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Jojolands live-blogging let’s goooooooo

1st impressions under the cut:

Jodio is such a wild name especially considering there’s a Spanish meaning (look it up lol). It makes me think of the Jorge Joestar novel where it says that Erina spelled George II’s name as “Jorge” to keep the “Jo” and it’s like ah yes, it’ll play out how you think in the Spanish-speaking Canary Islands.

Jodio’s narration makes him sound like an actual 15-year-old, and there’s something a bit charming about that. He goofs around and wants to become rich, but he also follows other people’s orders and definitely is flying by his pants as he goes through this process. Araki did a great job establishing Jodio through his narrative voice, stuff like, This may sound like bullshit” and his tangent admiring Meryl’s designs.

There’s definitely the “Giorno” connections (Giorno was the child of both Jonathan and Dio and Jodio is like combining “Jonathan” and “Dio” as names, both are 15 in their stories and have jobs connected with crime, and both of them have clear ambitions). Both of them definitely are observant and can read people very well. However, unlike Giorno, Jodio is not a smooth criminal. He reacts with violence first as opposed to trying to charm his way out of situations. Jodio’s been a low-level grunt for gangs since he was a child, rather than Giorno being a solo petty thief who, once completing initiation, dethrones the Boss and takes charge in like a week.

Another notable thing in this story is that Jodio is a Jojo who comes with a sibling, an older sibling at that. Jodio is definitely protective of Dragona, and also defers to their choices, and listens when Dragona begs Jodio to hold back. I love their rapport, it definitely feels like accurate sibling energy. They crime together, goof off with each other, both of them protect their mother and each other. I love how Dragona was begging for the police to leave Jodio alone because he’s a kid, a minor, and that Dragona holds Jodio back from going too far when beating up the cops who’d assaulted them. I also love how Jodio saw what was going on with Dragona and went “aight time for violence” immediately.

Definitely a new dynamic for the Jojo and JoBro, and also a refreshing take on Jojo sibling dynamics. Jonathan and Dio was about the worst way siblings could go (understatement), and Josuke and Joshu plus the other Higashikata children had a rocky dynamic given that…well, the amnesiac teenager being adopted into the family is a lot to get used to, so in some ways Jojolion was in part the Higashikatas learning how to accept Josuke and give him the family he needs. Johnny and Nicholas seemed to have a positive relationship, but of course that ended with tragedy given Nicholas’ passing.

Regarding the discourse over Dragona’s pronouns, I admit, as someone who is cis, I don’t feel I have a right to comment on this detail beyond that this is only the first chapter, and we don’t know how Araki will handle it for the rest of the run. Given that Araki is a cis Japanese man in his 60s, and that his writing and portrayals of other marginalized folks doesn’t have the best track record (Part 2 the anime had to cut out some rather unsavory caricatures of Mexicans, and Part 3 tended to play into uhh questionable “exotic land” stereotypes especially along Southeast Asia), I wouldn’t recommend getting one’s hopes up for the most stellar execution of representation for Dragona here. I will definitely say that no matter what happens with Dragona, it’s a Your Mileage May Vary situation, but beyond that, I’ll leave that to people who know more and have lived experience when it comes to talking about Dragona’s gender identity.

Meryl is the tallest Jojo character now after the Pillar Men and that is amazing also, yeah, how many hustles does she have? The fact that she’s a school principal as well as a small business owner as well as a crime boss (not sure how big her gang is though). I’m sure there’s a joke about the US educational system in here somewhere lol.

Also, a Jojo in a US public highschool. No notes lmao

There’s several references to our time, like Dua Lipa, Uber, and Covid. We can assume that means this takes place past 2020, most likely around 2022-2023 since no one is wearing masks, but Dragona doesn’t like the officer getting that close and cites social distancing as a reason—notably, the officer is shown as Asian since he asks “do you not want me to get close to you because of my race?” which also references the spike of hate crimes against Asians during the height of the pandemic. There’s also a bit of a meta mark of the times given how Araki went ACAB in the first 5 pages of chapter 1.

The Filthy Frank lookin’ ass dude. No notes lol

This part’s theme seems to be focusing on a new concept called “Mechanisms”. As far as I can understand about how it works given what we have so far about it, it seems to be something to do with “social systems.” Jodio built a social system of “trust” through being a good Gofer for the gang he works for, while the classmate he compares himself to is bullied because he doesn’t have a system like that for the school. Even though the unnamed student is larger, maybe smarter, and presumably wealthier, he’s singled out for bullying because he doesn’t have a good “mechanism” and will be due to leave the school soon. We’ll have to see how this plays out in the coming chapters…

HEIST HEIST HEIST HEIST

The jewel in the heist will not be how Jodio gets rich, or else, perhaps it will prove more trouble than it’s worth. I say that based on nothing. Araki might pull a different trope regarding this jewel, but I doubt he’d make this into a Maguffin for very long.

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FAQish but not really lol

More like “I feel like I should answer some questions no one’s really asking right now but I am concerned abt answering anyways” lmao

Why didn’t the D’arbys use their Stands on the Joestars and just stick to their vampire powers?

The original D’arby battles were challenges rather than outright fights, and all were to do with a wager of some sort. Both were meant to keep the SDC crew away from something (the truth of The World, getting to Dio himself). However, in the Anna Timeline they were both victims of Straizo and their goal was to escape and capitalize on their new powers. Since the SDC crew also didn’t know the way out, the D’arbys couldn’t gain anything from them aside from help getting out, and thus there was nothing of more value for Osiris or Atum to wager for. Too bad the SDC crew were also vampire hunters on top of being Stand Users.

Who was it that Dio was thinking of in chapter one when his inner monologue mentions of Anna, “He hates her, really, she’s too idiotically kind, just like—never mind.”

His mother. Dio at 12 years old doesn’t strike me as someone who would have a lot of women associates aside from his mother, and his mother would probably be the most comparatively kindest and highest in his good books. Thus Dio compares his new stepsister to the only other woman he knew best at that point, and in just as much contempt.

Is Strohiem dead?

Yes. He didn’t even get to turn cyborg, either. Even if he did, it never made a big difference to the end of the Second World War anyway. It probably has something to do with a human sized cyborg being difficult to upkeep in terms of energy, protection from overheating itself from using the various guns in its arsenal as well as must moving in general, protection from extreme weather conditions like in Siberia, the very specifically designed components and parts not having a very established mass production line established, you know, the works. Actually, Franz from Archives lost the blueprints somewhere and it burned down in some firebomb before it could even get to Strohiem in the first place so no getting cyborg technology from the Germans. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure should’ve punched more N*zis.

Did Straizo actually love Anna back?

The short answer is yes, but the long answer is “It’s complicated.” The perfect time and scenario for them to have started a romantic relationship that actually would last would’ve been around when Lisa Lisa was well into her marriage and Joseph may or may not have been on the way; the scenario that would need to happen is that Anna opened up about her true origins to Straizo and have been clear about being willing to Turn Straizo but only with certain requirements and caveats in place. Where things fell apart was Straizo waiting for so long, and Anna keeping important secrets from him. Though, that’s not to say that Anna didn’t have her own reasons for wanting to not mention her reincarnation. That life becomes further and further from her as she continues living, and her concern about future knowledge spreading uncontrollably also play into her habitual silence. Let it be very clearly said that Straizo’s betrayal was very much a betrayal, and had he stayed and let her talk and heard her out things would have also ended better.

Holly can beat people up now???

Holly learned to fight because Caesar, Anna, and Lisa Lisa were around to teach her a thing or two. Joseph was less averse to teaching his daughter such things because Joseph was actively raised by Lisa Lisa who taught him combat and was an example of “girls can definitely kick ass and still be elegant and ladylike”; and Anna, who instilled in him the ethos of a well-rounded and holistic education as well as proper precautionary measures. Ergo, letting Holly live her life as freely and happily as possible also included making sure she was strong enough to save herself if need be. As for her being in a gang, yes. In New York she joined a Greaser gang more because they liked motors and she did too, thanks to Grandpa Georgie showing her airplanes since she was a toddler. Unfortunately fights and gang wars were part of the experience but it did let her put some of her lessons to practical use. Like her grandfather before her, she cannot channel Hamon but that doesn’t make much of a difference if you’ve got a better swing with a wrench. How Holly and Sadao met was that he was in New York for music school and his bike broke while she was on her way out from hanging out with her crew, so she helped him out. He treated her to lunch as repayment and they hit it off very well. But yes, Joseph still pettily dislikes Sadao for taking his daughter away to a foreign land. He’s just better at expressing and focusing his annoyance. And no, if canon Joseph won’t actually kill Sadao for doing all of this then Starsverse Joseph won’t actually kill Sadao for the same reasons. He actually does respect the dude, he just wishes his son-in-law could spend more time with his daughter and son. The ultimate thing about Holly is that she chooses to be a pacifist, and that’s not something someone without a strong will would stick to.

If Jonathan lived longer, as well as Lisa Lisa and Georgie, wouldn’t they have a chance to have more kids? Why don’t we see them and those changes?

The Doylist answer is I don’t wanna make more OCs to juggle and factor in, that’s for a different timeline, thanks. The Watsonian answer is that contraceptives exist, pregnancy doesn’t always happen to some couples even if they’re going at it like rabbits, maybe Hamon is a factor that actually makes this harder, who knows! Although, in regards to Erina and Jonathan, in some ways this question also plays into the question of:

Giorno managed to exist in this universe even though his parentage is different. Are Donatello, Rykiel, and Ungalo in this universe too?

Originally, I thought that the mention of the “other fruits” of the tree thing that birthed Giorno would suffice as reference to Donatello, Rykiel, and Ungalo. Thus they were fruits of the same homunculus-method that made this Giorno, “born” to Anna as their mother, however unlike Giorno they didn’t survive beyond infancy for whatever reason. Another idea was that they would be Erina and Jonathan’s children but then see the previous answer about juggling characters so then nixing them would mean Erina miscarriages multiple times while she and Jonathan try having more children than just Georgie, and that was a pretty depressing thought. Plus I don’t see Erina marrying again after Jonathan and she would’ve been too old to have children by then anyway. The third idea was that they would be born to their original mothers, albeit with different fathers given that Dio is long dead, and since neither Jonathan nor Anna would’ve been involved then Donatello, Rykiel, and Ungalo could live perfectly mundane lives unburdened by the Joestar legacy. Their lives would be better in some ways and lack in other ways. In the end, the “other fruits” stuff made it in, but I can also see the version where their original mothers had them through different fathers and they just grew up normally also existing in the Anna timeline. Both are true, then.

Does Anna still remember the future? The time she came from? Or even canon?

Lmao that’s like 3 in one question lol. Short answer? Yes and no. The memory of Margot and being Margot is around but the information is buried under many, many more years of experience as Anna. I’ve answered in a direct comment before that Anna has the unique experience of time traveling but then returning to her original time the long way around. So in the 1880s, she’d remember iPhones, Jojo canon she’d read, and big world events and even wrote them down to remember. But she wouldn’t have written down certain memes and thus wouldn’t remember unless the meme was very big in her life (“What is love?” And she is tempted to reply with “baby don’t hurt me” vs. seeing a shiba inu and dogecoin not even passing her mind even once). Human memory is only as good as what it prioritizes to preserve, so Anna would slowly forget memes and even 2010s technology and re-learn them while they become released for the first time into the world. As stated at the beginning, the memory is around but there’s too much recent information to prioritize and new memories being made that it’s almost impossible to recall anything she didn’t preserve in books or destroyed. The memory would be overwritten and too corrupted. It’s like searching through a vast archive but the old stuff hasn’t been updated to the new system yet so the information is practically lost. In short, memories of Margot, Jojo canon, and the future is information that Anna can’t access anymore.

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Nice

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It’s occurred to me that I should probably explain this whole thing a bit more lol so Imma post up some of the rules that I’m operating by as I write this Multiverse:

Each OC is reborn as the twin of a Jojo

Each OC is reborn into a different timeline, and cannot change whatever happened in the past of their timeline (EG: the Part2 OC operates in her timeline only, the Part1 OC never existed in her timeline and therefore the point of divergence in the Part2 OC’s timeline is from her birth forwards only)

There is only one reincarnated OC in each timeline at a time. The only exception is any Eyes of Heaven crazy crossover event.

Any Eyes of Heaven crazy crossover event that happens is non-canon fun.

Each OC is a different character, and not the same soul reincarnating over and over. They all have their own pasts and different levels of knowledge about Jojo canon. I’ve made 6 OCs and that’s because I tend to make things complicated for myself lol.

There are no Self-Inserts that are author avatars because I don’t really feel comfortable with writing that sort of thing. Will there be resemblances to me? Sort of, in the sense that original characters tend to unavoidably have some distorted reflection of some aspect of their creator’s personality. But these OCs all have different lives and different pasts than each other and me.

If canon has a macguffin that’s an alien debatably sentient metal which causes weird things to happen based off of willpower, and grants superpowers after striking people’s souls....then there’s probably consequences to those macguffins interacting with characters who had enough willpower to persist after death and are souls that are from a different universe. This is a unique problem to this multiverse that every single OC will have to deal with to some degree at some point...

Fun design rule I’ve given myself for each reincarnation OC’s Stand: the face of the Stand greatly resembles the face of their previous life, but there will always be some element of the Stand’s face that covers its eyes. Because Death or something.

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Tears of the Kingdom time let’s GOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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guess who saw the Mario movie ayoooooo

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When did you start drawing ( I'm not asking for tips or anything)

Well I was always kinda artsy as a kid, but I only started to get more and more serious about drawing at around high school and then just kept going! This account is also kinda a dump for the hobby art I do specifically and when I can lol

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Housekeeping

You may have noticed that all of my fics have been privated. That’s because allegedly an OpenAI program has apparently been using AO3 to source from for its algorithm without writers’ consent. This is more of a precautionary measure than anything else, however I do understand that it does make accessing my works a bit harder to do. I’ll be honest, AI in general have been very irritating to me lately and I hope that things get better for creators soon, but at the moment we just gotta do what we can to work around AI that just do shitty things to creators.