Adverse vs Brokenhal0 vs Symetrik

[Diablo]

Guerrilla Writing League

Solidify your spot with Guerrillas…


Topic:



Line Limit: 16-32
Check-In’s Due: Wednesday UK time
Verses Due: Friday UK time

@Adverse
@brokenhal0
@symetrik

[symetrik]

check, gl both

[symetrik]

@Adverse @brokenhal0 check-ins due tonight

[brokenhal0]

chk

[symetrik]

Some days, I feel like I've been overly filled to the brim and am dripping with anxiety.

but I'm good at pretending and I try really hard to not bother my friends.
I understand that my self-reliance developed as a means to an end,
but if I distract myself to ignore the problems until it's time for bed...
that means I can't trust myself OR others... and that shit kinda gets to my head.

So what works? Well...
I've tried to breath, tried to pop pills, and tried to name three colours within sight of me.

but usually, what works better is deleting my contacts
and maybe it's manic and tactless, but the fact is...
for better or worse, it helps me find a way to relax.
realizing I'm lonely as fuck is the only drawback...
that I've seen so far.

and so far,
I've "tried and seen" the advice that pops up in the side bar and disregards my right to privacy,

They're so god damn insistent. "15 things to do today to cure your fucked up brain"
Y'all need to stop vomiting up the same shitty articles that every wannabe blogger makes.
What's up with the writers these days being consistently fake?
like take a hint,
we'd rather connect to you as a human being with a similar life.
even if some aspects of it are better than mine.
I wish we had the capacity to heal our wounds when we write,
but instead, I'll show you the art that I'm consistently hidden behind.
and I can't tell if y'all recognize the demons that I silently fight.
but I'd appreciate it if you were patient and kind,
at least for the night.

[brokenhal0]

Rowan Best
A Portland artist of mixed Polish ancestry whose alone and stressed,
He's been busy painting since late last christmas,
Portraits of himself portraying his own death in the pictures.
He has a hobby of creating vivid images onto single dried seeds.
It took patience; it took vigor.

He would bury those seeds into soil during the dead of winter,
By June, a canvas of wildflowers flourished on the grave of his sister.
Painting the outside of what his eyes saw, he couldn't figure out why he felt bitter.
A fine-tuned artist who finally got his mind clean from huffing,
Paint thinner; nothing fits, he's way thinner.
It was rare that he knew how to use his mind as he would lose it.

He was living out the back of a Buick, living out his backpack in St. Louis.
Hiking backwoods, hitching rides, using art bribes to earn a few cents.
Rowan Best, painting for a penny, just give him a paper, it's plenty.
Paintings have a way of portraying your brilliant mind.
The pain can't bring him to paint for the millionth time.
Scraping his flesh, watching as it's peeling away,
Still convinced that he's feeling fine.
Mixing flakes of his skin in the paint,
A piece of him is within every still design.

Looking back over those many symbols dressed in different colors,
Adding a hidden layer to his concepts that were veiled to others.
We will never know why
He eventually eradicated himself,
Eating Scheele's green for the arsenic high.
Gradually the changes took his mind down a particular pathway,
Not to mention he was living off prescription pills for back pain.
Debilitated, his last painting was done that day.

With a determined expression, Rowan picks up his brushes and begins to mix his colors,
With no urge or suggestion.
He throws paint on the canvas, watching as it drips into buckets.
He selects hues of vibrant blues and magnetic reds;
They reminded him of cardinals flying through the bushes.
Each stroke of his brush is carefully applied, the footage taking shape.
As the image combines with the shadows, a new world's taking place.

He merges with the canvas, becoming one with his creation.
His hands move with a purpose until he reaches his final destination.
Guided by an invisible force, he starts pacing, sweating as his heart starts racing.
As his last stroke hits the canvas, Rowan hits the floor, experiencing a cardiac arrest.
His arm hits the door as he falls out of the garage, clenching his chest, taking his final breath.
Behind him is a fresh painting,
Of himself multiplied a million times spinning out a spiral lens.

[Diablo]

@Adverse is DQ’d. Brokenhal0 vs Symetrik now Open For Votes!

[Diablo]

Guess I’m first up, eh! I figured this one would be right up Adverse’ street with the picture image, there’s a few different ways this one could potentially be perceived which I liked the idea of as it’s more open-ended in terms of what can be achieved rather than steering you guys down a single particular lane and almost dictating what you needed to write about. Is the artist painting himself the way he hopes to be perceived by his audience? Is what we see even the real him, or some form of caricature? Who is the (wo)man behind the mask? Is this art imitating life, or life imitating art? Whatever it is, let’s see how you guys have it…

[Diablo]

Symetrik: I’ll tell you what I enjoyed here, the conversational tone you struck. It’s writers voice was pretty spot on, opening with a very universally relatable feeling and the slow building from that place and adding in the finer details. It wasn’t just that though, even the word choices were inspired like the “dripping” with anxiety for example that tied back in to the topic image which I thought was a deft touch. Nothing too heavy-handed or overdone in that regard, but I can imagine it being said with a knowing nod towards the topic at play.

If I can come back to what I mentioned a little earlier here, the conversational tone of this one was a highlight for me. It isn’t always perfect, don’t get me wrong, and at times it felt like there was a rhyme missing or something that I had overlooked - but the writers voice here certainly helped in me overlooking that aspect as I continued on.

The couplet about the blogger was a great little observation, I thought, again really relatable to the viewership no doubt but it’s little snippets like that which sort give us an insight into your thought process - or your characters at least - and I liked that uniqueness to it, it was almost like a slightly comedic break from what was otherwise a heavier subject matter on someone with crippling social anxiety. I actually thought you came back and touched on this too a little later on, towards the final third, when you brought up “we'd rather connect to you as a human being with a similar life.” because that’s definitely where my head was in regard to this one. I think conceptually and execution wise you had a strong submission this week.

Brokenhal0: I’m a horror aficionado at heart, so when I got to the point of “portraying his own death in the pictures,” you had me rooting for you here for sure. If I can pause at that second briefly, I wrote something (I think against Master Rock, possibly Inno/Candy?) a while back about a camera found on the ground that took pictures of everyone that would later end up dead. This gives me those sort of vibes early on here. Lol. As this continued it grew on me, the artist becoming the art himself when mixing in pieces of his own flesh and blood (blood, sweat and tears? Ca-ching!) I felt you grew stronger conceptually as you built this up, though I must say I found the ending somewhat confusing and I’m not entirely sure what happened at the closing line unfortunately. I’ve read it a couple of times over too and I still find myself a little polarised by it, sorry about me if I missed something. So how do I score it? In terms of concept I honestly leaned a little more towards BH here due to the left field take and it’s creativity, still felt Sym absolutely nailed his in terms of the writers voice throughout and the blogger section he had especially, I enjoyed both in terms of their execution but for wildly different reasons - Sym due to this almost conversation narrative that firmly drew me on side as a reader here, but Halo’s in terms of this almost sci-fi tale with the artist becoming fully involved in his creation… I pretty much fucked with it right up until those last two closing lines where the resolution just didn’t give me the closure I was perhaps looking for. I think I’m still going to give the win to BH this week, regardless of how I feel about the closing couplet particularly, just because conceptually and execution wise there was a lot I enjoyed here and almost everything but that resolution was really enjoyable for me. I guess the horror fan in me played its part in my decision. Thanks for showing up guys!

[brokenhal0]

@Diablo the conclusion is rushed -- i cut it short i would have liked to flesh out the details and wrap the plot up better but i already was pushing the line limit so i wanted to close it quickly and not get DQ'd for going over

the ending of himself spinning into a spiral lens represents the artist ''fractalizing'' into a million new existences ...pretty much a metaphor of there's no such thing as death...thus his new painting reflecting the infinite amount of existences he will live after this one...as he dies in this life he lives eternally through his paintings...the whole concept was a metaphor of life and death pain and pleasure or better yet ''paint'' and pleasure ...i hinted at this allegory with the ''veiled to others'' line