Jam Jar (4-1) Vs Fidel (0-1) Vs Dysfunctional (0-2) - (Jam Jar Wins 3-0-0)

This match up is part of The Inkwell PPV.
. . .
Undercard Match Up
@Jam Jar Vs @Fidel Vs @Dysfunctional

Topic: (Each with a different topic)

(With voting, say who you have first second and 3rd).

Good Luck.

Jam Jar

Eye of the Storm

I live in a house in which crying’s the norm
Where laughter once died when a child performed
His ritual of birth, a boy shy and deformed
Born to be torn by the eye of the storm.
That boy is my brother, a true flid, Michael
His reality spins in a lucid spiral
Where words that he hears are cruel and spiteful
A cog in our father’s abusive cycle.

And nothing makes sense in his wonderland
His torment is felt to be fun to plan
His screams are not heard when the thunder bangs
The fleeting hard beatings he can’t understand
And yet they go on, Dad’s furies vented
With every shout of ‘You’re demented’
Til Michael’s heart, his core is dented
And acts were done that law prevented.

With my head in my pillow, tears stream down my face
You just cannot know how it feels, how I chase
Through the wreckage of storms, must be now five days
And five nights in a row that I’ve seen crow-eyed rage.
Michael shivers beside me, we’re sharing his bed
He whimpers, so lost, sorrow there in his head
Where hope and good luck are not daring to tread
And father, I know, doesn’t care if he’s dead.

I see patchworks of bruises when he goes to shower
I know I can do nothing, I’d be overpowered
I know Dad cannot cope, know that his hope has soured
He’s a stranger, I feel like I don’t know the coward.
What kind of a father could do that?
Look at his son and say ‘Fuck you brat’
A tiny boy, begging for hugs, who’s sad
Who still whispers each night “I love you Dad”

Vs

Fidel

Darkness as far as the eye can see
Winds talking and sounds like its saying bye to me
I'm alone but I know they got their eye on me
Acting fearless but really my soul would want to die on me
Rusted metal cut my palm as I'm feeling
So sharp I didn't feel the pain of the cut as I'm bleeding
If death was a destination I must be there
Cuz I'm even getting chocked out by the vicious air
If satan had a home this is where he'd go
Even the birds are struggling to hit the falsetto
The ground is shaky it lost its passion to hold
So cold my arms are asking to fold
As I'm ashy and cold
The rusty metal infected my wrist
And the unpleasant air chapping my lips
As my skin starts to peel
Notice a rat jump off a cliff and that's exactly how I feel!
I know can feel the rust on my face
As I'm slowly adapting to the disgust of this place
I'm walking, I feel like I'm being followed so cut to the chase
Running so long, the air made me numb in the face
Either the whole place looks the same or I'm running in a maze
But despite all the negatives, this place has its own little flare
Places like these take the fear of death, until you no longer care
Awakens your whole brain, you accepting despair
And that hope had been lost
Although its beautiful in its own way, such scenery comes with a cost

Vs

Dysfunctional

Maryworth Elementary on a field trip to Oregon
The bus pulled up #90-10 as the kids they start pouring in
Teach and the driver were conversing throughout the whole trip
I talked to Jason hes that kid with the bowl clip
The bus started to rock
The bus started to shake
I felt like I was living in a class A earthquake
We looked out the window to see what the commotion was
As far as the eye could see there was an ocean of
Lifeless Corpses shambling through the breeze
The sight would make you shiver from your head to ya knees
They swayed the bus from side to side
As we tried to hide inside
Our only option time getting shorter
Was to hide hold down the fort or
Run for shore
That was 3 years ago 62 young kids
3 adults and the guts they were hung with
Now 3 remain me, Jason and the driver
We wake up every day wondering if we are alive or
dead in a bath of our comrades blood
Supressed memories of the ones we loved
We crawl through the dirt and the mud
Looking for our next meal
We get pleasure from the dead's squeal
Rescue may never come we may be stuck here for an eternity
My friends, family they're gone and it's hurting me
All I must do is not fake or pretend
I must fight till the end
On top of bus #90-10

[Aggo]

Tough to judge here, 3 topics 3 writers. Lets go.

Jam Jar: I thought you did a good job of making an emotional statement. Rhyme and flow were on point through out. The only thing I felt was lacking was a real beginning/middle/end storyline. Were dropped into this kids life and know that he's abused and how he feels and at the end that little shot in the heart, but we don't know much else about the rest of the characters in the story. Felt it could have been fleshed out a little more but still enjoyed it and had a good response to it.

Fidel- I felt like I wanted more from this. Some good imigery and some nice lines (the birds falsetto being my favorite) but despite an injured man walking through some "beautiful wasteland" I dont really know whats happening. I have the picture to guide me a little but the picture is of a plane crash and you never mention anything like that. Then I start going well, was it a plane crash or something else, how true to the picture is the story, and I don't have an answer.

Dys- wasn't really too into this one. The rhyme and flow was decent but choppy at points. The lines "the bus started to rock, the bus started to shake" seemed a bit juvenile to me and then at the end they have been there for 3 years? In the same spot, by the bus. They have just been firing off at zombies from the same location for 3 years. That didn't sit with me well and made it hard forme to take the plot at face value.

1st place Jam Jar
2nd place Fidel Z
3rd place Dysfunctional

[Dirty Work]

Jamjar: This piece was quite powerful for me. You have a way of giving readers strong feeling without using descriptions that are too grandiose. I would fault you, however, on not creating something that adresses the topic directly. I see what you were doing there, but I think the connection is a little too loose, and I would also mention that the "eye of the storm" is a calm spot in a storm, so I'm not sure the term is used correctly in your 4th line. Also, the piece is maybe a bit lacking as far as a storyline goes. It's mostly conceptual, which is a style I prefer, but it seems that topicals on this site require more of a story (something I'm working on improving myself)

Fidel: This was pretty well written, and I thought the ending had some nice food for thought. A few spots had some nice imagery. The problem I have with it overall, is that I can't really get into your character's head. I don't know why he is in the situation he is in, and I don't know exactly how he feels due to some disjointed descriptions. I would like to know if he is actually being followed or if he justs feels that way, and why, for example. One last thing: Most topicals about a picture involve events happening at the time the picture would have been "taken" or events leading up to the pic, not events happening afterward; it just makes more sense and people will feel it more. All in all I enjoyed it, and I thought the last few lines were interesting.

Dysfunctional: This was just "iight for me" as Randy Jackson would say. It wasn't bad at all but I thought you could have done a lot more with a picture like this. It had the most tangible storyline of the three, I must say, but the story itself was sort of basic. One thing that weakened the story for me a lot was your choice of a length of three years. That's a bit silly to me and impossible. All in all this piece just needed a little bit of polishing and beefing up of the concepts, and like I said, it was the closest to an actual story of the three. It had some good parts too, it was just a bit inconsistent and basic overall.

1. Jamjar
2. Fidel Z
3. Dysfuntional

[Dono]

1st @Jam Jar :

Your story was the best at drawing me in, there's some emotion there. The story could definitely use some work, not a whole lot going on there. A father beats a kid and as the brother you don't like it. If playing on an exclusively emotional draw without much creativity in the story you're going to need to become the primary character. Don't be the brother who thinks it sucks, be the kid who's getting his ass beat every night and still love your dad. You wanna do a topic like this then dig in deep. It'll make for a more powerful story and draw the reader in.

2nd @Dysfunctional :

Not too poorly executed but you really need to dial in some context and scenery. A couple logicstical confusions. For example, you say 'kids pile in' so I immediately assume they are elementary school age, then suddenly there's a huge zombie outbreak with little to no context, somehow thousands of zombies yet no one thought to stop the bus schedule, which you could plausibly explain away with instant infection but it's a hard sell and not really in the story. Then you suddenly skip that scene and jump into the picture which has the 'kids' looking quite a bit older than 3 years progression, in my opinion. My advice would be pick a section, say the ending, and really delve in and give some detail. If you need backstory, add it in AFTER you've esablished us in a scene and then transition into the past. That helps draw us in more and put the reader into one specific scenario as it unfolds.


3rd @Fidel :
Not bad, just needs more depth. Something to spice up the story besides someone dying from a plane crash. For a brief second I thought you were going to take the perspective of the plane and that would have been an unbelievably dope topic. Anyway, I need more context, I need depth in the story. Stronger descriptions, stronger emotions. You have a lot of the same issues as dysfuntional. I don't really get the impression you're in a specific place, just a lot of descriptions of things around you, if that makes any sense at all. Are you in the plane still? Are you in the grass? What's going on?


All in all you guys did pretty decent, I'm a harsh critic so don't get demotivated by any of it, just trying to help you take it to the next level. Amp up the descriptive language and scene involvement. And get creative! Take some risks. Potential here in all 3, keep up the work.

Jam Jar WINS 3-0