[PancakeBrah]

Tough vote.

Vulgar:

This verse reminds of me of our first battle in this league but less esoteric. You captured the spirit of the character through comparisons. Instead of describing the character's motivations and character traits in concrete terms evident in the picture itself (which I would've done) you instead took a broad, abstract metaphorical approach. I thought it was well done. The writing itself was good but not as deep and intricate as I'm accustomed from you. I know you had to rush this verse after reading your posts in the Discussion thread and you could tell. Not to say the writing was bad, your rushed approach is still superior to most. The rhymes were solid to good throughout (I particularly enjoyed the section starting with 'koala bear' to 'polyester sweatshirts'). I wasn't mad at your approach as it's one I enjoy doing. You took the obvious route but gave it nuance. Enjoyable verse.

Diode:

I liked the storyline, approach, and ending. I thought you did well in giving your characters roles and the fact you basically made the girl ambiguous helped in driving in the twist ending (she's just a target, there's no empathy). You had some spots in your verse that, after reading it in full one time through, provide 'aha!' moments that point to the coming twist that the reader didn't pick up initially (impulse control, player at his favorite game, etc.) although it wasn't as present as I like in twist verses. As for the writing itself it was little basic both in terms of flow and rhyming. Like Vulgar I know you had to rush and kind of last minute this but I can only judge what's presented. Your strength is in the content with a less than top-notch use of technique and that disparity was a bit more evident in this verse.

Tough vote, like I said. Diode had a strong concept and storyline. Vulgar had a more metaphor and 'soft' approach to the topic but with stronger writing. Basically a coinflip but I just feel that Vulgar's level of writing is what will stick out in my mind when I leave the topic. Props to Diode he went neck and neck with one of the best writers on this site.

v/Vulgar