Lovers (ラバーズ（恋人）, Rabāzu), is the Stand of Steely Dan featured in the third part of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series, Stardust Crusaders.
It is a minuscule humanoid Stand with insectoid features. It can infiltrate the brain of a designated target and manipulate their pain receptors. Any damage that Steely Dan receives will be doubled in the victim.
Lovers is, unlike most Stands, of microscopic size, enabling it to infiltrate the human body unnoticed. It resembles a robotic humanoid creature with an insectoid head and with crab pincers for hands.
Its design is a combination of a fly, a flea, and the robot from the 1986 science fiction film Short Circuit. More precisely, its appearance is based off of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit.[1]
It represents the tarot card The Lovers, which symbolizes the forming of a bond between people.
Lovers is red with blue lenses in the colored manga. It is portrayed as light brown with red lenses in the anime.
Although it obeys Steely Dan's command without question, Lovers also displays its own personality. It has a sly and sneaky temperament and taunts its opponent in combat. Although it recognizes its weakness, it also considers itself terrifying because it has mastered its own strengths and is confident that it can beat both Silver Chariot and Hierophant Green.[2] When pushed into a corner, it will flee.[3]
By Steely Dan's own words, Lovers is very weak, unable to even lift a single strand of hair.[4] Because of its microscopic size, Lovers is by itself very vulnerable. However, its ability to infiltrate the brain makes it nonetheless a formidable and elusive Stand that is very difficult to reach and its reach of hundreds of kilometers makes escape impossible.[4]
Lovers' primary ability is to enter the brain of its victim, more precisely the brain stem,[5] and manipulate their pain receptors.[6] When Steely Dan feels any physical stimuli, be it the pain from a punch,[6] or even the sensation of cracking his fingers,[4] Lovers will go berserk inside the brain and return the pain several folds to its victim, causing them to be in agony. It can even cause phantom pain in absent limbs.[4] It is used to take Joseph Joestar hostage.
Lovers can take brain cells and turn them into mash for various uses. First, it can disguise itself as another Stand using the mash to cover itself[5] but can also create a myriad of dummies that aren't the real Stand but can still harm a Stand that has been shrunk to its size.[5]
Although not inherent to itself, Lovers uses DIO's spores to kill its victims. Thanks to its size, it can carry an individual spore inside someone's brain[4] and then feed it with brain cells in order to make it grow and eventually destroy the brain like it did with Enya's.[7]
Manga Appearances
Anime Appearances
Lovers' first appearance, inside Joseph's brain
Tarot Card
Joseph feeling enhanced pain
Lovers disguised as Hierophant Green
Lovers creating clones
Lovers hidden between it's many clones
Star Platinum catches Lovers
Hierophant Green's string wrapped around Lovers, preventing it from moving
Lovers inside Joseph's brain
Joseph feeling enhanced pain
Lovers is growing DIO's spore
Lovers disguised as Hierophant Green
Tarot card representing The Lovers
Lovers' stats
Lovers' second stat backdrop
Lovers inside Joseph's brain (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (SFC Game))
Chara Heroes; Part 3 Vol.2
Chara Heroes; Part 3 Vol.2 (Karuwaza store exclusive)
Weekly Shonen Jump #13, 1997
