Week 5 - Mike Wrecka (1-3) vs. Adonis (2-1) - MIKE WRECKA WINS 7-6

[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 all in one post.

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








Good Luck @Adonis

[Adonis]

~Blood Orange~






People say it's calm in the eye of the storm,
Ironic... I write so be warned,

I'll ignite and dethrone with a strike of these poems,
Breathe life with the ink I scribe into form,
Sure, now it's calm, but before the sun boiled each pond,
Just imagine being def when they sound the alarm...
Clueless til warnings were just an afterthought,
Oblivious to pain that noosed a world a knot,
Slipped her jungle rot while burning her trees...
Those Fiery limbs and boiling skin... Bursting with ease,
Yet, not a sound heard from broken ears,
No shrieking lungs gasping, only dried tears,
Rivers dissipate as bridges sit ablaze,
Crackling away the only paths to escape,
The math don't equate, you're a born mute,
Screaming “help!” in sign won't compute,
Your shrills most confused, that inaudible twinge,
You see a burning bush but no sacrament,
Screams captured in, no relief for deformed,
Human corpse scorned, charred to which it's born,
Made of ash and returned to original state,
The ozone chipped away... Scalding at a critical rate,
A burst of light absorbs a face, such scorching hue,
A reddish gold entwined leaving humankind to bid adieu,
Vibrant and gleaming, the sight a virile view,
But the colorblind only see the shade of doom,
Just imagine this event. The tragedy’s beautifully divine,
Earth dies on the vine but the rose bloomed in sunshine,
I for one, thankful, what comes next, the fatal sunset,
Burst of rays set ablaze without tasteful regret,
Yet, all I saw was the apocalypse...
Puckering her final sun kiss.

[Mike Wrecka]

the bubbling cauldron of lava sat atop a mountain top,
natives prayed to the god for a bounty of countless crops,
they surrounded then dropped a thousand seeds in the slop,
and this continued until the seasons gave them a reason to stop,
but they still needed a lot, on the rock bleeding and shocked,
covered in ash until their lungs ceased and breathing was blocked,
some thought of leaving to swap this misfortune of drought,
but whenever they headed towards the route, plants started to sprout,
this made some grab their hearts and just start screaming it out,
praising the god, while feeling guilty for ever believing these doubts,
see they always stayed devout after he put food in their mouth,
so in return they sacrificed every single thing they had in the house,
from a hand crafted satin blouse to the cots they slept on,
until the realized that the best of their precious possessions was gone,
so the cycle continued, over and over in this cyclical nature,
leaving the villagers famished and asking for continuous favors,
because when the crops grew, they were sold for new things in the home,
which left them malnourished and completely alone,
with no where else to turn, they went back to the god,
feeding him sacrifices while saying prayers in the fog,
but the volcano became angry and started to erupt,
lava began spewing in every direction all so abrupt,
whatever the magma touched was destroyed, all that had been given,
until there wasn't a single crop or person in that village left living,


a few years later a study conducted brought scientist to a table,
where they determined that the constant fuel left the volcano unstable,
believing the fable led to their own demise while looking for wealth,
so in the end the only thing that they sacrificed was themselves

[Zen]

Adonis- Just last week I said I've never been disappointed in one of your verses before, but I don't know about this one. Allot of your rhymes were forced to me. poems/form/pond/alarm and twinge/sacrament lines really stuck out to me. Forcing them like that really fucked with the flow and starting this piece off with those first few lines really fucked up the whole piece in my opinion. The content was pretty dope. Felt like it coulda been written to the sun topic last week in my battle. Overall, I was expecting much more but I just feel a little let down by this piece.

Mike- This was pretty dope. I liked it. The flow of this was very good especially in the first few opening lines and that set the tempo nicely for the rest of the verse. I felt it fell off in a few lines but it picked up shortly thereafter so it wasn't much of a problem. Concept wise this was pretty original and the ending was a dayum moment. I figured the volcano would erupt and kill them, but the last line settled the verse perfectly. Very nice.

V/ Mike

[Certain]

Adonis: This was a pretty difficult topic, and I liked your approach. But I thought you could have done a bit more or a bit less with it. The apocalypse conclusion might seem ultimate, but you didn't make your narrator a particularly active figure in it, instead taking the approach of being more of an observer. If you're going to be the Sun coming down to burn the Earth, have some fun with the personificaiton. Or, on the flip side, you could have pushed the story to the background a bit and given us more of a complete character. A bunch of very slanted rhymes didn't help, and as I said last week, that would be less of an issue if you consistently used multiple-syllable and multiple-word rhymes. You had some in here, but it was inconsistent.

Anyway, last week you said you wanted people to be more specific with issues in your verses, so I'm going to do that. I can't stress enough that this is nothing more than me trying to be constructive because I've noticed a pattern in your verses. You have this broken-gammar shorthand that can be difficult to read. There are times when I simply don't know what you're trying to say because the words don't function properly together. I'll give you a few examples:

"Oblivious to pain that noosed a world a knot": What I think you're trying to do is use "noosed" as a synonym for "tied," which doesn't work completely, especially with "knot" being the indirect object. But because you're missing the word "into" after "world," this really stopped me even more than the loose definition of "noosed."

"No shrieking lungs gasping": Shrieking lungs can't be gasping. When you're shrieking, you're letting out air. So then I think that perhaps you meant, "No shrieking, lungs gasping," as in, the person was trying to breath so much he couldn't shriek. But I'm really not sure, and the context clues don't make it clear.

"Crackling away the only paths to escape": "Crackling" can mean two things: causing a rapid popping sound, like a fire, or giving a sense of great tension. Maybe this was a typo for "cracking," or maybe it was an attempt to draw the metaphor of fire crackling as it burns away a path.

I'm sure I sound too literal. I'm an editor, though, and taking words for their literal meanings is part of my job. In each of those (and more) intances, I was forced to stop for a second while reading to determine what you meant. Slowing down the reader isn't a good idea. (I made the same mistake, intentionally because I'm an overthinking fool, this week.) Now, I've liked a lot of your writing in the past. But these problems are consistent, and coupled with the intentionally abstract images of your verse, they feel even more difficult to handle here. You have these very strong images in your head, but it's important, particularly in a competitive atmosphere, to relay them clearly. More natural wording would go a long way for most of your verses.

Mike Wrecka: I have to say that I don't think the science in your conclusion really works. But you tell stories with this folksy style that makes it easy to overlook stuff like that, almost like one of those uncles at the reunion who adds as a tag to every story, "Man, I couldn't make this up if I tried." This verse felt a bit rushed, and your wording was a bit sloppy in parts (like "atop a mountain top"), but I liked the story and the ending, despite my skepticism. It needed more emotion, an issue that's not always easy to handle in third-person narratives. But it was creative.

Vote: Mike Wrecka

[Certain]

Mike Wrecka leads 2-0.

[Vulgar]

Adonis I thought this was a sick verse. No doubt, you make full use of your vintage style: an evenly cultivated rhymestock using some form of stand alone concept to illustrate a point. In your diction, something is always like 0.05% off, which doesn't give me the best clarity, but nonetheless, the 'homemade' quality of your work is incontestable. I liked the language and the approach this week.

My favorite part: "Rivers dissipate as bridges sit ablaze,
Crackling away the only paths to escape,"

Mike Wrecka Wasn't feeling this one tbh. Seemed like you were stricken with writing constipation because it read like you were struggling to churn out something fluid and convincing. My verse was terrible this week so I'm not one to talk. Just thought this wasn't engaging; I had a hard time caring about where the story was going. I think you should read more fiction and get into a storytelling steez.

Vote - Adonis

[PancakeBrah]

Wish I could give in depth break downs but I'm relatively busy. With procrastinating.

Adonis -

Another centered verse *furiously makes jerk off motion*. Anyways, this was okay. The language and rhythm of the piece, in my read, was better than the one you wrote last week. There's still some clunky wording here and there, and a few overly simplistic rhymes, but overall this was an improvement. This line in particular

"A burst of light absorbs a face, such scorching hue,
A reddish gold entwined leaving humankind to bid adieu,"

was really enjoyable. This is a specific instance where a 'simple' rhyme doesn't detract from the reader's experience because the bar is chock full of imagery without being superfluous. It just rolls off the tongue and paints a scene. 'such scorching hue' was great wording. There was a running theme of handicapped people (person?) experiencing the apocalypse and how they would interpret or deal with it differently which was sort of nifty but you didn't make it the main point of your verse and as such it feels like a incomplete idea, a strand that leads the reader to a conclusion that doesn't exist. I thought your take on the topic this week was okay, but wonder if using a second picture, albeit in the same color as the topic, isn't a bit of a cop out. I think this verse would've been more subtle if you had actually just used the topic image and allowed the reader to fill in the blanks instead of hitting him/her over the head with it. Ending was okay. Overall, a solid piece that needed a little more fine tuning.

MW -

Same critique I had for Adonis in using a second picture applies here.

A bit uneven here. Your wording is redundant in a few spots;

"so the cycle continued, over and over in this cyclical nature,"

"lava sat atop a mountain top,"

Also the use of 'prayer' or 'praying' a couple times seemed redundant. Some of your language was pretty basic as well. "but the volcano became angry" could work if you had set the piece in a different tone, maybe from the point of view of a villager, but as a piece of third person wording this was a little cringeworthy. The story itself left a lot to be desired. I think if you had expanded this piece and given more character to the villagers and more detail to the 'cycle' itself then the twist ending would've hit a bit harder. As it stands now, this definitely feels like a rushed verse. I know you said you didn't really have time to write for this and that you signed out for next week, so I assume this is the case. I know you can write to a much higher level than this.

v/ Adonis

[Geno]

Voting right now

I read both verses. Liked each
And not to seem uninterested, just at the studio drunk rite now
Hopefully no one considers this a biased vote. And I even told mike the same shit in a pm cause I wasn't gonna vote on this battle at all but he asked me to due to lack of votes.. but I think mike won

V-mike
Take it or leave it. Sry for lack of detail. Even told mike I wouldn't vote for him if he didn't deserve it it

Which any admin can check on I'm pretty sure, now that I think of it

Great battle though. Again, sry

[Adonis]

Originally Posted by Genocide

Voting right now

I read both verses. Liked each
And not to seem uninterested, just at the studio drunk rite now
Hopefully no one considers this a biased vote. And I even told mike the same shit in a pm cause I wasn't gonna vote on this battle at all but he asked me to due to lack of votes.. but I think mike won

V-mike
Take it or leave it. Sry for lack of detail. Even told mike I wouldn't vote for him if he didn't deserve it it

Which any admin can check on I'm pretty sure, now that I think of it

Great battle though. Again, sry

I respect your opinion and vote.. but I do believe a simple why would suffice

All you said is you liked both but voted for mike because he he asked you to and he deservered it. A slight elaboration would justify a vote. To be forward, I'm not questioning anyone's charaacter. Just require more geno


http://netcees.co/showthread.php?t=26805

http://netcees.co/showthread.php?p=1...d=1#post191976

http://netcees.co/showthread.php?p=1...d=1#post191999

[Geno]

I can respect that. Strike my vote then, for the record. Just can't quite elaborate rite now.

Sry to both

[King Ra.]

From what I read thus far this week, this match up seemed a bit weak conceptually, but even so, this is an either way selection. Adonis, imagery was okay, loved some of your descriptions which I felt were your strong point, but as Zen pointed out earlier, some of your lines seemed out of place. So it definitely messed up the flow, but not too much in my opinion. You told an end of the world type of story, and I felt you could have came up with a better way to tell the story, maybe stronger imagery, because it lacks a bit of flavor. Mike Wrecka, I feel your piece is pretty much around the same level as Adonis. Conceptually it could have been better and Pancake mentioned some solid points. Your ending doesn't tie in much with the story you told so I feel you missed out on having a solid concept and story overall. Story wise you I would say were slightly better than Adonis, but you weren't as descriptive or had any really strong imagery. I just liked your approach story wise better than Adonis. This could go either way really, I have to practically look at all aspects because you both are pretty close here, but one does stand out slightly. Although I feel Mike's approach was better, I felt his story wasn't well rounded, and the ending, as interesting as it was, doesn't feel complete. Adonis' approach wasn't very impressive, but I feel his imagery/descriptions give him the edge and he managed to put together a more complete piece by a bit.

MVGT: Adonis.

[Angkor]

Adonis - So i honestly thought this was about the desecration and destruction of the environment spoken in the voice of mother earth?? probably off lol but i dig it. I specifically thought this segmengt was interesting and ultimately what lead me to think the way i did (this piece being somewhat of an environmental commentary):

The math don't equate, you're a born mute,
Screaming “help!” in sign won't compute,

illustrating how Earth, it her own way, is screaming for help in the form of global events...however those too are sometimes lost on people. Techncially speaking, it was good. I don't really have any complaints in that dept tbh. Good solid effort, my man.


Mike Wrecka - I can't help but parallel this verse to the story of Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius? I'm only minutely familiar with that story but i like how you brought a concept to that historical setting. I suppose the theme here was cycle of violence? maybe not lol. maybe the self destructive characteristic of greed. That maybe it. The flow was great and like Adonis, i think you were pretty sound in that area of writing.

Vote - this is possibly the toughest one this week. Both had a very interesting creative takes on the topic; Sharing somewhat similar theme of destruction. But i think i will go with my gut instinct and vote Adonis due to a more engaging verse, in terms of what i'm looking for. But in all honesty...He only won my vote by .005% Nice solid battle here.

[Inno]

Tough

On one hand mike setvthe scene and imagery very nicely. While still
Maintaining a story that progressed well. Language was bumpy here and
There..could of used more range with your wording..but thats just me.

On the other hand adonis set the mood with raw emotion and a great
Poetic tone. Imagery wasnt far behind and his story held its own aswell.
Dope concept tbh..great creativity shown there. .always dig your angles.

Overall.

I got adonis...thought bringing out emotion makes sense...red..rage...its emotion
Great concept and angle....mike dropped fire but Adonis burned it down.

Ad

[breathless]

Vote - Mike

Mike, I really liked the angle you took on this, not positive if you were alluding to an oracle of Delphi type scenario with her prophecies actuallt being the product of breathing natural gas in her seer chambers, but regardless of that it was still a nice piece.

Fave lines
some thought of leaving to swap this misfortune of drought, but whenever they headed towards the route, plants started to sprout, this made some grab their hearts and just start screaming it out, praising the god, while feeling guilty for ever believing these doubts,

Adonis
This was pretty clever, if I understood right, comparing the color to an emotion of angst at being colorblind, but the way you worded some good termed things was awkwardly terrible.
Really liked
Just imagine being def when they sound the alarm...
Clueless til warnings were just an afterthought,

But then with this...

Oblivious to pain that noosed a world a knot,
Slipped her jungle rot while burning her trees...
Those Fiery limbs and boiling skin... Bursting with ease,

It sorta sounds like English isn't your native language

[YDK]

This was closer than I originally felt tbh, I had Adonis winning this but after a reread I really caught mikes flow and the wording was good. Adonis you had a very original take an I really wanted ta vote for you but with it being a bit shorter than I guess I wish it was I got Mike taking with the last stanza adding just enough to add the twist and boost my enjoyment slightly more in the end. Very close battle and great drops from both, but vote mike

[patrown]

adonis - you had a lot of good phrases here, i enjoyed the majority of your verse. i'll just be blunt. you take away from a great verses impact by starting out talking about attacking with poems, etc. where does that fit in with a person who can't hear the sun exploding? it doesn't. anyway. i like your concept here. it felt like you truly wanted to get a point across, the state of your characters hearing capability. two or three lines, perhaps that gave the character a name, could have helped us understand that at the beginning much more effectively and let the story progress unhindered. i had a vague feeling there's a meaning to this, but i can't settle on anything solid. had some good imagery,

No shrieking lungs gasping, only dried tears,
Rivers dissipate as bridges sit ablaze,
Crackling away the only paths to escape,

and..

Earth dies on the vine but the rose bloomed in sunshine,
I for one, thankful, what comes next, the fatal sunset,

and i just enjoyed how that last bar flowed. "the fatal sunset".. powerful words. sounds catchy too. i think some more imagery related to the apocalypse could have given you the victory this week. or more character development. good verse though. enjoyed it.

mike wrecka - solid story telling. you took the concept, explained it, stuck to it, did well with that, and then gave us a good twist. that's all i ask for, really. phrases like "over and over," "all so," "see they," are a part of your style, and i enjoy them while at the same time.. i know removing phrases like that during the editing process can be a factor in the equation of your verses effectiveness. but for now, i think it's working for you. i wasn't bothered by atop a mountain top. but this line bothered me..

this made some grab their hearts and just start screaming it out,

i think its the "and just" part of the line that got me the most. i think removing 'and just', and 'it,' would have made that sentence sound better. that's the only part of the verse i would have changed. the pieces entirety stuck to a tone that denounces materialism, that i couldn't ignore. although you didn't truly complete the metaphor, i like what you did this week.

/v mike wrecka - the whole verse came together in the end. very well. i don't feel like it needed any additional content, so i gave him the v. two great verses. very good battle.

[e11even]

Adonis- A beautifully grim, well measured and written poetic piece. The descriptive value versus the overall size of the verse was pretty damn good. Even IF you never said apocalypse, I would have already had that inkling from your description:

Those Fiery limbs and boiling skin... Bursting with ease,

No shrieking lungs gasping, only dried tears,
Rivers dissipate as bridges sit ablaze,
Crackling away the only paths to escape,

Nice drop.

Mike- You packaged irony well, my friend. Your nursery-rhythm flow carried the story 3/4 of the verse, then that extra tidbit at the end tied it all in perfectly. Really surprising sum up of the story and it put everything else where it had to be. Good Job.

This was badly worded though: "so the cycle continued, over and over in this cyclical nature," <-- i remember when i used to write like that.

Good battle guys. I was actually surprised to see two drops so similar in theme with as broad a topic as colors are. I liked both verses for very differing reasons, and really, thats what makes battles more memorable tbh. All in all though, I think the tighter display and more descriptive nature of the verse gets a dub this time around. MVGT Adonis. Good week guys.

[Certain]

Adonis leads 6-5.

Genocide's vote does not count.

[Frank]

adonis..

Rivers dissipate as bridges sit ablaze,
Crackling away the only paths to escape,

Made of ash and returned to original state,
The ozone chipped away... Scalding at a critical rate,

some old english through out this verse casted a fancy aura. The flow of the verse was consistent with a image of a feather in a ear. Wasn't your best work Was an interesting read. I wasn't particularly fond of the cadence, rather off putting.

Mike Wrecka.

Well done. You opened the show with a high array, caliber of multies, but they dissipated (word of the battle) into simpler, one word rhyming. The flow of the story didn't suffer too much, but I did notice the sudden drop off in technical writing. This was that humpback of notre dame shit you be on.

so the cycle continued, over and over in this cyclical nature,
leaving the villagers famished and asking for continuous favors,

dope wording there

the 4 bar outro capped off the cool story. some of your storys have been about dinosaurs, iron man, and now the lava tribe - a very masculine childrens book writer you are becoming.

my votes goes to mike wrecka,