[PancakeBrah]

dead person-

To me, the narrator (which may or may not be you) isn't exactly having deathly premonitions. At least not overtly. It's about interpreting reality, restlessness. Like, an existential vertigo with a dash of bipolarity, highlighted by insomniac and narcoleptic being used to describe our narrator in consecutive lines. I don't think the narrator necessarily fears he's dying soon, more of a subtle annoying type of chinese water torture. He's restless and doesn't know why so it's manifesting itself in these macabre thoughts and possible fugue state self injuries, etc etc. Like, someone who might be classified as mentally unhinged but so insularly that he'd seem perfectly normal to someone else. Read like the summary of a diary of a reasonable person trying to explain to himself what's going on, to better see it on paper. And the final line punches the piece up, where the obvious dichotomy of our narrator and (I'm assuming) his lover's current mental states hint at a bunch of subtle ideas and commentaries on that relationship which hadn't been mentioned at all to this point. I really dug the last line for that reason, it added another layer of context to the well described madness. As for the technical execution, it was up to the usual deadman level of expertise. Your wording is your ace; every line is well worded, and there's very little to no fat to be cut. This is why you can use single syllable rhyme schemes at times and still be lauded for you rhyming; it's kind of like hearing the rhyme for the first time because the non-rhyming verbiage is so unique. As for negatives, there aren't many. I thought the "without a doubt. seriously. maybe" couplet was too choppy and maybe could've been implemented better, although I do see it as an important line to drive home the point of your verse. Some thing with the string of 'nothing' phrases. I thought the Lenore allusion was well done and capped a nice rhyme introduction. Also, I could be completely wrong about the whole interpretation. Could be about vampires. Fuck if I know. Thanks for the read.

Nyc spits-

If you look at this verse as a kind of comic-in-text, it works better. To me, at least. All of the exclamation points and bizarre imagery and devils and demons and portals and orbs and rattlesnakes stop me from reading into this deeply. Which isn't the point, I suppose. It's an action piece with a sort-of-there message, maybe? More of a fun piece to read and write. Not so much with heavy "Wot is lif3??". I enjoyed reading this, even if the exclamation points got a bit outrageous at points. Almost undercutting how seriously you took this, but I'm sure you did take it seriously. The imagery was fun. I think you've written better, though. Some of your rhymes were forced and were in general not as creative as your usual. Sometimes things like that have to be sacrificed for an out-and-out narrative, though. Overall, not your best work but still worthy of the match. Thanks for the read.

I think dead man won. I kind of get what NYC was going for. On a pure technical level, deadman out wrote NYC, which was probably expected coming into this battle. They both took wildly different approaches to the topic while avoiding the obvious, screaming cliche type of verses this topic could produce. I could see some people complaining about another ninja/samurai verse from NYC but that wasn't too big of a deal to me, really. A verse is a verse is a verse, and each should be reviewed in a vacuum, especially in a super important forever match like this one. My personal preferences override, though, and I liked deadman's more srs approach to NYC's entertaining try. So I have deadman winning on writing and approach, NYC winning on exclamation points. 2-1. Both should be proud of making it this far, and creating an interesting match for the readers. A worthy cap to the season. Thanks fellas.

v/dm