Week 9: 15. Adonis (3-5) vs. 16. dyedinthewool (1-2) \\ Adonis wins 7-2

[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=67025).


Topic


“Ain't the Devil Happy”


Good luck, Adonis and dyedinthewool.

[Adonis]

Topic: Aint the Devil Happy



A gazebo covered by lush greenery draped.
Vines choking fence made perfect for shade.
A calm breeze swirls; caressing your arm hair.
Not quite sweater-cold, as chills ARE spared.
Rays project warmth off of slightly hot sand.
Reflections dance atop a banks watery span.
Tiny waves retreat and attack in soft tones.
A distant sail boat drifts, wading alone.
Devoid of hue, exceptionally white.
Not a stain besides vibrant Red inscribed.
A simple phrase - Lively shades of cursive,
“View Earths Beauty”
Elegantly written with purpose.
She understands it. Life. Skimming a lake.
Sailing away, reeling in sole nutritious intake.
Fueled by wind; fed by the wealth of a sea.
I stand here amazed, watching her devour this beast.
Century's of life – And with our blip, she's calloused and weak.
I towered her peak. Come “View Earths Beauty” with me.
Live Freely. Float, delicately.
Tread safe, and Earth's allure – Better than dreams.
Life's a son of a beach – Reaper – Loves human beings.


Fare trade. A slow death of our home.
And during her last breath.
My; the influx of souls that he'll own.






.

[dyedinthewool]

A distraught soul with a hunger for gold
Finds his way to a church, as evil unfolds
Walks in with a revolver, drunken and stoned
Simply asking the pastor to see his way home-
He had one single mission and a traveling thought,
I have to save her; both of her kidneys are shot-
My baby girl is a tot; she needs to live to be old
And if I can save her, my next move isn’t one that’ll fold.
I haven’t seen her in days, and I miss her so much
I want to hold her and tell her that daddy loves her a lot.
And when I make it home, we’ll go get her fixed
She is my life, my heart, a soul I can’t bear to miss
And if this holy temple is for the dreamers that hope,
Then why is Kaley dying? I’m so unable to cope
My faith is long gone, I just want to get in and get out
But I see the Virgin Mary, looking down as she pouts
Her sad eyes confuse me with doubt, but I’m about
To commit this crime and I know Kaley wouldn’t be proud.
Something comes over me, and I just drop down to cry-
I can’t open this safe, I want to pray, please Kaley don’t die.
I run to light a candle, my hands calloused and cold- when I stop
To see an angel walking by a pew, I pause and I drop-
She has golden hair, and a glow surrounding her little poise
Turns around to tell me that I’ve made the better choice
But the sound of her voice makes my heart bellow a noise-
It was Kaley my baby, my angel got really bad yesterday,
While I was attempting to save her, she was passing away.

[zygote]

This could be a favorite contest of the entire competition so far. It’s a favorite because of the seemingly surface level similar yet foundationally opposite responses to the topic. Both wrote about the slow death of a something loved, both wrote about powerlessness, both appealed to empathy as the driving force to give strength to the writing, but there was a fundamental difference in philosophy best explained in each endin, cynic vs hopeful. E.g., Adonis “Fare trade. A slow death of our home.
And during her last breath.
My; the influx of souls that he'll own.” – the outcome is inevitable, all that’s left to do is accept it, all other aspects of things that could save the Earth – (“View Earths Beauty” stuff) are rejected in true cynical style. Compare with “It was Kaley my baby, my angel got really bad yesterday,
While I was attempting to save her, she was passing away.” – an ending where the mother is eternally hopefully even up to the point where it is clear to all that there will be no hope of recovery, it was effective because there was not one line about any potential hope in recovery, all the lines were about the deteriorating condition of the child, the only hope came from the mother character and her attempts, such as praying, to help. Again, the contrast between each was striking and made for a favorite contest so far. Voting for Adonis.

[PancakeBrah]

Adonis - I said this in another vote on a battle of yours but your wording this season is leaps and bounds better than last season. It's all very smooth, poetic-style almost. Your rhyming is sometimes off for me (but I understand your schemes and what you're doing). The ending vignette of this piece was well done. I particularly liked the 'My;'. Strong technique all around. I didn't really get what you were going for at first. This is mostly due to me being dumb and having read the rest of the battles this week first where the verses were more literal and expressly stated. The section before the "View Earths Beauty' was top notch imagery, and the two portions thereafter were great exploration of your concept. Well done.

dyedinthewool - I liked this. I think I've only read one other verse from you in this league and if I recall correctly I prefer this one. You don't often, if ever, see writing like this on Netcees. Very open, almost bright eyed, even if the end result was a downer. I like how you interpreted the topic without having to overtly mention the it or the devil at all. I was able to read it, scroll back up to the topic, and match the sadness of the events with the pre-supposed malice of the topic. A refreshing take on text rappering.

Very cool battle, different from almost everything I've read this season. In the end I think Adonis had the better execution but both should be proud of their submissions. Looking forward to more from both.

v/ Adonis

[d0ubt]

adonis - you might not have much for a rhyme scheme, but you have shortened lines that keep within an attention span rather than some writers who have longer bars and some rhyme scheme, i would personally rather read something like this with less rhymes but shortened bars than something where there are rhymes but they are lost within long bars that drown out the rhymes and you can lose the entertainment value... i'm ranting way too much here i'm gonna shut the fuck about this, i was just bringing it up from your comments in the chat thread. anyways, i thought despite the lack of a rhyme scheme it still flowed well and was enjoyable to read. i enjoyed your diction, it was smooth, this piece was loaded with imagery, well done. i thought this was a good read.

dyedinthewool - this was a beautiful piece, lots of emotion and illustrated well with plenty of imagery. nice story telling, i really got into it. you didn't have a lot of rhymes, but i did enjoy the ones you sprinkled in, they were well done, gave some flavor to a good story filled with emotion. feels almost like a personal piece to me.

overall i just felt dyedinthewool outwrote adonis this week, they both came with good pieces that i enjoyed reading this week though.

dyedinthewool

[Zombie]

I think you both chose routes way better than I could have thought and for that I commend you both, lol. Adonis had the slightly better wording. DIW delivered a sense of emotion way better here. Each stellar in both regards. I'm giving it to adonis in the closest match Ive seen in awhile. Adonis - I recommend you make the imagery less unfocused. As it was so intense it threw off from what I think you intended. Dyed, no qualms from me here. I just think the story was a bit condensed. But everything was top notch, great battle here. Vote/ Adonis.

[millz]

Adonis....


so i would like to say congrats... you have apparently took an evolutionary leap to becoming a better writer. something i was not sure you ever would do. the framework and style in which this piece was attempted was actually brilliant and loads better than anything ive read from you. with that being said there still is massive massive room for improvement. something i try very hard to focus on is wording, and some of your wording just isnt fleshed out enough. take for example your opening couplet

A gazebo covered by lush greenery draped.
Vines choking fence made perfect for shade.

if you read that out loud the wording doesnt come across as natural, its almost incomplete. it would be better off if it was worded something like this

A gazebo is covered by a lush greenery; draped in
vines choking the fence that's so perfectly shaded


thats not perfect, but i think after reading it you get to see my point. it just feels more natural and is far more complete. and i think this is really the only point where your piece struggles. the potential is there but the wording needs to be fixed. some parts of it just dont feel right. as far as concept its very well thought out. its resonates with something that is real, and relatable without exactly being thrown in the face... which is good.

vs.


dyed. first off i want to start with this. the writing in the beginning of this was much much smoother then the writing at the end. some of it was simple, but that wasnt a problem. sometimes simple can be more effective. and in this case it was... in the beginning. so while i think for the most part your word choices stood out over adonis for being more natural. i think your piece lacked a bit, where adonis story excelled. sometimes people focus to hard on trying to do something new... add a new twist, or do something that hasnt been done before. well your piece has been done to death. so you are faced with 2 options. you can either, a, give it a new twist. which most people completely fail at. or b, you can focus hard on writing it well. i tend to focus on the writing it well part. there is nothing wrong with approaching a topic or context that has been used. the exciting part is how you execute it. to me this was set up real nice, but it felt completely rushed its like the story started on a walk for 85% of the story, and you fit the last half of the content in the 15% of space left to fill. sometimes this can be a casualty of line limits, but in this case i only count 13.5 couplets... which is odd to me as its usually easier to writing in even numbers and even more specifically in multiples of 16. i really think your piece would of benefited from using that last 2.5 couplets to flush out more the ending of this story. would of added more emotion and captured the reader better.

vote-adonis

[Frank]

Adonis

Wrote about deaths gatekeeper steering the boat across the visceral lake. Some soft writing, deli***y to the wording, almost appetizer like. It's the lyrical equivalent of finger food for me. I am never quite satisfied with the dish. It's expensively presented on a white china plate with all the trimmings and splatterings and it looks delicious. It' like 3.5 O.Z of seeweed leaves and poached ostrig egg in snail sauce though. Zagat score: 74.

Dyedinthewool

Feeling your steelo, it's reminiscent of the late great FreshADiddle. Feminine touch, I thought that your wording was unique in its simplicity and naturally unfolded in organic style. Its flow was consistent and never wavered really, even as the syllables slipped and the schemes stopped coming as tight. Story had a creep feel to it. Solid effort.

MVGT Adonis

[Split]

wooly mom-eth

The beginning was as Cake said, bright-eyed, whereas the ending was more Bright Eyes. Really poignant story, like a vignette more than anything. I like how religion plays an ephemeral role here, in fact it's really masterfully neutral. It provides the father no comfort, no lesson, no hope... and yet it is what he turns to in desperation, what pulls him back in his moment of weakness- (perhaps though it is the base morality instilled in him as a child, for you say he no longer has faith), and touches on how faith rarely provides true hope for anything but mercy and how cruel that can be.

I really did not like the ending though, where the baby physically appears as an angel poltergeist besides the protagonist. Such a deus ex or maybe just a sloppy plot fix. The verse really had an incredibly natural and plain-spoken cohesion to it that maybe you didn't recognize the importance of the grounded reality of the verse... i dunno, i just feel as though you really wrote from the heart and it was really effective until you brought in that corny ending. :/


adonis.


from Skimming the lake to live freely was lost on me. I think a cyclone got the boat. I originally wrote that section was hot garbage, but that's unfair because it is tender and you didn't stumble, it just wasn't as clear as my stupid fuck mind wants it to be. The last section was gorgeous. I liked the scene and the imagery and the wording but I don't get a feeling of closure from the end, neither in regards to the topic nor to the significance of the sailboat's sinking other than the unprovoked, unconscionable savagery of mother nature.

V/ DITW. Her writing was more intricately woven around the topic.

[e11even]

Adonis- fucking beautiful dude. I loved the concise, regimented, yet poetic nature this piece had. I liked the imagery, though it wasn't far out amazing, and I really liked the crisp ending. This is a good version of you. This is a you I can vote for :)

Dyed- I think this piece had a big heart. I also think this heart could have been displayed with a more connected final feeling in conjunction with the topic. I really like certain qualities of this but it mnade me want for more of what I expected to feel from something with sunject matter this supposedly deep. I liked this, but I didn't love the ending.

MVGT Adonis for the near perfect piece per the approach. Very sound, concise piece. Good job both of you.