ROUND ONE: (4)Frank vs. (R)Nigma - (NIGMA WINS 5-4)

[PancakeBrah]

Nigma-

First three lines were fucking great. Very matter of fact, strong opening, good writer's voice. Lost lost steam on the 'scarred past' line. Also did not think your fifth line was too good, but your sixth was. I liked this

"The drips it leaves behind combined with no sleep equals garbage
Still I’d grown a seasoned toker"

but I didn't like this "I was smoking trees like tarzan". You had this assonance thing going with the section I liked and lost it with the tarzan. The next two lines were good, though. The next line was a self contained rhyme, but the comma between pages and load the net doesn't make that sentence work. I still liked the content. Middle got a little cliche. "I'm the same as you pretend to be, but energies darker" is were it picked back up. Cool line. "Already dead but part of me is setting out onward
Because pain grows exponentially when exits an option" ending was cool, your penultimate line was better than the ender.

Overall, you have a penchant for leaving out a word after a comma thinking the comma will disguise it but it doesn't. My opinion. As for an overarching theme I think you went a pretty standard route but your writing was interesting. This was a content and technically based verse as opposed to a conceptual verse. Seems you wrote more about addiction/drugs in general than tangentially closed in on the picture as you went on. I don't think the main take-away from the verse is the topic but you definitely related to it. The middle lost me a bit, in terms of interest. Started and ended well. Nothing that blew me away, but sturdy enough.

Frank-

This was below you. The rhymes and flow were really strong throughout, and that's all you had. You barely related to the topic and the storyline was secondary to the mechanics of your verse. I read your verse multiple times just to get a bead on it but in my mind it's still just a menagerie of 'ooters'. You sacrificed content for your obsession with keeping a scheme and you shot yourself in the foot. Your strengths, characterization and environment creation, were there but they were lessened by your more-than-usual-even-for-you reliance on the rhyme. Weird piece from you.

Nigma's verse wasn't perfect but he was coherent and adherent to the topic. Frank tried too hard for his own good, losing sight of coherency for his own preconceptions of topical writing.

v/Nigma.