Jade Harley


 * For the post-Scratch version of this character, see Grandma.

Jade Harley is the fourth Homestuck kid to be introduced. She has long black hair, round glasses, and a bucktoothed grin. She wears a shirt with a constantly changing blue picture on it, a belt, and a button-up long skirt. She was named HS 2661 ('Farmstink Buttlass') while she was sleeping and thus she couldn't object to the name like the three other kids did -- however she wrote a note in advance about it.

Jade goes by the chumhandle gardenGnostic when chatting on Pesterchum and her web browser of choice is Echidna, who is the mate of Typheus, the namesake of John's web browser.

Her Associated Element is earth, and her Associated Item is Uranium.

Biography
Jade was initially raised by her Grandpa, who was genetically her father through ectobiology. When she and her grandpa were beginning to colonize the island, a package appeared mysteriously. Inside were some pumpkin seeds and a shirt. When Jade was young, Grandpa died due to a misunderstanding of human culture by Tavros Nitram, who took control of Becquerel to redirect a bullet Jade accidentally shot at herself at Grandpa. The moral of the story is wrigglers should not be allowed to dual wield flintlock pistols.

After this she was raised by Bec. Around this time she had trouble sleeping, which eventually went away. As she got older, she befriended John, Rose, and Dave via the internet. Jade at first appeared to have no interest in Sburb, but she eventually came across Dave's copies of the beta from the lotus Time Capsule in the nearby temple and started playing as Dave's server. However, she had some trouble getting him in to The Medium, as she had no experience with games and also had narcolepsy problems. She dropped a towel in his toilet, dropped the toilet in Dave's Room, and then prototyped his Kernelsprite with a useless crow. However, he managed to get into the Medium just in time.

She spend a lot of time asleep during the initial stages of Sburb, because she was waiting for Dream John to wake up. She also was able to beat up the Courtyard Droll, who had stolen the White Queen's ring. This she kept on her finger for safekeeping. It didn't transform her because it doesn't work on humans. Soon she finished building Dave's house, and then talked to AT while waiting for John to wake up.

Then, Jack Noir attacked Skaia and Prospit. He cut the chain connecting Prospit to its moon. As the moon fell towards Skaia, John fell out of his room. Jade flew after him, attempting to wake him up. As Prospit's moon was about to crash on top of the two, she pushed John to safety. John finally awoke, but Dream Jade died. Back on Earth, this caused her Dreambot to explode and Jade fell from her tower.

Becquerel was able to catch her, and placed her on her bed. She soon went back to sleep. When she went to sleep without a dream self, she was sent straight to the Furthest Ring. The experience horrified her, and with her conversation with Feferi afterward she adamantly refused to go back to sleep. She also talked to Karkat, and inadvertently fixed his hatred of his past and future selves (which Nepeta regarded as auspisticizing).

Shortly afterwards John connected to her as her server. He set up the Sburb machines and they debated what they should prototype. They decided to prototype Grandpa's stuffed corpse after she entered, so that the enemies would not have his face. Jade prepared her entry item, a pinata of Bec which she had to shoot blindfolded. John was about to prototype a blue lady doll, but was put to sleep by Vriska. Becquerel then teleported everything in the foyer into space (including Grandpa), then prototyped himself.

Bec then blasted the incoming meteor with a green energy beam, saving the island from destruction. Jade was able to shoot the pinata with a blind shot with help from Bec. She entered, and then fell asleep again.

She began having "normal" lucid dreams (as described by Feferi HS 004892 (here)). That's not to say that normal human dreams aren't weird themselves, though. She still did not enjoy it, and attempted to continue to stay awake. Dave, having done extensive time travelling, then contacted her. Since John was without a computer or Sburb discs, Dave filled in as her server. He redeployed the equipment which was destroyed when she entered.

Jade then prepared to do some alchemizing. As she was doing so, she was contacted by Tavros, who revealed to her that he was "responsible" for killing her Grandpa. He then asked her for permission to control Bec again to fight Jack. Jade refused. He also confessed Red feelings for her, but she rejected him.Jade did lots of alchemizing. Notably, she used the code for Rose's crystal ball to create the Junior Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles, which allow her to see anywhere in the Medium. She was then contacted by Eridan, who, having become a wwhite wwizard of science, gave her the code for his Ahab's Crosshairs, but she didn't particularly like him, so threw it out.

Jade then saw the corpse of an alternate Dave, and talked to Alpha Dave, who reassured her that he would not become that Dave. She then decided to prototype Becsprite with her dead Dream self's stuffed corpse, which had ended up in her house's lab through time shenanigans. Unfortunately, Jadesprite was not happy about being brought back to life, and threw a tantrum and broke the lab off of the rest of Jade's tower. Karkat began talking to her after this, and pointed out her hypocrisy, as she hated her alternate self and had previously insulted Karkat for doing the same. Karkat also brought a message from her future self, which was to turn off the fourth wall which was in the lab, then draw it with her pictionary modus.

Because her sprite had become useless, she began talking to Kanaya Maryam, the other Hero of Space, for advice. As Kanaya explained, she is in charge of the Forge and frog breeding. However, whereas Kanaya had a period of several weeks to breed frogs and was still a little rushed, it seemed that her completing her duties would be impossible. Despite Kanaya's advice, she still attempted to carry out her frog breeding duties, even though the session was doomed.

After Rose went grimdark, she took over planning for the team. She extensively consulted with the trolls, particularly Karkat and Kanaya, as well as Aradia in her dreams. She also talked to. With Dave's help through time travel, she was able to do a lot of frog breeding in a short time, and also stoked the Forge. Unfortunately, then Jack Noir attacked her and Dave. She was safe, as Jack would not hurt her because of Bec's prototyping. Dave however was killed. Jade revived his dream self with a kiss.

After this Jack started following her around, due to Bec's imprinted feelings of loyalty. She made a deal with her denizen, Echidna, such that Echidna would reveal the location of the final frog to complete the gene sequence of the Genesis Frog. In return, she had to find a way to bring the four planets of their medium with them into the new session after the Scratch.

She became able to accomplish this after the Courtyard Droll killed her with a shaving cream bomb and Jack Noir, motivated by the loyalty he gained from Bec's prototyping, placed her on her Quest Bed, where she ascended to God Tier and merged with Jadesprite. With this new realization of full space powers, she boarded a Prospitan ship, summoned John to her side, and shrank all the planets to a small size. Finally, she enlarged the Fourth Wall so they could fly through it.

Due to not having enough time to interfere with the Prospitian ship as it crossed the Yellow Yard, not even with his super-fast author avatar, Hussie decided to just level John and Jade up to the next God Tier, with Jade rising from Growing Panes Await (a pun on the enlargement of the Fourth Wall) to HS 6193 (Sayonara Kansas). He remarks that even he should not mess with Jade now.

Since then, she's been flying through Andrew Carnegie Hussie's Study with John on the Prospitian Battleship. She and John have become good friends/siblings, and she has also gotten closer to Davesprite.

Personality and Traits
Jade has a very quirky personality, and often dozes off to sleep, then wakes up without any recollection of ever falling asleep. This is at least in part due to Vriska's HS 4959 (frequent use of her powers on Jade, causing her to fall asleep.) She is completely unaware of her narcolepsy, possibly never sleeping by her own choice, and only makes it into bed with the help of Bec. She is forgetful and wears colorful reminder rings on her fingers. She has been seen with a flute which she plays, though in a very silly and bad manner. She is however an expert on the Eclectic Bass. She has interest in older cartoons, the Furry fandom, Nuclear physics, and high-tech gadgetry, and she is a skilled markswoman (though perplexingly, she is also a pacifist). She is the same age as the other children but acts younger than them.

Jade, like several other characters, has her own unique loading screen for flash animations about her, featuring a slowly spinning flower and her silly green font. However, during her Strife with her Grandfather, this is replaced with a second loading screen featuring a portrait of her Dream Self hanging over a purple and yellow fireplace mantle.

She stood up to the Courtyard Droll and took back the ring he stole. She has proven herself to be very brave and resourceful. She cares deeply about her friends and pushed John's Dream Self out of the way of Prospit's Moon crashing on the surface of Skaia. Also, she sent John a birthday present that traveled through time to save him from his first encounter with Jack Noir. It turned out to be the bunny that had also taken a long complicated journey.

Jade is the first person ever to put a pumpkin in their inventory. It vanished however, just like always. We later discover that this is due to Jake English using his Transportalizer to appearify a large number of pumpkins.

Jade's Title is the Witch of Space. Understandable, considering her pet Bec's ability to warp space at will.

Jade lives on a strange island with her Grandpa, despite him being dead. She describes him as "intense" and "charismatic" and avoids bumping into him for fear of being subjected to another of his stern lectures. Jade's House is a giant tower next to the volcano on her island, which was discovered by Grandpa. It's filled with high-tech gadgets that appear to have somehow originated from Prospit. Living in isolation like this would explain her lack of pop cultural knowledge and enthusiasm. In the real world, Google Maps indeed shows an underwater feature of approximately 15 by 25 km at (-0.955766, -174.759521), in the general area of the Winslow Reef, Phoenix Islands, Kiribati, South Pacific. The structure is peculiarly rectangular and compass-aligned, and could possibly represent some kind of mapping or data error.

Jade owns a Dreambot, one of the first Robots to appear in the comics. She used it frequently to interact with her friends while still asleep.

Jade's Fetch modus is not data structure-based like the other kids'. Instead, she opts for Modi based on children's games like Pictionary and Memory. She has an uncanny knack for guessing the cards on the Memory Modus correctly on her first try. Her Strife Specibus is riflekind; she is a skilled markswoman with a supply of firearms that her Grandpa insists she carry with her when leaving the house.

Unique among the chums, Jade is evidently not a gamer. She has been shown to have a very excitable personality and she loves to plaster her pesterings with large amounts of exclamation points and emoticons. Jade has Pesterchum Enamel, a version of Pesterchum which advertises itself as being "Much Shinier!" Along with having the chumhandles of John, Dave, and Rose, she also has a Trollslum with all of the Trolls, despite at least two of them refusing to ever Troll any of the kids.

After ascending to the god tiers and subsuming Jadesprite she inherited the dog traits from Jadesprite which she in-turn had inherited from Becquerel. These traits include a dog's instincts such as chasing and barking at cats, as Jade HS 6638 (did to Jaspersprite).

Skaian Clouds
Jade was at first proposed to have amazing, nigh-on-prophetic insight into the world around her, though she insisted that this wasn't supernatural in any way. This has been shown to arise from the dreams she has during the eclipse of Prospit. She sees images and events in the clouds covering Skaia.


 * Jade knew her gift to John would be lost, but says that it will be found again when he needs it.
 * Jade asked Rose about John's gift to her the second she finished opening it.
 * When Rose mentioned she'd had a pet, Jade knew that it was a male cat. Jade expressed knowledge that a certain game would come out that could bring Jaspers back to life, much like John's Nanna. As such, it was concluded that Rose's Kernelsprite would be prototyped with Jaspers, which it was.
 * Jade knew about Sburb's ability to resurrect dead things in the form of Kernelsprites months before the release of the beta, despite her more technical friends like Rose knowing nothing about the game.
 * Jade mentioned that John had 'company' (two crude ogres) sneaking up on him.
 * Jade knew she would be named Farmstink Buttlass initially and wrote a note objecting to the name.
 * One of Jade's Fetch Modi, the one she uses most of the time, works like a game of Memory. She has "a knack for always guessing right on the first try."
 * Jade insisted to Rose that today would be a big day.
 * Jade predicted Rose's internet failure down to the very minute.
 * Jade appears to be able to communicate with her grandfather, despite him being dead.
 * Jade cannot foretell when or where Becquerel will appear. "He is completely invisible to [her] intuition somehow, a property almost totally unique to him".
 * Jade knew that the Wayward Vagabond would appearify John's gift and sent a letter on top of it for "Mr. Mayor", containing specific instructions and diagrams which didn't even exist at that point in time. She also enclosed a second letter for miss mail lady, whom most readers had believed to be male until that point. This was revealed to be a cleverly planned way of sending the gift to her past self, which would cause Jade to start wearing blue and to start gardening.

While she doesn't make much effort to hide these abilities from Dave or Rose, she tries to keep them a secret from John, refusing to say anything until he "wakes up" and mentions that she's "not any more psychic than [John]". This is because John, like Jade, has a dreamself on Prospit and can see the clouds shown HS 3847 (here), which provide images of the future. She has been awake on Prospit long before the game started. However, she no longer has this foresight, because her dream self died when she rescued John's dream self from Prospit's falling moon. When her dream self died, her grandfather tearily took her home to be stuffed, according to family tradition

Shirt Image
Unique among the kids, the picture on Jade's shirt isn't a static image; it changes randomly due to a device in her room called the Wardrobifier. This device can change her shirt design into any of ten different light blue images or have it cycle randomly or between a set number of the images.

After some, she decided to set the wardrobifier to cycle between the atom, spirograph, and sun images. However, the settings were changed during her dreams to cycle through the atom, Squiddle, Blue Slime Ghost, and sun images. It was revealed that she received the Blue Slime Ghost shirt from John via a package that was sent by the Peregrine Mendicant when she was a child, and that it was a matching shirt to John's own Green Slime Ghost shirt. After Jade's room is destroyed by the explosion of her Dreambot, her shirt is set permanently to the Bec symbol.

Jade's Dream Self outfit features a shorter cycle of symbols directly referencing PS 0552 (this sequence) from Pickle Inspector's Unpleasant Note.

Relationships
Jade has a pet dog named Becquerel, who is her guardian and the First Guardian of Earth. Dave describes him as a "fucking devilbeast" that should be "[taken] out behind the woodshed [where Jade should] blow its head off." Jade says she couldn't accomplish such a task if she tried and that her "cross-hairs would never settle on an innocent creature, anthropomorphically persuaded or otherwise". She does appear to make an exception for Bec, as she attempts to shoot him during their Strife, but Bec's reality-warping powers made it impossible for Jade to inflict any actual harm upon him. It seems she was simply playing with him in any case, as it ended with her having him fetch a bullet from mid-air.

In order to save Jade from her impending meteor, Bec leaped into Jade's kernel and became her sprite before heading off into the sky to destroy the meteor and helping Jade's bullet reach the Bec-shaped piñata by bending space. The consequences of a First Guardian becoming a first-tier prototyped sprite immediately transformed Jack Noir into an indestructible demon, and have had horrible consequences on some of the Underlings.

In Jade's introduction she wakes up near a pumpkin carved in Bec's image. It may have been carved in preparation for southern hemisphere Halloween, April 30th, HS 002727 (a couple of weeks away).

Jade gets along well with the other kids and some of the Trolls. She enjoys talking to Kanaya Maryam because of their shared roles as Heroes of Space. Although she did initially not get along with Karkat at all, being very irritated by his grumpy and overdramatic behaviour, she eventually grows quite fond of him and relies on his help to set her plan involving the yellow yard into motion.

She turned down Tavros Nitram's romantic advances, stating that he seems nice but that they hardly know each other.

Jade's relationship with Dave has yet to be confirmed as being more than platonic. Karkat's shipping chart showed that the two would end up marrying, and Jade, along with the three other kids, responded to the chart with sarcasm. Even so, her exact feelings are unknown, but she does seem to have a close bond with Davesprite.

Trivia

 * She was named by Zeitlos Eisen.
 * Jade's eyes are green, matching her Pesterchum text.
 * Her astrological sign is Sagittarius.
 * As God-Tier Jade, her striped socks and red shoes are a reference to the Wicked Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz, who was the original owner of the Ruby Slippers and was only seen by way of her footwear after being crushed by a house. A second reference to the Wizard of Oz was made in the form of Jade's second God Tier level, Sayonara Kansas. Then a third reference to the Wizard of Oz was made by John and Jade nicknaming the yellow yard the "Yellow Brick Road".
 * Her god-tier design was designed by Lexxercise.
 * Jade is the only kid who is not in her room when she is named.