AOWL Week 9: TopicalDood5 (3-0) vs. c.d.m. (2-6) [TOPICALDOOD5 WINS, 5-3.]

[Split]

16 lines minimum, 48 lines maximum. (if agreed upon by both participants, you may go beyond the limit at your own risk.)

Verses are due SATURDAY 4/13 at 11:59 PST.
Extensions are due SUNDAY 4/14 at 11:59 PST.
(There is a 6 hour grace period following the end of the extension deadline. If you fail to post anything by the end of the grace period time, you will be given the no show loss.)

You must vote on at least 4 other battles and post links in the Voting Thread. For every absent vote, you will be deducted ONE vote next week.

Voting ends TUESDAY 4/16 at 11:59 PST. (Unless otherwise it may be extended another day at the most.)

You MUST check in.

If you no-show, you will be removed from next week and have to sign back into the league.

NOTE
Swaying, excessive freeposting, voter fraud etc. are grounds for vote deductions at discretion of the moderators.
Editing your verse after the grace period, after your opponent posts, or after the first vote (especially this)- as well as biting- are grounds for disqualification at discretion of the moderators.

TOPIC: THIS IS A SPLIT TOPIC. One will write a verse supporting an idea, and the other will write a verse supporting an opposing idea.

@TopicalDood5 -video games
@c.d.m. -sports


Good luck to both participants.

[Soulstice]

alright then

[veritas]

Check

[Soulstice]

i need an extension then. short week. didnt expect a show

[Soulstice]

Something Triangles Can Never Be

Welcome, come sit and bear witness as hope slowly erodes, desperate contingents
Hinged on the deathly statistics of surviving the stress in the tenement districts
Whether its heroin misfits strung out on venomous kill-kits or gangbangers
trying to hang against their conceptual Realness - this reign is blind by design and imperious
- A graceful reckoning birthed from an enraged conception -
I burn the storefronts and then I change direction
And plan to add plainclothes police to my tanged-vein-n'-brain collection

Bloody and beaten - wailing and sampling blood
Lies a made man made broken by his own families guns
With damaging thuds - the dying man approaches his doom
In the darkest city's darkest corner, not betrayed by the moon

Drug runners get busted by this thug's gunnery and stanchions shake
at the approach of my Panzer tank - rockets launched until the whole canvas's draped
With maroons supplanting greys - then I'm firing space blasters with cosmic locks
Upon the block - laser beams raze plaster and pavement -
Whole buildings crashing and caving by the wrath of this ageless, slave to the matrix
This puppet wielded by four letters and a compass rose
And wherever he is created/pixelated.. destruction grows

Howling in the night, the nameless man is faced with a simple blade
And with one fell stroke by his boss, we'll hear the whimpers fade
A vicious knave, turned filthy rat begging for life
As his killer fixes to test the depth of the knife

Flashing lights dashing right toward this tactical god
Equipped with chainsaws and shotguns - call the national guard
Helicopters attacking as I smash and maraud
While their bullets remove my skin in cavernous swaths
Sight growing red.. and I have to recharge
Faced with burning shrapnel that I can't rapidly dodge..
Groaning.. pissed off..
... press X to respawn

Gasping for air, choking on life
press X to respawn
He lets out one breath and floats to the light
press X to respawn
To eternal nothingness from shady dominion
press X to respawn
His eyes shut and he fades to oblivion

[veritas]

Ball
*
The fusion of competition and family
Failure and vanity
The best and worst of humanity
Parental projection or apathy
Easily measured success
Easily measured public failure…God bless
The reason a kid would stress
*
….
*
Strikeout and feel the despair of unmet expectations
Loves on timeout prepare for speeches and dedications
Kids try harder to win the game and love it
They learn skill makes their folks look good in public
Team work means don’t let the team down
Missed baskets making them all frown
The game is on the line kid, don’t be anything less than perfect
Some kids are naturals; they always win like they deserved it
*
….
*
Ball teaches many lessons to the young brain
How to be courageous and face your fear of pain
Cuz the ball hurts if it hits, and it hurts to miss
Some are naturally gifted, some ignorance is bliss
There is no I in team but some kids say “M and E”
Some coaches aren’t fair and favor their own “fam ill e”
The childs brain is always watching out into the bleachers
Watching the behavior of those whom are supposed to be the teachers
Daddy is yelling, daddy is cursing, daddy is frowning, where is dad?
Learn to practice, repetition brings mastering of an attitude that’s bad
Some pitchers aim for heads and call that* a srike
Some lineman aim for knees and necks and insist its their right
Some coaches praise this behavior, as long as the game is won
Some kids wonder “I thought this was supposed to be fun?”
*
….
All in all ball becomes a thorn in most kids sides
They lose imagination and heart trying to balance on thin lines
Those with natural talent become dependant on favoritism
Those with none get picked on and neglected or cheat for esteem’s wisdom
In closing, and this is what will really fuck your brain
Is that kids realize subconsciously a ball is always hooked to a chain
*
Good game good game good game good

[Inno]

ok..so im not going to sit here and break your verse down because tbh honest there is nothing that i would say that would
improve both of your already amazing skills..i mean godam this was a dope battle and i dont know why anyone hasnt voted yet,
i read this one yesterday and today...gotta say still dope as fuck the second time around. dood came in with some of the dopes
imagery ive seen..with some staggering vocab and diction. great stuff man. the story was creative man..taking snippets from
everything and meshing it into one story that fit your vision..dope shit. CDM smae wtih you man the angle you took from thi
some would say is expected but either way this shit was fire man. tbh you talked about alot of things that most people can relate to
who hasnt gone through that shit?..who hasnt played a sport they didnt like and where forced to becuase your parents wanted
to live throught you lol..i mean its a very relatble story and you told it well...great battle. in the i think am go with cdm on this one
both dropped jewels but cdm gets my vote...thanks for the read fellas

[IamBenT]

Oh man. I think the worst place to be is having to decide between these two verses.

Topical - Good god man. The beginning was a bit tough to chew. also a few words i would have reworded or done different, ie not betrayed to "unbetrayed". I think because you went with a centered verse it did things to your verse which I wasn't used to seeing and the rhymes were not in expected places. after that though this was straight fire and as the picture of GTA started coming clearer, holy crap man I was laughing and tripping at the fun in this. And probably one of the dopest meta4s of the week was your description of the video game controller! wtf!! the bold part is interesting too, kind of risky because really you could have just gone with the video game adventure and it would have been a strong verse, but i like the risk and it shows the darker side of the wilding out. ending was smart as well.

CDM - holy shit man great verse. starts off a bit slow but in terms of topical rhymes I don't think anyone is doing it better right now, the ending is a real wow type of ending, after really giving us this stellar picture of what sports is all about and like inno says everyone who has ever touched a ball can totally relate. Great stuff.

Damn so close.

Vote -TopicalDood5 i just enjoyed it a bit more, but this is real close cuz cdm dropped stellar. Fantastic battle folks, a must read.

[Soulstice]

funnily enough i had 'unbetrayed' before google chrome informed it was not a word lol... who knew?

anyways, not tryna sway just thought that was funny

links go here
http://www.netcees.co/showthread.php?t=5598
http://www.netcees.co/showthread.php?t=5591
http://www.netcees.co/showthread.php?t=5597
http://www.netcees.co/showthread.php?t=5585
http://www.netcees.co/showthread.php?t=5596

[Xces]

TD - You had a clean verse with some really well worded multi's I felt like it was off in one or two places but nothing immensely distracting from the point or the flow of the piece.
I like the way you approached the gaming topic and spoke on many different forms well staying within the realm of violent video games to get the ending point across. It's all around well written.

CDM- The message of parents being over bearing to the child and how that can harm them is a great take on the topic and your presented it nicely. I feel like you could have worded a few things quite a bit better. There isn't a whole hell of a lot to say aside from that. I feel like it didn't grab my attention enough nearing the end it kind of tapered off and left me feeling less interested then the start of the piece.

V / Topical

[Soulstice]

Originally Posted by ZeeDee (on AOB)

Topicaldood, this was great to read. The imagery jumps off the page almost as I read it and the flow is superb as well. The narration was action filled with all the details you'd expect within the topic of video games and I liked how you wrote it in the character of the video game. Your narration is intelligent and well worded as well as being nicely placed in sequences to put more emphasis on the graphic nature of the content. I think this topic was too easy fo you and you weren't really challenged enough by it. Still, you did exceptionally well with it.

Cdm, this was nice conceptually and some good outlining in the topical sense. A story within this topic of sports would of helped a lot I believe and some longer stanzas or sequences to display your vision more finely. I liked what you did, but it feels incomplete and needed more than just a conceptual outline of good and bad things within sports such as a character that you develop within sports that goes through those hardships you're talking about. Your wording, even though its lacking flow, its very poetical and reads nicely. This is pretty good, just needs more...

Vote topicaldood5

http://artofbattling.com/showthread....ll=1#post47002

[patrown]

alright. i'm going to be brief here, because i already posted a well thought out vote that is no longer.
only saying why i voted how i did, good verses from both here.

/v topicaldood5 - you said a lot about the gamer and the video game. you did a good job of using assonance here, places where syllable counts were questionable - you came through with either developments or imagery.

cdm- you hit the nail on the head from a participants perspective. i can't really vibe with phrases like, "an attitude that’s bad" or "baskets making them all frown" a little bit of lax grammar and overly direct descriptions took away from what could have been a more emotional piece. you made some strong points, and i went through the story without losing interest.however, i feel like a bit more imagery and/or a conclusion drawn directly from the astute observations would have given you the victory.

[Just Write]

wow, this was great. btw sorry for the sloppy reading of this, have to vote from my phone this morning


tropical,
man this is the very first thing ive read from you and i just gotta say you're very talented. you displayed raw emotion with some outstanding vocabulary intertwined with some good imigary. loved it. your operer in my opinion was flawless. i might come back after work on my computer and edit some favorite parts to both of your verses but for now lets just say i didnt find a lot that i didnt like in both pieces


cdm,
damn bro i really liked what you did with basically telling two stories here, the basic open eyed story then the underlining metaphoric point of view. your rhyming was impeccible and concept was real and that last line did in fact make me say oh shit, im going to be honest im going to go with cdm because i was an athlete and i guess i just enjoyed the sports references just a little more but it honestly could have gone either way. this was a pleasure to read

[King Ra.]

I believe this is the first match up I've read where I have to decide who wrote their side of the topic much better. TopicalDood5, while this wasn't one of your better pieces, compared to the previous ones, it was still a solid, all around, well written drop. I liked the direction you took with the video game theme, describing what looks to be a Grand Theft Auto type game, filled with violence & all the crazy actions that come with such a game. The details/imagery is what really stands out in your piece. I saw a few hiccups in the scheme, nothing too drastic though. All in all, a good read. c.d.m., I feel this piece was much better than the one you wrote last week. Here you had the side of sports, & I really like the direction you went, a very informative like written, describing what is a problem in the sport world for kids. While, compared to Dood's writing, your schemes & word choice was a bit more simple, but I really liked how you managed to present your piece- from the intro to the end, which wrapped it all up well. This one is practically based on preference because I feel both of you did well, but I'm going to go with c.d.m. because I feel the direction he took was a bit more interesting & slightly better than Topical.

MVGT: c.d.m.

[Vulgar]

TopicalDood - Cinematic for sure. Signature stanza separation with refined descriptive language; an opaque lake observatory in a wintery Baskerville, tapping on the restart button as images play on the screen. So Grand Theft Auto seemed to be the boiler room for your metaphor, which what it said to me is that humans are destructive by nature - why not filter those emotions through a videogame database, where you can respawn again and again vs. getting the brunt of life's whiplash in actual real life. An outlet for the savage tendencies confided in us all. I could be off but this is my interpretation. You should check out 'Catch 22' by Jakki da Motamouth on youtube, think you would dig it. I also don't think this was pro-video games, but anti-videogames. Am I missing something with this match? lol

C.D.M - Wait, weren't you supposed to be supporting sports though? I'm assuming you both agreed to go against your topics, not for them. I mean, both offered interesting perspectives varying in execution. I'd say this was a well going examination of the ball dilemma. It hit good angles but the problem for me was not that it wasn't full of exuberant poetic language, but just that it was a bit dry. The narration didn't have a lot of energy to it. It felt like you were giving a formal lecture, like a children's psychology class session, thenstead of performing a rhyming presentation of words, ideas and concepts intertwining to form a heilstorm of intriguing sentiments to the reader. For instance I thought your angels and demons verse (if I remember correctly) was more energetic and I liked it more because of the way you involved the reader in this pact between writer and viewer. All the same, this was a beneficial attempt that barely made me vote against it.

My vote goes to TopicalDood by edging it with a more impressive big picture effect.

[King Ra.]

TOPICALDOOD5 WINS, 5-3.