[Certain]

YDK: Your earnestness is something worth holding on to, but honing it consisently has been a challenge. Your biggest hurdle is predictability. There were a lot of lines here that I've seen in some form or another in many other verses, a lot of clichés about depression and anxiety in the way you turn phrases. It's difficult expressing emotions in original ways, but one of the keys in all writing in all forms is to figure out what makes your content different from others'. You didn't do that here. The narrator Is a depressed man with a quick wit, but he never is a person. You don't vent metaphorically to a psychiatrist. By keeping this verse vague and metaphorical, by using turns of phrase such as "Past mistakes and misfortunes, overdoses, abortions / Left me with suicidal side effects and feeling less than important," you're not giving us much of a picture at all. You're focused on the effect rather than the cause, and even in dealing with the effect, you're focused on the mental instead of the physical. There is not one concrete image in this verse, and that attempt to conjur relatability instead alienates. Is this a person or a cipher of depression speaking? Also, I'm not entirely sure if the ending was an attempt at a twist, but it was neither bold enough nor sold enough to work. Nothing in this verse is specific to psychiatry. I've read it seven times now, and it basically comes across as a generic vent. Yes, that vent could be told to a psychiatrist, but again, psychiatrists would have interrupted because specificity is important for making insights into the mind. So I think the thematic construct flopped. But the earnestness shone. It's not easy to pull off lines like the right turn one or how pain is the only thing that makes sense without forcing an eye roll. You have that going for you. You need to use it to tell stories and show us pieces of your world. Instead of telling us how you feel all the time, let us do the feeling.

PancakeBrah: Vulgar and Defy Gravity should take notes: This is how you do a PancakeBrah parody verse. Here's how I interpretted your verse: The topic was applied not in the quotes near the end but in the entire verse, as a message to your readers. This was a verse for your fans, in a way, sort of a statement of identity in an extremist interpretation. It worked. It worked because you wrote the hell out of this. The metaphors and rhymes were very strong, and the central thread connecting the thoughts was kept taut and refined. The ennui came across from the very first word, "Marginal," and the concept of the verse was hammered home by the last line. There's a shade of laziness with this verse and this approach, but it's underwritten by the concept of the verse making it almost necessary. And the tightness of the writing, in diction, concept and especially rhyme scheme, made this verse special, if only for how not-special this would be among your many writtens. You'll need more ambition and creativity as the tournament rolls on, but the execution was enough to seal this victory.

Vote: PancakeBrah