[DF:WK5] Red Contenders : Got Life? vs Bonnie Bathory (Vote!)

[Lucifa]

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Down To Business.
This Match-Up is between:
In Rank Order

Got Life?
Active Worth: 011pts
Vs.
Bonnie Bathory
Active Worth: 010pts

Good Luck Ladies.
Prove Your Worth

[Got Life?]

howdy?

alt-ernate.

apparently Chin thinks i'm the devil himself.

[Bonnie Bathory]

hello again

alternate

[Bonnie Bathory]

“Angst of the Teens” written to “Tasmanian Pain Coaster” by El-P



One muggy hot summer’s day at the bus stop
Behind my stunna shades my face flushed & blotched
Met a crushed kid with tight braids who played with a razor blade
But I brushed it off with no thought like it’s prolly for his yay
He caught me lookin “Hey” he said to me estranged
“Hey,” I replied amazed “What’s good with you today?”
& He looked away in a daze prolly straining for a phrase
To properly explain his day… “Nothin” he engaged
& I should not have implored more but an automatic accord
Replied “why not?” & explored more mindless than engorged
I met his eyes & was surprised to see a torn hint of despise
But not for my questions formed, seemingly more for his life
& I realized the blade didn’t help him to get high
Its s’pposed to save him from his hate for the fates he’s survived
& I tried then to revive a faint hope inside his mind
“It’ll be alright”… how cliché of me to be so blind
& it didn’t spark a smile & I still wouldn’t let it die
I couldn’t let him die, “Hey, what’s on your mind?”
& he sighed & replied “My coaster-ride of crime…
But I’m fine girl, my world aint worth a minute of your time”
“It’s alright I don’t mind you’re too fine to be down
Plus its 20 plus still until the bus comes back around”
He glanced up from the ground and not lookin the least proud
He opened his frowning mouth and poured it all out…

“I’m insane & enraged & I’m to blame, I’m enslaved to this game
& too deranged in my brain… I’m too strange from this reign,
& I can’t maintain in this frame of unashamed, I’m too vain
& I’m too drained, so I won’t play, I’ll refrain
& grab the straight-edge so I can save face & face death
I lost grace to make bread, with hot haste I faked & led
& I pray to lay dead cuz I’m ashamed of my dread
To fight the struggle of stayin humble, so I mumble with each breath
Come and take me Death, Satan and sin have made me
They’ve degraded and downgraded me, God forgive me don’t hate me
I’ve needed guidance but I’ve found only tyrants
Promoting the drugs & defiance the slugs & the violence
The riots, the science of fuckin with lions & giants,
My soul is dyin and I’m tryin for a reason to abide
But if even a piece of my survives like this I’d rather cease & just die
Than be alive & entombed to the drive of the doom
Of my soul & it’s lies like everything will be alright
But everything is just a fight inside my mind
& it’s insights of my time doin crime
Against myself, my society & everyone whose been nice to me
Nothin is right in me, nothing’s exciting
Except defying & dying & fighting the right in me
& lyin & pain & Im insane & enraged & IM TO BLAME
I’m enslaved to this game & too deranged in my brain!”

I couldn’t find the words to say to ease this kid’s strain
& when I looked at his face he held the razor to his vein
& before I could explain my silence he sliced it, I was cryin
Watchin him bleedin, expiring, lookin tired and dyin
& I’m trippin at the bus stop on a muggy hot summers day
& nobody stopped on their way, he died before the bus came
& I boarded mind blown, then wiped away the runny make-up
& got to my destination just in time for me to wake up

[Got Life?]

votes:
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5. [DF:WK5] basic|s|kill vs 3-Planes (Vote!)
6. [DF:WK5] CONTENDERSHIP : Vern Acular vs Atheist (Vote!)
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8. [DF:WK5] Lotus vs _KDP_ (Vote!)
9.
10.
11.
12.

[Got Life?]

“The Threshold of Life”

Madeline’s water broke…
My daughter spoke and slaughter woke,
A demon from a long spent slumber,
Unleashing torment none could encumber,
It was this and a number of other reasons,
That made me smother her at the four seasons,
While Jane played with her rubber duck ducky,
And maybe that’s when luck struck me,
Allowing me to seem good in this hell,
All the time thinking…wouldn’t she yell?
Couldn’t she spell out the pieces of this?
As pacing increases my thesis exists,
So time has come to go and take hold,
Of life on that yellow brick road of fake gold,
Breaking the mold that society formed,
As I looked at the deity and anxiety stormed-
Right up inside of me, telling me that-
It was time to be, finally, shelling a gat,
How compelling is that…to grab life by the horns,
My wife, now with Christ and his thorns,
And though Jane’s too young to understand,
That I strung up this grand band stand-
So that she could live a life that I could never,
For I understood that this very endeavor-
Would part me and my dear Janie forever,
So during that storm and rainy weather,
I’d kill Madeline…
I mean I had to and-
My mind had been unraveling,
As gin coursed my veins, sin traveling-
Hand in hand towards my manic state,
Oh fickle fate, imagine the panic rate-
As my heart paces and races out of my skin,
And now the doubt starts to seep in,
Was my Jane really better off this way?
Why did my conscience often stray?
That’s when clarity finally hit home,
As I halted plans when I bit chrome,
It took the bitter taste of the gun’s barrel,
To make me see that there’ll-
Always be a way to provide for Jane,
And money without love can’t keep her sane,
She needs a mother and a father,
And so because I loved my daughter-
I put the gun away and welcome the sun today,
Take my daughter by the hand,
And guide her on her way.

[Quriosity]

umm, bonnie.. this was okay but a bit annoying, the repetitiveness of "&" was driving me crazy and all in all the entire verse was one long ramble of mindless thought, more importantly was the lack of a consistent tone or writer's voice here, it began as though you were younger maybe teenage years or a bit older but still stuck in the teenage mentality and the guy was some sort of thug or teenage thug rather with pants down, braids, selling "yay" and whatnot, but later he was saying stuff like his "mind is deranged" and a whole bunch of other stuff that just didn't fit the description to me, it came off as forced and definitely not natural or true to the original picture that you began to paint, aside from all of these annoying habits the actual story was piss poor as well, i wasn't feeling the content here at all, you were waiting for a bus and passed a suicidal thug in which you couldn't help and so he died and then you woke up, very iffy material here and the way it was presented made it all the worse, the ending was bad as well and overall i just wasn't feeling this, nice try but i've seen you come better with more emotion and more creativity

GL?, started better and more interesting but lol at the rubber duck ducky line, that was definitely forced to fit into the rhyme pattern, nevertheless the defining aspect is not only the mechanics but the actual story, the more i read bonnie's the more i realize that i hated her story, here your tone and voice capture my interest much more from the beginning, the story was a bit confusing however, like i couldn't actually tell who was the daughter and who was having the baby and who was the mother and whatnot, two names were thrown out (Madeline and Jane/Janie), my take is that Madeline was the mother who was having another baby and Jane was the daughter already alive and in the end the father killed Madeline and walked off with Janie, the motive therefore was misconstrued as well because i assume the father thought that the new baby would tear he and Janie apart, assuming that i am correct it was actually a short but very thorough story which was a better story that offered more than the teenage thug suicidal story that bonnie brought, but if i am wrong then oh well

overall bonnie just didn't click for me, the mechanics weren't great, the flow was forced and the &'s were far too repetitive, also the story wasn't entertaining for me, GL?'s could have been a bit clearer but assuming that i'm right then i suppose it was clear enough because i only read it once thoroughly, his flow was actually better than usual for the most part and especially throughout the middle chunk, the story was also better and connected well with the pictures and just offered more to the reader

so, GL? wins

[Chin Kwon]

Bonnie Bathory

A pretty straight forward story about a chick dreaming about a conversation with a cat contemplating and ultimately taking his own life. What i like about this piece was that it wasn't those cliche soliloquy. It became a sort of venting from one character to the another, making for a pretty enjoyable read. But i did have some problems with it. I thought some of the rhymes and wordings were forced. It just didn't come off as smooth or natural as it should've. And the motive of the story didn't make for that great an argument. From what i gather, this guy wants to take his own life cause he's in too deep into the life that he's been living (most likely crime or something). Despite all that, i thought it was a pretty cool and entertaining read.


Vs


Got Life?

This story was a pretty straight forward one also. A man had a daughter who was more of a burden to him than a bundle of joy, thus causing a chain of event that provoked his inner demon; to the point he was on a mission to murder his family. Now what i don't quite understand was the motive behind this. You gave subtle hints about society being a catalyst but didn't explore it enough. Leaving me to wonder, why he'd subjected himself to this idea and finally the sudden change of heart.


Two narrative verse with not enough explanation to walk away with anything solid. With that said, i have to say GL had a better grasp of mechanics whereas bonnie had a slightly better story. Personally, i thought this was a close battle, and as such, i will vote on the one i enjoyed most and that's Bonnie's verse.

Vote = Bonnie Bathory

[Atheist]

Bonnie Bathory:
In the past couple of weeks, I have made it known how highly I rate you as a writer. However, something was incredibly off this week with your verse. I just didn’t think the content clicked at all. Your verse came across like a continuous sentence; the constant use of the symbol for ‘and’ made everything read so monotonously. Furthermore, you used ‘I’ far, far too much. It was a constant case of saying ‘I am this’ and ‘I am that’ and blah, blah, blah. I don’t know how to describe it without stretching it out into a couple of seconds, but the verse was just boring and didn’t go anywhere or do anything for me. At all.

Also, on a final note, everyone knows that I am a huge fan of story telling, and one of the major aspects of storytelling is firing across brilliant conversations. As this entire verse was basically a conversation, I feel that you could have done so much more with it. But instead, the speech seemed staggered and unbelievable, which basically affected the piece as a whole i.e. flow, rhythm, general substance behind the verse, etc, etc. I’m sorry to be so critical; as I’ve said over the past two weeks I think you’re an awesome writer. But this week, something went horribly wrong.

Favourite lines:
“It’s alright I don’t mind you’re too fine to be down
Plus its 20 plus still until the bus comes back around”

Got Life:
This was an interesting verse with a great idea behind it. However, my main criticism is that things seemed to happy too quickly. I don’t know if it’s your writing style, or what’s to blame, but the story just seemed to leap from one scenario to the next. You killed your wife so that your child may have a happier life, then you reconsidered and decided that maybe ending it was better, but then you reconsidered again and walk off into the sunset happily ever after. As I said, you had a great story behind it, but just the believability factor was lacking, and I think you should have dedicated more time towards character development and explaining the scenarios you covered.

Favourite Lines:
Hand in hand towards my manic state,
Oh fickle fate, imagine the panic rate-
As my heart paces and races out of my skin,
And now the doubt starts to seep in,
Was my Jane really better off this way?
Why did my conscience often stray?
That’s when clarity finally hit home,
As I halted plans when I bit chrome,
It took the bitter taste of the gun’s barrel,
To make me see that there’ll-
Always be a way to provide for Jane,
And money without love can’t keep her sane,


---------------------------------------------------


Vote: Got Life.
I don’t think this was the extremely entertaining battle I was hoping for when two of the RSTL’s best writers came head to head and clashed. In my opinion, you both dropped substandard verses that really don’t illustrate your true writing potential. In that regard, I am disappointed. However, I feel that Got Life had a better verse overall. The stories of both competitors were similar in strength and weaknesses, so it therefore came down to the mechanics of the writing, and I believe Got Life had a far superior flow, rhythm and rhyme scheme, which was just the edge needed to win this match up.

[3-Planes]

bonnie

i'm a little torn here - was this supposed to be a dream? either way it's a pretty cheap deus ex machina for general weirdness and illogical plots.. i thought this was messy and chaotic and the rhyming was just subpar (choppy and bouncy - all over the place), although not grossly sentimental and mawkish in tone this felt disconnected and awkward.. the ending made me reflect a little over the symbolicism of this piece, so props on at least provoking some thought, but overall i didn't particularly like this piece

gl?

though i liked this take on suicide, or rather the little twist that steered this piece away from ending in suicide (a variation of the whole be-a-man and own up theme) i must say that i thought the writing itself was really bland and dull.. picked up towards the end but never really impressed me.. the flow isn't bad or anything, just boring.. concept was fine, but also pretty far from mind-blowing

hmm, i'm weighing this little instance of reflection that bonnie's piece induced against the consistently mediocre+ writing of GL?, this is really a tie as i see it.. i will reread both pieces

i vibed a little more with bonnie's piece

vote: Bonnie Bathory

[Vern Acular]

bonnie...

lets start by saying reading this was entertaining in the way you put your words together and as i read admit i was with the mindstate of hey this is just another story where the kids gonna kill himself because of his depression and lack of high esteem, and well...as i read i was right, so you did lose points for creativity, and then the end came which was kind of confusing, so did she dream the whole thing, or did she get on the bus pass out and just wake up before she gets to her stop either way, still a bit cliched, the only part i liked was the part where you told us that society doesn't care, so he kills his stop and no one helps, that's typical in todays society, noone will lend a helping hand like back in the day, but this was just average for me


got life...

this was short and sweet and low...lol...what that means is basically i liked, but some of it was a little confusing, so yea you go off in the end with your daughter live the life you want and just get rid of the mother, ok, but why, i would've like a little more character development and reasoning behind the whole series of events which leads me to the series of events, the whole things seemed rather abrupt but with the length of your verse it's understandable, overall...i liked it but i didn't love it

overall...

VOTE - GOT LIFE ... in all honesty they were both confusing, but i just fell got life wasn't as cliched and was a little more creative, although i did like the whole rapid paced reading of bonnies verse which was intense in a sense, i just didn't get in to her story it was way to predictable and then the twist at the end had me like...ehh...overall, not really feeling the battle, the cormier vs nom battle was the better of the 2 contenderships

[.:Pain:.]

Bonnie - This was pretty cool straightforward verse. First let me touch on the mechanics. I guess when I said I wish you would flow to a beat, idk, lol, this shit did not work over any beat I own (sorry, I hate El-P's solo records), it was cool in some parts, but in others it was so damn stretched, maybe you just didn't break it up into bars properly and kept it in line form, but everything about your flow seemed mad stretched. Rhyme scheme was a lot better than I've seen in the past, but you might have overcompensated in some parts. Adding a little bit more rhyme would've been good enough, but the first six bars of the second verse were just too much and it seemed very forced and simplistic almost. Writing wise, this story was told pretty well. A random encounter leading to this life changing incident. I wasn't really drawn in by it though, idk, it seems very bland. The concept was cool, you just didn't execute as good as you normally do. Overall this was good, but subpar by the standards I hold your writing to.

Got Life? - lol I feel like you stole my concept and just switched the ending, bastard. Anyways, rhyme scheme and flow wise this was probably the smoothest piece I've ever read from you. You still have a habit of making you lines a couple syllables too short, to fit my flow anyway, and that can really put a brake on the flow of the reading. The story itself was pretty good, I liked how the dude realized the error in his ways at the end. One thing I would've liked to see is more character development, you didn't really give the reader a chance to get attached or develop feelings for any of the characters, we only really knew the situation. Good piece nontheless.

Vote - Got Life?, better mechanics...

[Cormier]

GL- pretty good piece. you stepped up the rhymes a little in this one, a couple were a bit forced (rhyming "barrel" with "there'll" really upset me, just too forced). but overall, i thought the rhyming and the flow were pretty consistent. nothing amazing, but at least present at a pretty good level throughout the piece. the story itself was pretty cool. nice to see a slightly more uplifting ending than most people would take. however, i felt the story and the character could have used some more development. you had plenty of lines left to stay under the maximum and i think just another maybe 10 lines could have really helped the reader feel for and relate a little more to the character as well as get deeper into the story. overall, pretty decent writing and a cool story that could have just been developed more.

Bonnie- hmm, i thought the writing sometimes got a little too jumbled. seemed like at times you were trying to just fit too much into each line instead of just letting it flow naturally. However, i am going to contradict myself a little and say that i actually thought it was kind of cool (whether it was intentional or not) that the writing in the second verse seemed a little manic and bouncy. Since that whole verse was the insane and suicidal character talking it added a little to the depth of the character and really helped me picture this crazy guy sitting next to me just rambling. If the writing had been only jumbled in the part i would have been prefectly fine with it, but unfortunately it extended into the other parts as well. The story itself was alright, but nothing really spectacular.

Gl's verse was a much more natural and smoother read in my opinion, but Bonnie's verse i thought had the better development. hmm, very close battle but i'm going to go with GL.

VOTE= GL