Stray Cat

"It's being protected by an invisible bubble! Its Stand ability is to control air..."

- Yoshikage Kira

Stray Cat (ストレイ・キャット (猫草)) is the Stand of Tama, featured in the fourth part of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series, Diamond is Unbreakable.

Brought back to life as a plant after his Stand ability activates, Stray Cat is able to manipulate the air around him and shoot deadly air bubbles.

Appearance
Stray Cat is a Stand bound to a plant shown having a thick stem for his body and big leaves that operate like arms. His leaves are dexterous enough to grab objects. He waits until a potential target is in range, then suddenly catches it. Two petals with a pattern of long, dark spots on them are wrapped into a feline shape for the face. The plant has eyes that can still move around and look at things, but it lost the night vision of a cat. Behind his eyeballs are "whiskers" that curl up when Stray Cat uses his ability.

Scratching behind his "ears" (the tips of the petals) causes them to twitch. As a cat, his forehead was narrow but it is now broad. He has two small holes that act as his nose, which allows Stray Cat to take in air to smell. Below his nose is a mouth which he uses to eat, drink, lick, and make many cat-like noises.

While he no longer possesses a spine or any other bones, he still reacts to petting in the middle region of his stem. However, rubbing his "stomach" area while he is feeding will cause him to vomit.

Whenever he remembers having a tail, his hind leaves begin to sway unconsciously. Stray Cat's roots exist solely to support his body, and do not function like a normal plant. They don't extract nutrients or water from the soil. Instead, his excrement is released directly into the soil and attracts bugs toward it.

His facial design changes shape to become more vicious when he is re-introduced in Chapter 423, due to his growth as a plant. As he has grown, the petals now overlap each other which gives him a rounder head shape, and the whiskers protrude outward from his head. The upper areas of the petals and leaves also have an altered pattern of dark spots, as the spots are now smaller and have circles within them.

Personality
Stray Cat's personality has similar characteristics as any normal cat since the Stand is a reincarnation of Tama and retains Tama's memories, acting on them and instinct.

Abilities
Despite its simplicity, Stray Cat's air power is a surprisingly deadly ability. His cat-like nature makes him an unpredictable and ferocious Stand user in combat, but he is limited by his plant-like body.

Reincarnation
The first witnessed ability of Stray Cat is to resurrect its former user, Tama the cat, into a plant after he dies. Stray Cat keeps his personality and memories but now has the body and needs of a flower.

Plant/Cat Constitution
Stray Cat, being a sentient flower, possesses cat-like and plant-like properties. He still has eyes, a nose, and a mouth to examine his surroundings with. Moreover, his activity and power is directly linked to sunlight, as he depends on. Despite this, he still has a need to breathe in oxygen in order to survive, rather than completely relying on this photosynthesis. In direct illumination he is quite powerful, but conversely is very weak at night. When completely without light, the Stand enters a dormant state and can be easily subdued.

Aerokinesis
Stray Cat has the ability to control the air near him with his whiskers.

Stray Cat's main usage of this ability is to make invisible bubbles of compressed air and shoot them toward his targets, but can also shield himself from attacks. It instinctively used this ability to block the explosion of Killer Queen's bomb. He is initially shown to curl up his petals to do so, but that quirk disappears afterward.

The bubbles are durable enough to block Killer Queen's kick and even Crazy Diamond's punches. When they are shot, they have enough force to severely wound somebody or kill them at point-blank range. If he feels particularly vicious, he can even force a small bubble inside one's bloodstream and try to cause an embolism. When they hit, a cat's pawprint is visible inside the impact zone. They are also invisible and can be remotely burst by Stray Cat if it wishes. However, the bubbles can be popped like a balloon.

Stray Cat is also capable of morphing the air bubbles he creates into different shapes as well. He binds Hayato's neck and arms in mid-air by compressing his air bubbles to be shaped like cuffs.

Gallery
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Trivia

 * Araki states he based Stray Cat/Tama off of his grandfather's cat named Chako. As a child, they both doted on it until Chako scratched Araki when he ignored it one day. He's since been suspicious of cats as a result.