Round 2: 1. El Pancake vs. 9. Mike Wrecka \\ El Pancake wins 8-(-4)

[Certain]

Welcome to Round 2!

The Basics

Check-ins are not required but are always appreciated.

Verses are due Thursday, Sept. 4 at 11:59 p.m. PT. THERE ARE NO EXTENSIONS.

Votes are due Sunday, Sept. 7 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

Four votes are required from each competitor. For each missing vote, one vote will be deducted. Post proof of voting here.

Verses may not exceed 10 lines. If the length of a writer's lines is called into question, the standard will be 15 words per line, and verses of more than 150 words will be disqualified or required to be shortened.

Standard writing and voting rules are in effect. No biting. No recycling. Votes must be explained. No editing verses after the first vote or the verses deadline. Any other issues will be resolved using Art of Writing League Season 3 rules as the basis.


Topic


Just After Sunset


Good luck, @El Pancake and @Mike Wrecka.

[PancakeBrah]

Just After Sunset

The rush of ; flush veins, a dose of medical pills
on a couch colored ‘1970’s film’. Chartreuse and brown.
Holding steady, the thrill. Our heads, cumulus clouds.
The semblance of touch, brushing of flesh tuned in and out
until nothing is left, but the pangs in our fulcrum;
nerve endings the twang of a folk strum, vibrating a drug buzz,
reviving our duldrums. Skin pops, pinpricks, in an instant
the dual rush, in a void so alone we could hear a pin drop in the distance.
Both what is and what isn’t. The skyline aglow, moments are still,
Acting like the sun won’t rise again, but knowing it will.

[Mike Wrecka]

all the years I've spent toiling, honing my craft, to overcome those foes hoping I would choke and then crash,
means nothing to the people that are probing my past, but my legacy is golden as the ocean is vast,
so you must be joking I laugh, I was chosen to draft, when I won the championship I left them frozen, aghast ,
but now its like their memory has been broken and smashed, while Certain critics try to diminish, bringing up the notion of graphs,
see your devotion to math, will only provoke emotion and wrath, you have awoken a mass, that when put in motion will expose this commotion as trash,
so stay calm while I embalm with an adam bomb, explosions will blast, your devotion to harass has lost you any notion to last,
so I ride off into the sunset soaked in the blood of the brash

[Pent uP]

Pancake - I had you as a strong favorite to win this tourney from the get go and this verse is a perfect example of why. Your knack for characterizing so efficiently gives you an edge due to the length limit in the earlier rounds. I appreciate how the verses ended, it was like breaking the 4th wall moment that eclipsed the rest of the verse perfectly.

Mike - I was wondering when someone would utilize the line limit for some technical flair. Loved it. My biggest grievance here is it felt like a cheap attempt at working with the topic. The verse itself was one dimensional, effective at getting a point across but not much that was engaging

Vote Pancake

[trap]

Pancake wrote a interesting dilemma filled drama in 10 lines. Props for that. Vivid imagery as well. Mikes rhyme scheme was really good. I read it twice just to figure out what it was about. I'm not sure how I feel about it. This was tied together very loosely, if at all. Like you just started free flowing and went shit, gotta relate this to the topic, let me throw it in here in this last bar. It's kind of a shame because it is well structured.

Vote, Pancake.

[Split]

[QUOTE=El Pancake;396116]Just After Sunset

The rush of ; flush veins, a dose of medical pills
on a couch colored ‘1970’s film’. Chartreuse and brown.
Holding steady, the thrill. Our heads, cumulus clouds.
>> Cool. Two addicts soaring.

The semblance of touch, brushing of flesh tuned in and out
until nothing is left, but the pangs in our fulcrum;
nerve endings the twang of a folk strum, vibrating a drug buzz,
reviving our duldrums.

>> didn't like fulcrum or doldrums.

Skin pops, pinpricks, in an instant
the dual rush, in a void so alone we could hear a pin drop in the distance.
Both what is and what isn’t. The skyline aglow, moments are still,
Acting like the sun won’t rise again, but knowing it will.


>>what a goddamn finale. The "pinpricks" to "pin drop" was unreal, like synesthesia. Tied together the audio and visual tropes of the verse perfectly.

Thought the idea of the drug trip weaving together sound and imagery mirrored your description perfectly, (1970s couch, folk twang, skin pops, pinpricks, pin drops) and then the verse's tone escalated to match the harshness of the descriptions.

Originally Posted by Mike Wrecka

all the years I've spent toiling, honing my craft, to overcome those foes hoping I would choke and then crash,
means nothing to the people that are probing my past, but my legacy is golden as the ocean is vast,
so you must be joking I laugh, I was chosen to draft, when I won the championship I left them frozen, aghast ,
>> good schemes


but now its like their memory has been broken and smashed, while Certain critics try to diminish, bringing up the notion of graphs,
see your devotion to math, will only provoke emotion and wrath, you have awoken a mass, that when put in motion will expose this commotion as trash,
so stay calm while I embalm with an adam bomb, explosions will blast, your devotion to harass has lost you any notion to last,
so I ride off into the sunset soaked in the blood of the brash

Mike wrecka wrote a flex with rhymed together good, possibly in response to the Lars thing/ mentioned Certain. Think his word choice was more on point than Pancakes (no "bad" words) but he didn't leave much for the reader to digest. Motivation might've waned or wanted to go the straightforward route to flank Pancake's deeply intricate thingy


Had Pancake winning with a story and great rhymes/ schemes of his own. Good battle, but wish MW had come with a more duly fledged verse, Cake's just had lasting appeal

[Soulstice]

El pancake - I liked this a lot. 1970s film was one of the most creative descriptors I've read in the tournament. Same with cumulus clouds. The wording of the piece would be over the top if each word wasn't so descriptive and gave to the color of the piece. Until the ending when you used your most normal language which seemed to predict a gray scale environment when the sober mornings come, which contrasted well against the colorful drug manufactured environment of false happiness. Only thing you didn't touch on enough were the feelings of the characters. Acting like the sun won't rise gives a feeling of party people enjoying their drugs. What's going on with them? That's what I got from the piece. Dope piece though one of my favorites this round.

Mike. This was cool. Original and interesting to break this verse out in this settting. The flow was cool and there was some decent wordplay but overall there wasn't enough conceptually to overtake the contrasting feeling in pancakes verse. Execution was good but there was a missing dimension that you need when faced with a verse like cakes.

Voting pancake

[Darth Yoda]

Good conceptualization. Mike Wrecka did his thing, and Pancake as well. Pancake took a direct focus and turned it into a very supportive writing, riddled with supportive words, and a nice influx of description. I think that was quite alright. Mike Wrecka had a ongoing battering of his own protocol and it worked out well. It was alright, but it lingered over the finale of the topic too much. Voting Pancake

[kannon]

Cake pan. I love that the color of the couch is '1970's film.' That might be the best thing I've read this round. Again, your schemes seem to just ignore regular bar structure, but it still somehow all seems to fall into the right place at the end. This piece was cool. These two bitches (I'm going to make them both women in my mind), are scissoring while on this crazy ecstasy trip, and it's such a rush, and then this crash of silence and self realization comes afterwards where they are kind of coming back into the real world. Imagery was dope, definitely painted a vivid picture in ten bars. I als liked the simple way you split up the sensations. Kind of bouncing back and forth from the physical to the mental. It's a simple method, but I found it very effective here. Overall good work. Another dope piece from you.

Mike. I honestly don't know how you haven't been disqualified for this verse. This shit is 13-14 bars, easy. If you try to say it's only 7, because that's how many times you pressed enter, every line except the last is over 15 words. And the piece in its entirety is over 150 words. That being said, the flow is dope as shit. Unless each line is supposed to be one bar, then your flow is just shit. And I think bar 5 is actually 3 bars. I like that you kept the same rhyme scheme throughout the whole thing, except where the decision to do that became a detriment to your wording. In fact I found myself screwfacing at a few of these lines. "broken and smashed" seemed superfluous. "notion of graphs" doesn't seem like thats how english is supposed to work. "I enbalm with an adam bomb" doesnt make sense, and I'm pretty sure Adam Bomb is just an old school wrestler. And I don't feel like you accomplished anything at the end. The whole piece seemed to be "People are trying to play down my accomplishments, and say I fell off. Well I'll show them..." and then the ending was just, "...One day." From a technical stand point, this is dope (for a 14 bar verse) from the flow to the schemes, etc. But from a story stand point, it just fell a bit flat.

The vote is for the spanish breakfast

[Cormier]

The FlapJack- this was pretty dope. some solid imagery. the 1970s film line was dope. the writing was very solid. didn't really like the fulcrum and folk strum lines. felt like that was reaching a bit. the imagery was dope, as was the back and forth from drug thoughts and feelings to sober ones.

Mike- not a fan of this verse in this format of tournament. the rhyming and flow were dope, which were obviously your main focuses, but stretching the shit out of the lines to fit the 10 line max is not something i agree with. seems like a cop out. also, the tie in to the topic doesn't work well for me, and some of the lines don't seem to make a whole lot of sense. dope flex from a rhyming and flow standpoint, but for this tournament format it doesn't work for me.

VOTE= The Griddlecake

[Eŋg]

pancakebrah - very good. i liked the gentle treatment of the language to illustrate the scene, and some of the metaphor was stellar. the writing felt deliberate. from a rhythmic aspect, i thought the fulcrum/folk strum/duldrum worked beautifully, but drug buzz not so much. the pin drop in the distance line was probably my favourite. more than solid.

wrecka - uhm, kind of cool rhyme exercise. probably didn't yourself too many favours by adhering to that one scheme throughout, it made for some awkard wording: broken and smashed/emotion and wrath/awoken a mass -- the first two were pretty redundant, the third just sounds off. there's other instances. topic was also just tacked on at the end. this wasn't bad though.

v/pancake