Frank vs. VividlyVague - OPEN FOR VOTES

[Adonis]

Winter Topical II: Round II


SUMMARY OF RULES:

Verses are due JAN. 19th
TUESDAY at 9 P.M. Pacific/West Coast or TUESDAY 11:59 PM Eastern / 6:00 AM WEDNESDAY JAN. 20th Central European/London
There are NO extensions.

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

Votes are due Thursday at 4:00 p.m. Western / or Thursday 7:00 PM Eastern / 1:00 AM Friday Central European/London Failure to vote will result in NEGATIVE VOTES if you advance to the next round.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? You can technically start a match down three votes by failing to log a single vote the previous week.

so....

All competitors must vote on THREE battles

Read the full rules here! (http://www.netcees.org/showthread.php?t=122320)

Topic: Summer Of Love

G/Luck Frank Vividlyvague

[e11even]

I remember it like last night's dinner,
But it was more like a past life, that last white winter.
We met at the local dive, his tag Dwight Spencer.
We talked the entire night and shared laughs with light liquor.
This abstinent romance was like a passionate slowdance.
We basked in it, but his masculine tones matched with his cold glance.
He was all man, and unabashed that he was known.
The night scene clearly his home, his demeanor an objective and bold stance.
I was attracted enough to have him for lunch.
We had sandwiches and wine and that was enough.
He poured me my third and hit my flat to catch up,
And that's where it gets hazy, maybe to recap is too much.
The last ten months were a denial of buried photography.
Laughs ignored, but the paths explored just got to me.
I was a naive girl. Now my heart won't skip to that forgotten beat.
The Scotch and blotching sheets are testament to his property.
I drank and cried avoiding the sound of our love.
And though it pounds at my heart, it's my intestines it tugs.
Our love didn't deserve this, but name someone who does.
Memoirs were driving me mad, and that's where we hung...
The edge of madness was on the ledge in my wedges gasping,
The wind smashing my forehead as the weather crashes.
The sun cloaked in clouds made fall come down to harass us.
Our Love and I were trapped between a window and broken dreams, fastened.
I couldn't move. Just then, the rush of his passion had flooded in.
His face full of rage and my consciousness fades as he's snuffing it.
My tears parted ways in the wind, hitting panes as I buckled, sick.
His voice echoing in the grave of my innocence, waiving my pain for sadistic kicks.
In that moment of clarity, my heart broke.
The summer ended as I let go of our Love and watched her cloths float.
The fifth story was but the first in a large scope.
The news aired the disaster of a serial rapist in Barstow.

[Frank]

Jane stood on the highway, as vehicles drove past her with a rumbling hum...
Thousands of cars steered by her - idling on the side of the road with her outstretched colorful thumb
Her mascara had run a muck. Grungily dressed, her funky armpit hair stuck out in a jungly clump
She clumsily ducked down, urinating into the dirt creating a muddy flood that ended abruptly at a stump...
She picked up her sign that had been worn out from months in the rut. The cardboard crumbling in her clutch
She reached into her purse and pulled out an uncapped Marker - duller then dunce
A Volkswagen slows down, dusting the dusk. Jane approaches the vehicle, gullible and dumb
As the Driver leans across the passenger seat, opening the door that rustily swung
He introduces himself uncomfortably as Doug. Fidgety - flustered by her bust
He jangled the keys like a jumbling klutz. His sweaty right arm adjusting the clutch
The Volkswagen starts and stalls, as Doug went for the jumper cables; flagging down a gas guzzling bus.
Jane fixes herself in the mirror, clearing the mascara out of her eyes, gunk & pus
Her matted blonde hair, she roughly brushed, as knots untangled from their scruffy bunch
Jane looks around the inside of the car covered in junk. Bewildered, her brown eyes begun to bug
Doug jumped back into the car, followed by a disgusting must that permeated from the trunk like a skunk.
Jane rolled the window half way down, before the window suddenly stuck...
Doug flicked a cigarette bud out of his window that hits the cement and tumbles, combust
Jane hits the radio button and the airwaves engulf the interior with a dysfunctional buzz
, that becomes clear as the Volkswagen reappeared out of the tunnels cusp
Pink Floyd fills the seamless void - between the two as they drove and shudderingly sung
The two pull into a Gas station, with 4 self-serving trucker pumps
Doug steps out of the Volkswagen, in a beat up pair of bloody chucks
Jane pops her bubble gum, thinking nothing of it; she puckers up and blushes plum
As she sees Doug filling up a cup - she hears a bludgeoning bump
She looks into the rearview mirror, crustily smudged, Falling in and out of her slumber
Doug shuts the door and she sputters up. Accelerating - the rubber rubs and the muffler puffs
Jane is wide awake, as the Volkswagen enters a junction, there is a thunderous thud.
Wondering what it was; Doug looks at Jane, nutty and strung. Jane's heart flutteringly sunk.
As Pink Floyd plays, passing lamp posts fill the car with a jutting sun
Something becomes visible under a rug in the back of the Volkswagen, uncovering from its slump
The drummer drums as somebody rises into the backseat out of the clutter and crud
The image makes its way closer to the front seat - muttering stuff
It is the brother of Doug: He nuzzles up to Jane and crushes some drugs
He opens his mouth and places a LSD tablet under his stuttering tongue
His brother Doug introduces Jane to him as "Another one" Touching her
Stunned. Jane accepts the marijuana, inhaling deeply into her corrupted lungs
Doug's brother sees a structure in flux, he braces himself for a rupturing rush
Like a sucker punch, a colorful gush pummeled him into a mush - a stumbling slush
Jane goes into her Bag and puts on a leathery, black buttery glove
Joy riding on an Acid trip: The Volkswagen PEACE sign sticker on the bumper comes up
The Radio broadcaster informs Travelers in the area of a couple of thugs
"Be on the lookout" - Squad cars speed by the Volkswagen. The brothers just shrug.
Doug's brother tells Jane that riding around by herself makes her tougher than tough
He lunged for a hug and smothered Jane with an abducting lust
Jane uppercutted the brother and followed it by shoving the glum brother into a bucket of dung
Doug discovers a gun in his face and utters a hush, pulling the car over without much of a fuss
Jane buzzes a slug past Doug's head - as the two brothers run numb from what wrung
Jane drove off into The Summer Of Love

[Pinot Grij]

VV - I loved the opening rhyme scheme, but "light liquor" is awkwardly worded. But overall, you painted a nice picture and there was also the insinuation of something sinister lurking beneath this guy's shiny exterior.

"a denial of buried photography" - this loses me a bit. It's not specific enough for me to follow where you're going next.

"testament to his property" - Once again - awkward wording. I don't know specifically what you're referring to.

her cloths float - once again.

In the end, minus those blips I pointed out, I really enjoyed reading this. The chilling opener - the repression of the memories, although handled a bit clunkily, were an important narrative touch for a rape victim. The suicide scenery really suited the moment of clarity as it were. It was a bit hard to decipher the real from the conceptual, but it was a worthwhile pay off once I figured it out.

Frank -- I think I took a lot of extra time to point out some major flaws in your game with regards to last week's verse and here I see the same things but performed much more egregiously. Mostly, the frustrating part of this verse is that the double "U" sound that you've focused your rhyme scheme on is just ugly. Elsewhere, where you've pulled off near-rhymes and off-rhymes quite adeptly in the past - in this verse, the near-rhymes sound awkward, as though they're missteps.

vehicles drove past her / cars steered by her : you're saying the exact same thing in two connecting lines.

"gunk & pus" - "black buttery glove" - "a bucket of dung" - "numb from what wrung"

There's so much nonsense involved here. I didn't want to read this verse, I wanted to edit it. Deep down, it's a good verse, but there's too much bogging it down that reading it is an exercise in frustration.

Vote -- VividlyVague

[Diode]

VV:

The spelling errors were annoying. I didn't want to say anything about them, but Pinot noticed as well. "it's" in place of "in", "cloths", "memoirs" when "memories" seemed more apropos. You have a habit of doing this and I wish you'd take the care to proofread.

The story took a couple reads to understand - and I think I took something away differently than PG. From my perspective, the capitalization / pronoun assigned to "Our Love" reads as a mutual rape victim shared by you (the female protagonist) and your manipulative, sexually deviant male lover. Heavy stuff. The rhyme schemes were effortless if not a little basic and sing-songy here and there. Interesting take on the topic. One of your better stories for sure.

Frank:

People got on your last round for making up adverbs and they are absolutely right. You force words that don't belong for the sake of rhyming and it is really distracting. I don 't think you really give a shit, but come on, guy. You're better than that. Also some awkwardness here - "duller then dunce". What? It was duller than what and then became dunce? Normally I'd assume you simply meant "than", but with a Frank post, lord only knows. You've got to break these bad habits. They take me completely out of the story. You're a fantastically creative person but forcing the issue for the sake of being wordy and rhyming is detracting from your work.

It was ambitious to keep the same rhyme scheme for such a lengthy tale. Doing so with low-syllable phrases and terms weakened what could have been.

The story itself was telegraphed a bit. Maybe because I know your writing all too well? It was alright. Hippie looking broad hitches a ride with two peaceniks, swerve us with the thud, swerve again - she's the one stealing the car. I liked the ending but nothing wowed me here. Usually you're saved by your eloquent, vivid scene-setting.. but this one fell flat for me. Likely a combination of the single rhyme scheme and your overuse of made-up words.

Vote goes to VV for a better story. Not as ambitious from a technical perspective, but ambition is nullified when ignoring structure to meet its requirement.

VOTE: Vividlyvague

[Objective]

VividlyVague - The opening sets the tone, pretty cool tbh. My only issue (if I should have one) with it must be ''that last white winter''. It works flow-wise but I can't quite make out what you're getting at here. Is the last winter what you're thinking back at? I'll assume that's what you're getting at as you're meeting up with this guy Dwight Spencer so I'll leave it at that but I'm still not quite sure. Some nursery rhymes that works out. But another issue that I'll stumble upon quite a few times later on in your verse is the opening word being the opening word two sentences in a row. It gets a bit repetitive for my taste. Unless it serves a specific conceptual purpose and turns into an exception of the rule it's best to avoid those as much as you can.

''This abstinent romance was like a passionate slowdance.
We basked in it, but his masculine tones matched with his cold glance.''
^ This is straight up beautiful though. Colorful imagery and I can see what's going on in front of me while maintaining a flow and rhymescheme that works really well for me.

I also enjoy the transition to the next line, it follows the rhymescheme from the internall well from the past sentence and continue on with the multi at the end of the next. Continuing on on the other hand you stumble upon the repetitive cycle again with the word ''enough'', it's too prevalent to be used twice here.

The next sentence is rhythm-based, I might be off on this as I might be reading it wrong and not catching it but I think it would have improved the flow if you had removed ''maybe'' and just leave it with ''to recap is too much'' leaving more impact as there's no doubt recapping isn't a smart or tough move and improving the flow a little bit while you're at it strengethening the line as a whole.

Nursery rhymes on the next couplet but it works with the internals. The ''I was a naive girl.'' is breaking up the sentence a little bit, could the sentence have been restructured somehow to incorporate the ''I was a naive girl''-message to the following sentence in the same line? Not sure if it would have improved it further but something to think about. Again the follow up to ''forgotten beat'' and the pressure on the e-sound from the past sentence makes the transition well on to ''scotch and blotching sheets'' I like the cadence on that.

I drank and cried avoiding the sound of our love.
And though it pounds at my heart, it's my intestines it tugs.
^ Nice but don't think you need the comma at the next line if I should nitpick.

The edge of madness was on the ledge in my wedges gasping,
The wind smashing my forehead as the weather crashes.
The sun cloaked in clouds made fall come down to harass us.
^ Pretty nice descriptive language, but the repetitive nature destroyed its potential for me.

His voice echoing in the grave of my innocence, waiving my pain for sadistic kicks.
^ Your longest line but didn't think it detracted from anything, beautiful imagery too. Enjoyed the ''echoing in the grave of my innocence''-bit, again showing what your imagery and creativity is capable of doing. Solid line.

The last lines suffers a bit from the repetitive nature but the closure was a pretty brutal and powerful twist. All in all a pretty good showing with interesting mechanics that over all got lots of room for improvement.

Frank - The long bar maniac, haha. Nah, dope first two lines that paints the picture of what I'm heading into and thus grabbing my attention. Four lines in I got to say Jane is a pretty nasty slut to say the least, haha. ''months in the rut'', aah, I see, I kind of feel for her now but damn dude, you don't save anything on your descriptive tone when describing this prostitute, I like when people don't hold back, well done.

''He introduces himself''-couplet got the same issue VividlyVague had with the start of the next sentence being the same as the last. Beside of that I got any criticism as you describe the situation and what's going on really well and introduces the new character with personality traits creating more depth to the story as a whole. The cigarette flick is another example of how you ever so subtle detail ''boring things'' that happen and make them interesting/matter to the over all feel of the verse. I kind of get a short story vibe from this piece, have you ever tried to write any of those? I think you'd do it well.

Okay, back on topic: You continue on with the same tone (which I enjoy) and the criticism I got is the excessive use of commas here: ''Jane is wide awake, as the Volkswagen enters a junction, there is a thunderous thud.'' Don't think it's needed at all here and makes it rather awkward to read.
And the building on this sentence is a bit awkward as well: ''Something becomes visible under a rug in the back of the Volkswagen'' I think if you had put ''In the back of the Volkswagen something becomes visible under the rug'' might have been an improvement to the line so the reader already knows where that something takes place at the start of the sentence.
And that something is the brother of Doug? Pretty weird place to be tbh. But so is Doug so I'll think nothing of it. So he's into LSD? That might explain some things, haha. Probably made sense for him to be there for some reason only he knows. ''Jane accepts the weed'', I can't recall her being asked if she wanted any or anyone rolling a j though (crushing and grinding is two different things as well if you were referring to him preparing something at that point that isn't mdma crystals or cocaine). Either she's smoking some now to take the edge off, tbh I'd definitely do the same.

Doug's brother sees a structure in flux, he braces himself for a rupturing rush
Like a sucker punch, a colorful gush pummeled him into a mush - a stumbling slush
^ Nice, haha.

''Doug's brother'', why not give him a name? Would have been a great addition for variations of starting sentences with something else than ''His brother Doug'', ''the brothers'' etc. A bit of a repetitive nature here as well that can be avoided with a tweak or two.

Jane just uppercuts him? Seems a bit aggressive and dangerous in a car with two randoms specially after hearing about two thugs on the run after smoking some as well, pushing him away on the other hand seems like a more reasonable approach imo. But she's crazy as all fuck so I won't delve more into it. One of the two is definitely more fucked up due to the acid than the other but still.

Definitely enjoyed the closure here as well regarding the topic. The topic comes full circle with the song playing on the radio and I definitely love the concept. The story is pretty gritty and grimy but I don't get her incentive of doing such a thing. If she was this adept at stealing things why would she try to look so beat up making a rather simple task (for her) take a long time to achieve? Does she have an agenda against the grimiest of desperate men? I mean, if she's gullible and dumb it doesn't make sense to me for her to suddenly just decide to steal the car. Doug could easily just call a cab for his brother so he can get away and call the cops on her. Also if these brothers that can afford acid, weed and other drugs on the fly rather than having a go-to favorite that's addictive it seems rather suspicious why they'd go for a slut this grimy when they could just pick up a hood rat and fuck her in exchange for giving her a hit as well, I'm sure they know some or could go for a better looking one if they wasn't going to pay anyways. And if they were deep in shit they'd probably sell their car for drugs or it would have been stolen and sold if they had debt. Why did they settle for her?

But yeah, beside of the questionable nature of the brothers and Jane's actions the concept is what I loved it about it the most. And if I look beyond my questions it's definitely a grimy and an interesting adventure for all involved to say the least that deserves praise for the effort as I did enjoy the read quite a bit.

It started out really well and then dwindled more and more towards the end, the concept with the tunes and was cool though.

Vote - VividlyVague for a more thorough and heartfelt story.

[NYCSPITZ]

yo VV got way more bacon crispy with ur wording bro props. I enjoyed this and thought it had a nice conclusion to match the gravity of the subject proposed. Thought the story was contstructed in a highly readable manner and came off with some smooth flow and intensity. nice ebb and flow there with your imagery right there imo. To be honest this was a High level topical read.

Frank. Bro, you came creative as usual but also came with some nonsense. I'm gonna have to give you a C- on this one and I've seen you bring it as high as the A- level. It's really just a matter of you being a highly creative individual but you never were really taught proper grammar and shit like that. I can't hold that against you but I also can't give you props when you use word constructions that don't bend but actually break the laws of poetic license.

V/ vividly vague

[Pent uP]

vV -- where do u live that summer is 10 months?? Just thought that was a funny continuity error. Decent story. Nothing stood out to me in the linear story. Some awkward wording but nothing that deterred enjoyability. Some bits of the story that seemed disjointed from others. It was night/u coukd have him for lunch. Certain capitalized words that lead me to believe something is being personified but it not being clear enough. Idk. Decent

Frank -- im pretty confident that pink floyd had no part in tge summer of love as they were an 80s (70s?) band mostly. So that hommage bugged me. Staple style where you bog down story potential to use an unkept rhyme scheme. The twist was unenjoyable and poorly presented. Pretty surprise you slept on VV, i guess you just werent good enough this time around.

Vote VV

[Razah]

It's been a while since I read a battle where both people told stories.

I'm going to keep this one plain & simply. I enjoyed VV's verse more. I thought you had a great opener, and the rest was good. Glad you mentioned you were a girl, I thought you were madd homo for a while. Anyways, enjoyable read.

This miiighttt be the first verse I read from Frank. I usually stay away from these long verse battles... I just, it's rare someone keeps me interested for their whole verse. And, I was kind of bored by Frank's verse. I had to force myself to finish it. I felt like some of it was repetitive, although I enjoyed the "long bar" style. I actually enjoyed your rhyme scheme for the most part, just wasn't a big fan of the story. Anyways, the vote is going for the guy that kept me more entertained.

vVividlyVague