King Crimson

King Crimson (キング·クリムゾン) is the Stand of Diavolo, featured in Vento Aureo. It has a sub-Stand, Epitaph (エピタフ), which is primarily utilized by Doppio.

Appearance
King Crimson is a humanoid Stand of a height and build similar to Diavolo's, but tends to look much bigger and taller. Its body is covered by a raised diagonal grid, red underneath; save for its face, neck, shoulder guards, elbows, hands, abdomen, crotch, knees and feet/footwear. Its eyes comprise sharp orifices of a steep inward slant; from which emerge small, round fish-like/amphibian/reptilian eyes. It constantly bares its teeth through a small mouth. Its crown is flat; and from its forehead emerges two raised levels, the front of which bears a smaller, oval face of the same expression. Epitaph is the pink-colored second face on King Crimson's forehead, duplicated in its same position on either Doppio's forehead. It creates images on the inside of its user's hair, and as such whenever active Doppio's bangs or Diavolo's hair is pulled forward and float, allowing the user to look in.

Its design is inspired by the character George, from the 1990 science fiction film Total Recall, who had a second face on his chest.

King Crimson
Manga Debut: Chapter 516, The Boss' Last Orders

Though somewhat limited by physical attack range, low durability and Diavolo's own personality, King Crimson is still an extremely dangerous Stand.

Erasing Time: King Crimson's signature ability is, to put it simply, literally skip time. To go into detail, it creates a space that deletes anywhere from .5 to 10 seconds worth of time with only Diavolo being able to maneuver in this realm of missing time, leaving only the results of actions that would've normally occurred. It is a common misunderstanding to say that things do occur in the realm of erased time, and people just don't remember their actions. The truth is, people don't seem to "remember", because all has been erased, and thus nothing has really happened. The final effect seems for others as though they have certainly completed the activity, because the results of the actions have already occurred: you've reached the top step, you've finished your meal, you're several more pages into the book than you were before. And, to people outside of the pocket of time, Diavolo appears to be teleporting. It is worth noting that King Crimson cannot directly interact with people during the time skip, because, as opposed to The World, what he sees are just projections of people, and not people themselves. He can however, setup his attacks by throwing items towards the place the enemy will end up in.

The primary use of the ability seems to be limited to mobility (readying a position from which to attack, creating sneak attacks, "teleporting") and defense (skipping the impact of attacks, thus preventing wounds) as Diavolo is never seen attacking during this pocket of missing time. This allows Diavolo to dodge things that could otherwise wound or kill him, such as Aerosmith's bullets or a fist, which can often continue on as if he wasn't standing there at all. King Crimson also has mundane uses that Diavolo exploits to preserve his identity, ranging from a fast clean-up of a heavily littered room to simple scare tactics. It's never explained in the manga proper if Diavolo can attack during this time-frame, as the most on the offensive side he's done is carry someone and splash blood in another's face.

The world of erased time changes from medium to medium; in the manga, the world is displayed with objects badly superimposed over their current self in all ways that they could move during the time frame, in a fashion akin to Nude Descending a Staircase, and at times the environment tears itself apart into a void filled with debris. In his first game, it simply slows opponents down, while in his second game appearance, the time-stalled world is largely red with a desolate cracked ground and enemies cannot move an inch until he attacks (which automatically breaks the spell).

There are three key weaknesses to King Crimson, but Diavolo has had his Stand long enough to understand ways to get around them. The first is that its physical attack range is only slightly longer than Diavolo's, but due to its ability this isn't often a problem. The second is that Diavolo could easily be found out if the fight is not one-on-one due to there being multiple people to keep track of; Diavolo, as such, opts only for one-on-one fights and, if forced, will begin using sneak attacks and the element of surprise. Finally, the third is that King Crimson's ability duration is dependent on Diavolo's stamina, as during the battle with Risotto Nero, he admitted that the iron-deficient and tired state he was currently in prevented him from stopping time for more than an instant; as such, he tends or tries to make his fights short.

Epitaph
Manga Debut: Chapter 544, King Crimson vs. Metallica (1)

Prediction: From up to ten seconds, Epitaph gives Diavolo and Doppio the ability to see into the future through creating images on the inside of their bangs. The image produced includes the general area with Doppio/Diavolo as the main focus, allowing either of them to see what happens around them as well as directly at them. The prediction of the next ten seconds, according to Diavolo, cannot be avoided but can have steps taken to steer it in a new direction - such as when Doppio realized a pair of scissors would form inside his throat, he easily tore them out in order to save himself.

Doppio is the only one generally given Epitaph, but Diavolo is aware of how to use it and how long it lasts. It's unknown if Doppio can summon it himself or whether it's limited by Diavolo's permission. Doppio can also use King Crimson's arms as his own, primarily the right arm. The sub-stand is entirely defense and reaction-based, and it can be assumed that it's how Diavolo uses it to predict how his opponents move and thus how to attack them accordingly. So far, only the ability of Gold Experience Requiem has been shown to bypass Epitaph and it does not seem to be affected by its user's stamina.

Trivia

 * In the western release of All-Star Battle, King Crimson is renamed as "Emperor Crimson", while Epitaph is renamed to "Eulogy".  The first one is likely intended to be a pun due to Diavolo's statements that he "will be emperor ", while an epitaph is an encarving on a gravestone and a eulogy is a speech delivered at a funeral.
 * Much like DIO's "Time is frozen"/"And time resumes", Diavolo has his own phrases to go along with King Crimson's abilities: "Time has been erased" for when he activates the ability and "Time goes on again" for when he deactivates it.
 * Due to the paradoxical nature of King Crimson, combined with poor fan translations, "It just works" is the most common answer to how King Crimson works in the Western fandom. Noticeably, the JoJo video games that include Diavolo as a playable or in-game character have different interpretations:
 * In Vento Aureo (PS2), the time erase was shown to slow down the opponent's actions while Diavolo still moves at normal speed for the duration of the obliterated time, a mechanism similar to Made in Heaven's time acceleration abilities.
 * In All-Star Battle, it acts similar to The World - through a counter, Diavolo creates a skipped time space in which he is free to move about and the opponent is frozen in space, but by attacking the opponent, the spell is broken. King Crimson also acts as his dash and Epitaph can be activated to allow Diavolo instant dodging without taking out his guard meter.
 * In Eyes of Heaven, Diavolo becomes invisible to his opponents while time is being skipped, causing the player to gradually lose stamina. The other characters will still move in the "skipped time". Furthermore, the Epitaph ability Diavolo had in All-Star Battle allowing him to dodge instantly after getting attacked returns in the form of a skill (assigned to the Square button).

Gallery
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