[Inno]

My vote in the 3-way battle:

This was a really good 3 way battle here. All writers were on point. I enjoyed a lot of what was presented and after reading through everything, I came to a clear decision.

Razah, you had the shortest of the pieces here and while I would have liked to see a bit more based on what the other competitors put together, you did execute your piece very well. I believe the little you wrote actually made everything flow cleaner, and the details in different parts were able to tie the story together. The 'step, crunch' in the opening was cool, then I liked the smooth flow with the break in between on the 'this is the time I'm in/complete sorrow/heap of leaves swirling at the slightest wind'. The delicate attention and simplicity was just excellent. I also loved the last two lines. The only knock on your piece is the length, but like I said, despite it being short it was from beginning to end, very well written.

Innovator, you had the more complex of the pieces here. Once again, you have this very poetic touch you sprinkle throughout your piece, and this week, I think you took it to another level- you took the image you chose and written a very in-depth, metaphorical story. And I think the word selection and how you are able to put some of these perspectives/ideas together is just top notch. The first paragraph stood out the most to me because everything written was just perfect. I liked 'sweet surrender to blackness' and 'spilling blots of nothingness'- they leverage the lines they are in. My favorite was 'a ghost between silhouettes'. Such great use of description. The last two parts of your piece did a good job of summing things up, but that's also where I felt it dropped off compared to the beginning section.

Mr. J, it's no doubt that when it comes to writing, you are really good at it. The flow is always on point, and your piece definitely excelled at that and I believe it guided your narrative very smoothly throughout. Some of the lines were really cool, too, like 'comes first like parentheses'- which flowed into the next two lines. Also, 'hide the body & Jekyll me' was really ill, 'last stash to open up/golfing with a broken club'- all sprinkles throughout that really helped open the narrative of your piece. What I also really liked was that transition between your two sections. You closed the first part with the topic title and it just switched over to 'We can't...'. That was pretty creative. Now, not everything clicked as well in certain spots, some lines were eh, but nonetheless a solid story.


When it comes down to it, I could easily go to either competitor and choose who should get my vote. After my first initial read, I had an idea of who I believe won this battle, but after more reading, and this was really close, I have to go with Razah on this one. This was difficult because I loved the originality and depth of Innovator's piece, and I loved the smooth narrative of Mr. J, but I had to go through Razah's piece again just to understand why I would choose him over the other two despite having a very short piece and for me I think he had a little bit of Inno & J, attention to detail/smooth flow, but I really felt that simplicity and how delicate his piece was in such a little bite was damn near perfect to overcome the length of his opponents and the little hiccups they had whereas I didn't see none in Razah's except that it was short.

Good read, guys.