Week 11 contender match: 3. timeless (6-4) vs. 4. Split Eight (2-2) \\ Split Eight wins 6-0

[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=69948).


Topic


This can't be how it's supposed to end.


Good luck, timeless and Split Eight.

[timeless]

Rocks hit his face, bursting veins, blood ran down his new jacket.
He felt the pain, heard shouts of "Clown!" and soon, "Faggot!"
Such cruel madness, the wine stain on some smooth fabric.
An alias coming to life concludes crashing
tides onto the shoreline's pasture, creating bliss from nothing.
Nothing budges when you dont even find yourself to put trust in.
Then you soon start erupting.
Clutching, lust for consumption.
Alone.
Other half's wanting the world to see him.
Not just that he lives or that he's breathing.
Sid begged for an answer by waving his hand high,
but a teacher was never waiting on stand by.
Maybe he's been too busy chasing those tan lines.
Mindset on some hollywood racing with land slides.
Meaning he'll never climb the ranks, no success either.
The Hashpipe to Weezer, the Nas if the sets Ether.
No matter the comparison to great things, he shines less.
Takes the dignity with him in the tapes just to rewind stress.
Sid had to find a road to take, had to hide his ship that sank.
He met at the open grass field down by the river bank
with the other half of his personality ; Hank.
They discussed life, and how it systematically shrank.

Hank said to Sid, "I have a present." Pointing at doors,
three of them to be exact, each one joining the core
of what looks to be heaven, hell, and life's great accord.
"Your days will go on." Pace in having one's fate explored.
"Based on which door you open." Sid thought of them all.
He was undecided, said that his cost has been bought.
Sid then continued to talk...
..."They say that the day is fresh or young in the morning,
does that mean they grow old at night? Some, that's the warning.
Coping with hope's broken road is slim, until you travel it.
Eyes never set on new places, been roadkill and glad of it.
Here's the lavish twist : the road's made of eggshells... entrapment.
So does the road always lead down? If so, life's been fascist."
"So it's trapped us?" Hank asked. I said, "No, life has lapped us.
I can't even see the checkered flags, my sight has vanished.
Instead you stand in the way, Hank. I am no longer a kid.
You can't expect me to pick a door, I am stronger than this.
How many conversations can one have with himself knowing,
that you're chosen to represent two lives like you're Hell's spokesman.
How can the end of one life mean the other passes with it?
Hank will live on. The body dies, but not its attached spirit.
Hell seemed the best suited for Sid, he pushed the door open.
What he seen was a place where he couldn't be more focused.
Fortuneless, just themselves and his tragedies to escape.
Amnestied his place on Earth for them to see Hank's face.

[Split]

A novice drawing teacher, with coffee, keys,
coat slung on shoulder, locked his glossy Beamer
and crossed the street, busy thinking over...
...everything, drips of thought rippled into
faucet speed. His aesthetically chiseled nose was
awash in the softest gleam, from his freshly inked diploma:
he'd framed the oft-dreamed of achievement in jeweler's glass...

... John was scheming up a future path, a long career,
soon to be reared from his tenure at N.C. State.
Measured, at any rate, by paintings, charcoals, acryllics,
all babies inside this harbored image. His narcissism
was carved with an artists' touch, sloppily hid-
it was hard enough to stem his creative tide
and blend in upon inspection by the laymens' eyes.
Impatience was fostered by his lofty ambitions.
Lost within himself. Lost in adopted mannerisms,
a savant with no tangible competition.
Something runs rampant in him.
He managed it with constant vision.
A on-and-off -productive brand of sickness,
a draught drank far from sight-
Creative talent always bottled tight...
but allowed his mind to wander as he walked at night,
and oggle at light that contours, drops and darts
in crests & falls between columns, in the troughs of arcs,
bled on glass, and water features in Raleigh's many parks.
"Now or never" explained this...fettered greatness
in tense containment. He longed to create,
every moment, second, but locked the process away.
Much like light at night... it would blossom, spray
with fervor if cover of darkness dropped its guard...
Spread, like awareness among the plebs that fought in wars
with bids, and bought the art the truly gifted were tossing forth-

But this light was not bargained for...
it was ugly, stark, and tore his vision from
the document in his hands. As John turned, alarmed,
to face the city bus...

He's not gonna understand,
but he learned the hard way what his place in the city was.
Just another statistic.
What gushed from the busted prism
that was once his head was simply blood.
"This is the end...? but I wasn't finished..."

[zygote]

Disliked the multiple rhymes in the beginning section, especially the "new-jacket, cruel-madness, smooth-fabric" and the "tan-lines, stand-by, land-slides" ones. This probably seems like a petty criticism but these kind of rhyme schemes make the writing feel disingenuous to me. The best example is a comparison of; "tides onto the shoreline's pasture, creating bliss from nothing.
Nothing budges when you dont even find yourself to put trust in." - which is an excellent line and seems genuine, and "Maybe he's been too busy chasing those tan lines.
Mindset on some hollywood racing with land slides." - which is not excellent, mainly because of how the line itself seems like an afterthought to the rhyme scheme. Apart from some small other areas like that, the story was good and it held interest. The last scene descending with the final choice of rebellion over any of the doors was a good comment about free-will.

Just quickly back to the original thing about rhyme schemes, the biggest distinction is the seamless word choice by Split Eight. Not a single word feels misplaced, it is all very concise and thematically consistent. Really well planned out and separated, the short background at the start, transitioning into the character defining section in the middle, and then the great short ending that destroys the whole character. This was a really interesting contest with both having different conclusions on the same underlying theme. Timeless wrote about free-will and the choice of rebellion with the main character shaping their own fate, while Split Eight had all the free-will stuff but in the end the main character just gets hit by a bus with a kind of predetermined straightforwardness. Voting for Split Eight.

[Perpendicular]

Timeless: Deaths spokesman…I dug the concept behind that line. There were several wording issues throughout that bothered me. Nothing that was overbearing in contrast to the storyline, but was mentionable. The story itself didn’t hold my interest and I think (once again) it was mostly due to the wording. The concept, especially the end, was strong.
Split: Mirage et Trios is a dope title. Multi-layered, multi-faceted depiction of the character. Precise wording (again, from last week) and encapsulating descriptions. The ending was a little abrupt but borderline poetic justice. Characterization obviously your strong suit.
vote: Split

[oats]

Timeless: I think you dialed in your rhyming in sections here. Though it started to slip noticeably two/thirds in (around where you picked up more dialogue), I generally enjoyed the actual rhyming here. Still some instances that appear to be cramming for the sake of rhyming, but I see you widdling those moments down every week.

Story was cool, I always enjoy magic realism like this - went from a normal world into a sudden break from that with the other wordly door choosing. I think this was a little too bare though. What was at stake? Why did he choose hell? I would have preferred us to know the character more and then not know his decision, leaving it up to me to put those pieces together. But if you did that people would probably complain, too. Just thinking out loud.

In general there was an emotional flatness for me. The verse was well-written, but I didn't know enough about sid, hank or the story behind the decision to care about what happened. Big step in the right direction, but still a few miscues IMO.


Split: you and pancake write so similarly it's eerie. Well crafted prose, and dripping rhyme schemes that ebb and flow alongside the content. Beautiful writing, truly.

I do think the ending was a little too vague. Which is weird because you did exactly what I just recommended timeless should have done - build up the character and be ambiguous. What I mean is, I would have liked some clarification on what exactly sparked his epiphany that, despite these great accomplishments and clever intellect, he really isn't that special. The last line had me thinking that maybe something did happen to him, physically. Hopefully I didn't misread, because if he did suddenly die that would be cheap.


Vote: split gets my vote, overall more refined and focused writing. Timeless is making strides, didn't quite leap that hurdle yet this week.

[Three-Planes-Aligned]

timeless - nice core idea with the concretization of introspection and choice, I feel the execution was somewhat if not sloppy, then at least uninspired in terms of making it a cohesive experience (as in while the entirety (the piece) is greater than the sum of the parts (individual lines), the parts need some polish).

Split Eight - you are a master of atmosphere, sir, as well as connecting sentiments to actions, seemlessly, with your carefully worded lines. You could basically apply that writing aesthetic to any topic and make it eerie and intriguing.

I vote Split Eight due to strong, yet subtle, characterization

[Zombie]

The atmospheric attitude split eight bought was duly noted. Timeless had a fascinating piece with little newtonian quarks in the low energy setting of its nuclei with a charmed and strange inner gut. Splits story was refreshing and concise. Timeless needed a bit more of that conciseness. Voting for split eight.

[Soulstice]

Split - Kind of sudden, sort of a generic ending, although his last thoughts, something unfinished, could be related back to art. I wish you had made that a running metaphor, it would've been tight. Overall, the flow was really good and I liked how you finished schemes in the next line, its complex. The ending was kind of a let down in its relative simplicity, I liked the piece in the middle when it felt biggest.

Time - wording issues is the main takeaway. IMages and dialogue/development both kind of suffered from odd diction and abnormal language. The actual images and characters that were in there were good but could've been a lot clearer and more full (a byproduct of clear language, redundant to note i guess). Flow was cool, but splits was better in the mechanic regard as welel

v - split