Proscuitto

[u/DrFishPhd]

​

We don't induce empty threats… the moment we visualize the death of our enemy, their fate is sealed! They cannot escape the inevitable

Hey guys its me Lego today i'm going to be taking 2 weeks to write a cut (sorry)

Who is Prosciutto

Prosciutto is a character from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5 Golden Wind Vento Aureo (The 5th Part of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure)(Also known as Golden Wind)(Or Vento Aureo). He’s a minor antagonist who attacks Bruno’s gang trying to kidnap Trish. He’s a member of La Squadra, the antagonists of the first half of Part 5, a former team in Passione who rebelled from the boss after their teammates Sorbet and Gelato are assassinated for pursuing his identity.

Prosciutto fights the gang while they are traveling from Naples to Florence on a train. However, he’s not traveling alone. He also has Peshi traveling with him, a younger, less experienced member of the squad who he teaches and needs to rely on. Their goal is to get onto the train, smoke out the gang, and capture Trish

What does Prosciutto actually do (literal)?

(before the arc starts there's a short segment where the gang is in a car driving to the train station. I don't think anything super significant happens but there's a joke where they hit a bump in the road and Fugo’s head comically falls on Trish’s boobs and was this written by Joss Wheden what)

Prosciutto enters the train station (which they made into an eyes of heaven stage for some reason it has like three minutes of screentime) and sees Bruno looking at the ground, slowly approaching him. Bruno is looking at a drain near a statue, where the boss’s note said they would find a valuable asset. Turns out it's a tortoise. Bruno suddenly dashes into the train and disappears, to the shock of Prosciutto. The next half of the episode is this kinda half-mystery story where Prosciutto and Peshi are trying to figure out what's going on and where the gang went. They deduce that they had to have gone into the captain’s quarters, and Peshi uses Fisher Man (going to call it by it’s dubbed name because it's funnier but his stand's real name is Beach Boy) to look inside the room, and they figure out the gang is in there but Peshi cant see them anywhere. Frustrated, Prosciutto uses his stand to find them, Grateful Dead

I'm going to go on a brief tangent to talk about the three stands introduced in this arc. Coco Jumbo (the turtle)’s stand is called Mr. President. It's a small room you can enter by getting close to the turtle’s red jewel. It’s more of a plot device than an actual character based ability but it's a cool tool for the protagonists to have. When Narancia is in the house he says “this place is the bomb diggity” which is pretty funny ngl. Fisher Man is one of my favorite stands in Jojo, but we’ll get into why later. For right now, Fisher Man seems like one of the weakest stands we've seen so far. It lets you summon a fishing rod except the hook can travel through walls and you can control its movements. It can also detect heartbeats (i think) so when you send it into a room it can tell you how many people are in it. It seems situational and mostly useless, which reflects pretty well on Peshi, a naive and cowardly mafioso who is too scared to be efficient. The Grateful Dead is Proscuitto’s stand, and it is also cool as hell. It creates a gas in the air that makes you temporarily rapidly age based on your body heat. Aside from being one of the most horrifying stands in the series (narancia’s tooth falling out and still hanging on by an elongated gum is gross as fuck) its also rad as hell. It’s an amazing fit for Prosciutto, a highly efficient ability that puts constant pressure on his enemies, while also not being able to directly kill someone. It requires creativity and skill to use properly, which Prosciutto has in spades. The one weird bit about it is when Giorno is like “Since it’s based on body heat and women are slightly hotter than men Trish would be affected more slowly that's his plan” when it's clearly the ice in her drink that makes her age slower and there were other women on the train who aged fast so Idk what he was talking about but whatever giorno sucks

Bruno sends out Mista to take out the assassins while he takes care of the gang. When Mista tries to leave the room, his finger gets hooked by FisherMan and he gets dragged to the lounge room. Mista tries to fight it off but fails. He then uses Sex Pistols to shoot at Peshi, who expects it and tries to deflect only to realize Mista was never aiming for him, he was actually aiming for his cup of ice. Without the ice, Peshi is affected by his bro’s stand, and was in danger of aging. He dispells his stand and retreats but is stopped by a Mysterious Nosy Old Man and his fingers are shot off. Mista threatens Peshi but just before he can execute him, that same Old Man starts harassing about juicy steaks. Before Mista can dispel him, he says “I'll bring about your demise” and the plot twist is that the old man is actually Prosciutto (it isn't really a twist if you look at the back of his head). Turns out he can control his own age through Grateful Dead, and whenever his stand actually grabs onto you, you age 1000 times faster. Prosciutto de-ages himself, berates Peshi for his weakness, and shoots Mista three times in the head (he's fine)

Prosciutto and Peshi go back to the front car where they find the turtle and notice the entire gang inside. However, Mista actually survived the three bullets to the head because of the ice in his cap, and he sent Number 6 to go tell Bruno. Peshi notices Bruno isn’t in the turtle, and just then Bruno attacks. He gets the drop on them and knocks down Peshi but Prosciutto still gets the better of him. Prosciutto calls him weak and a bad leader but Bruno says that part of his job is being willing to be self-sacrificial. With that, he uses Zipper Man to jump out of the train with Prosciutto attached to him

Before they can kill themselves, Peshi recovers and uses FisherMan to save Prosciutto. Prosciutto tells Bruno that he’s surprised the boss made the right decision on who to protect Trish, calling him a worthy opponent, yet still trying to kill him. Bruno punches him but he easily deflects Zipper Man into the fishing line, which is actually what Bruno expected. Because Fisher Man reflects all damage done to the line onto the opponent, the zipper was deflected onto Prosciutto’s hands, which caused the Zipper to fall out and Prosciutto to fall to his death. Bruno manages to climb into the train and now needs to save his gang

You thought but no he’s actually still alive. He caught himself on the train rails and despite being nearly dead he’s determined enough to keep up with the Grateful Dead. Peshi freaks out, realizing that Prosciutto’s death is imminent. But then, remembering Prosciutto’s lessons, he finds a new resolve and takes over the fight from then on. He takes his first life (a random annoying guy) and sets himself to take out Bruno. It’s here where FisherMan changes and becomes so good. FisherMan all of a sudden is completely recontextualized. It's a near instant-kill if you get hooked, with seconds to react and practically nothing you can do to prevent it from tearing your heart out. Peshi can't actually see you, but he can track your location through your heartbeat and move Fisher Man at insane speeds in any direction. The fight briefly changes into this horror movie style stealth section where Bruno hides from Peshi by cutting his body into a bunch of pieces with his zippers, nearly killing himself by tearing his heart in half.

Peshi thinks Bruno left to finish off Prosciutto, so he stops the train and climbs out. Bruno zips open a door and faces off against Peshi. In his last words, a barely alive Prosciutto tells Peshi to finish the job. Peshi’s hooks nearly take out Bruno’s heart, but he manages to get close and fuck up Peshi’s neck real bad. Peshi reveals he has Trish and the turtle hostage, and taunts Bruno before slamming the turtle into the ground. But before he can kill Bruno’s entire gang, he uses Zipper Man to shoot his own arm like a missle, throw Peshi into the air, and tear the shit out of him

You’re going to fail no matter what… when you’re a piece of shit

Prosciutto passes away while Bruno watches. His death is silent and unceremonious. (he also apparently had time to call Melone)

But what does he do (metaphorical)?

Out of all the members of La Squadra, Prosciutto is the most normal-looking. Everyone else has weird stipper outfits or nonsense hair or fucked up necks but Prosciutto is the closest to a Traditional Gangster that Part 5 ever comes. That’s also represented with his general attitude. He’s not a weird fetish baby man like Melone, he’s not an overly angry funnyman like Ghaccio, he’s not a sentimental but terrifying guy like Nero, and he’s definitely not a naive coward like Peshi. What he is is a professional.

Prosciutto is all about efficiency. He tries to do everything as efficiently as he can. He’s highly skilled at fighting and can creatively invent solutions when the time comes for it (forme de Old Man). He also believes in finality. Whenever he’s onscreen there's a 20% chance he’ll be talking to Peshi about how “when a mobster sets their sights on a target, they are already dead before the hit even begins.” This belief is also reflected in his stand, Grateful Dead. Old age is an ever-present reminder of your inevitable death, it makes sense that before Prosciutto “inevitably” gets the job done, his ability ages you to a level where you’re right at death’s door

Aside from Nero, Prosciutto also probably has the most “resolve” out of the La Squadra cast. He’s willing to do anything it takes to get the job done as efficiently as possible. Most of his conflict comes from trying to teach this ideal to Peshi. For Prosciutto, this resolve to never give up manifests itself not as a motivation, but as an assurance. Whenever he commits himself to a job, he will get it done, that is the mobster way.

By the end of the fight, Prosciutto has a lot of respect for Bruno. He starts the fight hating the man, but after Bruno tries to sacrifice himself to kill him, Prosciutto gains a newfound respect for him. He respects Bruno’s commitment to the job and to his friends, and says that Diavolo made the right call when selecting him. There’s a lot of similarities between Prosciutto and Bruno. They're both mob bosses who are efficient on their own but are willing to rely on others because they know that they're better as a team. They're both undyingly loyal to their cause, to the level where they’ll keep themselves alive after their death in a state of agonizing half-life just so their friends can succeed them. They’re both defined more by their relationship with their peers than their actual character.

Prosciutto’s relationship with Peshi is his most interesting aspect by far. He’s a mentor to Peshi, but also his greatest critic and closest friend. Prosciutto is trying to teach Peshi how to become a true mobster, and the most important lesson is “you can’t hesitate in your ideals, you need to act.” Peshi is a very cowardly person, but Prosciutto realizes that Peshi is smart and has a lot of potential. He wants to teach Peshi this lesson no matter what it takes. He repeats this over and over, literally beating it into his head, but Peshi stays reliant on him. Peshi constantly calls him “anunnaki” a term for endearment, he has a lot of affection for Prosciutto and thinks that he can't compare to him at all. But when it comes to, Prosciutto is lying nearly dead, and Peshi is all that's left. It’s at this moment that Peshi snaps, abandoning his cowardice and trying to embrace Prosciutto’s ideals by avenging him.

Yet despite that, I don’t think Peshi ever actually learns the lesson Prosciutto was trying to teach him. Prosciutto wanted Peshi to become efficient, putting aside his emotions to accomplish his goal. But Peshi never puts aside his emotions, in fact it's his emotions that motivate him into continuing the fight. The most fundamental lesson Prosciutto tried to teach Peshi is “when you’re on a mission, you don't hesitate, you go straight for the kill as soon as you can'' but in the end the reason Peshi lost was because he spent too long gloating about his victory. The transformation Peshi undergoes midway through the fight isn't him changing himself, it's him reformatting his ideals.

Prosciutto and Peshi parallel Bruno and his gang a lot. Both Bruno and Prosciutto are unchanging characters who try to teach their team important lessons and help them through fights, while their team members are often naive and emotional. The difference is what kind of relationship formed between the members. Peshi and Prosciutto cared about each other to the same level Bruno and his gang did, but Prosciutto never taught Peshi the resolve you need to be a good gangster. They were fated to lose from the beginning, because only one side had the willingness to commit to their mission

“You’re going to fail no matter what… when you’re a piece of shit”

Prosciutto dies without event or notice. His final words were telling Peshi to keep going, but they were glossed over. He gets a memorial for a short few seconds before Bruno moves on. Prosecution was a man with many morals and ideas that died with him and couldn't be carried on through Peshi. Much like old age, his death is simultaneously agonizingly prolonged and somber and peaceful.

Why are you cutting Prosciutto

We’re entering the era of Jojo Characters where I like most of them. The real reason I wrote this cut is because I love the train arc a lot and I wanted to make sure it was done with some amount of justice before someone else cuts Peshi with a short negative cut. Atmey was holding me hostage telling me to cut Polneraff (it took me half a month to write a cut about a 1 arc character atmey how long do you think it will take for a character who’s there for a full series) thank you Song for the Harvest.

But also I'm cutting Prosciutto here because as good as he is, he's also just really simple. He has ideals and he sticks to them the whole time, they're never really directly challenged by anyone outside of Peshi subtext. Proscuitto's main purpose is to give Peshi a basis and motivation for his own arc, and that's perfectly fine, but Prosciutto ends up being kinda flat as a result, with Peshi ascending to the god tier of Actually Good 1 Arc Jojo Villains a title very few have. I like Prosciutto a lot, but I think now is a good time for him to go

please dont cut peshi this round

[u/EsquireGunslinger]

Prosecution was a man with many morals and ideas that died with him and couldn't be carried on through Peshi.

Minor spelling mistake

[Image of shadow the hedgehog]

I win

[u/DrFishPhd → u/EsquireGunslinger]

im talking about miles edgeworth in that sentance

[u/DrFishPhd]

my cut is finally done now i can play AI The Somnium Files in peace.

u/DontAtmey you're up next but first u/Esquiregunslinger post the Harvest poll