Blog / Sapphire Heartverse

Vanilla Ice, Tippy, and Jonathan's head. (Credit goes to sapphire-heart-tippy on Tumblr.)

Sapphire Heartverse is a Jojos Bizarre Adventure Alternate Universe Fic/ Self-Insert Fic depicting the adventures of Tippy, an Original Character Author Avatar and his shenanigans within Dio Brando's household as a recruited agent with their stand Sapphire Heart. Here, the story takes on a Denser and Wackier approach in a sitcom-style parody, focusing on the random misadventures of Tippy, his friendly and eventually romantic relationship with Vanilla Ice, Dio's other agents, and Jonathan's disembodied severed head who lives in a jar in the refrigerator and is the oft-ignored voice of reason.

The AU takes the form of mostly a series of asks, though a fanfic separate from the asks is also being written. The AU as a whole can be seen here. Currently, five separate A Us exist in a multiverse that frequently crosses over with each other:

• Sapphire Heartverse Main Fic: The main canon of the Sapphire Heartverse, featuring an alternate Good Ending and Bad Ending
• OVA-verse: A Darker and Edgier timeline based off on the 1993 Stardust Crusaders OVA, with the characters having a different color palette
• Jonny Headverse: A Lighter and Softer AU of the original fic, with the notable distinction of not having Jonathan being the only living severed head, with other deceased characters throughout the parts of JJBA being revived as heads
• Voidverse: A Personality Swap AU where Jonathan is the vampire, Dio is the severed head in the fridge, Tippy is Jonathan's stern and serious agent and Vanilla is the lighthearted and silly newcomer.
• Seaphire Heartverse: An AU where the cast are all merpeople, with Dio being a tentacled sea-witch living in a shipwreck, and Jonathan being a former merfolk transformed into a clam.

This work contains examples of the following tropes:

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• Affably Evil: Dio and his agents are depicted this way, save for Steely Dan, Alessi and Mariah who become Designated Villains.
• Adaptational Heroism: Downplayed with Dio: he's still amoral, rude and threatening, but here he has no plans of world domination and is content with brooding in his mansion. He also is shown to be a good dad to Giorno and a sort-of-friendly brother to Jonathan's head.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Nearly all stands are sentient in this AU, with a personality separate from that of their users.
• Adaptational Species Change: Vanilla Ice is not a vampire in this AU, and remains as a stand-user human.
  • A more obvious example in the Seaphire Heartverse AU, where all the characters are merpeople instead.
• Adaptational Sympathy: To all the villains except Steely Dan and Alessi, who are Asshole Victim Butt-Monkeys.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Basically everyone to some extent. Dio is less of a Big Bad and more of an Affably Evil Bad Boss, Erina is an aggressive hothead, Zeppeli is an alcoholic, Steely Dan, Alessi and Mariah are even bigger jerks than in usual, Okuyasu is friendly even with the bad guys, and La Squadra are honest citizens who run salon and bubble tea shops.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Dio and Jonathan. Dio still kills Jonathan and steals his body, but feeling sad about the loss of his Worthy Opponent he revives him as a disembodied head. After 100 years, the two have become Vitriolic Best Buds of a sort. Dio still isn't giving back Jonathan's body, though. In the main Sapphire Heartverse fic, however, Jonathan finally gets his body back, with Dio's original body being restored as well.
• Animate Inanimate Object: All the stands are sentient, even Hol Horse's stand Emperor who is literally just a gun.
• And I Must Scream: Subverted with Jonathan's head, as well as Erina, Speedwagon and Zeppeli's heads: their fate seems horrific at first but they're actually quite happy as a bunch of heads and are quite independent.
• Angst? What Angst?: Jonathan is surprisingly nonchalant about being a severed head. He's Happily Married with Erina (who is also a disembodied head), is now frenemies with Dio, and gets to enjoy the conveniences of modern life and a cast of fun new friends.
• Ascended Extra: Jonathan's head originally made just a cameo appearance in the fridge, but became a fan favorite and soon became a major character and ushered in a whole bunch of other heads. The main fanfic just has Jonathan's head so far.
• Asshole Victim: Steely Dan and Alessi are the resident bullies of the mansion, and they karmically get their Butt-Monkey status handed to them over and over.
• Back from the Dead: As the setting takes place at about the events of Stardust Crusaders, characters that appeared in Phantom Blood return...as resurrected disembodied heads akin to those of Futurama.
• Bad Boss: Dio is played as such, tho to a lesser extent than his canon self. He does end up reducing Steely Dan and Alessi to disembodied heads after they constantly bully Jonathan.
• Bizarre Alien Locomotion: Jonathan and the other severed heads are able to move around independently by hopping around on their neck stumps, but if their metallic neck-bases are off, they find it painful to hop on their exposed necks and instead inch around on the floor using their chins.
  • In the Seaphire Heartverse AU, where Jonathan and company are formerly merpeople who were transformed into clams by Dio, they instead are forced to move using their tongues (much like a clam's foot) and are thus mostly immobile.
• Body Horror: A milder case, with the severed heads having exposed neck stumps that are covered up by metallic neck bases, anyway. Though the heads take full advantage of this on Halloween night.
• Butt-Monkey: Jonathan, being a relatively-helpless head in a mansion of chaotic maniacs and the oft-ignored voice of reason, becomes this a bit. Steely Dan and Alessi become even bigger examples of this once they end up as severed heads too, as does Mariah eventually.
• Continuity Snarl: The AU disregards canon and basically just throws around plot points, characters and scenarios for fun. Characters from other parts appear on a whim, even alternate-universe counterparts of the same characters such as the OVA versions of them.
• Deadpan Snarker: Basically everyone, especially Jonathan.
• Downer Ending: The Bad Ending of the main Sapphire Heartverse fic has all the Villain Protagonists die, ironically meaning it follows the canon ending. Left alone in the fridge with no one to come back for him, Jonathan's severed head is eventually Driven to Suicide.
• Driven to Suicide: Jonathan's head in the Bad Ending. Rather than spend the rest of eternity trapped in his jar, he opts to end his own life by spilling his jar, drying out and dying.
• Elixir of Life: The severed heads subsist off this, having to be regularly immersed in jars of it to keep them alive. They coloquially refer to the substance as "jar juice" and can be flavored or scented into various flavors to the heads' liking. Deprived of it, the heads begin to dehydrate within about three days time, with a nightly soaking being routine to them.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Many examples for Rule of Funny.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Speedwagon, Erina and Zeppeli, as they died in the 1880s-1930s and were revived as heads in the modern day.
• Flanderization: Zeppeli's fondness for wine and Speedwagon's tendency to monologue has been exaggerated to full-on alcoholism and compulsively narrating everything happening, respectively.
• Graceful in Their Element: In the Seaphire Heartverse AU, Tippy, Bel and the other merpeople are predictably elegant swimmers, but on land can only flop around. Subversions are Vanilla Ice, who being part eel can slither around somewhat better, and Jonathan, who being a clam means he can't move much anyway either underwater or on land.
• Karmic Transformation: As punishment for bullying Jonathan's head and treating him like a toy, Steely Dan and Alessi are punished by Dio to being reduced to disembodied heads themselves, as well as Mariah eventually.
• Happily Adopted: Okuyasu of all people joins the household and becomes Tippy and Vanilla's honorary kid of sorts.
• Happily Married: Jonathan and Erina, even if they're both only heads.
• Harmless Freezing: The heads live in the fridge, as the cold makes their magic jar elixir work best. They also come to like the cold and find it comfortable.
• Handy Mouth: Jonathan, as a severed head, has no hands. He's since learned to compensate using his mouth to draw, write, open doorknobs, pick up objects and even cook breakfast.
• Hand Wave: How the heads are able to talk without lungs, eat food without a stomach, or blush without blood is brushed off as "better not think about it."
• Hammerspace: Where the food the heads eat goes to. In Jonathan's case it goes to Dio's stomach, his original body, to the others, it's never explained.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: Being severed heads, Jonathan and company have some expressions that don't apply to them. Such as replacing mentions of "shoes" with "neck bases", or replacing mentions of "walk" with "bounce", such as when Jonathan sings karaoke.
• Humiliation Conga: Jonathan, being reduced to a severed head and basically being treated as a trinket by Dio for a century. He gets better.
  • Steely Dan and Alessi after Dio confiscates their bodies for bullying Jonathan. To make things worse for them, Vanilla "walks" them on leashes and their stands have taken control of their bodies and ran away.
• Invisibility: One of the powers of Sapphire Heart, Tippy's stand.
• Lethal Chef: Tippy and Vanilla. They always, always find some way to cause a disaster in the kitchen whenever they try to cook.
• Lighter and Softer: Everyone are frenemies at worst, villains are Affably Evil, dead characters are alive, or brought back to life, and it mostly plays off like a sitcom scenario Played for Laughs.
• Losing Your Head: In this AU, Jonathan is alive, but as Dio steals his body as in with canon, he is a living disembodied head. Later entries would add Zeppeli, Speedwagon and Erina, as well as Steely Dan, Alessi and Mariah later on as punishment from Dio.
• Magic A Is Magic A: Dio practices nondescript "dark magic" that allows him to return the dead to life...yet they only come back as living disembodied heads, each and every time.
• New Rules as the Plot Demands: Given the random chaos nature of the AU, it is to be expected. Notable examples include Dio practicing dark magic to ressurect dead characters (albeit only as heads), or Stands having personalities separate from the user.
• Nice Guy: Hol Horse is portrayed as the most gentlemanly of Dio's agents. Jonathan as well, though centuries of being a disembodied head in a jar has made him a bit snarkier.
• Off with His Head!: The punishment Steely Dan and Alessi end up suffering courtesy of Dio after repeatedly bullying Jonathan. However, like Jonathan, it's a non-fatal example: they live on as disembodied bouncing heads whose confiscated bodies are locked in the freezer until they behave. That is, until Lovers amd Sethan possess the bodies and run away with them...
  • The Sapphire Heartverse Fic ends with Vanilla severing Dio's head to reattach Jonathan to his rightful body.
• One True Pairing: The focus of the plot is the romantic relationship between Tippy and Vanilla Ice.
• One True Threesome: When Beleza Muscadine joins the cast and becomes a romantic partner of both Vanilla Ice and Tippy.
• Original Character: Tippy, the main protagonist and Author Avatar, as well as his stand, Sapphire Heart. Later entries introduce Beleza Muscadine, a third member of their One True Threesome, and Ramon, Tippy and Vanilla's parallel-timeline child.
• Organ Autonomy: When Alessi and Steely Dan are reduced to disembodied heads, their confiscated bodies are kept in the freezer. That is, until their stands Sethan and Lovers, fed up with their masters, possess the bodies and run away with them, going for a road trip around the world.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: The Seaphire Heartverse is an AU where all the main characters are merpeople living in a sunken ship. Vanilla Ice is an eel, Hol Horse is a seahorse, Dio is a half-vampire squid sea witch and Jonathan is a whale shark, though instead of being reduced into a severed head he instead gets turned into a clam.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Sometimes Vanilla and Tippy disguise Jonathan and the heads as babies in a baby stroller to sneak them into malls and movie theaters. Their success is...variable.
• Perplexing Pearl Production: Jonathan, having been transformed into a clam in the Seaphire Heartverse AU, is able to spit pearls from his mouth.
• Personality Swap: In the Voidverse AU, Vanilla Ice is the goofy and playful newcomer while Tippy is the stern and serious master of the mansion. Jonathan and Dio also swap places, with Jonathan being the vampire with a stolen body while Dio is the living severed head kept in a jar in the fridge.
• People Jars: Jonathan, being a magically-revived severed head, can no longer subsist off food and drink and requires being immersed in a jar of magic elixir to keep him alive. He can survive out of his jar for a day or two but typically soaks in it every night. The same applies to his fellow heads, which, unlike him, are botched attempts to revive his old Phantom Blood friends.
• Pun: Jonathan is a teacher of Head-ucation 101. He teaches the other heads the basics of living as just a disembodied head.
• Really 700 Years Old: Jonathan is over a hundred years old, yet still has not aged, as the magic elixir that keeps his severed head alive also makes him ageless and immortal. Erina and Speedwagon, who both lived to grow old, are resurrected as their young selves' heads, yet still remembering their whole lives. In the main Sapphire Heartverse Fic, Jonathan retains said immortality even after getting his body back.
• Ring Around the Collar: Jonathan and the other heads wear interchangeable "neck bases", metallic fixtures that double as their only "clothing" as well as protecting their neck stumps as they bounce around to move.
• Self-Insert Fic: Tippy is a self-insert Author Avatar.
• Severed Head Sports: A light-hearted version, given said severed heads are alive and it is Played for Laughs.
• Shown Their Work: In the Seaphire Heartverse AU, Jonathan, who is transformed into a clam, is forced to move using his tongue to drag himself along the seafloor. This is Played for Laughs, but real-life clams actually do move in a similar way using a tongue-like foot.
• Sliding Scale of Continuity: The AU plays loose with continuities and basically is a collection of unrelated scenarios through various asks and oneshots. A main fic is in the writing, with Jonathan as the only head.
• Status Quo Is God: The reason Jonathan remains body-less, and why his makeshift bodies such as roombas, drones or Joseph's hand don't last.
• Stuffed into the Fridge: Parodied: Jonathan and the other heads live in jars in the fridge.
• Spared by the Adaptation: La Squadra are not killed in this AU and turn to an honest living, most of them running a hair salon and Ghiaccio running a bubble-tea shop, which Tippy and Vanilla often frequent.
  • Erina and Jonathan get to be Happily Married in this verse, even if they are both only heads.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: The heads are kept alive by magic and thus have no need to breathe air. As such they can stay in their magic elixir jars, or even be underwater in swimming pools or aquariums, with no ill effects whatsoever.
• Synchronization: As Dio's body is Jonathan's body, whatever food Jonathan's head consumes goes to Dio instead, giving him upset stomachs or making him gain weight.
• The Multiverse: Pretty much in effect. Currently, several AUS exist, such as the Jonny Headverse (where Jonathan's head is joined by a cast of severed heads from other Jojo parts), the OVA-verse (based on the 90s Stardust Crusaders OVA), the Voidverse (where Vanilla and Tippy switch personalities, as do Jonathan and Dio), and the Seaphire Heartverse (where everyone are merpeople).
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Tippy and Vanilla sometimes bring Jonathan and the heads along with them when they visit Ghiaccio's bubble tea shop or the mall. This bothers nobody, though sometimes they disguise them in a baby stroller.
• Villain Protagonist: Vanilla and Tippy, technically, as servants of Dio, though downplayed as Dio and company are shown as Affably Evil and they seem to be on less hostile terms with the Stardust Crusaders.