JJOCT7 R1M30 Jojolity

Judge Ahab (Ceep):

This will likely be longer than my Quality deliberations, considering this is what the parties in the match focused far more on.

Starting out with the players, this is very, very good work. Angelino’s Jojolity is just about perfectly done; his horrible backstory elucidated just enough to get him in the same mental space as Rasna, his own maladaptive nature not as destructive, but very much harmful to himself. I feel his approach to constantly try and shut down Rasna and keep her from Ultrakilling everyone involved linked in with his characterization and approach very well.

As for Amelia, her being in the ‘background’ also Ultrakilling Rasna is solid! I think that her actively being the DPS and focused on as an all-range threat being backed up by Angelino keeps within her own Jojolity, and the backstory parts for Amelia feed into her own situation. Her Stand egging her on, then how it came to be.

The ending of Angelino fully committing to saving Rasna only to be donutted is also very damn good, understanding that for as much as Angelino tries to take everything on himself and finally tries to fight to save Rasna, the process of doing so is hard and requires sacrifice- maybe him being blasted is the only way to get out of this without Amelia killing Rasna right after, but it still is self sacrifice that he can’t avoid in his current state, and is an acceptance that whatever path forward there is will be hard, and require he himself to change.

As for Amelia, I think that her own side is less well defined, but she supports Angelino’s thesis exceptionally without acting as merely a sideshow to him. I think that the mechanical integration was solid enough, and nonetheless Amelia got time to shine. I’ll give this a 9/10; while the overall result was excellent, I feel to truly be outstanding Amelia should have had a bit more polish on her end.

As for Rasna, I think this is a masterclass in showing off her personality and drive, and how both she is a problem and leaving it up to the players to defeat that problem. Rasna’s personality as a force of pure violence, built around herself to protect just how damaged and vulnerable she is. She’s milled herself down to nothing to avoid being harmed, and to offload every one of her actions into an ideology that keeps her from falling to pieces.

Her conceit of herself as a ‘captain’, both utterly responsible for and utterly removed from everything around her, I feel is handled in the narrative integration very well. Starting out on a ‘vessel’, then once it’s torn apart becoming the ‘vessel’ of everything she’s done. Resolving to ‘save’ herself, Angelino, Amelia, and everything else by, now that she’s ‘related’ truly to them, ending her own rotten existence with them alongside.

Yuri’s gone on record that the fault of Rasna is that she’s not only insane but also stupid, and something I find especially interesting it that Rasna herself seems to understand that her own ideology is inherently fucked, that she doesn’t truly get anything out of it and that as much as it’s a short term balm, it is just causing more pain for herself and everything around her as time goes by. That said, she also doesn’t see any way out, stuck in her self-enforced role as Captain. The fact it’s people like her, stuck with no way out and nobody around them that can give them any help, that are the ones Metropolis uses….

In either case, I think that while I was skeptical quality wise, this is clearly a narrative based strategy. While Rasna’s overall strategy probably wasn’t built to ever win, I feel that it marvelously does what it wants to- it reads like a cry for help from Rasna, desperately trying to throw out attacks, at once trying to kill her friends and begging them to kill her, and at the end if they were to fail, to crush them all under her own ship; something made only to cause pain and suffering.

10/10.

Judge Quegqueg (Surface):

A lot of Rasna's jojolity was wrapped up in the strat's flavor text. I think ultimately, in the end, I don't really feel it; the messaging is a little confused as to the ultimate thesis and there's actually very little interplay between this narrative and the actual strat underneath the narrative at play (not none, granted- there are reckless and self-destructive maneuvers). **6 jojolity.**

I think the big justification I'd have for the low jojolity score is that it came across very "fuzzy" to me; the thesis poorly elucidates on what the intention is to the point I had to search it out, it's hard to find under the narration, and the strat's mechanical execution is so poor that moments that could have better emphasized Rasna's "ideal" and elucidated upon it don't have the chance to. I think if the strat had a higher quality score, the jojolity would've had a chance to shine and rise with it (at least in my view).

A lot of the players' score mainly comes from Amelia's jojolity; I found the ways it was integrated into the strat (especially in regards to the "ideal" that Angelino chose to represent, which could've actively clashed with it) was done. Angelino's jojolity was executed on well enough as well, with how they chose to deal with the NPCs. **7 jojolity.**

Judge Ishmael (Snek):

It’s Jojolity time! Starting with the players, this is a solid integration of story and gameplay. I really enjoy how you start with a comparison between Angelino and Rasna, before setting Angelino up as wholeheartedly rejecting Rasna’s ideology. I can see this ideal resonate through his strategy, doing all he can to protect Rasna’s ghosts, and even refusing to harm Rasna herself. This sets itself in contrast to not only Rasna… but Amelia. This is a case where both Jojolity efforts strengthen each other. The prose used for Amelia is great, as her stand pushes her into engaging with her vices. You can feel how much she’s willing to put on the line seemingly just for her pride. This is a great setup for Amelia’s future endeavours, and it is such a delight to see you back in the writing chair, Slay!
But above all, this strategy shines in the way it builds itself around these roles. Angelino as the protector responsible for saving Rasna from yet more suffering, rejecting the idea that it is what defines them. Amelia as the champion brutalizing Rasna and validating that suffering because it is the life she knows. While I wanted more Angelino in the CQC, it gives Amelia the time to really shine, while Angelino gets his stunning final moments. Like Ceep, I might have wanted to see this violence tied more into who Amelia is as a person in a way that would have hit Angelino’s highs, delving into why this bet is so important to her. But what we have is still phenomenal. I’d like to give a special shout out to the way that this ties into the themes. A truly excellent end to our first round! I give this a [9]!

–

Now for Rasna. I am, and have been since the beginning, an advocate for the ability to tell a story through our strategies. Now, it is important to tie these stories to the strategy themselves, but I find it just as important to really analyze these narratives on their terms. So as someone who has been watching your storytelling for three tourneys now, that is what I am here to do.

I understand the beginning to be setting up Rasna’s justification. How is it that she can weather the storm of psychic damage that murder inflicts upon her, as symbolized by the horror of her [GRAVITY WEAPON]? She simply decides that those she kills are not human. This means that the suffering she inflicts is Different. It is Right. These are not people, they are angels. They are Whales. They are objects of revenge. Thus, it is not only moral for her to destroy them, but to stoke the revenge of others towards it as well. I understand Moby Dick to be a framework that Rasna herself is using to justify this impulse. This is how she understands and expresses her Ideal, as evidenced by the way she speaks, thinks, and acts. She is the captain, this is her mission, she alone must see it through. To see the way this story is utilized through the strat really shows your research and your passion.
Naturally, this impulse destroys her ability to tell them to run, because that would require realizing that they are human. Rasna is caught in inertia, she can’t slow down. This is shown through the bull maneuver, and her total disregard for the recoil of her stand. All of it is in service of a vengeance which dehumanizes her and those around her.

I actually agree with Surface, in a way. Rasna’s ideal is muddled, nonsensical, and ultimately hollow. But I would argue that is the point. I feel that this jojolity is not about Rasna’s ‘ideal’ so much as it is about the lengths she goes to in order to *justify* that ideal, even as the violence grows more and more intense, and she forces riskier and riskier plays, pushing herself through pain because the quest for revenge is all that she has (and thereby all that her crew has, since they are ‘duplicates’ of her). This is how I understand the way this jojolity ties into gameplay. The violence will be worth it because they will be happy. So the strategy tests her on this point. If her ideal is isolation, she will become isolated from the people around her. Barbed wire becomes a symbol of this ‘burden’. She knows pain in the abstract, she reaches out, and yet she has literally made herself untouchable.

From here, the violence is just in service of this lonely quest. Everyone else is the whale, she alone is captain and crew. Anything she does to them is justified. She alone is ‘right’. But this is isolating in another sense. She is unable to back down. This violence takes her away from her humanity. If she so much as begins to see her opponents as humans, she literally averts her eyes and launches herself away, but even this becomes part of the hunt, as Rasna continues her building offence throughout the match.

Now, I did feel that going into the finisher, Rasna’s turn was a bit abrupt, but I understand that as both set up and purposeful, so I won’t knock it. In the end, after pushing Rasna to justify more and more pain as ‘right’, she simply reaches her limit. Her framework collapses. In this moment, she finally understands her friends as ‘human’. But she cannot do the same for herself, and in the end, like her crew, she makes Angelino and Amelia into extensions of her.
She alone was ‘Right’. Now she alone is ‘Wrong.’ Either way, the whale has to die. There is no turning back anymore. Rasna attempts not to die alone, and yet she embodies her Isolation to the bitter end. Swallowed by the sea.

As a strategy, this was shaky… but as a story, it was well researched, well realized, and genuinely special. There may have been places it could have been improved, but I think that it deserves accolades for what it achieves. After so long as your shipmate, I’m proud of you, captain.

[10/10].