you recognize my opining? I'm not trying to drink.
Or mention drink in my rhymes. But you make me blink,
and sink into wine. And recall those past plotted lines
of our teens in my blacked out rewinds.
I can't outlast you.
A casted shell over a meditative yolk
eventually breaks. So I meant every sentiment spoke,
every message, mention, insensitive joke,
negative blow, and sentence I wrote,
so long as it garnered a reaction,
even some menial poke,
to see for one more time our residue's glow.
Even as a bluer flame. Just to know you still knew my name"

Imagination
Every word's a success.
We lay in rest, my hands in tresses,
no longer restless.
This is how it works.
I opined and pained,
and through the sleight of hand of my refrains
I feel the touch of skin,
supple, thin. My worth, a forgotten apple rot,
is gone,
You're back, and the pain is an afterthought.

[King Ra.]

I introduce you to the world of....


"Duel."


.... nothing hurts."


Devastation. Catastrophe. Admiring the casualties,
wiping the blood off casually. Succeeding redemption.
Blasphemy fills her veins. The rain enhances her power,
streamlines to her brain: the start of the deadliest hour.
A counter. Dagger. Chain. Unlimited weapons of choice.
He cowers, staggers, sways.... another enemy slayed.
No matter the waves, assaults. Fire, grenades tossed.
Her serenades a slicker blade. Chests split. Heads off.
Her petite frame is bait. A deception, a lie & a hoax.
The darkness within awakes & and brings fright to her foes.
A reflection of her cunning wits rocking a Dracula cloak.
Her Sephiroth's sword stunning hiss deals immaculate blows.
Silence looms. Death's second hand. Amid the smoke & the fumes.
The stench of human carcass; bodies laid out without being exhumed.
She stands in the midst, amiss the tragedy laid at her feet.
She never quivers from the sight, she never stares at defeat.
The few cuts are no cause for worry, neither the few bullets lodged in.
"That Gravedigger will regret ever building my coffin".
She scoffs at the thought. No man ever gave her the credit due.
Imagine the looks on their faces if they caught a glimpse of this dreaded view!
The wind howled in celebration. Her sword beamed, dripping blood.
Her adrenaline peaked- the fury inside ready to spread like a flood.
She sensed their presence: 3 giant ogres wielding axes, closing in.
"This'll be easy," she thought to herself. "Of course it is. Every time."



"When you win,....

[e11even]

holy bologna Batman!! The powers at work here humble my fingertips as I type this. Welcome back, Ra.

Cake- the canvas was full of color. Very well written... a calm reflection with the build up to the now. I saw a few meanings that could swing this piece in a few different lyrical and conceptual directions. On the surface it sounds like a domestic relationship, but a lil deeper still it sounds more like a letter to your appreciative audience or, perhaps, fans of your work. Seems like a homage, due to a fact that being seen and appreciated keeps you lyrically active? Not sure. But what i do know is this piece was well orchestrated, but a lil melancholy and laid back, as opposed to a more energetic approach. Great showing, and even greater display of talent. Props.

Ra- This had the energy and approach of Gladiator. Definitely a more in-your-face approach, which i appreciate in some cases. You kept a decent pacing in storytelling to where it didn't fill much like you just threw shit in there to help the lyrical makeup of the whole piece. I liked how you setup your concept and made it read like I just walked i on this scene. It was fresh. I kinda wished there were more turns in the plots though, because if this went any longer it would have lost steam. Great read. Hopefully you'll stick around so we can see more of what you may have been known for before you left. Good Job.

Overall, you both didn't seem to slack as far as concept and scheme, rhyme, and syllable quality. You both had pretty decently prepared pieces and didn't set yourselves up to lose. These types of battles are awesome to read, and very hard to judge. That said, for me it came down to mood manipulation in the pieces, whereas Cake's was a more quiet reflection, compared to the bloody roar of adrenaline i got from Ra's piece. Both of you did great. MVGT King Ra

[breathless]

Pancake, this had an awesome Dilated Peoples type feel to it, the words chosen for rhyming where pretty unorthodox but also spot on, not easy to do as much as you did, commendable
But then the switch up at the end I didn't really understand, it was like, scorned forlorn lover fuck this bitch letter style, then I dunno? Dude was actually schizo, strapped to a bed imagining the whole ordeal of writing the letter, or he tried to kill himself and the sight of nikole checking on him in the hospital made him happily painless, or was nikole his asylum nurse?
Regardless though, I don't get the winning part of it


Ra, like Vag said, this instantly put me in some 300 type shit, it was like reading a middle chapter of some alternate universe roman war goddess saga, I wanna hear this on an instrumental made entirely of sword clangs, horse hooves and death cries, seriously dude, top-notch word wizardry...
A real nice read overall, but it lacked a beginning and end, and much depth


With a more complete story and creative style...
VOTE - Pancake

[Certain]

PancakeBrah: I've read this verse at least four times because of how silky smooth it all is. You convey your emotions through images, but it never feels opaque or vague. This is what subtlety is supposed to be. The natural diction flows directly into the cadence, helped by slick rhyming. The big difference between our writing is that mine usually feels cynical and jaded while yours feels sullen and contemplative, like the Violent Femmes vs. Belle & Sebastian. Anyway, I loved the letter part of this and thought the idea of the imagination part of it was good. But the execution was a bit off on that. At first, I considered suggesting adding a fourth stanza, but I think that would seriously cut into the subtlety of it. Anyway, whether this was a love poem to the board or not, I liked the theme a lot. The details of "rereading periods and pauses" and "I'm not trying to drink. Or mention drink in my rhymes." were great. By the way, I'm going to call attention to a really beautiful piece of language here and wonder partially if it was intentional because it seemed profound: "I'm not trying to drink" is such a completely different phrase than "I'm trying not to drink," and it fits so much better. The drinking is just what happens, an inevitability. That was an important moment for me in this verse, which seemed to focus on inevitabilities.

King Ra.: It was really startling to jump from PancakeBrah's subtleties into this in-your-face approach, but I liked the jarring shift. The patterned stop-and-start feel of the first eight lines really set that mood and built on the content well, but you were smart enough to abandon that style at the moment when it was going to feel grating and obnoxious. The story itself felt a little too much like a character sketch without a plot. A truncated version of this would have made a great introduction to a larger story. But there are line limits and reader attention spans in a league such as this, and those need to be considered. You pulled off the character sketch because you weren't overly redundant and you had some very good phrasing. "Death's second hand. Amid the smoke & the fumes," was really nice. You didn't force your rhymes, but part of that was because your rhymes were relatively straightforward. More creativity in lyricism would have been appreciated. The open-ended finish was a wise choice for the structure of your verse. We're expected at that point to know that she wins the fight. I kept thinking of the titular protagonist from the Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots." That's the kind of story I really admire, and while you created a similar character and did it well, your story wasn't as fleshed out or real. Ultimately, that's what cost you this excellent battle.

Vote: PancakeBrah

[King Ra.]

Links:

http://www.netcees.co/showthread.php?t=21763
http://www.netcees.co/showthread.php?t=21775
http://www.netcees.co/showthread.php?t=21762

[Objective]

Pancake: You present the usual steez in your shit. Not your greatest work by far but it's definitely cool in my book, the concept was cool and in some way it's relatable. The last paragraph really puts the topic given in the spotlight and everything makes sense.

King Ra: Back from the dead! At last! And it's a pleasure to read your shit again. It got great flow and I can sense the feel of victory after a long battle and how nothing hurts with this one. However, I didn't really like the Sepiroth's sword thing, it seemed out of place to me. Beside of that shit was cool and I kinda visioned some kind of animè style thing in my head as I kept reading. Could perhaps have talked more about her agenda or at least given your character a better story, why she's fighting etc. I'd like to know more about her, but in regards of the topic it was on point and I enjoyed it.

Vote: I think it's pretty close. I really dug King Ra's atmosphere in his entire verse and how he wrapped up the topic given, I could definitely feel what he got going. Pancake Brah had a creative plot as well, but I felt it lacked something.. Can't really put my finger on it, perhaps it's the fact that I didn't really know what the issues between the main character and Nikole is all about, some more story would definitely bring more justice to it.. Ye.

Overall I thought King Ra had a more interesting and entertaining story overall. With a better story or more info about what the ish was all about Pancake would have taken my vote. Decent battle (as opposed to what I know both of you can write).

[Adonis]

I got King winning this one but it was close as shit

Both took a completely different routes and both were extremely enjoyable with superb writing. Pancake, your entire verse had mounds of emotion, I could see the sad man reading the letter with tears and shit. The one part I didn't like was the Drink, sink rhyme scheme. That was mad simple and just was overshadowed by everything else. king, dope description. I could see the hero, looked like the chick from kick ass with different hair. I think you used the topic a bit better as yours was clearly about winning where Cake's was winning in the end but really about remorse and guilt and hurt.

Dope battle

King by a centimeter.

[Vulgar]

Pan - Cool stuff. At first it reeked of instant messenger emo but upon reflection you were able to command a handful of emotions that were far from the norm. Relatable since most of us amongst the 2013 Facebook generation converse with women online. Good language manipulation; ending was cool beans.

King - Interesting construction, first off. A fantasy duel scene in an Un-Warcraft way is a welcome addition to any setting, so I give you points for originality. Execution-wise I wouldn't say you killed this. Vampire Hunter D imagery splatter wasn't that illuminating after the middle of the verse, and then you cut to the chase/conclusion. I just felt there could've been more meat, more food for thought before the final wrap-up statement.

Vote - Pancake

[Frank]

PankcakeBra
Opinning? As in conjunction of Opinion + opening. Blurred lines there. 'Sink into wine' smooth transition there. Casted shell over meditative yolk??/? you drinking cappuccino or whiskey when you write this shit? mellow dramatic sap, trudged through it - even with the momentous finale of dwindling mayhem, which still glided to a complete stop instead of splashing. Art to such daintyness, verse was so soft it couldn't hurt a fly, in context with the concept given it could be a mechanism or simply a blunder.

Keithz A.I.M
Barbaric tone , not too keen , but savage in language, not finess, more methmethodical. The rhyming was was hit or miss but the brutality aspect attacked the topic head on.grid iron toughness to this verse that joe Nameth wouldve co-signed

Vote - Keithz Aim

[NYCSPITZ]

i had a huge breakdown for this but accidentally deleted. Shame, I went in deep with both. Truth is AIMZ elevated a lot from what I remember, I enjoyed his verse and while cake's had some great crescendos his ending rang hollow to me because the victory was clearly a transient ego boost based on a volatile and fragile psyche. AIMZ ended more emphatically and more in line with the topic imo. I would analyze it in detail again but I'm not a fucking 40k per year typist!!!!

V/ AIMZ