ROUND ONE: (6)Soulstice vs. (R)uh-oh - (UH-OH WINS 9-5)

[PancakeBrah]

The Winter Topical
@Soulstice @uh-oh

Topic


Check In Deadline: 1/11/2014
Verse Deadline: 1/15/2014, 11:59 Pacific
Voting Deadline: 1/18/2014 (4 Votes Required)
Line Min/Max: 16/48
Extension/Line Extension by request. Must be agreed to.

Good luck to both.

[Soulstice]

Edge Of Heaven

Walls of shined marble reflect the perfectly elegant vista
See the ghostly image of Romanesque emerald steeples
Citizens exit in sequence - draped in crimson and gold
Each a brilliant artisan marching, neck-deep in scriptures and scrolls
They retreat to towers and shrines, some nearly scraping the skies, this
Is a city in it's powerful prime, the wall can't reflect its full face or horizon
A place with greatness inside - and the shining wall just tells half the legend
Continue the climb with your eyes, see the past the city's edges

See just above the wall's peak, above the iron spikes and sigils
Hop on the back of a carrion bird, recline and witness
Steel your mind and listen, then behold the violent image
Strident cries and whimpers - shadows slink, the guise of villains
They slyly pillage tiny adobe huts - then leave the floors slathered in guts
Roving bandits travel and crush - tiny farming settlements
The civil speckles across this desert; starving, desolate
& carcass-carpeted. Patrolled by giant lizards and angry vultures
Man murder man - the staple of stranger cultures
This raging cauldron - a dustbowl of theft and brutality
Mixes well to form the potent apex of insanity

Now the bird circles back - drops you into the foaming mouth of a rat
Which scurrys deep into the ground astoundingly fast
Squeezing itself down through the cracks - of the golden roads
Deep into the sewers where the sludge slowly flows
The rat feasts on broken bones, hanging off bony limbs
Lightly coated with rotten meat and corroding skin
They slowly shift downstream - a bastardized miserable styx
Eventually all ending up in the sewers infinite crypt
Flashback - they were once merchant's, clever with paper
Amongst kings and noblemen - they held excellent favor
But every emperor tapers - and they were ruined, betrayed
By those whose skeletons will follow in this ruthless parade
The truth is a charade, a play of silver scepters and tongues
because the game of money and power can never be won

Now plummet - down the waterfalls and past the muddy jewels
You'll flow out the discharge system and into a scummy pool
Beneath the broken sky of the desert & it's unwritten canon of war
Where each man acts on a sinister standard's accord
If words are recanted - they're supplanted with swords
No high treason convenes where there are no bannermen born..
There are no castes nor crests of the land
Take what you can take and leave the rest to the sand
The treachery's planned, soon as the hilt hits the hand
As soon as death is given the chance - he strikes and takes all of it
You could never hide behind the nightshade of politics
With just an axe, a few crops, and a hut riddled with cracks
But the clever merchants could never take what little they have..

Each nomad and priest, every merchant and thief
Looks to the wall in the South, the shield of the North
Mutter the same wish, they feel to the core
To whatever they believe in, or whatever they doubt
"Just let the wall stand strong just keep the wickedness out"

[uh-oh]

FROZEN FORESTS,
A TRAPPER WHO DONT COMFORM,
WITH THE SOCIAL NORMS,
GOES FOR PORRIDGE BEFORE EXPLORING.
WHILE BEARS SLEEP HE BARES HEAT,
NORMALLY ITS IMPORTANT.
HENRY 44 RIFLE
TO SORT OUT THE MISINFORMED WITH
AMERICAN TO THE CORE, SHIT
BUT FORMALLY HE IGNORES IT.
THEY LET WHORES SIT IN POWER POSITIONS
LIKE HE ENDORSED IT.
THEY SPEAK BOUT GLOBAL WARMING,
WHEN THEY DONT KNOW WHAT WARM IS
AND THEY CANT MAKE A NORTHFACE
TO SAVE HIM FROM THE NORTHS WINDS.
TO HIM,
IT ALL SEEMED FOREIGN
AND BORING TO KEEP INFORMED IN.
AND AFTER AWHILE
HIS REALITY WAS DISTORTED.
HIS TRAP RUNS WERE ENORMOUS
AND HE NEVER MADE A FORTUNE
BUT THE LITTLE HE DID MAKE,
HE ACTIVELY PUT TOWARDS THIS.
TILL ONE DAY HIS POLARIS LOST TRACTION
AND SENT HIM SOARING,
OFF THE BACK OF IT.
CRACKED HIS WIG AND HIS SOUL CONTORTED
THE GODS JUDGED
AND GAVE NO REACTION TO HIS PERFORMANCE
BUT SENT A SOLAR FLARE
TO INTERACT WITH THE EARTHS ORBIT.
CLEARED THE SKIES OF STORMS
SO THEY COULD WITNESS THE AURORAS
WHILE THE TRAPPER TURNED BLACK
AND RABBITS SKITTERED PAST TO FORAGE

THE END

[zygote]

Soulstice, pretty tangential relation to the topic picture, but it made sense to compare the seemingly endless road to this fantasy world.There was also a very strong command of language to match your scene setting. Little phrases like - "they held excellent favor" are just really cool for immersion into this world you are creating. It's also nice how you are creating the scene by focusing on the smaller details. It was like the reader was being taken on a tour of this world, by first riding along with a bird, then the rat and then the water. It was a cool device to take us along like that rather than just simply describing everything. Enjoyed different instances of metaphor stuff too like the "because the game of money and power can never be won" part to compare the endless maneuvering of politics in your story to the endless road.

Uh-oh, the main character seems a little bit like a winter version of the Captain America character from the movie Easy Rider. Here there was also this man on his motorbike who rejects the social norms in exchange for freedom - the whole part from 'American to the core' up to 'they don't know what warm is' was like a cool patriotic counterculture thing. Good description of this mountain-man character, and it's a good character study, not much of a storyline, but that's OK because that clearly wasn't your intention to make some huge plot, just to show this character and use him to give a bit of social commentary. Perhaps you could have done a bit more though in that regard, the middle section could have been filled out with some more examples to really drive everything home. While the single rhyme scheme was impressive technically, maybe it lessened your ability to really get into it by adding another section or something. It left a big length difference between the two submissions. Also really really enjoyed the ending, loved how the last line is about animals foraging rather than the character. It was a good comment on the strength of collective nature vs morality of a single human. Voting for uh-oh.

[Split]

lol

Soulstice

Cool verse. Not my place to speculate, but it seems like you slapped the first and last stanzas onto a verse about a desert kingdom. You didn't talk at all about the wickedness outside the walls, or mention the snow, or frame it in a conceivable way in any sense


The writing was vivid, good wording and great description. enjoyable read. but the topic doesn't connect in any meaningful way. Idk I feel like that is supposed to be the HEART of any verse and is what lets unequal opponents meet on a level playing field

your (in my opinion) neglect of the topic except a passing acknowledgement actually left you worse off than if u rushed a redo that paid full attention , even if you did write masterfully onsomething almost unrelated

I guess that snowmobile path up the mountain could be seen as a wall

But lol. For all intents and purposes, you were like "aaaaand here's the topic. but if you look directly in the opposite direction, here's what I really wanna talk about for the next 40 lines......

...

The End

P.S. Turn around. wass good topic???? glad ur still there!"


whack. even if u didn't repurpose a verse just to win on the merits of being a better writer.

I don't even wanna break ur shit down.

But I will. I'll assume that u DID write this to the topic, and that there is some passing significance between this desert society ruled by murderers and the barren snowforest like 0.5 miles north


I think you should have spent the meat of your verse incorporating your topic, which in this case would be (one possibility) handing backwards compliments to the solitude of the arctic wasteland.. comparing the "good" of society (just means for exploitation) to the "evil" of hermitude, which would really just be the unforgiving cold of facing the world alone

I also would lend more significance to the wall, to the divide between the desert/ tundra, and perhaps address these issues somehow in the peoples lives

it seems to me they're not even passingly aware there's a giant fucking wall preventing them from leaving their giant ass piece of shit Dubai imposter interment camp

lol no hate, you're a dope writer... just any way I look at this it seems lazy



might be just me



uh-oh


lol, thought it was dope how u mentioned how the dude was being mad american by not trying to be super american. and how he is so american that america is foreign.

Thought the "warm is/ norths wind" section was murder for flow and all that.. you should definitely try tougher rhymes (not like gigantic multis but like rhyming words in cool ways). or mix em up more. But i dig the flow you got.

I like how after he dies, no one gives a fuck, and thats cool. Gods part the sky and just say word. he lived and died. It pretty much embodied ur whole piece, like "im doing what I do because I do it, and when I die ill stop doing it" which seems like the theme to your boarding personality haha

just be careful about not coming fresh w/ stories cause i can see this getting old if u dont step outside yourself. but yeah, that and better schemes would elevate you shittons w/out a ton of attention, you got potential to write dope pieces

also its pretty rare that people go the direct route/ dont talk about some fantasy universe, so its refreshing



decision

Soulstice had much more precise writing and stronger delivery, better mechanics, but his storytelling was bleached cornhole. Uh-oh was rough around the edges, but enjoyable to read/ easy to digest as well. Uh-oh also had a much stronger approach, even if Soulstice had written in a lot more details about the cities/ people/ desert you can't see cause they're hidden by a mountain road that was laid on top of the mountain the poor desert nomads built to keep themselves in the fucking desert away from resources and prosperity. But the road over the goddamn mountain wall totes doesnt imply that you can, you know. easily walk over the wall. but who was tunnels?


Uh-oh easily

good match

[big baby]

This was so weird.. I read soulstice's verse about 4 times to fully absorb everything. I understand, but then I don't in relation to the picture. I will say, a desert doesn't have to be sand, there are deserts in the Tundra, it usually relates to how dry it is.

But given that, you mentioned, pools, and streams, and downstream, and styx. Generally, this image would be in a cold setting, and the walls you spoke of, don't have to be something so remedial as split said. It could have been the panaroma of the picture, or the trees on the side, and the north to south thing was a little off kilter, and it sorta just threw everything off, but even with what I said, I tried to look at a metaphorical mean for the whole thing, but could just pull out something barely there, and it was hard for me to digest, really. With such content and context, the picture didn't seem to relate to me, and even if it did for you, your job was to provide the best verse in relation to the verse, even if it's complex, it can't be so far-fetched and almost 'wrong' in the eyes of the readers that it is just completely seen as a lazy verse. Which this was not...because you provided insight on something i can't even comprehend (based on what was given) which threw me off, because the topic didn't seem as empirical as what you inscribed.

Uh oh provided a very simple verse, almost too simple, and I actually read his first, then soulstices, in which I said "why would uh oh post something against a high seed opponent? (my thinking into this battle was that soulstice would provide something of very high caliber and relation to the topic at hand) but when I reread both verse, I understood, uh-oh coupled in a few nice lines, and was actually thought provoking, now every verse doesn't have to be thought provoking, but they could cater to a side of your brain that is satiated, based on the topic, whether it be humor, creativity, or both, or on an emotional seed. uh-ohs provided just a comfortable amount of ease, and I felt I could repeat some of his lines and be satisfied. The warm line had me, and is very quotable. Almost at means with the topic, and a BIT thought provoking, very quick, smooth verse, rough around the edges as previously mentioned, but honestly, and shockingly...enough to get my casted vote. Good job uh oh. Thanks guys. :)

[NYCSPITZ]

complexity: Soul
flow: uh oh
structure: soul
profundity: soul very easily
conclusion: soul

overall: ok rushed the reads before uh ohs was dope. still got Soul on this. Soulstice's verse was verteran with good but not great execution and far more depth. Without question Soulstice took this easily IMHO

[Red glare]

topicaldood5

elmerald steeples and ever greens. the desert tundra. the roving bandits and the giant lizards. the rotten meat. the miserable styk. the plummet of the nomads.

the constrast between the writing and the picture here is so startling, that it dumbfounds you. the sand snowman... polar opposite depiction. most extreme adaptation of a picture I've read thus far, this round - very trippy - recycled or not - it was very abstract.

it's like someone saying to you, run your hand under this faucet of cold water and it's scorching hot. well done.

uh-oh

wrote in a paul bunyan font about the trapper who witnessed the auroras. meh. the capital letters were heavy in a Shining trekking through the snow scene kind of way though. 16 bar track, it was still a mighty effort.

in a battle of this proportions, between a relatively unknown topicalist and a premier writer, one must give benefit of the doubt, and trust the instincts of the more seasoned writer,

vote goes to soulstice

[PancakeBrah]

Soulstice-

You have to bear with me because I have a very low IQ, but I don't see how this relates to the topic. At all. I'm usually not one to read votes before dropping my own but I did in this situation simply because I wanted to make sure I wasn't taking crazy pills. And in each voter's breakdown I see these long-winded rationales and lines of thought trying to explain in a connection to the a topic for your verse. It's not the readers job to do this. When you started your verse I could see it maybe being a very metaphorical description of the picture. But then you start working in specificity, and the more refined your description becomes the less I can see even that tenuous connection. Which is a shame because I think this was one of the best pieces of writing in the first round. From your wording, imagery, flow (especially) and rhymes, everything was honed in and damn near flawless. And it's wasted, for me, as a great open mic masquerading as a topical piece.

uh-oh-

Simple and to the point, with just enough nuance to be considered good. Very different and opposed from the normal open mic or topical piece. At a surface glance a voter would just vote for Soulstice. But you actually adhered to the topic with a very literal approach. The flow, which was the strong point throughout, and rhymes were good. The extremely short nature of the lines naturally lend this verse to criticism about depth, and that's warranted. This was more enjoyable than a lot of pieces, though, and it acted as sort of breath of fresh air.

Did not expect this, at all, when uh-oh was put in an as a reserve. But a confluence of things lead to this being rather easy for me.

v/uh-oh

[Wise Wiggles]

Yeah I'm in the boat of thinking Soulstice was gonna drop a masterpiece on this pic. But then I started reading and quickly realized I had no idea where he was taking it and it wasn't really matching up to the pick real well. Idk I mean it could just be me but it seemed as he didn't write to the pic at all. Yeah you could describe the treeline as a wall but everything else does not connect in my mind. he had good mechanics for the most part but there were transitions/spots where it became a tad choppy. Didn't really gain anything from, no offense at all of course. It seems it was written to a picture that had a desert and then a giant wall sort of like the original judge dredd film with sly. And I couldn't really incorporate that to the given pic. Don't know what to say. As for Uh Oh's he approached this very straight forward. Modern mountain Viking man style. Did well describing the environment and I made connections with the pic instantly which I liked. The warm is, north face, north winds were my favs and the auroras line. Idk. Uh Oh handled the biz in the way he knows how. I left reading it feeling inspired. Which is cool for how short the lines and in all reality the piece was. He stayed with the topic. Key description words were key in the outcome of this in my mind. I'm gonna give this to Uh Oh for his raw adaptation of living in the mountains. Peace.

[Eŋg]

soulstice - i hold you in very high regard as a writer as you're top 3 or 5 of guys i've competed alongside in any semblance of a topical league or tourney. i thought the writing here was nothing less than stellar and i could spend good chunks of time and/or conceptual energy extracting minutiae from the expanse of language alone. but i won't, because i only read this twice, and while i enjoyed it, i fail to recognise an ostensible/causal relation between this verse and the picture. i don't think it even needs one but then idk. i want to think of something unusual, something that i would usually do, but i don't see it. it's late and this is the last of my votes though so forgive me if i've missed something painstakingly obvious and you haven't just recycled some verse. pm me or something.

uh oh - i think this would have been stronger in a first person monologue. but apart from that yea... it's effective in its simplicity and whatever. flows well enough. the almost bare bones are laid out and we scrape the remnants of meat off them. w.e. that means. the line about 'rabbits skittered past to forage' seemed so fucking thoughtful and unusually vigilant for this shit. i mean it worked. i just laughed to myself, like silently, probably because it was so soft yet written in caps, too. i did write a verse this week btw for the gladiator thing but it wasn't amazing/did flow pretty well. okay.

v/uh oh?

[oats]

soulstice: probably sounding like a broken record here, but I gotta echo the previous sentiments here. The writing itself was great, and the structure of exploring different layers of the world through different animal guides was a wonderful approach, very reminiscent of archetypical fantasy worlds. But like everyone else, I really couldn't connect the verse to the picture at all, which gives it an air of being unfair since you (seemingly) shirked the constraint of the given topic. There were loose, veiled connections no doubt, but those came off as tacked on; they looked like afterthoughts.

Uh-oh: the characterization was entertaining and fun. the verse dipped its toes in some social commentary, but no real insight was laid out really. All in all, it was enjoyable, but it felt like a cliff's notes version to me - it was such a brisk journey through this character and his world and how it carved him into who he was, it was hard for me to come away with much of a feeling or anything. I just didn't get much from it, other than the pure enjoyment from reading it (which is a fundamental aspect of good writing that shouldn't be trivialized).

Vote: Soulstice had the better writing no doubt here, but in the name of being fair, I just can't bring myself to give him the vote simply off the fact that it was so disconnected from the picture. So I vote for Uh-oh.

[Angkor]

these two verse were very similar to me....down to the cynical view of society...which is what they both have in common: Views.

Soul - I liked what u did here, duke. The first thing that came to mind was the old adage "The grass is greener on the other side". I see this as another commentary on greed and perspective. I suppose America would be the prime candidate to examine those ideas. From a global perspective, we're Heaven on Earth? but the issues we deal with are far from divine and are often dirty and ongoing. The serene and majestic image you paint in the first stanza really set the stage for contrasting viewpoints. The writing was certainly elite level here, as well. I'm not sure how others are not connecting this to the picture especially judging by the title of the piece. The top of the picture was blurred giving an illusion of some heavenly destination lol. Overall this was dope writing and i really enjoyed it.

Uh-Oh - This was ill as well. Very direct, with very little "decorations". The flow was very good, imo, and natural. It tells of a hermit who stripped himself of everything civilized notions but the bear (no pun intended) necessity. A great exposition on man vs society. However, ironically it was his embrace of modernism that ultimately became his undoing has his vehicle crashed, killing him. I dug this verse because it didnt try to do anything more than be entertaining. The lack of details even gave room for much interpretation as far as themes, social commentary and even depth. But i dont' think it was trying to do anything but relay a story of how, ultimately, in the end, we are not as special as we think we are. Very nice.

Vote -Like i mentioned earlier, the views from both piece are very similar. It even complimented each other, imo. Soul's verse: "Things aren't always what it appears to be." Uh-Oh's verse: "I know it's not what it appears to be so fuck it." So taking everything into account, my vote goes to Soulstice. I can certainly understand why Uh-Oh is leading in votes but i felt Soulstice definitely had the stronger piece, if we're touching on all aspects of writing. Biggup to Uh-Oh but this was not one of the harder decision for me. Good luck to both, whomever makes it to the next round.

[Witty]

Soulstice - You know I hate to follow the crowd, but I really have to agree that I do not see how this fits with the topic at all. Maybe it's me missing something in the piece, and I apologise if that is the case, as I know it can be at times, but I really didn't see any connection with the topic that was given. You did your thing, and you wrote brilliantly as you always do, you're a master of this kind of writind and your natural ability for imagery always leaves me astounded. Breaking away from the fact I didn't relate this to the topic, the piece was beautiful. The flow was a little off more often that I would have liked, maybe it is just my accent. I loved the story, and my attention was held from start to end, which is rare for me, but I really was hooked. This was great as a stand alone piece, but I don't think you addressed the topic, and this is a topical battle.

Uh-Oh - At first glance I looked at your piece and thought 'wtf' just because of how it looks, the short lines and the capital letters and whatnot, but when I started reading the piece I thought your style complimented your take on the topic very well. The capital letters were unneccessary but it is the words that are important, not how the piece looks so I will not hold that against you. This was a piece that was deceivingly complex, there was a lot of information and imagery portrayed in such a small piece.

A TRAPPER WHO DONT COMFORM,
WITH THE SOCIAL NORMS,
GOES FOR PORRIDGE BEFORE EXPLORING.

I don't really know why, but these were my favourite lines from you in the entire piece, I think it was because it wasn't something that was really neccessary to the overall theme of the piece, but it gave you a better feel for the character, describing little things like that can add so much to a piece and subtly bring you closer in as a reader, great job man, very solid story telling.

The second battle I have voted on, and the second battle where I feel the topic was not addressed enough by one writer, while being brilliantly addressed by the other, and that really is the deciding factor. These are topical battles, you gotta stick to the topic. Going for UH-OH, Soulstice proved once again that he is one of the most talented writers that rap forums have ever had, but he didn't stick to the topic. Not only that, but Uh-Oh's piece was subtly brilliant, he really drew me in and made me connect with his piece.

[Lars]

I wasn't expecting this, at all. Closest battle so far maybe of those I've voted on.

Soulstice had a piece that makes you THINK, lets the reader draw its own conclusion, not everythings a paint-by-numbers affair where you need it all spelling out for you. He painted the picture very well, good imagery throughout and his wording was crisp. I came away feeling like this worked or potentially worked on multiple levels depending on your interpretation. Top tier writing, but Uh Oh is no slouch either. The guy had some dope lines, the north face couplet had me. Flow was butter as always, mixed up the transitions well and carried that one assonance on for loooooongggggggg, but still kept it relevant and on point. This is tough. The votes reflect that. I can see why people are split, but I can also see why they have soul going for it. His wording and imagery and writers voice are the difference here for me.

Vote - Soulstice

[Diode]

FIRST OFF: NOBODY WANTS TO DISCUSS THE COMICALLY LARGE DARK HELMET ON THIS GUY?

soulstice:

first stanza: nothing to do with the picture
second stanza: nothing to do with the picture
third stanza: nothing to do with the picture

do you see a trend?

fourth stanza: beginning to think the journey we are taking is an allegory for the rising, falling, sweeping path of this hill. god, but it is so loosely connected though. i think you had this written and worked in the travel through the already-built city and its occupants to make it fit the photo.

fifth: reverse game of thrones. okay.

--

uhoh:

straightforward take into the ethereal story behind our mysterious subject. short, quick, to the point. this was actually far less detailed / technical writing than you've provided in the past. however, altogether it worked in its sheer simplicity. you addressed the photo and gave it something more powerful than "guy on a hill". nyc probably could have gotten away with that, but not many people are him. i think you did just enough. you aren't the technical writer, storyteller, or literary master that soulstice is.. but he so obviously shoehorned an unrelated tale into this picture that i honestly can't give him a win here. this is a topical league. incorporate the topic. if soulstice had done that, it probably would have been an easy victory. he didn't.

v/ uh-oh

[e11even]

Soulstice- incredible piece, just incredible. this piece travelled pretty far to tell itself, and even though that confused me, it came off as dope. I almost don't get the correlation to the picture, but that most likely because we see two diff things. I see trees split by a snowy road that seems to go up a summit; you saw a wall of sorts. I respect our difference in perspective, due to the fact that your piece was beautiful. It seems you're as good a writer as you're rumored to be. Good Job.

uh-oh-ummmm. this was kinda cool. More of an OM/quick key type of setup. I think the rhyming was very consistent, but not to the point where it was an annoyance. I think more was to be said here, as there was no real depth to this verse. I just came away from this read like, "well alright..." Not really because I thought it was bad, but because I felt it could have had a lot more to offer, given you had a fresh angle and an ok start. The ending was kinda bad to me and I think, honestly, if you metaphorically tied in those goldie locks references to weave a sick ass plot, I wudda gave this to you. All in all though, I think you could have tried harder and brought more to the table. Good job as a whole though.

In closing, this battle felt a bit lopsided. I'm not familiar with either of you guys' work, but I feel like the effort:reward ratio was pretty obvious here. though uh-oh had a more direct, simplified approach, soulstice had a stronger showing in writing ability and storytelling with complex elements present. MVGT Soulstice