JJOCT #8 R1M26 Jojolity Deliberations

Judge RocketLlama:

Starting with Mikey I think that your work is admirable here. Your framing of Mikey as being a selfish hero at first and then finding the heart to want to save the other people in the mess he finds himself in is a nice little arc, but is a little inelegant in its execution. For one, it is abrupt in a way that is jarring when he makes the switch, and some signposting in flavor in mechanics to foreshadow it a bit earlier would have been welcome. Beyond that, the mechanical section for protecting the civilians feels a bit sparse if it is going to be a part of his plans, and a bit more mechanical integration on methods of keeping them safe beyond relocation might have reinforced your ideas a bit more.

But that is enough griping. What you do execute here successfully tells the story of a scared kid finding his feet and making a stand not just for himself, but others in the end. That seems pretty damn heroic to me, and a high 7/10 feels more than fair here!

Moving on to Kaiserinma, I think that you do an excellent job of selling how inevitable and terrifying Kaiserinma is. There is no pleasure taken, no sadistic joy. Just a mechanistic violence that swallows anyone who gets too close whole, whether they deserve it or not. Even with the mechanical flub in your movement, everything else you do in the strategy reinforces the core thesis of exactly why Kaiserinma is such a strong villain.

You effectively set up the ways that individuals can get caught in the same spiral that Kaiserinma fell into when she was still human. How it eats at you, how you try to side step it until you can side step no more. It is crushing, it tears the ground out from under you and then sucks you under where you cannot breath. Perhaps there is something to be said of the connection between late stage capitalistic violence and forces of nature (or maybe my philosophy minor is yearning to be useful). While the mechanical flub does still ding you here the rest of your writing is strong and consistent enough that I still feel a decent 7/10 feels fair here.

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Judge AtomicPeace:

CARC:

I liked the way that the jojolity was tackled here at its core, and thought it was interesting to see insight into what Mikey’s perception of a hero is. The text, “Show your resolve to be the hero of destiny”, can be interpreted in many ways, and in terms of execution, should involve both showing what being “A hero of destiny” means to Mikey, and what “resolve” means to him as well.

It’s made clear at multiple points throughout the strategy what Mikey thinks a hero is; it’s a fairly naive and straightforward conception befitting his character’s inexperience, and not entirely what most people would consider to be its meaning: A Hero Wins. A hero cannot lose, and he is a hero, so he cannot lose. The resolve to be a hero isn’t necessarily a matter of executing justice, but doing everything he can to avoid a loss- a hero is no good dead.

To this end, Mikey spends much of the strategy playing a more protracted and ranged strategy, doing a lot of trickery and trap-setting to stay out of Kaiserinma’s close-range blender. I think this definitely tracks with the stated thesis of his views, and the plays in the strategy by and large support this,

What I would have liked to have seen is a more consistent distribution of this idea throughout the strategy. If Mikey’s perception of what being a hero means saving the people on the map  (and I think within the character’s experiences as well as what he says he sees a hero as, you could reasonably make the interpretation that it wouldn’t need to), it could have been represented a bit more evenly, and the tactics on display could have had their setup woven throughout the strategy a bit better. Similarly, the narrative expression of his views could have been more evenly dispersed to support his actions.

I think this was a solid foundational execution, and the pieces to uplift it are all there, but they just needed to be brought better a bit more cohesively to do so. I’m going to give this a 6/10.


LKA:

Kaiserinma’s jojolity, “Show your resolve to carry out your grim mission”, asks her to dedicate the match to representing the very core of her character, and she certainly delivers throughout the strategy.

The narrative and mechanical elements of the strategy come together to represent Kaiserinma as a quite literal killing machine. Her process of following the path of the whirlpool, following the path of least resistance and tearing right through everything in the way, shows both her fearsome capabilities as well as her dedication towards expunging her targets.

Showing the thought process of each of the targets was an excellent narrative touch, showing the potency of Kaiserinma’s destruction in a diagetic fashion, and making you feel the weight of her actions. The conclusion with Mikey was the icing on the cake, and punctuated just how strongly Kaiserinma’s character was on display here, fully showing off her resolve.

All in all, this satisfied the needs of the jojolity well, presenting a creative narrative that felt well dispersed and integrated within the strategy, and saw Kaiserinma dedicated well to her destructive mission. I’m giving this a 7/10.

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Judge DSOddish:

My JoJolity delibs should hopefully be shorter than my ones on Quality, as I have similar feelings for both strategies here.

Starting with LKA, your objective was to showcase your “resolve to complete your grim mission,” and outside of the narrative here, I’m not really sure I see much of that. The narrative is good, mind you. I think it really gets down to what Kaiserinma is all about and how fucking scary and unmoving from her goals she is, ruthlessly cutting down her targets and even a child, despite none of them deserving such an end from the perspective of any rational person. However, when I score JoJolities, I place much more importance on mechanical integration than narrative, and I’m not sure I really got the impression of Kaiserinma’s “resolve” or her “grim mission” outside of just killing the Priority Targets and Mikey, which given these are either facets of her 1 skill or her opponent in a Deathmatch, something she would be doing in any match regardless of the JoJolity she was given. I’ll give points for effort, and with the solid narrative surrounding it I’m happy to give you guys a **6**.

As for CARC, I more or less have the same things to say. You guys took the approach of defining a hero as “someone who wins,” which I think is a perfectly fine jumping off point to explore a character like Mikey, who might have a very naive and immature view of heroism. However, even if, like Kaiserinma, I think there’s some good narrative surrounding this idea, I don’t know if there’s much done to execute on this thesis in the strat itself beyond trying to defeat your opponent in a Deathmatch, which makes me hesitant to award a high score. The one thing I can identify as an attempt at embodying heroism in the strat is Mikey going out of his way to try to protect some of the civilians, but this doesn’t come into play until one short section towards the very end of the strat. It feels a lot like an afterthought, and halfbaked at that. It’s definitely a JoJolity play, but not one I’m too impressed by in its current state. Like LKA, I’m going to give you guys a **6**.