✨Stand Bullshit✨

MORE!!! MORE CHALKY IDIOTS!!! (tmrw will be giogio and mista i prommy)

(click for better quality)

this is HAA au was made by @starry-blue-echoes, i love the idiots (mostly melone in the idiots department) ever<3

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okay so I went on a walk and my brain started rotating the Merstars AU SO hard so I'm just going to yeet a bunch of random bullet point thoughts that I came up with and see what comes out of it-

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I love the idea of Risotto having the power of Spiney. If I can throw my own two cents in, my first idea was to make him some kind of sea urchin, just to give him a little bit of poison, but the idea of combining that with some pufferfish is too goo to pass up. Maybe for some Extra Fucked Up Horror Bits, the spikes just kinda..... slide out of his skin. He doesn't puff up very much because of his size so just looks like hundreds of needles are sliding out of his skin (it wrecks absolute hell on his clothes though, which is why he prefers to wear loose fitting clothes if he has to (cough skirts and capes cough)). Maybe to get away with more bits of transformation, he could have some mer blood in her? Not enough to full transform, but enough to give him some of the abilities, and to explain why he's So Goddamn Tall

For Prosciutto, technically Fugo's already a reef stonefish, but the sea has no shortage of poinsonous animals to pick some, or we could even just. Make him a different kind of stone fish. And Ghiaccio is just one big fucking Y E S. This man is basically immune to any kind of cold and he's living for it. With Melone, I personally have a..... h u g e bias becuase I Fucking Love Manta Rays, and for shits and giggles I lowkey wana give him little antenae nubs Just Because. He's also the team naviagtor, but it took some time to figure out how to explain his Vibes to everyone else

With Formaggio I just had. The funniest idea, but in order for it to work he's going to need to be at least a half blooded mer: what if his mer transformation makes him smaller. With almost every other mer of his age, they would grow to at least some amount, but because of the kind of fish he turn into he ends up shrinking down instead. It's super helpful for sneaking him into places, but also a bit of a sore spot for him

And while I'm similarly lost to what to do with Illuso, you read my fucking mind with Pesci. Maybe he and Prosciutto were part of a family that specialized in hunting mers, but for some reason or another the two brothers ended up breaking off (Prosciutto thinks it's very ironic how things turned out for them). And despite his nerves and fears, Pesci is actually really good at hunting and knows a..... concerning amount of things about the subject

you know that one friend who knows Way Too Much about how to kill a person? Yeah that's Pesci but specifically with mers. For shits and giggles I like to imagine that he's surprisingly Calm whenever he talks about the best ways to hunt, corner, and secure various kinds of mers. Like, he knows the best ways to hunt one with spines vs snake like ones vs very fast ones, etc etc, which leads to exchanges like:

Pesci: *explains something or other about the specific of dismembering a mer to maximize how much you can carry back while still priotizing the best parts*

Risotto and Formaggio, the only blooded mers on the team who didn't know that there was a specific set of glands in their bodies that was worth more than they made in a year that MANY people would kill for because it makes really nice perfume: well okay then :)

big bad and the assassination team! (2/3)

- Risotto is based off the gift givers in the Best Gift Ever special

- Devil Darner does not have time powers, he’s just really really good at sneak attacks and throwing opponents off

- Devil communicates and gives orders to his underlings via magic scrolls (a la Celestia)

- i was gonna make a joke about how phones haven’t been invented yet so Dialtone is literally just making weird noises and talking to objects, but then i looked it up and turns out there ARE phones in equestria so. that’s out the window

- anyways some more bad italy puns: Shiredinia, Reinezia (or Reinice), Coatpri, Foalrence, Maneila, Marelan

W E L L

for one, while the mold is going to S U C K for him to deal with, it's not really going to result in any lasting damage and you bet your ass Cicco's going to be interested as hell in Whatever The Fuck Jotaro Is

given how they're probably going to be working with the Bucci Gang, there is the question of which "group" he's going to go with, but for the sake of it let's say he goes with Mista and Giorno to fight Cioccolata just so we can have this fun interaction

he absolutely makes some. Interesting comments that make Jotaro Feel Things, one of which being the shocking emotion of missing Melone's company. At least the man was more manageable than Whatever The Fuck This Is

So no idea where this AU came from but

AU where Giorno gets time travelled all the way back to when he was a small young child, freshly moved to Italy but with all his memories and stuff intact but with only regular Golden Experience

so naturally he starts trying to fix things preemptively and along the way ends up accidentally meeting and befriending everyone in the Bucci Gang long before he’s supposed to and long before they even met each other. Ofc, he doesn’t spend much time lingering on it because He Has More Important Things To Do And Getting Them Involved Will Mean They’ll Get Very Very Hurt, but meanwhile they’re all Concerned about this actual child who never seems to have a parent around and is WAY too smart

Also I feel La Squadra should get involved at some point. Just because

God the comedy potential of this. A 20-year-old Risotto staring, befuddled, at this 7-year-old who is standing in front of one of Passione’s meth labs, which is now somehow in the middle of a rainforest. A very… aggressive rainforest.

He can’t exactly hurt the kid, there’s no proof he’s responsible. He ends up asking the kid if he has adult supervision to which he says yes. (Said adult supervision is a 12-year-old with white hair in a cafe half a mile away who is just as befuddled as Risotto.) (Giorno still has trouble remembering that Abbachio and Bruno aren’t Adults.)

WHERTKENGNDBFBD

Y E S

At some point Diavlo gets super pissed a Stand User keeps destroying all their drug labs with plants and animals they can’t destroy without being hurt themselves, so he ends up sending Risotto to look into it. And while he can’t find the User…… this one kid who he’d heard Gelato and Sorbet talk about is almost always there without parental supervision and it weirds him out because Why???? He knows from the two that that kid’s probably a Stand User, but he seems to heal things not make plants

just wait until a few years down the line when their overthrowing the Boss plans are in full swing and he finally reveals everything Gold Exp can do

Also just….. the mental image of Abbaccio having this mildly creepy kid occasionally following him around. He doesn’t know the kid’s name, who he is or where his parents are, and he doesn’t talk much beside a couple words and vaguely ominous sentences, but sometimes the kid will get closer and they have short talks. Maybe he even starts carrying around a small pack of candy to offer when the kid gets close enough. He still doesn’t know him very well, but he grows to be genuinely attached and looks forward to seeing Giorno out of the corner of his eye

Abbaccio looses track of how many times he notices the kid watching him. And these spottings only increase after he becomes a police officer, even when he’s patrolling well into the night and the kid should be at home asleep (he has ideas of why the kid isn’t though, and because of that Abbaccio can never bring himself to chase him away)

And for a pinch of angsty fun…… what if Giorno is there the night Abbaccio’s partner dies

or rather, the night his partner was supposed to die

What if Giorno was watching, waiting, for this exact night so he could intervene. What if he’s able to use Golden Experince to save that man’s life before he bleeds out

but also…… what if Giorno doesn’t quite get away unscathed. Maybe the man they were arresting panicked at seeing the sudden movement by the door, nerves through the roof and tension high at having shot an officer, and he fires at Giorno

it wasn’t a lethal shot. In his time as Don, Giorno had survived far worse, and it was simply a matter of filling in the pieces. And besides, it was a small price to pay for Abbaccio’s future. He’d done what he needed to do, prevented the tragedy which sent the man spiraling the first time. Abbaccio doesn’t need him anymore, so Giorno moves on while doing his absolute best to ignore just how badly leaving hurts

…….but in doing so, he accidentally triggers a different tragedy

Because Abbaccio doesn’t know what happened to Giorno afterward. All he knows is that the kid who’d been following him for years saved his partner, got shot, and disappeared without a trace

Abbaccio thinks Giorno died

Abbaccio thinks he got Giorno killed

He thinks that he’s never again going to be able to catch those blue eyes watching him from afar, never again going to get the faint prickle on his neck from being followed, never again going to sit on a park bench waiting for the boy to get closer so they can share a word or two

And he spirals almost as badly as he does in canon. Abbaccio still gets kicked off the police force for accepting the bribe and getting his partner injured, and once again he’s left drinking and drifting for Bucciarati to find

he never talks about Giorno. It hurts far too much. But if he stops by the same park to sit on a specific bench and keeps a small bag of Giorno’s favorite candy in his pocket, we’ll, that’s nobody’s business

and slowly, he begins to heal. Not in the sense things get better, but in how things finally stop getting worse. He’s able to stop himself from fracturing even more, is able to pull himself together into some semblance of a person so he can go about his day to day life and fulfill his duties under Bucciarati

But then of course, everything comes crashing down when Abbaccio spots a 15 year old boy with familiar blue eyes

But this time, thankfully, Abbacchio’s partner is there. They drift apart, and Leone still winds up in the mafia, but somehow his partner has the almost-supernatural ability to check in on Leone’s worst days and get him back to his feet. They gradually fall into a Detriot: Become Human / Disco Elysium-style dynamic; the quintessential Good Cop x Angst Cop, except one of them isn’t a cop anymore and the other may or may not be hiding a secret ability that manifested a few days after his buddy Leone got a boy killed.

Abbacchio’s partner has a passing familiarity with Bucciarati, but being on opposite sides of the law means they regard each other with vague hostility the one or two times they happen to meet.

The differing source of trauma and additional support would also grant Moody Blues a subtly different powerset. But it’s also affected temporally by the fact that this is an alternate timeline that Giorno has already changed tremendously.

Feel free to discard whatever you want from this, but the following is tailored for maximum crunch with this AU:

Ooooooooo that’s a fun idea

The possibility of Abbaccio’s partner having a Stand could be so much fun to mess around with. What if he was a Natural Born User, and maybe it’s a Phenomena type Stand(doesn’t have an actual manifestation) so he never full realized what it was

I like the idea of it being some kind of empathic ability. Given what we know about the guy that lines up pretty well, and maybe to give it more Stand Vibes in being weird, he see the emotions and kinda…… not quite manipulate them, but influence them. Give them a bit of a nudge, if you will

Maybe at first he wanted to be angry with Leone. That he’d taken the bribe, that he nearly got shot, that a young boy got caught in the crossfire

But……. It’s so hard to be angry when he feels the grief and self loathing hanging around him like a cloud that only gets thicker and bigger the more time goes on. When he sees how Leone wastes away, drowning in the guilt with no reprove in sight

He’s still angry about what happened, but Leone is beating himself up more than enough for the two of them. So he does what he can to help. He makes sure to check in on him when he can, makes sure he’s actually eating and taking care of himself,

As for Bucciarati…… he doesn’t like the man. He’s mafia, and despite the positive whispers he’s heard, he can shake the slight discomfort and dissatisfaction whenever he’s there. But it’s been years since he last saw Leone like this, and he can’t deny the way the dark cloud grows a bit lighter the more Leone spends time with him. He may not like it, but he’s willing to be civil, for Leone’s sake

I love the addition of peering into the first timeline, that could open up so much chaos. Abbaccio probably wouldn’t even fully understand what the ability is at first, just that Moody seems to be showing him something in the past that didn’t seem to happen

And what if one time he goes back to the building where he thinks Giorno died. Just once he goes to see what this “alternative” past ability would show him (he could never bring himself to use Moody on it before, he didn’t want to see his failure recreated and witness this innocent boy die a second time)

And when he does, he’s not sure if it’s better or worse than what happened this time

he never uses Moody anywhere near that building after that

(also, for another fun reason about the feeling of being watched part: what if that feeling of watching comes from Abbaccio’s memories of a Giorno watching him)

After everything is done and over with and Diavolo is killed, Abbachio goes to visit his old partner because he needs a drink away from the everything. Because he is still trying to process what just happened in the past week.

Ooh, that reminds me, what will the interactions between Bucciarati’s gang and La Squadra going to be? Do they still come to blows? If not, will there be other stand users interfering with either group?

WELL ✨

By the time “canon” has rolled around, they’ve already gotten all the pieces in place. They’ve managed to track down Polnareff and the arrow, both of which are currently stashed away in their basement waiting for everything to be over. Giorno even went the extra mile and transformed the arrow into a small but very sturdy houseplant. Pol’s also been filled in on the plan and is sort of their Guy In The Chair(and also has the Speedwagon Foundation and Jotaro on speed dial in case shit goes sideways)

However, Giorno’s still going to end up joining to the Bucci Gang for two main reasons. 1) they’d rather have Bucciarati as capo then Polpo because that’ll make things easier for them in the long run, and 2) they haven’t made contact with Trish since they weren’t sure how to reliably interact with her in a way that wouldn’t get Diavlo’s attention on her early, which would just make things infinity more difficult

So they split up, each preparing for their part of the plan to lure Diavlo out and doing their damnedest to avoid anyone dying this time. They do still play the role of “traitors against Passione trying to get the Boss’s daughter,” however this time their attacks are less to cause damage and more to steer the gang where they need to go and keep things at least semi predictable. It’s less long fights, more hit and run tactics with some slight changes as to who fights who to make things easier and safer (Pesci ends up being really useful here and ends up hanging back so if things go poorly he can use Beach Boy to yank them out of danger) 

And for the most part? Things on La Squadra’s end go almost perfectly. There’s a couple bumps and a couple injuries, but they’re alive so they consider it a win :D 

Giorno though…… with him it’s a bit messier

At first it goes fine. He manages to not have to fight Bucciarati, takes the test, kills Polpo, and it’s all good and according to plan

But then things start to get a bit….. weird when he first meets the gang.

Mista, Narancia and Fugo, while they did know Giorno, don’t fully recognize him at first because of his hair. And besides, even if they did most of their interactions had been in passing, usually him offering them a bit of help and such. They were kind of friends and did like him, but they weren’t that close (which was purposeful on Gio’s part)

But Abbaccio? He’s had those eyes haunting his every waking and resting moment for the last couple years so he recognizes him IMMEDIATELY

However, he doesn’t say anything about it. The way he’s not fully able to hide things is enough to tip off the others that there’s something going on, but he refuses to elaborate (for now at least)

And while Abbaccio is arguably more suspicious of Giorno than in canon, he’s not as cold. If anything, by Abbaccio Standards he’s almost being nice, if a bit skittish. And naturally this confuses the hell out of everyone, Giorno especially, because Abbaccio doesn’t just act like this, especially not to someone he just met. Maybe somewhere down the line Bucciarati ends up pulling him off to the side to ask what’s up

there’s also going to be the fun terror when time starts being weird and Giorno just goes barreling in, GER ready to k i l l

But yeah when this is all over and Diavlo’s dead, Abbaccio’s going to need a good chunk of time to process all this because that entire week was both the best and worst thing to have ever happened to him and he really needs to just. Process

(also kinda off topic but merging this with Corpse of Gold would create SO many more issues for Abba to deal with drfhdjfvd-)

I just thought of ways that Giorno could try to intervene in the tragedies of the other 3 members of Buccis gang (minus Bruno himself for obvious reasons) and yeah all of them would probably make him less memorable than for Abba, but still impactful.

YESSSSSSSS

(going in chronological order because my brain managed to tie some of them together)

For Fugo, I’ll admit, the best I could come up with was still pretty suspicious, but who knows maybe we could use that suspicion to help him connect a couple dots later down the line

with this one…… what if Giorno straight up sneaks into the college. It would’ve been practically impossible to get close to Fugo in the traditional social sense, and Giorno sure as fucking hell wasn’t letting this repeat, so at age 12, still tiny from his years of malnutrition, he sneaks into the college to try and change things

……..to say they go poorly is an understatement

the plan had been simple. Hide in the room behind some bookshelves, record the professor being Very No No with Fugo, then use Gold to intervene before anything actually happens and make it so Fugo won’t get blamed and the professor gets put behind bars (and maybe he could even use the footage to get his new guardians to make sure the man is dealt with)

only…….. well, seeing these things on paper is one thing

seeing it in person? seeing it done to someone you care about?

it’s something entirely different

And Giorno……. well…… he snaps

In an instant the plan he’d spent years crafting was no more, nothing but hot, protective rage left in its wake. And Fugo…… he honestly couldn’t explain what happened that day. He remembers a boy smaller and younger than he was jumping out from behind the bookshelves, remembers his professor bleeding and being thrown across the room like a ragdoll, remembers a sudden cascade of every kind of horrid, disgusting, terrifying creature he could think of covering the man, all before being dragged out of the room with boy running ahead and being taken far, far away

but no matter how hard he tries to remember, he could never recall seeing the boy touch him or his professor

and he doesn’t have time to ask questions either, as the second the boy looks back at him, the amount of terror that flits across his eyes is enough to make Fugo flinch. The boy stutters, hands shaking as if he’d only just realized what he’d done, before he blurts out “I shouldn’t have done that” and then he’s gone

Fugo still gets arrested and disowned afterward. Apparently the police found the strange kid’s recording device which just served as more evidence against him. The fact the professor was now in a coma of unknown cause didn’t help matters either

But he’s too busy thinking to be properly angry. Why did the kid have a camera? Why was he in that room? How did he do what he did? What did he mean by “I shouldn’t have done that”? Did he mean he shouldn’t have intervened, or that he shouldn’t have hurt the professor, or that he shouldn’t have done whatever he’d done, or that he shouldn’t have run, or-

Hundreds of theories swirl in Fugo’s head and he unfortunately isn’t able to find many answers

(what he doesn’t know is that what Giorno regrets was failing to help Fugo. That because of his emotions, because of his reaction, because of his impulsiveness, things have barely changed from the first time and that in his eyes that was seen as a failure)

For Narancia, I unfortunately don’t think Giorno would be able to save his mom, but Giorno would definitely try helping in other ways. He might even slightly befriend Narancia, but keep him at a distance in order to prevent getting too close. And he does do what he can to try and alleviate Narancia’s symptoms (not that the other boy knows it), but he needs a doctor which Giorno unfortunately can’t provide. Not without risking things worse than they already are

Although it’s faint because of the sickness and his mental spiraling, Narancia vaguely remembers someone. Someone who spoke in soft tones and brought him food, how when he was with him his eye always hurt less and he felt warm, who promised that he would get better and the future wasn’t hopeless

He never got their face, name, can’t even remember what their voice sounded like…… just that they were there

and……. what if one day was a bad day. The day Fugo was supposed to find Narancia, and for the first time in over a year Fugo and Giorno meet again. Fugo recognizes him almost instantly, but his infinite questions die on his tongue seeing the sick boy he’s holding

he doesn’t meet his eyes. If any, it seems like he’s doing everything in power to avoid meeting his. He’s bigger than when he had helped Fugo, but not by much and it’s clear he’s struggling to support the sick kid’s weight

“help him.” he whispers “please”

Narancia is……. a little confused and mostly going through the motions when Fugo takes him. He mourns the loss of his Warm Friend, but is too sick to respond much. He’s even more confused when he wakes up in the hospital

Narancia sometimes wonders is his friend was even real or just something his sick, lonely brain conjured up to make things a bit easier

(what he doesn’t know is that Giorno left him flowers every day he was in the hospital and watched from afar to make sure he healed correctly)

and then Mista. How boy Mista. While his isn’t very connected to the other two’s, I had no less fun coming up with it

I’m loving the idea with Mista planning to betray Passione. Just. imagine Mista standing there in court, watching this brave 14 year old kid hold his ground and stand up for him. They never talked nor had any time to interact outside of the court proceedings, hell Mista never even had a chance to get the kid’s name, but he cares for and respects that kid who tried to help him more than anything

But of course, this respect and admiration is only dwarfed by Mista’s fear, because yeah this seemingly random kid just went against the mafia for him. There’s no way he’s going to get away from this unscathed and the thought of this innocent kid who just wanted to help being put in danger makes Mista’s blood boil

And what if…… what if when he spends that one night in jail before Bucciarati picks him up, Giorno visits him. Using Gold he manages to grow something to hold him up to the window and he manages to peak in and with Mista a few words

And Giorno…… while he didn’t realize it, seeing this kid who already risked everything to help him apologize for not being enough, trying and give him words of encouragement, telling him that everything would be okay……. it helps give Mista back his resolve. Before he was terrified and calmly accepted prison, and now….. well, he was still terrified, but now he had something to look forward to. He has something to hold onto, a purpose to cling to, someone to remember and hope to meet again when he gets out.

That night, Mista decides the first thing he’s going to do when he gets out of prison is buy that kid an ice cream

……..but then he doesn’t go to prison. Instead, a well dressed man who’s clearly mafia ends up making him an offer. Join his team and Mista could be a free man, and he almost doesn’t accept it. After all, the mafia’s the whole reason he’s stuck in here to begin with……. but once again, Mista thinks back to the kid. Remembers the danger he could be in, realizes that with an in he could possibly do something about it, could protect the kid the same way the kid tried to protect him

so he does. He takes Bucciarati’s offer and becomes their gunman…… but no matter how hard he looks, Mista never manages to track him down

In between his revenge plots, Mista has spent many nights worrying about Giorno’s fate

(what he doesn’t know is that Giorno has a VERY protective family of assassins watching his back, all of whom are much higher up on the pecking order than a couple foot soldiers with a grudge)

And for all three of them, as the months and years pass, already vague details about Giorno grow fuzzy, loosing the clarity they once had. They never forget, but it becomes harder to remember the strange boy who did what he could to save them

so when a confident blonde boy with careful word walks in with Bucciarati on that faithful day, seemingly the boy’s opposite in nearly every way….. well, it’s only natural they didn’t recognize him at first

Ooh, I had a thought, what if Fugo saw Giorno accompanied by one of La Squadra (let’s say Illuso) and he assumes that Illuso is a student and Giorno is a younger relative, and that’s why he sees Giorno wandering around the campus?

Heck, we could extend these cameos to the others as well, have them see Giorno with the La Squadra members they fought in the other timeline. Narancia sees Giorno being led around by a man in an orange shirt and a man who has to be wearing contacts that make his scaleras black, and Mista sees that Giorno was escorted to court by a man in a vey formal, black suit and a man with curly, cyan hair.

Also, I love the idea of their stands possibly being slightly different. Aerosmith would probably be mostly the same, but the other two? Sex Pistols could have a more defensive focus, since Mista both saw someone come to his defense and wants to keep them safe in turn (and also he might not be as superstitious about the number 4 so there’s that). And Purple Haze… oh boy. Purple Haze’s virus could cause less direct harm since Fugo isn’t as concerned with his rage, but as a tradeoff could cause hallucinatory effects or dull their reaction speed, to reference that one pivotal, confusing movement where Fugo couldn’t process what was happening fast enough.

Y E S S S S S S S S S

ooooooo I love the idea of Giorno secretly getting the Squadra to help him, even when they don’t realize it

maybe Giorno asks Illuso if he could take him to the college because “he heard they had a really good encyclopedia on rare bugs which wasn’t at the public library and he kinda wanted to check it out but didn’t want to waste money and buy it” and of course Illuso agrees, Giorno never asks them for anything, he can’t fuck this up besides the others would kill him is he did-

And getting into the college was easy enough. All it took was a couple well placed mirrors and they were in, and Illuso looks about college age. Besides, you just need to look confident and like you belong there and most people won’t look twice. There was a small hiccup when Giorno disappeared, but no biggie. The kid probably went off to find his book or something, the kid was determined to be independent after all. Finding him would be easy

………naturally he gets a pinch more worried when the police show up dragging away a kid barely older than Giorno coming from the direction Giorno said the library had been

And what if when Illuso does find Giorno at least an hour later sitting alone in a small tucked away area he immediately starts with the questions. Are you okay, did you see the arrest, did anything happen, why did you run off and Giorno just

Cries.

Now, he internally justifies this as getting Illuso to stop asking questions. After all, questioning a crying child is very uncomfortable and is the most surefire way of getting Illuso to not press (definitely not because he’s been stewing in his own failure and emotional unease and general disgust of what happened nope definitely not)

And it works, but also Illuso is now REALLY freaking the fuck out because one of the first things they learned about Giorno was that He Doesn’t Cry Or Seek Comfort Unless Shit’s Absolutely Fucked and decides “okay, I can come back for the book later I’m taking him home” and he does

(Maybe Giorno does eventually explain what happened, but very vaguely and like what he saw was sheer coincidence. That professor guy is absolutely going to die though, so that’s nice at least :D)

With Riz and Formaggio, what if that had been just. General walking around town things. Groceries, taking Giorno to school, going to the park, that kind of thing, all of which Giorno uses to keep an eye on things and sometimes sneak off to check in on Narancia

The court thing……. that’s gonna be fun. The Squadra are definitely not happy Giorno got involved in this, but they also know that if they try to stop him he’ll just go it alone which would be even worse. Right now the best thing they can do to make sure Giorno stays protected and safe is help him. They all probably wanted to go but knew that…… probably wouldn’t go very well, and sending Risotto would probably bring ALL sorts of attention given the fact he’s the Squadra leader. But at the very least while Prosciutto and Ghiaccio are with Giorno at the court proceedings, the rest of the Squadra are making sure that regardless of the verdict (which they’re honestly pretty sure isn’t going to be in the guy’s favor but weren’t sure how to break that to the kid) Giorno wouldn’t be hit with any backlash

They also prepare some things they know make Giorno happy like his favorite movie and snacks and plushies so he’ll have some comfort when this inevitably doesn’t work out

Mista is also probably the most likely to recognize any of the Squadra because he ends up fighting both Prosciutto and Ghiaccio AND his meeting with the two of them had been the most recent. Maybe this could lead to Mista starting to see some of the dots, but without knowing Giorno was the kid he can’t quite connect them

and YESSSSSS with the slightly shifting Stands. For the Pistols, what if they’re a tad flipped from canon in how instead of it being easier to do offense, it’s easier for them to do defense. They still can, it just takes a lot more to pull off and takes practice. Haze being hallucinatory is such a fun idea to play around with, but what if it’s still also pretty deadly. It’s not an instant KO, and it’s still as fragile as in canon, but it can still do some MAJOR damage if given enough time. Also I think Purple Haze should still be difficult to control, this time because of how Fugo had none when everything was going down with Gio

and for Narancia, a possible idea could maybe be that instead of seeing carbon dioxide, he could track heat. He still has the ability to adjust the sensitivity, but this could tie into how with Giorno for once he wasn’t cold and was just pleasantly warm

I just. I had to write a little thing. (I’m playing a bit with what you mentioned earlier, about the order being switched up a bit.) (Also some speculation about stand synergy at the end

Y E S S S S S S S S S S S S S

Mista is Doing His Best and I ADORED the detail with Polpo I didn’t even think about that but it’s perfect

Also I am 10000000% taking the thing about the Melone Using Animals Instead, I really wasn’t sure what to do with this guy and that makes everything about this au INFINITELY easier, thank you so much 🙏🙏🙏

also also, I had an idea for the Baby Face “fight”

what if instead of that being a fight it’s like….. a sort of check in, so to speak. Melone has Dog Junior do what he does in the original timeline with cubing Bucciarati and Trish, however instead of there being a fight Melone decides to use this as a chance to be able to talk with Giorno and make sure things are going to plan. They don’t talk very long, it would be WAY too risky incase they got caught, but it’s a nice moment

of course, from an outside perspective it’s Not that, as Giorno still blows Junior up (which he feels really bad about) and is a tad bloody (don’t worry, he wasn’t actually hurt, he just used Gold to make it)

So another fun Star Swap Thought for Joseph

The Baby Face fight :)

And honestly...... I don't think Joseph's going to win this one for one big reason

When Baby Face steals his voice...... it's probably going to fuck with his breathing. There being a massive hole in his neck is going to throw it off, probably making it uneven, and for Hamon Users controlled steady breathing is essential. And that's not even mentioning the fact that Joseph still is pretty iffy with Hermit Purple right now. Maybe he'll be able to see some stuff, but without Hamon or backup he's essentially doing this fight blind

but this isn't going to be the end. Because this time the others are going to realize something's wrong. Why?

Aerosmith

Ever since they first met, Joseph's breathing has always been different from most of the other blips on the radar, even when he was asleep. So when Narancia's scouting for enemies and suddenly notices Joseph's breathing change for the first time since they'd met? Yeah it gets his attention

So the team swoops in for the rescue...... and also start freaking out because they know Joseph has a healing ability, so why isn't he using it??? I'd imagine Trish would probably be the one who has to help out, maybe managing to send over just enough Hamon to heal over the hole in his throat to get his breathing back on track so he can fix the rest

But before that...... god can you imagine how awful this is going to be for Joseph. After all, the last time he'd been at the mercy of an enemy and unable to breathe correctly had been when the Pillarmen put the rings on him. Breathing is everything, so that moment where there was the risk of the damage being unfixable? That the one reliable way he could protect himself and others got stolen??? Yeah it's going to shake him up a bit. And then throwing in the fact he was essentially helpless and had to be saved, he's not going to be in the best of moods

and what if when one of the gang ends up asking him why he didn't just heal, he finally explains Hamon a bit more, and more specifically "A Hamon User who can't breathe is a Hamon User who gets killed."

Wait, so if the Bucci Gang (feat. Young JoJo) don’t have access to Gold Experience, how are they going to beat Melone? Does he just keep harassing them with Juniors for the rest of the Squadra arc? Does the Ghiaccio fight turn into a 2v2? What about Doppio vs Risotto?

Actually, if I could wildly speculate for a minute: I don’t know if Abbachio still dies in this au, but if he does, then the Bucci Gang’s a team without an information specialist, and Melone is an information specialist without a team. They’ve all got the rest of Passione gunning for them, and a deeply flawed ally is better than yet another enemy. He’s still a Stand using assassin with a grudge against Diavolo, even if none of the heroes can actually stand the guy. 

........I'll admit I completely forgot Baby Face II didn't affect Melone, but I do really like the idea of the Ghiaccio fight turning into a 2v2 (and I do have plans for Abbaccio to live thanks to Hermit Purple finally getting to the point Joseph can use it).

and....... okay just for the shits and giggles and because it would be a crime to fully remove the scene, I thought of a way to make another Bench SceneTM

So as we saw with Dio in Part 1, ice and the cold can disrupt Hamon, and Mista is..... honestly probably going to still get shot full of holes because he's Mista. So when the fight's all said in done, Joseph is cold as fuck and needs to get warmer in order make sure Mista doesn't bleed out

So sharing body heat :D

however, both of them are dramatic little shits who won't hold still or shut up, and to Narancia watching....... yeah f in the chat for him-

but then on a completely different note, I also had a thought for the car ride over :)

So Joseph and Mista are sitting there with a bit of awkward silence because Joseph's still wresting with his emotions from the Baby Face Fight and Mista's contemplating the exact meaning of what Joseph had said and what it meant

so naturally he ends up asking

and Joseph....... sort of explains things. He keeps the specifics vague of course, but he figures that it wouldn't hurt to explain some of his situation, if only to get them to stop poking for at least a little bit (and also because he's getting a bit tired of keeping secrets). He explains a bit more about Hamon, how it's something that's taught and learned, how anyone can use it given enough time and training, how it takes YEARS to master and there are some who have dedicated their entire lives to the craft

and Mista, with no frame of reference for Hamon, is already pretty damn impressed with what Joseph knows. He's what, 15? If what he knows is only a little, then how much is left???

......but then Joseph winces

His training was...... outside the norm, he says, and almost entirely combat based. That normally a Hamon User was taught slowly with a variety of techniques so they had time for their body to acclimate, to actually learn and even come up with some tricks of their own....... and how he wasn't afforded that luxury

how Hamon Users aren't without enemies. Enemies who knew how they worked, enemies who knew their strengths and weakness, enemies who had managed to take on the clan of users who numbered in the THOUSANDS and leave behind only a fraction

And how Joseph had managed to find himself face to face with them