Week 6 championship: oats (5-0) vs. zygote (4-1) \\ oats wins 4-3

[Certain]

http://i.imgur.com/uAJesXX.png

Season 3



The Basics | Read the full rules here (http://netcees.co/showthread.php?t=54688).

Verses are due Friday at 11:59 p.m. PT. THERE ARE NO EXTENSIONS.

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

Verses may not exceed 48 lines or 650 words unless agreed upon by the opponent.

Voting on three battles is required. If you win and don't vote, you will receive a loss instead. If you lose and don't vote, you will receive a one-week suspension. Please post links to your three votes in this thread (http://netcees.co/showthread.php?t=62543).


Topic


“Conquer yourself rather than the world.” — René Descartes


Good luck, oats and zygote.

[zygote]

ABSURDIST CRITIQUE OF WARFARE.

And so begins a new saga.
The Serene Republic of Sartre is led by Citizen-Duke Sartre.
The Republic is a merchant oligarchy with a trading ideology,
The great Thalassocracy that created monopolies on all basic commodities.
They were known as pragmatists, not thinkers and philosophers,
Trading required the senses, measurers and marketers.
From the universities the Citizen-speakers insist –
“If it is perceivable, then it is real and exists.”

But every tale has two halves.
The de Cartesian Empire is ruled by The Autokrator Descartes.
The Empire is a theocracy with a jingoistic perspective,
The great Empire unifying its subjects under a single objective.
They were known as theologians, caste-system warrior-priests,
Power required knowledge, rational faith and common belief.
From cathedral minarets The Autokrator’s Teachers insist -
“If it is perceived, then it is real and exists!”

The Citizen-Duke is respected, bringing citizens profits and riches,
These two nations were hostile over philosophical differences.
The Autokrator is deified, shaping subjects with His iron will.
These two nations would come into conflict over a tiny hill.
The hill was named ‘The Petite Goat,’ after its common livestock,
Small native Goats would often graze upon its rocky outcrops.
‘The Petite Goat’ would be the setting for the Conflict to End All Conflicts,
The last great war, a final Apocalypse.
Of course, neither nation really cared about the hill itself,
War entrenches ideology and ideology brings wealth.
They only cared for the process of war itself.

At the send-off ceremony, The Empires worker’s wave with a zealous fervor,
Women and children wear a white flower and yell for murder.
Rows of soldiers march straight past, hands placed on hearts,
The soldiers of Descartes pack themselves into awaiting train carts.
Descartes thunders – “MY Ubermensch go to WAR!
All Glory to the Empire! You THINK therefore you ARE!”

Citizen-traders make hurried deals –
“Invest in tombstones! Invest in guns and steel!”
City-streets are adorned with war slogans and flashy quotes,
The Republic’s marines squeeze into massed transport boats.
Sartre pontificates – “Our Citizen-marines go to war,
Prestige for the Republic, we exist therefore we are.”

Both nations took up positions, sentries on overnight vigils,
Rows of trenches facing each other, ‘the Petite Goat’ in the middle.
Propaganda made them believe they were a part of something greater.
The Great War began and ended just 24 hours later.
They fought because each thought the other was a threat,
And so ‘The Petite Goat’ was reduced to nothingness.
Hundreds dead in seconds, tens of thousands in minutes,
Hundreds of thousands gone by the end. Millions of lives altered in instants.
The native Goats were collateral damage,
Their homes destroyed to lessen the geographical challenge.
The Hill’s rocky outcrops demolished by volleyed roundshot.
It’s distinctive symmetry flattened by missile artillery.
Where there once stood a small upwards curve,
Now there was only flat, dead, scorched earth -
Some call war unthinking, illogical, an irrational fit,
but if conflict cannot think, then how can it exist?
Meaning, is conflict an inherent aspect of our own self,
Or is it a construction designed to entwine power and wealth?

[oats]

The One-Step Program for Fixing Everything


The universe paints itself in an abyss too lush to touch up
It is; therefore it thinks...that you should shut the fuck up
Compartmentalizing the unknown - pornographic fluff to suck us
Into the lie that minds of science aren't getting just as buttfucked
By it. Close your eyelids. Picture 100 billion light years.
You can't - so don't imagine that you can trust your sight here.
Reality is quite clear on the gravity of your orbit:
What are the lances of man's acumen when the galaxy is a fortress?

Planet Earth. Damned since birth. A lawless perdition.
Coifed with ambition from paradoxical symptoms:
consider Luna. she pulled life from sea to land, creating all our existence -
formed by the same cosmic collisions that have been cause of extinction.
The most modest of wisdom can state the problems facing
our planet - from greenhouse gasses to the weight of population.
Rampant disease, finite food sources, depleting aquifer basins -
it's all knowledge you’ve gained but try to hide from honest engagement.

Modernist waste and economic displacement riddle our borders
it’s the fate of the Mercator: we live in a picture distorted.
Belittling corners of women’s importance, man’s miniature mortgage
is powerful people pedaling Seabiscuit autographs - their signature horse shit.

Down the road is Jim and his Porsche, the community sight to see
Julie, his wife to be, truly the brightest sieve…
from the shiner that he gave her for “intruding his privacy.”
Illusions of primacy exist in every neighborhood
polluted entirely by the listless webs you rated good.
Pricks you never hated - shunned from conscious thought though
like the fatass across the street, you know the one (you call him Costco)
fast-food junkie, desk job monkey. The litter on his lawn is awful
he thinks he’s a Jack of all trades...
since he’ll readily exchange health and virility for a deal on Monster Tacos.

Don’t forget the feel of constant potholes on top of the road
leading to your driveway that’s impossibly old.
Shoddy upholstering, termites sharing walls with the mold -
(insert metaphor for how it’s like your body and soul)

Endless problems erode your sense of purpose in life
Giving you cause to lose hope: you are worthless and trite.
At all levels of matter you don’t matter, there is nothing of use
Might as well shrug and reduce your views into a “what can ya do?”

Right?

Almost everything is out of your control, you may think it’s perverse
But see the other side - that’s really more a gift than a curse.
The systems of existence will work so long as you don’t implore to be
more than the dirt you came from (problems bloom from delusions of authority).
Don’t fret about the rest of your time, one day you’ll eventually die
and the world won’t blink an eye…
if it did for every death, the universe would be perpetually blind.
Not every disease’ll be cured, there won’t be global peace for wars
but there’s only one world: your world. Experience is uniquely yours.
The world is too big to conquer, the hows and whys of it are infinite
Leave those burdens for the birds - breath a sigh of insignificance.

Energy is never created or destroyed, it just opens a new chapter.
What you put into the world lives forever - what you do matters.

[timeless]

Zyg, "the petite goat" will be the setting for the conflict to end all conflicts", idk Lol even after a couple reads this is still my favorite line. I like how you used the topic in this one, bringing out that most, if all wars all have underlying goals and assets among the people that start them in the first place. We should always figure out the wars within ourselves in terms of greed. Writing wise, I believe this is one of your better pieces lyrically, you had plenty of "flow" this time around. This is fucking long too btw, youre prolly dead on the word limit lol. But other than that, from beginning to end it was cool I enjoyed the messages you put in. Has a lot of power behind it as well, I think most people would write a verse like this and stick to the same tone. Good shit zyg.

Oats, I loved the change in emotion throughout the read. Like your opponent, you put out a lot of content this week. Its hard to keep up a good pace with such a long read but it surely didnt slack off here. Your wordplay was dope with a lot of possible lines to quote from here. The only thing id really say was a negative would be the ending, just felt it couldve had a better impact like the rest of your verse had. This is a hard one to judge, both came with great pieces to read here. Both were consistent with minimal flaws. Alright, after another read through, I feel I have to give this vote out based on creativity and originality in regards to the topic, and I feel zyg came through more here.

V. Zyg

[Mike Wrecka]

dope battle gentlemen


im really torn on who to vote for here so I will try to convince myself one way or the other during the voting process

Zygote - started slow. that first section read choppy to me. using the word THE at the beginning of each line was cumbersome. I was disappointed but then it picked up tremendously and went into a fictional war. it told an interesting story that I enjoyed. I will say that I was more engaged in your verse than your opponents. I found it much more interesting. the rhyming was good. but not great. BUT it had a very good cadence to it. which many people overlook. but I don't. the syllables of each line matched up rather well. overall a cool verse. fun to read. really tied in the topic in the last section very well.

oats - you had the better rhyming here. and flow. it was impressive. this was pretty deep content wise. on the philosophical tip. it was a hybrid verse. which sometimes backfire. but it didn't here imo. you told both an overview or as some might call it a traditional topical, and then switched to a bit of story mode and then went back to the overview. your mechanics carried me through and you had one of the best lines I have ever read in my life.

Don’t fret about the rest of your time, one day you’ll eventually die
and the world won’t blink an eye…
if it did for every death, the universe would be perpetually blind


holy shit man. so much props for that bar. I don't know why I love it so much but I just do. I would have replaced universe with earth but wowzers that hit me hard.


overall oats a really good verse. got philosophical in that last amazing section



very close battle guys. two very dope verses but I have to give it to oats here. he told the story of our rather insignificant place in the universe while zygote told the story of a battle as evidence of how man destroys everything in his path. oats felt more complete. that last section wins the battle for him here. thanks for the reads. truly enjoyed them both


vote - oats

[Adonis]

Zygote. You creted a world much like a book which I appreciated that. I liked the fact you mentioned simply "being/existing" while giving this hill life through the farmers and goats. Then destroying that hill, good shit there, assume it was intentional. I feel like you actually tried to rhyme more here, not to say you don't always, but this verse seemed like you attempted to rather then write content first then piecing the rhymes in later. The pace WAS ALMOST perfect. The use of THE so often to start a line enabled you to weave in and out of citizens, settings and characters rapidly, but to me this also worked against you ever so slightly. You packed in so much information on each line, which is sort of your motif, I enjoyed the depth to it. Overall highly enjoyable. In still a bit torn if I liked the closer or not. I think I would have preferred it left to my own imagination, cuz my imagination is the beez neez quite frankly.

Quaker. Mind fuckery.conceptually superb, elite execution, subpar flow, rather inconsistent because most was fire, then completely broken sentences for flows sake such as the "completely buttfucked....by it." you did this a few times early on and it disrupts my flow while reading. This verse as a whole though is outstanding. It was cosmic, the things you touched on in general are ssimply big and bold subject matter. Great read.

Very close match up here. Zygote actually had more of a story this week which isn't too often in his case. Oats dropped pure knowledge, with some truly Witty lines and overall nice concepts in individual lines ala.... Sea biscuit, horse shit..And potholes in the road of a soul...

Vote oats. Two great verses. In the end the deciding factor is the fact that I enjoyed the cosmic, the world is fucked but life goes on over the linear message of we are destroying the world.

[e11even]

Zyg- this was masterful and thought - provoking. Imo I could see irony in this story as well. All the necessary details were there and this, although it felt long, accomplished a just amount of depth. The rhyming wasn't flashy, but in this case, if it had it would have taken away from the main idea you were going for. Very good argument. I did think the end was a little of a forced thought to center the reader on how your piece relates to the topic, but it wasn't too bad. Overall great job on your drop.

Oats- Fuck, dude. This shit was heavy. This whole drop was a full bodied manifestation of the topic zyg had only merely touched on. This zoom concept you used was well done, and your rhyming mechanics kept everything dynamic and fun to read. Your euphemisms were pretty in-your-face and a few were funny, keeping the content a little lighter. You even hit the nail directly on the head without overtly leading the reader. This shit was great.

Great job to both writers. You guys really killed it. Zyg's was expertly crafted with an insane amount of time-to-quality efficiency. Oats hit the mark in the head and went about as direct as possible with no backstory and did a great job. MVGT Oats.

[Vulgar]

Zygote - An expressionless narrative, expectantly so, not because of your robotic neuro-physique, but also because of your tendency to regard warfare with a steely resentment. I found this to be solid enough, though the flow was loose at the seams in some parts. I liked when you mentioned 'rational faith' - I don't think I've ever come across that concept before. Two polar opposite nations vs. one another on a tiny hill, the outcome proclaiming futility. If you were to ask my opinion on conflict being inherent, I might say it is. Humans remind me of army ants. Overall, this is a showing of conceptual strength, something I've come to expect from you, but I don't know if it'll be enough to topple Quaker Oats.

oats - You killed the topic, though this was a little long-winded. Some bars could've been cut away, not to take anything away from valuable and pertinent examples provided in the text. The rhyming was much, much tighter than Zyg's which was an immediate contrast that was taken into consideration. You open up with the same tone, usually, a slow, progressing, witty incantation that builds up steam and later crescendos with the necessary volume of passion. You chose to open up with a sort of brash introduction; I wasn't used to the brutal honesty. Not sure if I liked the rhyme scheme at the beginning that much. The more "profound" statements came later in the verse, summarizing your topic with a thorough air. (Not to be confused with Thoreau heir...okay, I kid.) "Reality is quite clear on the gravity of your orbit:
What are the lances of man's acumen when the galaxy is a fortress?" I could reflect on this bar all day. Really nice, and it's my style.

On the flip side, I wasn't feeling bars like this and they dropped in quality of conveyance:

"Illusions of primacy exist in every neighborhood
polluted entirely by the listless webs you rated good."

Voting on this one is tough because both interpreted the topic in different ways - Zygote went with a neutral stimulus, pitting two peoples against eachother in a demonstration of human nature's conflictual futility. Oats wrote about how we take our world too seriously and that we shouldn't be such control freaks. Didn't Nestle recently declare that the world's water supply isn't for free people but that it should be up for grabs by multinational corporations? Stuff like that was used as an example here. You're not as good when you get into a ranting-character mode in exchange for eloquence. You thrive at eloquence but you didn't put all your cards forward this time. The approach was cool, I thought the main issue was that you gave a wholesome rundown but there was a lack of instruction. You should breath a sigh of insignificance - you are a cog in the massive universal machine...but so what? What comes after? Might as well make the most of the time we are given. I'd like to be a king with a handful of maidens, personally, all bowing to my sexual whims and reminding me how Vulgarian I am.

My vote goes to Zygote. His approach vibed with me more. It wasn't an easy battle by any means.

[Witty]

Zyg - Reading your pieces is like reading something written by a true scholar, you are smart as fuck lol You created a really engrossing story here, you showed yourself to be a master of imagery with this piece, painting a very clear and vivid picture all the way through. There wasn't a great flow but I'm used to that when reading a Zyg verse, which I don't mean as an insult, we all write in the way which is most comfortable to us, I do feel it is easier to connect with a piece that has a really smooth flow, but I don't think it really did your piece any harm that you did not focus so much on that part of things because the parts you did focus on were very well done. The story and concept itself was admirable, there was so much detail, from names of places to desribing how the soldiers placed their hands on their hearts, the battle ground etc etc, you really outdid yourself in that regard, very solid piece man. I enjoyed the read as always.

Oats - your first two lines are awesome, I want to have written them. If I ever create a time machine I will travel back in time to before you wrote those lines and kill you so that I can write them. I'm sorry your death has to be at my hands, but a writer gotta do what a writer gotta do. The entire first part was flames, I mean the whole piece was really, but the first part really stood out to me. You have a way of communicating very complex ideas in a way that is easy to understand, and even though you do use an extensive vocabulary, it doesn't get confusing and you don't do it just for the sake of using big words, basically what I think I'm saying is you are crazy intelligent yet find a way to communicate this intelligence without alienating the (probably) less intelligent reader, maybe because you're a teacher? I dunno, but props. A lot of ideas being thrown around in this piece, it kinda feels laid back but also frantic in a way, I think it's because the flow is so smooth but the verse itself is laden with emotion and opinions, it works though. The flow, as I said, was basically immaculate, I never really tripped up throughout and it just made the piece even more enjoyable. The idea that it is ok to be insignificant and maybe it's even a good thing is something I have personally been working on in my own life, the fact that we don't need to worry about the bigger picture sometimes because what is going to be will be, and there is very little we can do about it, so be happy with your little existence and chill out....is the message I got from this. Which is a great message. Loved it, props.

Gonna vote for Oats

[big baby]

Read both thoroughly twice. Loved Oats approach and alternate switching of moods. Didn't really like the parenthesis part. Seems lazy, and I understand the satirical approach of those lines but it left too much to the reader without painting a context clue beforehand. :(. Zyg delivered a pretty stellar piece. Impressed. I liked the idiomatic spontaneity. It was developed well and consisted of a more truer topic, rather than a erratic one Oats made. I understand the space in the universe, and our actions matter, but what I don't understand is how you managed to tie everything together for a final thematic element which consisted of the gut of your verse. Seemed to be off a tad. Mechanics were there on both sides and you guys are the better writers mechanically of this tournament thus far. Zygote had a flow like canibus really and it was interesting. I liked the way he set up his verse. Both had minimal flaws in emitting more elements to it, tomake the thematic fullness less of a bothersome and complicated read, but you both came to win. It's just preference at a certain point, honestly. And zygote I think embodied that slightly more. Though on a sunnier day I mightve chosen oats. But it's not sunny today. And that's just a mild mannered assumption. Good job guys.