[UnbornBuddha]

This was a very intriguing battle. Very different styles and its nice to see the owner of this lovely site joining us for the fun.

Now:

NYC, you have a knack for writing very freely, yet at the same time very structured. It is a fine line that one can veer off easily and become imbalanced, but you know how to maintain it. As for the actual concept itself, while it had many hints of gems the overall theme was kind of overplayed. While, a card game with death is an interesting image to conjure, which you did well, the ending itself did not resonate. The whole everything that happened before it was merely a drug induced illusion is something that leaves a bad taste, even if it did impact the narrator so as to affect him in reality. I would of prefer him to go into psychosis, simply because it's more unpredictable. The writing itself was enjoyable. Also the juxtaposition sometimes between the lingo and the more grandiloquent language sometimes did not mesh well. I think the verse would have been much better, but it is hard for me to ignore an ending like that. It makes everything that was said before it feel inconsequential, even though it wasn't

Diode: First what I notice is your basic rhyming, and while not nursery rhyming it is still quite simplistic. That said I loved this verse. I too interpreted it as the expanding universe collapsing back into the primordial nothingness. I was pleasantly surprised at how well you encompassed the theme. You both wrote about death in a sense, NYC more figuratively and you more literally. He ultimately used death in a sense of rebirth for his character, while you used the end as a gateway to explore chaos, which is what ultimately fuels everything.

This one is difficult, in one sense NYC is the stronger writer, but in this case, I enjoyed Diode's premise more.

Vote: Diode