W7: Defiant (3-2) vs. [8]UnbornBuddha (3-2) [UnbornBuddha wins, 5-3.]

[King Ra.]

AOWL Season IV, Week 7


OFFICIAL RULES:

Verses are due Friday, November 14th, 11:59p.m. PCT/2:59a.m. EST/7:59a.m. UK. There are NO extensions.

Verses MUST be a minimum 10 lines or a maximum of 48 lines (or 650 words).

Votes are due Sunday, November 16th, 11:59p.m. PCT/2:59a.m. EST/7:59a.m. UK. Failure to vote will result in automatic sign out for the next week.


TOPIC: Click here. (http://netcees.co/showthread.php?t=105432)


Good luck. Defiant UnbornBuddha

[UnbornBuddha]

""We've always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments. These moments when we dare to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known."

"Consequences of a madman reaching beyond"

Year is 2777.


3…2…1…
Exhilaration takes hold as we launch our trajectory.
The scent of rocket fuel fills my glands and olfactory
Causing palpitations as we rise above this planet’s orbit.
In a robot voice,
The android doctor on board says “panic normal,
Worry not, beep, your blood test panel normal”.
Since little I dreamt of being an astronaut on cosmic journeys
Space travel at the speed of light used to be far-fetched comic stories.
Now I’m here, yet my heart has chronic worry, my stomach churning the vomit turbid
I can’t help hurling wondering getting rammed by a flurry of burning comets hurdling.
Catharsis stuns my core team, which are all incarnates of machines
Apparatuses that sleep undisturbed as we pass the darkest galaxy
Where debris hovers over Mercury, inspiring the art of vaccines.
This flight for them was mandatory; their robotic parts had to agree
To the perilous task of reaching the stars of unknown beings.

Our destination is to investigate possible life forms
But to get there we must navigate nautical tight ropes
Like meteor showers worse than all tropical cyclones.
Optical telescopes identified probable microbes
Giving credence to the existence of unstoppable Cyborgs
Mechanical optimal organisms signaling plausible time codes
Inputs of information that can have your neurological mind blown.

A month later of ether traveling…
I, Winsler, was the only scientist mad enough to seek their healing powers
For the sake of my world’s people I want to bathe in their fecal matter.
One bath will give one the knowledge of next level quantum physic patterns
In order to manipulate everything that’s carbon, that’s in everything you’ll fathom.
As crazy as it seems my brothers, remember all shit is build from water
And their water I imagine will alleviate the ills of cancer,
A death seal that killed my grandma.
The medical field is a sea of madness,
And I’m bound to be the next physics master
Once I learn the inner workings of reversing splitting atoms.
Mitochondrial age reversal process will offset the reaper’s old clutches
Return his judgment when he firmly touches us. I must research this concept.
And I’m only a few hours away from landing into either Eden’s altar or a demon castle.
It all depends on the disposition of these gleeful monsters/ extraterrestrials.
If their dimension is skeptical and refuses to throw me an excellent festival,
My robot companions have the deadliest chemicals to turn them to decadent vegetables.
But it’ll be a detriment to sever their genitals, and experiment on such a deficit spectacle
A brutal skeletal showcase where I'll experiment on their genetic potential.
I’ll rather be the nice guy than a temporal devil on a devilish pedestal.
Though, I'm a man of science, don't think I'm celibate, secular.


Arriving, what awe!
I see majestic towers, a true celestial beauty!
It brings great joy to this obsessional loony,
But alas a congenital cruelty brings an early end.
Oxygen disturbance, expressed in shortness of breath
Hence, the gripping of my hurting chest
A sharp feeling as my weak heart scurries to death.
The feat I had pledged was to further earthlings’ steps.
Yet my life’s work has come to a close for it did not endure this trek.
What’s more the robot cohorts see me on the floor all distressed
They continue to rest only scanning my aura’s defects
Even the robotic physician hasn't a single worry to assess.
As far as their concerned, intergalactic war is their mission
If only I could had progressed my thesis for I possessed ambition,
But became subject to constriction by my health condition.
This was not just self contrition, emotional or organic malnutrition
Destiny, the stealthiest predator, dealt my neurotic cells fruition.

[Defiant]

"You crossed the line first, sir. You hammered them and in their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand. Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." — Alfred.








Dawning of the days, an apocalypse n we're the last ones in the race
An eerie unjust existence is how the few left see this place
Some are meant for living, some are meant to be dead
I'm meant for somewhere in the middle, someone for them to vent and be led
meant to a be a leader, meant to show them a path of solace
Someone awe-less, with a strength that's lawless
But I enjoy the fighting, to have someone's plight as it stands
I bask in the terror, the thought of taking someone's life in my hands
have them plead for there life and become a follower who I won't discard
My supremacy is my anchor, to be feared and held in such regard
This abyss is where I triumph, where I belong
I'm no longer just anybody, I'm a leader, I'm strong
used to be a recluse, someone no one cared about
now I'm a somebody who everyone wants to be paired throughout
What if theres a way out? Would it renew some doubt?
Everyone's looking for answers, for a thing they know nothing about
Because i found a way back into civilisation
I know the ways to end the fighting, to go back with earths creation
But I rejoice the anarchy, why would I want to see anyone alive?
Why would I give a damn if anyone of these survivors now survive
you see I've already found my solace, a life with half the strife
You see this is my Elysium, my heaven right before my after life

[Spoken]

I honestly see this battle as a struggle tbr. Unborn u wrote nice on this but really overzealous with the vocal and sometimes it felt like u were placing them randomly or for show when the bar or stanza could have went smoother without it ya know. The length all in all is what I had an issue with cause it was user long with the length and it felt repetitive in a sense at times. Felt u were a tad overwhelmed with this week and felt sort of rushed then settled in and then rushed and then settled... very up and down. All together the verse stands great but a few things u would need look at in sense of writing at that length. Def u took the topic with a nice concept and idea but honestly I felt u were stuck.. The word choice felt forced here and there and the verse as a whole was up and down very confident but with loose ends to actually tie them in altogether. Half way thru u picked it up and kept the topic in mind and left it as so which was great.

Mvgt defiant for its completeness and more cleaner thought put together. Nice verse tho for unborn

[kannon]

buddha. shit's like 58 bars, my man. abide by the rules. I feel like I've said this about your writing before, but the vastly uneven bar structure really makes it difficult to get into any sort of rhythm while reading your pieces. Anyways, it appears as though one man is on board a rocket launching into space, and the entirety of the crew is robots. On this travel, you discover microbes, which somehow lead you to believe that they must have come from "unstoppable cyborgs." Seems like a bit of a jump, but you're the one in space, so I'll take your word for it. I like the idea that the next segment is written as a letter back to home, so no matter the outcome of his actions, his family/friends/probably NASA or whatever is the year 2777's equivalent, will know his intentions were purely scientific. My only real gripe is that he already seems to know a whole lot about their poop for having not yet made contact with them. And why is it that if the poop is what he finds most important, that he threatens to cut their dicks off if they don't cooperate? I'm assuming this congenital disease that take his life in the end is probably related to the cancer that took his grandmother, and was ultimately the thing he was trying to cure. Such a cruel twist of fate. It's a little upsetting that after so much lead up, there is nothing to be gained from his mission, and the robot team he has with him basically just stands idly by as he dies because they weren't specifically programmed to help. But I mean, its 2777, and one of the robots is specifically a doctor. I feel like the robots should known what was up. Otherwise, this was a cool piece, and I enjoyed the read.

defiant. Firstly, it's always a little dangerous to write a piece in reference to a movie that your reader (like me) has not seen and has no idea what it's about. That being said, your story did pretty well to stand on its own. It was really just that last line reference that I didn't understand and had to Google. I like this story though. I like the idea that this protagonist wasn't terribly popular or strong willed while the earth existed as a norm, but now that this apocalypse has arrived, he has taken on a leadership role. And in that rush of finally being a somebody, his true colors start to come out, and we realize that it's more about the leading than the actual people he's leading. My only quarrel with your piece is that I feel it lacked a bit of development. It could have used a little more emotion, and this "solution" that he found at the end wasn't expanded upon at all. I would have liked to know what that was. Otherwise, pretty good piece.

Part of me wants to penalize Buddha somehow for going over the line limit by no less than 10 bars. I don't know exactly how to do that though. I mean, if I were to rank these two pieces on a scale of 1-100, and maybe drop buddha's score by 10 points to make up for his blatant disregard to the rules, he'd still probably come out on top. I'm also not sure why this is bugging me so much. But if you guys don't care, I dont care.

Vote is for unborn buddha.

[Exis]

Not sure if this will count but anyways, I vote Defiant...had a more well structured verse to the other cat imo...altho his word usage seemed odd at times it just felt like a more complete verse upon readin', 'complete' is probably a weird word to use when Budda spit like 50 million fuckin' lines smh...anywho take it or leave it my niggas.

Stay uppity.

[Dominate]

Buddha - I really enjoyed the start of this verse, when the character is describing his awe and amazement at traveling through outer space, and what the mission objectives were... then it got too weird. He was craving an alien poop bath because that would give him knowledge of how to cure cancer? Nahhhhhhh man. I mean I could maybe get down with the idea that an alien poop bath would cure cancer directly, but not that it would give the bather knowledge of the cure. Too weird. Mayyyyybe might've worked if the verse had started out quirky and humerous, but it didn't, so it was awkward. I have to say I enjoyed the verse though - the first half because it was good and the second half because it was so fucking weird I was enthralled by it.


Defiant - very good take on the topic. I liked how you fleshed out the character's history and personality and then finally brought it back to how he just wants to watch the world burn rather than improve his station and that that's his Elysium. I saw the move recently so I knew what you were getting at straight away with that reference, but for people who haven't I think a little more description of the apocalyptic world and the 'way out' of it would have been beneficial, in place of or maybe even just in addition to the focus on the character's feelings.

Buddha was more interesting tbh but Defiant's verse seemed complete yet concise and, probably more to the point, consistent in tone/theme.

V/ Defiant

[Arid]

Buddha, you really badly misused a lot of words. Your strain to add complexity broke the dictionary.

Defiant, your character was well drawn. The conceit of his self assurance and the insanity of his vision stood out. Even though it's short, I feel you were stretching some concepts to fill space.

Vote-UnbornBuddha for the nostalgia induced by his sci-fi space opera

[dead man]

buddha - i really enjoyed where you began this verse and was a bit muddled as to where you began to end it. you are an astronaut in search of terrestrial beings, who possess healing powers in their shit. perhaps the second half is simply a madman's hallucinations or delusions of sort and it is not a literal "factoid" about alien poop. it got a chuckle out of me though the more i read on. your wording is very ESL, if you know what i mean. your vocabulary is extensive but the way you express yourself in the written word is very mechanical and textbook. there is not the flexibility or fluidity i really prefer when reading this type of work. rather, your skill rests in your expansive imagination and ideas that you are able to articulate astutely and descriptively. while you have a very slow rhythm and pace to your work, it still clicks. although you could definitely trim some of the fat.

what ultimately kills you is a disease i assume you were hoping to prevent or cure using the feces of these beings. correct me if I'm wrong here..

ultimately, youve written something of worth and entertaining at the very least. it felt like part of a series, perhaps

defiant.

yeah. i liked your submission. but i haven't seen elysium, so I'm not sure how to gauge this objectively. what i will say was that i now am pretty tempted to watch it based on your imagery connected to the film itself. seems like a pretty inspirational movie. visually, at least. one who was meant to be a leader post-apocalypse fighting through the abyss towards salvation. for himself.. not his fellow survivors? that kind of threw me for a loop but i guess i would have to see it to really understand hs mentality fully. it seems because he's stronger or smarter than every other survivor, he rejoices in the chaos knowing he will always wind up surviving it.

idk.

my voting is for UnbornBuddha because he gave us a much richer, more completed work. while UB's felt like the start of a series, defiance felt like a work in progress.

thanks to both competitors

1

[Vulgar]

UnbornBuddha - I fully enjoy how your imagination works. It's relentlessly producing stuff you deem worthy of being expressed, it's just that the way you filter it isn't compatible with the chemicals being released in your brain, and it comes out all uncoordinated; a jar of paint splashed on a cosmic wall. I think you'd benefit immensely from reading a few verses from Lord Shivas Siq Al, a "text legend" as they used to say. He liked writing long, epic length pieces where he jam-packed as many imaginative concepts as possible, but he did it with fluency and grace. You aren't there yet. The passion is there - it's a trebuchet of fire at this point. You need guidance to aim it and render it an effective siege weapon of AOWL warfare. Good rhyming, the sci fi story bordered on corny.

Defiant - Interesting twist. The writing was very regular here up until the point of departure which was clever and I wish you'd expanded on it more. I thought you could've tried to push the envelop with the wording more, got looser with the style and just approach in general. Close but no cigar describes this piece.

My vote goes to Unborn.

[Certain]

UnbornBuddha: On one hand, this was a terrific, creative plot that could have been turned into a movie if it were fleshed out much more. On the other, the writing was all over the place, from loquatious to stream-lined to disconnected. You use so many adjectives that clutter things, and you often force rhymes a bit too much. To phrase it another way, your writing is so close yet so far from working in traditional grammatical structures, mostly the result of rhyme. If you improve on that, you'll be much better. But you also waste a lot of space. While 650 words is the limit, very rare is the verse that needs that many. As an editor, I would have no problem stripping your verse down to about 400 words of a great, exciting and ultimately heartbreaking story. The emotion gets a little buried because it's so long and a bit too direct, which is another thing: When writing from a first-person perspective, you should figure out a voice for the writer that fits his character. That allows the writing to feel more genuine and emotional, which allows the reader to better connect with the narrator and thus the verse itself. With all of that said, this was very good, your best work yet for this league.

Defiant: If this verse was in reference to the movie Elysium, I haven't seen it. I know the plot outline well enough to grasp that it probably is about that movie, but the characters don't exist to me. That's the problem with basing a verse on a non-ubiquitous pop-culture touchstone. You wrote this pretty well, though. You were clean and had a good rhyme structure. You hit the points that would make your verse stand out against UnbornBuddha well, and I can respect that as a strategy. But you didn't do enough here to captivate me. You spoke in a lot of generalities that perhaps were calling back to specificities in the movie. This was a solid submission, but it didn't have as much upside as your opponent's.

Vote: UnbornBuddha