wza took the immortal technique approach (p.s. that 10% brain thing has been proven bunk time and time again). his flow and rhyme schemes were on point, but the message has been beaten to death so many times it seemed like little effort was involved. this is a story-telling league, though that isn't explicit in the rules, so it's hard to ding him for speaking from his heart on a subject that is important to him. it's hard to be drawn in by the same old message, though. not bad, but not great.
clockwerk fleshed out a story even if it was cliche by aowl standards. the rhyme schemes were more basic (reminded me of a much younger me), but there was at least some investment in the patchwork that tied this all together. the "oh it was his sister and he survived" twist was.. okay.. and the ending was telegraphed well in advance so it didn't draw the reader in any further than the verse allowed it. it was a hand holding exercise for the author and gave little room for the reader to come up with their own interpretation of the events that occurred.
in the end, i do have to give it to clockwerk for giving us something with more meat to it, even if the story is standard aowl fare. i'll take that over "the government is out to get you, why are you blinded by the media, you sheep" type stuff. others have done it for years and do it better. i'll take an average story over that.
v/ clockwerk
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