Application: Lost Realm

[whisks]

CHARACTER INFO
Character Name: Jade Egbert (AU)
Series: Homestuck
Canon Point: Immediately after ascending to God Tier.
History Link: John Egbert's History, which Jade's closely follows. However, she is an AU of the character Jade Harley. So have both! :D

AU/OC History:

While this colorswap closely follows canon events, there are a few significant differences right from the start. The first: the trolls and the kids have "swapped" places and colors, resulting in different guardians, blood colors, and text colors. The kids are:

Jade Egbert (with Dad)
John Lalonde (with Mom)
Rose Strider (with Bro)
Dave Harley (with Grandpa)

While the trolls are as follows:

mutant!Equius (Heir of Blood), maroon!Gamzee (Bard of Time), brown!Feferi (Witch of Breath), yellow!Eridan (Prince of Doom), green!Tavros (Page of Heart), jade!Karkat (Knight of Space), teal!Nepeta (Rogue of Mind), cerulean!Aradia (Maid of Light), navy!Sollux (Mage of Void), indigo!Vriska (Thief of Rage), purple!Terezi (Seer of Hope), and Tyrian!Kanaya (Sylph of Life).

Because of this, Jade goes from the first to crash-land via meteor to the last; dropping into earth on April 13th, 1995, she accidentally killed her Nanna in a freak meteor accident involving a joke shop and an old lady who needed to go into the store to get one last thing. Stricken by Nanna's death, Dad Egbert gathered up both his loving mother's ashes and the newly arrived Jade Egbert and carried them both back to his Seattle, Washington home.

The first thirteen years of Jade's life were relatively normal; she grew up as a normal child with a loving, sometimes overbearing Dad who believed that one day she would mature into a strong, beautiful young woman. There were times when Jade felt a bit lonely -- bullies at school were not kind to the little girl with big glasses and buckteeth -- so when she was looking for friends, she took to the internet for solace. There, she met three people who would soon become her best friends for life: John, Rose, and Dave. They talked to one another via pesterchum, where they took on 'handles' in order to communicate every day.

Jade's chumhandle, while retaining the same initials as canon, is completely different: gregariousGuyver. This reflected her interests -- tinkering and mechanics at the foremost (a callback to Jade Harley, who had a preoccupation with tinkering and gadgetry). In addition, she shares canon John Egbert's love of everything cheesy, but her interests are in old-school soap operas and detective shows: particularly MacGuyver, the detective mischief-maker who could fashion anything he needed out of simple, household objects (like a paperclip, gum, and some fishing line, for example!). While her friends think this is pretty dorky of her, Jade adores anything that comes with a catchy theme song and a clever ending…but of course, MacGuyver is her ultimate guycrush. (they are going to be together forever!! <3333)

Because canon Jade's approach to her guardians is fundamentally different than John's (because…well, of course, they are two different people) her relationship with Dad is also slightly different than in canon. Instead of rejecting Dad's love of confectionary objects like John, Jade Egbert actually revels in them; she has learned how to cook all on her own, though she is particularly….average. Prone to ad-libbing rather than following cookbooks or recipes, her items tend to come out inedible at worst and cringe-worthy at best. Of course, this is also the source of her strife with Dad: because he so frequently attempts to help her in the kitchen, she argues with him frequently -- because, like Jade Harley, she is very independent, but like John Egbert, her fundamentally pleasant relationship with her Dad means that their strife scenes are never particularly serious. (I mean, who fights over whether you add salt or sugar? Come on Jade.)

On her thirteenth birthday, Jade Egbert anxiously awaited the arrival of a game called SBURB (which was late!!). She had been looking forward to it for weeks -- one of Jade's favorite types of video games were the dorky world-building type, where you had to make your citizens happy and build them nice homes by combining a bunch of ridiculous objects, so this was right down her alley. Rose didn't want to play, and Dave was busy, so Jade became the client to John Lalonde -- a rather…macabre version of John who took great delight in making Jade traipse all over her house to do things…at least until the meteor. Then they took it seriously.

After arriving in the Land of Wind and Frost, it was only a matter of time until Jade's friends joined her; as the first person in the medium, Jade also had a fun time examining her seemingly barren arctic wasteland, as well as creating a lot of cute new winter outfits, since she was vastly unprepared for the weather. Jade learned from the creatures that lived on her land that one day, the Breeze would come and blow all of the snow clear off of the planet -- and only then, would Spring come to them. Jade thought it was intensely fascinating -- wow! A whole world with a super cool quest!

Also during this time, Jade became aware of the fact that she had been writing on her walls for years -- things were scribbled all over her walls, along with crude drawings of strange harlequins. Jade had always wondered why her dad insisted on putting them all over the house (even though they were kind of cute, they were immensely creepy), and once John pointed out that she had been drawing them over her walls, she finally realized it -- and this was the beginning of her self-awakening, as well as her awakening on Prospit. Jade's dreamself was asleep for most of the beginning of her journey, even before she had gained the discs to SBURB; and though Dave Harley had been trying to wake her up, it was to no avail. Finally, Jade managed to wake up on Prospit, but only after Dave had thrown himself in the way of a falling piece of the moon to save her life. Unlike Jade Harley, Jade Egbert had no prior knowledge of Prospit, and although Dave promised that one day they would walk the golden streets together, she never did; it was destroyed before she woke up.

Of course, Jade was also led astray by a few trolls during her journey, especially a certain Seer of Hope -- convinced to fight her denizen while she was still on the lowest rung of the escheladder, Jade accidentally created a doomed timeline which Rose came back from rather embittered and angry. Thankfully, Rosesprite managed to stop Jade from doing it again…in a rather mean way, but it worked. That didn't stop Jade from trusting trolls, though; she was close friends with Feferi Peixes, a teal-blooded troll who wanted to be GAM---E BUDDI--ES with her. Eventually, this friendship lead to her second death…

…but thankfully for Jade, this death was a lot more helpful. After Jack Noir killed her as she slept on her quest bed, Jade ascended to god tier as the Witch of Breath, fully awakened to all of her god tier Breath powers…though she wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but hey! She had a lot of time to find out! She couldn't even be mad at Feferi, because the result had been pleasant, even if dying hadn't been; after all, the troll had her best interests in heart. Right?

The rest of her story closely follows Homestuck canon: after she ascends, she seeks out her Dad, who has been causing mischief; she meets up with John along the way, who has gone a little….dark. Jade doesn't seem to mind (John I think we are supposed to get married! Isn't that weird?), but both of them find their dead parents and Jack Noir on the roof of the castle. Jade dies and revives, but John dies for good -- and Jade kisses him to wake up his dream self. Jade then proceeds to make plans for the Scratch, aided by Dave, because Rose goes a little batshit and tries to rip a hole in the fabric of time to save Dave from Jack Noir and also offs herself. Combined, Dave and Jade put together a plan -- Jade uses her giant fucking whisk that is combined with one of the Quills of Echidna to start the scratch on Rose's planet while Dave accidentally dies and ascends to god tier as the Knight of Space in order to bust a hole through the fourth wall. Meanwhile, Rose and John go through with their plan to "destroy" the Green Sun, and actually end up creating it -- only to ascend to god tier the super secret alternate way: the Seer of Time and the Heir of Light. With Dave and Jade on a ship and John and Rose on a meteor flying off to approximately the same destination, shenanigans will occur. It's only a matter of time.

Other miscellaneous tidbits:
- Jade no longer fights with riflekind (as Grandpa Harley's preoccupation with guns of all shapes and sizes is not shared by Dad, and certainly no Egbert would be seen carrying a weapon like that if they wished to be a Serious Businessman (or woman!). Instead, Jade's weapon is whiskkind, taken from her love of (bad…) cooking.
- Encouraged by the cheerfulness of her favorite 50s television shows, Jade frequently makes friendship tokens for her best friends in DIY style: chains out of paperclips and necklaces made out of recycled metal and crayons are not uncommon. Jade wears every friendship bracelet she's ever made a pair for on her wrists -- so think 13 year old girl with at least 50 silly bands, only those silly bands are mostly made out of household objects.
- Jade managed the Ectobiology in this session. Gee, I wonder why everyone was switched up in the first place… (She loved the babies. They were super cute.)
- Jade's sprite is still Nannasprite, but her Nannasprite has two arms (the second one was held together with thumbtacks, so it didn't fall off like John's did). She still only prototyped the Harlequin before entry; her harlequin was a ~fairy princess~ and as such had a very silly hat and dress. Poor Jack.
- Jade's modus used to be Queue/Stack/Array, just like John's was. Only she's even worse at using them because she doesn't like computer programming, so she eventually trades with Dave for a handy Operation modus! (The board game. With the buzzer. And the little man.) She is much better at that one, because making all of those funny bracelets has given her steady hands.
- Jade types in Egbert blue. Her eyes are also blue to reflect this.

Personality:
In many ways, Jade Egbert is very similar to her canon counterpart. Both are extremely cheerful -- and the way Jade writes on pesterchum shows this, with copious amounts of exclamation points and emoticons. She is a very positive person; when something goes wrong, she is quick to not let it get to her -- because sadness will really only set you back, and there are goals to accomplish. Jade is also very accepting of other's faults, almost moreso than Jade Harley. For example, she is best friends with Rose, even though Rose is about as prickly as a cactus and steadfastly says that she has no need for friends or rituals of friendship. Jade can overlook the biggest of flaws and see straight to the center of her friends' personalities. She builds people up whenever they need strengthening and is quick to encourage her friends' goals. Not that she's completely supportive -- when they do something that's absolutely ridiculous (suicide missions, anyone?) she'll tell them that maybe that's not such a good idea and they should stop it immediately. Jade even gets mad when they don't listen to her -- if there's anything she doesn't appreciate, it's being written off as someone too innocent to understand. However, different from Jade Harley, Jade Egbert is sometimes a legitimate liability, rather than just an imagined one. She is quick to trust other people just like her canon self, but she's also not very quick on the uptake when it comes to figuring out a potentially dangerous situation…which is why she's tricked into fighting her Denizen in the first place.

But! Jade is a very smart individual; some of her favorite pastimes include making creative inventions out of everyday household objects. She's also fairly well-read, in her own way -- she likes great adventures and children's books, things where everyone gets a happy ending, pointing to her optimistic nature. While she's cheery, she's not stupid; she doesn't hesitate to kiss John when he dies, for example, and she's also one of the first people to figure out the game mechanics of SBURB. Jade knows that she has to help her friends in any way possible, and sometimes that means dying for them -- she would go to great lengths to save her friends, and that includes scratching their session and potentially ceasing to exist.

Even though she's cheery, that doesn't mean she's immune to anger -- while she can forgive faults, usually it's the little things that irritate her, like Dad's constant badgering or Rose ignoring her pesters. Jade's temper is fast burning: it's extremely scary when it happens -- who knew a little girl could say so many curse words in a short period of time? -- but Jade's not one to hold grudges or continue an argument past its prime. She's more likely to get rid of the anger and block whoever's yelling at her than she is to argue for days and days. Jade is also prone to blaming herself for things that go wrong -- for example, when Dad dies, she believes it's her fault that she didn't keep up with him better. She doesn't like to admit it, because that sort of feeling gets in the way of the cheery persona she presents, but it's still there under the surface. And to her friends, Jade can sometimes be an open book. Without the mystery of Prospit and the future-telling aspect of the Harley upbringing, Jade is less secretive than in canon, which means what you see is what you get. She's quick to show you how she feels, because she's not self-conscious about sharing her ideas. But most of the time, Jade is extremely cheerful -- almost painfully optimistic at times, to make up for Rose's lack of interest -- and she'll try and cheer other people up as much as she possibly can.

Powers:
• Sylladex: Like any good Homestuck character, Jade has access to a Sylladex, or a hammerspace storage system that works generally on a card-based mechanism. Jade can store one object (or several objects combined into one, like hammer + nails) on one card. When these are full, either her Sylladex ejects the old objects in favor of the new or it won't allow anything else in it. This also means that Jade can switch outfits instantaneously as long as she has them in her inventory, and she can also access her weapons instantly -- because the Sylladex has a special component called the "strife abstratus" that allows for the storing of certain types of weapons in hammerspace at any given time.
• God Tier (General Powers): As a god tier player, Jade has the ability to access immortality: she can only TRULY die if it is a heroic or just death (ie: pushing someone out of the way is heroic, while being killed after going on a murder spree is generally considered a just death). If she dies in any other way -- for example, being stabbed in the back before she's even begun to fight -- she is revived in a GLOWING BURST OF RAINBOW LIGHT and comes back clean, unwounded, and with a fresh new god tier hoodie to boot. Also, on a completely different note, she can fly!
• The Windy Thing: Breath players are given control over the breeze, or as it's named in Homestuck, the Windy Thing. As the Witch of Breath, Jade does a lot of more active magic in regards to the breeze: she can speed it up to tornado speeds and slow it down until it's barely nothing. In addition, she can also put breath back into a person, or take it out of them -- but since Jade is a pacifist, I doubt she'll be doing that any time soon. HOWEVER the breath thing is extremely handy if someone's dying (or "out of breath")! While her powers are not as multi-faceted as John because of the limits of her aspect (ie: an Heir probably knows all the secrets, while a Witch only knows some), she is also to create new Windy powers with practice and dedication, just as Witches make up new spells over time. Some of the creative things she's thought of with the breeze includes being able to speak on the wind and carry her voice to whoever she wants (though sometimes she forgets to limit the hearing and everyone around can hear).

But unfortunately for Jade, there are no flying cars via the multi-faceted "I can make things fly" windy thing abilities that John has. :( Just errant joy rides over the hilly plains of Skaia made faster by a strong gust of wind.

Other Details: N/A.

SAMPLES
Whoa!

[ The video turns on, then off, then on again. The little girl that shows up is clearly enchanted by what she can only describe as… ]

A magic mirror! I always thought they only existed in fairy tales…this is so cool. [ ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ] I know that I should be really worried that I'm not back on LOWAF but what if this is some sort of super-cool side quest meant just for neat Witches? Maybe Rose was wrong, I mean…this game seems pretty fun to me! Next I bet I'll have a fairy godmother.

Oh… [ The flicking on and off abruptly stops, and she fixes the camera with a bright smile. ] It's really nice to meet all of you in fairy tale world! I'm Jade, and I should probably look for my friends, huh? If anyone's seen Dave, or Rose, and even John, I need to talk to them right away! I think they might be worried I died for good, but I hope not…I told them Feferi was going to keep me safe!

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THREAD with Rose Strider.

Any Concerns: None that I can think of! If you need any more clarification, please let me know.