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Main Cast: Kids, Pre-Scratch; Kids, Post-Scratch; Trolls (Lowbloods, Midbloods, Highbloods, Pre-Scratch); Cherubs
Supporting Cast: Guardians & Ancestors; Sprites; Exiles & the Midnight Crew; Agents & Monarchs; The Felt (Leaders); Others
Expanded Universe: Post-Canon; Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff; Hiveswap (Troll Call)

There will come a day where you will be thrust into another world. A realm where four will gather: the Heir of Breath and the Seer of Light, the Knight of Time and the Witch of Space, and together they will Ascend.

They wait for he who would extinguish candles whilst fanning a fire.
They wait for she who would thaw solid flesh and resolve it into a dew.
They wait for she who would breed lilacs out of the dead land.
They wait for he who would drop it like it's hot whilst the pimp's in the crib.

The four central characters of Homestuck, present from Act 1 to Act 7. These four were friends for years, starting when Jade received a birthday present from John which he would make after becoming friends with her. This indirect form of communication would become the norm for the Kids, who would develop their friendship across the internet, throughout Armageddon, and in spite of death itself. They all have a symbol, an associated animal, a Guardian to Strife with, an instrumental Leitmotif, a favorite black male celebrity and a pejorative nickname.


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    The kids in general 

  • Action Survivor: From entering the medium through the first few rungs of the echeladder. Even Jade's understanding of the rules and goals of the game is pretty shaky, so all four kids have to improvise and learn how to face the dangers of their session. Little by little, they gain levels and equipment, manage to adapt to their new environment, and survive (sometimes with external help, sometimes by sheer luck).
  • Animal Motifs: Each of the kids has an associated animal, which informs both the regular critters that appear alongside them in the early acts and the prototyping of their sprite.
  • Anime Hair: Rose has pretty much normal hair, but John has what are best described as hair horns, Dave's hair is a bird, and Jade's hair has a prominent double cowlick.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Before John's birthday they were all normal kids. John, Dave, and Rose are now extremely powerful immortal demigods and Jade is pretty much a Physical God.
  • Badass Adorable: All of the kids, but especially Jade. She even gets dog ears when she reaches God Tier.
  • Badass Normal: All of them are fairly typical kids, but they manage to take on foes that are strong enough to hold their own with adults.
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: The Kids alchemize sleeker apparel upon getting the hang of Sburb.
  • Because Destiny Says So
    • Plays a heavy hand in shaping their session, more so than regular sessions, because the Trolls are also advising them and telling them what to do because they saw them do it later in the timeline.
    • Their session is integral to the entire process of the creation and destruction of universes, and thus reality itself. They don't especially have a choice in the matter.
  • Break the Cutie: After they arive in the Scratched session, things head to Hell in a greased handbasket.
  • Came Back Strong: By the end of Act 5, all of them have died and been resurrected as God Tiers. Jade in particular, as her God Tier incorporated Bec (their universe's First Guardian) and a sprite (although it's not visible, Word of God confirms the powers are still there) making her even stronger than a normal God-Tiered Hero of Space.
  • Chromatic Arrangement: The original set of kids are one of these — John is blue, Dave is red, and Jade is green — but unusually, their fourth, Rose, is purple, and John and Dave have switched the roles generally associated with their colours by this trope.
  • Classical Elements Ensemble:
    • John's element is wind. His aspect is Breath, the aspect of wind powers and freedom. The apple that was his cruxite artefact tends to be harvested in the fall, the windiest of seasons. His dad's main feature is his smoking pipe. The day he was introduced was a nice, windy day. Pipes are also to be found all over his planet, and his denizen is Typheus, the lord of winds.
    • Rose's element is water. Her planet is the Land of Light and Rain, but her former house was based off Fallingwater and the day of her introduction was in a torrential downpour of rain. Her mom has a drinking problem, as her main feature are her lips. Rose's artefact is a bottle — usually made from glass, which comes from sand at the beach. Bottles are also used for christening new vessels such as a boat. Her denizen is Cetus, the water monster, and her meteor killed off all water life. Her cat, Jaspers, tends to hate water. Her color resembles the deep sea, and her interests are of the Eldritch Abomination kind, who were revered to rest in the deepest sea.
    • Dave's element is fire. The egg that was his artefact needed time and warmth to hatch, referring to his planet name. His introduction day was hot and sultry, and he often refers rapping to as 'throwing down sick fires'. His Bro's main feature are his shades, as light is a source which allows us to see. Bro also has multiple posters in his room — lust and desire is often linked to fire, too. His denizen is Hephaestus, the forging god.
    • Jade's element is earth. She grows all of her food in a garden, and her chumhandle reflects this. Her artefact is probably the most obvious tie to earth. Piñatas are usually made from natural materials, and when they drop, they fall on the ground. Her Grandpa was a traveler. Bec's feature are ears, as in 'keeping an ear to the ground' and dogs like to dig in the earth. The day of her introduction was pretty nice and sunny, allowing plants to grow. Her name is a reference to a semiprecious stone as well, and her denizen is Echidna — the mother of all monsters who was allowed to bare in a cave.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: After becoming God Tier, John's outfit is predominantly blue, Rose's is orange, Dave's is red, and Jade's is black.
  • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist:
    • By the end of Act 5, each of the kids has died twice in the alpha timeline. Dave and Rose died the first time and were revived via their dreamselves, then those selves died and became God Tier. John's real body was killed and he ascended to his God Tier, and then he was killed again by Bec Noir but auto-revived shortly afterwards. Jade's dreamself died, was brought back as her Sprite, and then became her God Tier when her real body died on her quest bed.
    • At least three, possibly four times each by Act 6 Act 6 Act 5. Upon reaching the post-Scratch session, Jade was mind-controlled to evil and had a house dropped on her by Aranea, who manipulated Doc Scratch's clock into ruling this a Just death. Dave tries to retrieve her body for revival, but is killed by Jack and PM. Rose attacks the Condesce and gets speared for it. Dave's and Rose's deaths are both ruled Heroic deaths. And John retcons the universe, causing his post-retcon self to explode with his planet on the battleship. Finally, all of the beta kids get their souls sucked into Caliborn's juju weapon, allegedly removing them permanently, though it's unknown if this happened to versions of the kids from the alpha timeline or an alternate timeline.
    • Of course, that's not even counting doomed-timeline selves, where John, Rose, and Jade all have at least one dead version of themselves, and Dave, thanks to his time-traveling shenanigans, has numerous.
  • Elemental Eye Colors: The kids have different eye colors associated with them and their classical elements. John's element is Air, and he has blue eyes to go with his wind powers and associated flighty personality (wind/breath is always shown in blue). Rose is associated with Water, and her purple eyes go along with the purple rain on her planet. Dave is associated with Fire, and his red eyes go along with the lava that covers his planet. Jade is associated with Earth, and her green eyes parallel her interest in nature, along with the green uranium that symbolizes her earth/Space powers.
  • Elemental Motifs: In addition to their unconventional Elemental Powers, each of the Beta Kids also have an associated Classical Element not directly related to their powers (except for John, who has wind powers as well as an Air motif).
    • Wind is emphasized in the depiction of John's house on Earth, and his Sburb planet is the Land of Wind and Shade.
    • Rose must struggle through rain on Earth, and her planet, the Land of Light and Rain, is covered with water.
    • Dave's home on Earth is bakingly hot with a blood-red sun, and his planet is covered in lava that he has to deal with, tying him to fire.
    • Jade is a gardener living on a volcanic island on Earth, and her planet quest involves reviving a volcano in order to bring her Land to life, associating her with Earth.
  • Emotions vs. Stoicism: In general, the Prospit dreamers tend to be more honest with their emotions while the Dersites tend to conceal their feelings behind prose and humor.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: God Tiers take this even further — John was able to kill hordes of enemies who were given attributes of a Physical God in a matter of seconds. Jade's God Tier incorporates Bec and Jadesprite, making her stronger than normal, and John developed the ability to time travel and teleport randomly throughout the entire story.
  • Fire/Ice Duo: It is only natural that Dave, who was given a lava planet, would be the best friend and obvious crush of Jade, who ends up stuck on a planet that is entirely frozen. It even turns out a large part of their role in completing the game is having Dave melt Jade's planet as they learn to work together.
  • Flight: All of the kids can fly after reaching their God Tiers, even without wings like the trolls.
  • Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: They tend to play this to each other. Jade and Rose are the responsible ones, although they too fall into melodrama or silliness sometimes.
  • Generation Xerox: All four kids bear strong physical and psychological resemblances to their biological parents. However, while Jade and John take after their same-gender parents in both mind and body, Dave and Rose physically resemble their same-gender parents but have personalities more like their opposite-gender parents.
  • Glowing Eyes: Upon ascension to God Tiers, Rose and Dave's Hero symbols occasionally appear in their eyes and Jade's eyes are just plain weird; they fade away and show where she's going to teleport.
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: John and Dave use melee weapons. Rose and Jade prefer ranged weapons, although they're both capable of holding their own in melee.
  • Half-Identical Twins: Extends to their personalities too. John and Jade are generally upbeat and positive, while Dave and Rose are snarkier and aloof.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Dave dies trying to get Jade's body from PM and Jack Noir so that Jane can revive her. Rose gets stabbed in the chest by The Condesce, and dies soon after Roxy saves her. As both of their deaths were Heroic, they are permanently dead (in that timeline, at least).
  • I Am Who?: Turns out not any regular schumck can survive Sburb; only some people can, being predestined for it, and they're also destined to become demigods.
  • I Believe I Can Fly: All of them can fly as part of God Tiers, though Dave and Rose really have no explained reason why, aside from that dreamselves are kinda weird.
  • In the Hood: God Tiers come with God Hoods. However, Rose's is probably the only one that would be seen as a traditional hood; John's is a giant windsock, Jade's has been compared to a pair of stockings, and Dave's is a close fitting coif.
  • In-Universe Nickname: In the mythos of the Post-Scratch Session, they are continually referred to as "The Gods", as at that point they have all reached their God Tiers.
  • Kid Hero: They're all 13 years old at the beginning of the story and go on to fight war spanning five universes.
  • Like Father, Like Son: All four kids resemble their guardians in some way. Curiously, going by Dirk and Roxy's personalities, Rose actually takes after Bro and Dave takes after Mom. John, meanwhile, has Dad's love of pranks and Doting Parent persona (when around Casey) and Jade has Grandpa's aim, eccentricity and love of animals.
  • Magic Feather:
    • Tied into their powers (see below). They all make weapons and items that allow them to focus their powers, but by the time they reach the top of their echeladders they no longer need them. John skipped most of his Echeladder, and thus never made an item; based on what his consorts say, he may have made a flute to play the wind, if it were a normal session at least.
    • Played with in the form of Rose's Thorns of Ogloloth. It's implied that the Horrorterrors are giving her powers, that she is manifesting them by inverting her aspect, Light, and that she has the power to do so but it is still corrupting her, all at the same time.
  • Malicious Misnaming: Each character initially has an insulting namenote  assigned to them, before they correct it to their actual name.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Dave and John enjoy joking around too much to show how smart they are most of the time, and Jade willingly hides up until Sburb the full extent of her knowledge. Rose however has no real compulsions to do so and does not.
  • Out of Focus: During Acts 4 and 5, the comic became much more of an ensemble piece, and the Kids faded from the sole spotlight unlike where they were in earlier acts. Though the comic can also concentrate on them for periods of time, it is just less frequent as the number of characters increased.
  • Physical God: All of them as of ascending to the God Tiers, but Jade especially.
  • Sealed Good in a Can: Caliborn trapped all four of the kids' souls within his juju shortly after defeating Yaldabaoth. Vriska frees the kids for a final offscreen battle against Caliborn in the finale, though we never see what condition they were in when they emerged.
  • Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: John is the Sensitive Guy to Dave's Manly Man, although in Act 5 that gets reversed.
  • Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: John, Rose, and Dave are all subject to US compulsory education laws (Jade gets a pass, living on a remote Pacific island), yet none of them ever mention classes or even other friends and acquaintances. Hussie's statement on this was "They're too cool for school. And also, too fictional."
  • Smart People Wear Glasses: Everyone but Rose, who double subverts this. She is definitely the most openly intellectual of the Kids but is also the most Genre Blind.
  • Tarot Motifs: Well, Minor Arcana Motifs: The Midnight Crew, the Trolls' romantic quadrants, and the kids at various points:
    • John: Has a spade shirt when he was little, which causes Karkat to think he's his fated nemesis. This turns out to be foreshadowing since he's stabbed to death by Jack and becomes the first kid to die in the alpha timeline; fortunately he dies in the right place and ascends to the god-tiers.
    • Dave: Has a heart shirt as a kid; fortunately none of the trolls thinks he's their fated beloved, although he does express pity towards them which is "love" to a troll. In spite of his cool-guy attitude he really does love his Bro and cares about his friends.
    • Rose: Has a Punisher-styled Squiddy shirt which resembles a club. In Tarot symbolism the club is a wand, which makes sense as she's a Dark Magical Girl.
    • Jade: Creates a Green Sun gun with a diamond on it. Diamonds is pentacles/coins — appropriate as she has a lot of esoteric knowledge and a ton of possessions thanks to her grandpa.
  • Teen Genius: All of them to some extent; Dave has an impressive array of blogs and websites for a 13-year-old, John is Earth's foremost (and only) ectobiologist (not to mention singlehandedly figuring out the punchcard system), Jade is probably one of the youngest experimental physicists on the planet, and Rose knows enough Eldritch Forgotten Lore to fill a Necronomicon.
  • Theme Table: A colour, a classical element, a weapon, a humour, a musical instrument, a mythological title, a personal world in the Incipisphere, the remains of a deceased creature or family member, and a single guardian who seems to know something about the Ancient Conspiracy. Oh, and an African-American celebrity.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: A downplayed example, but Jade is the Tomboy to Rose's Girly Girl, although they both like wearing dresses.
  • True Companions: Even pre-Sburb, they were a tightly knit group. The ensuing three years only brought them closer together.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Rose's intricate plan to try to defeat Jack ends up creating the source of his power, while Jade's slapdash Indy Ploy goes off without a hitch. However, Rose's mission to John to cause the Scratch ended up working out.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Their plan to blow up the Green Sun was a trick of Doc Scratch's from the beginning; they end up creating the Green Sun. Dave and Rose's reaction is basically Oh, Crap! What Have We Done?
  • You Can't Fight Fate: All have differing opinions on it. John believes that it is possible, Rose doesn't but is looking for a way around it, Jade revels in it and uses it to her advantage, and it drives Dave crazy trying to manage all the timelines. Canonically however, it isn't possible as of yet, but is a main thread of Act 6.

    John 

John Egbert

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/John_Egbert2_3961.png

At the god tiers: 
Paradox Space Appearances: "You Have A Feeling It's Going To Be A Long Day" | "John's Birthday" | "Prototyped" | "Con Faire" | "Quality Time" | "Killswitch Engaged" | "Deck It All"

You have a passion for REALLY TERRIBLE MOVIES. You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT. You have a fondness for PARANORMAL LORE, and are an aspiring AMATEUR MAGICIAN. You also like to play GAMES sometimes.

A fairly average boy living in suburban Washington with his father, on whose birthday our story begins.

He is the Heir of Breath of his session and the de facto leader. His Chumhandle is "ectoBiologist", formerly "ghostyTrickster".

He has filed a pair of STRIFE SPECIBI in his STRIFE PORTFOLIO: HAMMERKIND ABSTRATUS and BUNNYKIND ABSTRATUS. He is a clone of Nanna Egbert and Grandpa Harley's paradox ghost slime, and is Jade's biological brother.

types without capitalizing letters, but uses proper punctuation!
sometimes uses emotes and emoticons, but not frequently.
after act 5, he's a bit more prone to swearing and SHOUTING.

  • Action Survivor: Dave and Jade start out with weapons training while Rose has plenty of raw intellect to work with, but John starts out as your average 13-year-old kid. He learns pretty quick, though.
  • Affectionate Gesture to the Head: He does this to Vriska after knocking her out, apologising for doing so.
  • And Show It to You: In a sense, Skaia does this to him after his God Tier ascension, showing him his dead self bleeding out on his Quest Bed.
  • Angry Eyebrows: Shown through his glasses and on his shirt here.
  • Animal Motifs: He has a downplayed rabbit motif. One of his recurring possessions is the plush rabbit from Con Air which he first receives as is from Dave, then restitched via knitting by Rose, and finally as a battle bot from Jade. The latter two incarnations were the prior incarnation given to Rose and Jade respectively by John when they were babies. One of the first items he creates with his alchemiter, and which later turns up as a possible effect made by the Pop-a-Matic Vrillyhoo Hammer, is a rabbit-eared hat. He's notably the only kid not to prototype his associated animal.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: So. Very. Much. Expect him to believe anything as long as it doesn't serve his interests. If it does, be prepared for a (verbal) fight.
  • Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Has a low attention span (but not as low as the Courtyard Droll), and, if left to his own devices, tends to get sidetracked constantly.
  • Back for the Dead: His alternate self from Davesprite's timeline who died fighting Typheus reappears in a dream bubble, only to be murdered by Lord English when the latter blows the dream bubble up and kills all the ghosts there.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Cakes and baked goods in general. Especially Betty Crocker brand. Ironically and anticlimactically, when he finally learns that Betty Crocker was the evil Troll Empress and his irrational hatred was justified he doesn't care anymore:
      JOHN: i mean more important things to do, than get down on the floor, and have a melodramatic tantrum about a ridiculous and stupid fact that doesn't matter.
      ROSE: John, stop it.
      ROSE: The degree of maturity you are showing here is really bad for morale.
    • Also, don't mock him through the same kind of letters his deceased Dad wrote him.
    • Don't try to get any of his best friends, even if they're fake variations, to make out. Especially if they're related.
    • Do not reduce women (especially his friends) to fanservice characters.
  • Beware the Nice Ones:
    • Subverted early in the comic. When John does get angry, it's usually played for laughs:
      That is IT.
      EVERYBODY OUT.
      You are DEAD SERIOUS.
    • Played straight when he encounters Bec Noir after the Scratch, however. It's easily the most furious he's ever been in the comic.
    • When he runs into Caliborn and notices how much of a Jerkass he is toward his friends, John drops his signature kindness and starts chewing the cherub out while he's stuck in Caliborn's webcomic, Homosuck. After he gets out of the comic, he goes berserk and attacks him viciously, only stopped from beating him to death by an ill-timed teleportation.
  • Blow You Away: As the Heir of Breath, John has subconscious power over the wind. The first time we see him semi-consciously manifest his abilities, he blows out a fire that covered half a planet. He only gets stronger after that.
  • Buffy Speak: John does this a lot. Lampshaded by Rose here:
    EB: i'm going upstairs to the big platformy thing.
    TT: The alchemiter?
    EB: ??
    TT: Try to learn the lingo.
  • The Bus Came Back: After being Out of Focus for so long, John's importance surges once he masters his Retcon powers as he changes the main timeline to one that isn't doomed.
  • Cabin Fever: In Act 6 Intermission 3, John's frustration over being stuck on the gold ship for two years comes out as he watches his favorite movie, Con Air. He takes back every compliment he's given to it and insults his sister (Jade) for defending it as a Guilty Pleasure, and then goes on to get angry about the fact her boyfriend broke up with her and didn't bother showing up to the movie. The last straw comes when he finds a letter from her ex in the style of John's late father, setting him off on a tantrum so extreme he runs into his driveway and yells himself to sleep.
  • Celibate Hero: Decided to be for the time being while Sburb is going on. He shows some slight disdain for romance in general as well. Despite this, he has later shown romantic interest in Roxy, and black-romantic interest in Terezi (the latter according to Karkat).
  • Character Check: After the Time Skip in Act 6, John snaps back to his personality in Acts 1 and 2, being more openly joking and sweary, instead of simply being The Fool wandering around listening to people. He still is kind of course, it's just not his sole attribute any more. He can be somewhat abrasive though.
  • Chekhov's Hobby: Dave gives him the ironic present of the bunny from Con Air because John is a huge fan of the movie. The bunny was then sent back in time with baby Rose, where it eventually got dilapidated and was then later repaired and given to John again as a birthday present from Rose. This version was sent back in time with baby Jade, who turned it into the Game-Breaker cyborg bunny that gave Jack Noir the ability to overthrow the Black Queen, but also protected Dream John from Jack.
  • Chick Magnet: Mixed in with Even the Guys Want Him: both Vriska and Roxy develop feelings for him at different points in the story, and likewise Karkat and Terezi both get blackrom crushes on him at different times.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: His natural instinct is to throw himself in between other people and danger, despite Vriska and Karkat repeatedly pointing out that doing so would make him a very short-lived immortal.
  • Comes Great Responsibility: John jokes about this while reflecting on his new abilities.
    JOHN: it's kind of like if dr. who used his fancy phone booth to go around playing tricks on people, and that's all he did.
    JOHN: then maybe that show would be less lame!
    JOHN: also, harry anderson should be all the doctors.
    JOHN: wow, i should use my retcon powers to make THAT show happen! wow, yes.
    JOHN: it's like all of the super heroes say, with great power comes great responsibility.
  • Commuting on a Bus: Starts off as the main viewpoint protagonist, but has reduced screen-time and plot significance in later acts.
  • Costume Copycat: Unwittingly to Vriska, who makes him ditch his Junior Ectobiologist's Lab Suit for a copy of her outfit.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
    • He's prone to constantly goofing off and always has time to crack a joke. However, he has shown skill with the alchemiter, has the mangrit to dual-wield hammers, and was the strongest Kid for much of Act 5 after he reached his God Tiers.
    • When Jade is mind-controlled by the Condesce, he manages to evade her capture in an Offscreen Moment of Awesome and can obfuscate his location because of his wind powers.
  • The Cuckoolander Was Right: Irrationally claims in early Acts that Betty Crocker is evil and has her gnarled claws in everything. He turns out to be 100% correct. Funnily enough, not only is he the last person to realize this, he's mostly gotten over his (once) irrational hatred of Betty Crocker by the point he does.
  • Cute Bruiser: In the end, John is essentially a geeky, lovable, good-natured young boy who also happens to be able to swing around two warhammers at once and has God-Tier powers over wind.
  • Deadpan Snarker: It's written all over his face at this point.
  • Determinator: Part of being The Pollyanna. He always makes sure to see things through to the end.
  • Die or Fly:
    • Vriska staged a situation where John was surrounded by a ring of fire, hoping to trigger his powers over wind. It was an enormous success.
      DO THE WINDY THING DO THE WINDY THING DO THE WINDY THING
    • And again with The Choice that Typheus gives. John is drowning in oil and his only options are to drown and die or to zap away, making absolutely no progress with either his planet's quest or controlling his Retcon powers. So, John takes another option and zaps away the oil instead, getting closer to controlling his powers and cleaning up his planet.
  • Died on Their Birthday: The story mostly takes place on John's birthday, the 13th of April, and John Egbert dies about three times in that single day. Fortunately the story applies video game mechanics to its characters, and Death is Cheap.
  • Does Not Like Spam: Any type of baked goods (cookies, birthday cake, etc) sends him into a Freak Out. This is because of the truly ridiculous number of cakes his dad makes for him. He's been eating cake all day, so John's pretty much sick to death of baked goods at the moment. Finding out that Fruit Gushers are a Betty Crocker product was enough to almost make him flip the fuck out. Once he gets away from the constant supply, he is okay with cakes.
  • Doting Parent: The few times he acts like a father to Casey and later the infant Jade, Rose, and Mom are all rather touching.
  • Drowning Pit: In order to force him to master his powers, Typheus traps John in a pit that begins to rapidly fill with the oil that clogs the pipes of LOWAS. The oil prevents him from turning into wind and zapping away would prove pointless to his quest, so John ends up zapping the oil away across countless points of time and space.
  • Dual Wielding: He briefly wields two hammers himself at the end of Act 3 with his Pogo Hammer and the Wrinklefucker. John also has the Remote Ghost Gauntlets, which give him two extra "ghost hands" that are strong enough to hold the Doorstopper Telescopic Sassacrusher and let him Triple Wield. After this one instance, he retires the use of the Remote Ghost Gauntlets and uses a single hammer for the rest of the comic.
  • Dude, Not Funny!: In-Universe. When Davesprite (who hasn't had Dave's Character Development) imitates his deceased father on the anniversary of his death by leaving notes to John all around his house, he justifiably loses it.
  • Elemental Embodiment: As of his rematch with Bec Noir in a dream bubble, John is able to dissolve into the wind and reform wherever he sees fit.
  • Elemental Personalities: His Breath powers mainly take the form of control over air and its movement, and he has a mischievous, lighthearted and free-spirited personality to go along with them.
  • Elemental Shapeshifter: Has revealed the ability to turn into wind in order to escape Jack's grasp and reconstitute behind him for a surprise attack. This was hinted at previously by averting Elemental Baggage as John literally creates wind from himself.
  • Expressive Shirt: The second panel of the comic sees the ghost on his shirt react angrily in unison with John when the reader types in an insulting name for John.
  • Everyone Has Standards: John is an unironic fan of terrible moves— except for Mac and Me, which even he admits is pretty bad.
  • Eye Glasses: Due to the art style of Homestuck, he's never seen without his glasses on. At least, what is presumed to be glasses — there's often no frame.
  • Facial Dialogue:
  • Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity: John absolutely loves Nicolas Cage, especially in Con Air. When John's attitude toward the film changed for a short time, it became an indicator of a serious Cabin Fever.
  • The Fool: Both in terms of his naivety and his niceness bringing him good karma: even when he dies, it works out okay for him, twice.
  • Freak Out: With regards to the Betty Crocker brand, except when he finally learns "Betty" is the evil Troll Empress because by that point he doesn't care about it anymore.
  • Freudian Slip: John begins to take a liking to Roxy, so when he goes to talk to her after some time apart, the second-person narration states, "You interrogate the rogue teen babe for answers. You mean girl. Rogue teen girl."
  • Genius Ditz: John's naively optimistic, quite gullible, not too swift on the uptake, and has absolutely no taste in movies, but he was also able to work out punchcard alchemy, nailed some of Rose and Dave's psychological issues in their birthday letters, and is responsible for more time-travel-based trolling shenanigans than the trolls are. And of course, his father and sister are canonically geniuses, so that part's probably literal. Eventually John wises up and stops being naïve, though he's still silly.
  • Good Thing You Can Heal: Good thing you're immortal now, right, John? Though it takes him a while to get used to the idea and grasp its limitations, however. Vriska had to talk him out of several ridiculous plans because they would result in a Heroic Sacrifice, thus ending his conditional immortality.
  • Goofy Print Underwear: One flash reveals that he wears blue boxers with his little slimer ghost symbol on them. It's as goofy (and adorable) as it sounds.
  • Got Me Doing It:
    • He starts analyzing Con Air in intense detail, much like how Karkat dissects his romcoms.
    • Vriska's tendency to repeat things 8 times rubbed off on him a for a little while.
  • Guilty Pleasure: He enjoys watching terrible movies, not out of any sort of ironic appreciation or Bile Fascination, but out of incredibly poor taste. He considers each and every one of them a masterpiece. Except Mac and Me.
  • Happy Dance: He had one that cropped up every now and then early on. It's as cute as one would expect.
  • Hearing Voices: Using a computer known as an Exile Station, the Wayward Vagabond essentially texts thoughts into John's mind to command him around for a while; although initially hostile to the commands, John and WV eventually come to like each other, although WV loses the ability to command John after the latter ascends to the God Tier.
  • Healing Winds: A variation. John's wind-themed powers don't heal people, but he has used them on several occasions to metaphorically heal planets or the universe:
    • John uses his wind powers to remove a bomb called "The Tumor" from the heart of the planet/cosmic being Skaia.
    • In John's planet quest, he uses his wind to remove the oil that has been poisoning and choking his planet, returning it to life.
    • In Act 6 John uses his wind powers to remove JPEG artifacts that have been corrupting the nature of reality and symbolically causing death and tragedy.
  • The Heart: Role shared with Jade. Tries his best to stop Rose going grimdark, and pretty much the only person who got Vriska to reconsider her actions.
  • The Hero's Journey: He goes through this throughout the comic, moving from a lacking life in the suburbs of Washington to a god putting his life on the line for the cosmic progeny of humanity.
  • Hidden Depths:
    • John as a character has many personal issues bubbling under the surface that the majority of characters are unaware of — even himself. This is best exemplified when John is complaining to Rose about the imps defacing his many movie posters, only for Rose to reveal that the posters were already vandalized long before John even entered the Medium. As the comments are very self-deprecating, calling himself a fool amongst other things, it suggests that John has a very low opinion of himself.
      • John's dream self is also the last one to wake up, and he doesn't do so until after the destruction of Prospit and the death of Jade's dream self; Jade explicitly states that John is "having troubled dreams, as usual."
    • If the flash "All: Behold The Glory of Zillyhoo" and the claim that "Heir Transparent"'s cover of "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" is sung by John are to be taken at face value, John's a pretty good singer.
  • Horrible Judge of Character: Subverted twice. Intially it seems like trusting Terezi, shortly after she had gotten him killed in a doomed timeline, is a bad idea and everyone readily pointed that out to him. As time went on and her character was explored more, it became apparent she wasn't evil at all. He also trusts Vriska who manipulates him into getting killed again, but does so in order to help him ascend to the God Tiers. On the other hand, trusting Karkat, WV, and the Consorts all turned out to be pretty smart moves. Courtyard Droll? Not so much.
  • How Do I Shot Web?:
    • John has a lot of trouble at first figuring out how to work his Sylladex and play the Sburb beta. (Finally getting the hang of using the game mechanics makes him take a few levels in badass later on though.)
    • He has no idea initially how to summon The Breeze or (much later) use his Retcon powers and mostly ends up using them both by pure accident. He gets much better through, of course, shenanigans.
  • Idiot Hero: Played with. Jade, Dave, and Rose are all borderline Teen Geniuses, though John has never been in a situation that called for their skills. He turns out to be a Genius Ditz as a result of his Character Development.
  • Infinity +1 Sword:
    • John gains the ability to wield Bunnykind weapons in Act 2, which seems like a joke until he gets Jade's present: a cybernetic bunny with enough weaponry to annihilate the Final Boss in one shot. This is incredibly lucky on John's part, since creating this bunny required Dave to search the internet for it and buy it for John, for John to get a stitched bunny from Rose, for John to give both the former bunny to Baby!Rose and the latter to Baby!Jade before sending them back in time to their supposed birthdays, and then for Baby!Rose and Baby!Jade to grow up with the idea to give John their bunnies with some repairs for his birthday. And even then, Jade could only upgrade the bunny with cybernetics because she had an Alternate Universe version of her grandpa as a penpal, who was friends with a mechanic from the future and an alien who could provide him with the tech to turn the bunny into an incredible weapon.
    • After unlocking his godly potential, John claims The Warhammer Of Zillyhoo, a cherubic weapon so beautiful touching it makes John burst into song. He only gets it because an alien from another universe gave it to a boy from a different universe who was pen pal's with someone from a third universe, who was friends with John. Then, to unlock the Warhammer's upgraded form, the Pop-a-matic Vrillyhoo Hammer, John befriends an alien treasure hunter from a fourth universe who gives him the code for it on her death bed.
  • Innocent Blue Eyes: According to Andrew, the kids' eyes match their text color. His eyes are pretty vividly blue and in much of Act 5 he's very innocent, but it's averted in Act 6 as he's shown himself to have matured.
  • Insistent Terminology: Expect to hear "the windy thing" a lot, in regards to John's powers as the Heir of Breath. His demands for Roxy to "do the voidy thing" shows he refers to other powers with the same format.
  • Interspecies Romance:
    • He has some level of interest in Vriska; when Dave questions him about it though he admits he'd probably be an awkward d8. This also applies to the version John from Davesprite's timeline, who also shows some interest in her despite not having ever even gotten to know her, beyond a long forgotten trolling.
    • Defied later. John admits it was kinda dumb to have feelings over the span of a single day and also in hindsight thinks Vriska was kind of crazy.
    • Vriska has confirmed that she and dead dream bubble John dated for a time.
    • Also, Karkat has insisted that John's opinion of Terezi is a textbook example of a black-romance crush, which is a form of troll romance based on animosity.
  • Jet Pack: Alchemized one, and used it to fly through his second gate and explore LOLAR.
  • Kick The Son Of A Bitch: John's beating of Caliborn within an inch of his life would have been nightmarish had it happened to basically anyone else. As it is, however, it couldn't have happened to a meaner bloke.
  • Kindhearted Simpleton: John is a poor programmer with an honest love for objectively stupid films who trusts others regardless of how openly hostile they are; at the same time, John is a tireless friend who has no problem expressing his love and understanding of Jade, Dave, and Rose no matter how closed off and difficult they can be.
  • Large Ham: Given any chance to act out his favorite scene in Con Air, he will overact the entire thing.
  • The Leader: He's not their leader; he's their friend! John is the Charismatic sub-type, keeping the team together with his compassion, and his development has to do with accepting this role.
  • Like Brother and Sister: With Jade; they never have the same joking sexual tension that Rose and Dave did in early chatlogs. They are brother and sister biologically, and cousins legally, although they were initially unaware of both.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Everyone keeps Vriska's death from him, along with her awful crimes, because they're afraid that he'll be upset and unable to help save the day.
  • Lovable Nerd: Dave admits that he loves the guy because he's such a dork.
  • Martyr Without a Cause: Upon learning that the only thing that can kill him permanently is a Heroic Sacrifice, John comes up with a bunch of plans that involve exactly that. His nature as The Fool makes him pretty much unable to comprehend NOT being heroic, and also unable to fully think out the consequences.
  • Megaton Punch: When he jumps back to the FL1P and finds that he has to knock Vriska out without Terezi (or him) killing her, his first action is to pull off one of these on Vriska that sends her skidding across the meteor.
  • Meta Guy: Since Act 5 Act 2, he's been the one mostly hanging lampshades on both the trappings of Sburb and the reader's expectations.
  • Missing Mom: He was raised by his Dad and never had a mother figure. This is because he was created in a lab with genetic data from his "grandmother" and his friend's "grandfather;" this means the closest thing he has to a mom is his deceased grandmother.
  • Morality Pet: To Vriska. He has tried to step out of this as of late, though he still has shades of it as he seems to be the only person who is able to make Vriska feel guilty about her actions. Also to Rose here. And to Dave in a sense.
  • The Movie Buff: With the twist that his taste in movies is questionable at best. His descriptions of them venture into Cloudcuckoolander territory at times.
  • Named Weapons: At the start of his adventures, John creates a hybrid hammer-and-clothes-iron called the Wrinklefucker, a giant, extendable hammer called the Telescoping Sassacrusher, and an umbrella made of razor blades called the Barber's Best Friend. He later obtains Fear No Anvil, a garnet-headed hammer capable of freezing its targets in time, and the harlequin-themed Warhammer of Zillyhoo and Pop-a-Matic Vrillyhoo Hammer.
  • Nerds Are Sexy: In-Universe, Roxy thinks that he'd make a good boyfriend. Then again, it's Roxy.
  • Nerd Glasses: Though it can be hard to tell at times if he's wearing glasses due to a lack of a bridge between the lenses, he is indeed sporting spectacles.
  • Nice Guy: John is so unassumingly kind (if a bit immature) that an all-knowing being essentially confirms to the reader that, when John does eventually die, it won't be anything other than a martyr's death.
  • Oblivious to Love:
    • Although not necessarily so much "oblivious" as "unaware of what blackrom actually means".
    • He also was blissfully unaware that Vriska is/was developing feelings for him until Karkat laid it out in a particularly explosive fashion.
    • Defied later. John has clearly put some thought into romance but decides to be a Celibate Hero until Sburb is over.
  • Odd Name Out:
    • The kids' chumhandles initials are TT, TG, GG... except John's is EB. It's later revealed that the trolls' harassment caused him to change away from his original chumhandle, GT. According to Word of God, this retroactively became symbolic of the how the trolls managed to give his universe cancer under Karkat's leadership.
    • His last name is also the only one that differs from his Generation Xerox parent's birth name, Nanna having married and passed on her married name Egbert to his dad, and by extension him.
  • Plot Allergy: Averted; although John is deathly allergic to peanuts, it isn't brought up ever again shortly after it was introduced. Although it becomes a Brick Joke when Jake's dreamself dies from being fed peanuts.
  • The Pollyanna:
    EB: i am still skeptical about that, though.
    TT: That's why you're our leader, John.
    EB: huh?
    TT: Optimism through stalwart skepticism is a defect not everyone is lucky enough to be cursed with.
    • It's especially prominent when we meet the John that Terezi got killed. Not only does he not hold a grudge against her or the denizen, but he expresses gratitude for having helped the alpha versions of himself and Dave.
    • His reaction to being told that pretty much everyone is dead after the events of "Game Over" is basically "Aww man. That kinda sucks.", compared to the epic Heroic BSoD from every other member of the cast.
  • Poster-Gallery Bedroom: Physical proof as The Movie Buff for really terrible movies.
  • Power Glows: As the Heir of Breath, he shows some sky blue glow when 'doing the windy thing.' Also, when automatically resurrected following his and Rose's Curb-Stomp Battle against Jack, he gives off a rainbow glow.
  • The Prankster: His main hobby outside of watching bad movies, though he shows less interest in it over time, possibly because he's the one getting pranked.
  • Puberty Superpower: John was initially unable to lift a sledgehammer without assistance; after a few hours on his 13th birthday, he's garnered enough MANGRIT to dual wield them. And a few hours later, John came into his windy powers.
  • Reality Warper: John gained the ability to leap through time and space after he touched Lord English's juju, and is now able to make changes to a timeline without dooming it and jump through various universes. Although he was initially unable to choose when he'd zap away, Typheus successfully taught him how to control this power by putting him into a situation where he needed to take a third option and warp more than just himself. it reaches the point that the space warping powers of all known first guardians pale in comparison to his. With Terezi's instructions, he's been able to manipulate the alpha timeline to shut down Aranea's plan before it starts, save Vriska from death, get Gamzee properly captured, and via Vriska's powers, neutralize both Jade and Jane without killing them (and thus throwing a large spanner into the Condense's plans). And in the case of things going wrong, he can easily manipulate the timeline to set things right, provided that he himself doesn't die in the process, making him the biggest threat to Lord English as of current events.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni
    • Red Oni to Dave's Blue Oni.
    • Also, Blue to Karkat and Vriska's Red, and briefly Red to Terezi's Blue.
    • Red to Rose's Blue as well.
  • Retconjuration: Lord English's juju gives him the power to alter previously published pages—not through Time Travel, but through traveling between the narrative itself.
  • Ridiculously Average Guy: He's a normal teenager, whereas his friends lead less normal lives. Rose lives on top of a massive hill with a river running through her house, Dave lives with his Ninja brother, and Jade lives on an island with her reality warping dog.
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons: Long before he learns anything about the game or the Condesce, John has a deep hatred and suspicion of Betty Crocker, simply because he doesn't like cake very much.
  • Rule of Symbolism:
    • John's text and associated color of blue was retroactively made significant as it matches the color associated with the Troll's Universe.
    • Similarly, the tendency of his God Tier hood to spiral when he does the windy thing is made significant later by Lord English and Caliborn being associated with spirals.
  • Scary Shiny Glasses:
    • Occasionally, though he still remains a nice guy. As of Act 5 it's become very commonplace, but only because just about anyone who wears glasses has this happen. John's eyes usually only appear in the standard sprite style, and that has become much rarer of late.
    • Played seriously straight in this panel from Act 6 Intermission 3, where John's lenses become solid yellow as John prepares to strike back at the man who killed his father.
  • Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: He is the Sensitive Guy foil to Dave's Manly Man.
  • Shaming the Mob: John finds a bunch of imps in his room and, what's worse, they seem to have defaced his posters. He gives an Angry Fist-Shake and decides to "Dispatch these pests." Instead of fighting, he simply orders the imps to leave. They hang their heads sheepishly and walk out the door.
    That is IT.
    EVERYBODY OUT.
    You are DEAD SERIOUS.
  • Shonen Hair: He has some pretty wild hair, but he doesn't exactly have the personality of most characters associated with the Trope.
  • Shout-Out: Besides things relevant to his interests, also refers to himself as the Wind Waker in a conversation with Vriska, prior to comparing his outfit Junior Ectobiologist Labcoat to "link if zelda was about an elf scientist".
  • Singing Voice Dissonance: Implied. While we generally do not hear the voices of the characters in the story, John is established early on to be a downright goofy kid with seemingly outlandish and childish characteristics like pranking and enjoying campy movies. Then later in the story when he attains a legendary weapon, he belts out a singing voice that borders on downright angelic, causing those accompanying him to gape at him in tears! Although this may be intentionally invoked by his goofy behavior by being overly hammy about his achievement of getting one of the legendary weapons.
  • Sole Survivor: He's the only member of the Beta group not to die in the "Game Over" timeline. He uses his retconning to change the alpha timeline, which spares the lives of Dave, Rose, and Jade, and further manipulations enable the Beta group to neutralize Grimbark!Jade without killing her.
  • Stage Magician: Implied as one of his dreams through aspiring to be an amateur magician, even possessing a chest filled with stage magic gear.
  • Stealth Pun: He's the Heir (Air) of Breath.
  • Stepford Smiler: When he's not being The Pollyanna, he's this. He deals with grief in a very strange way, preferring to store it away in his head until it presents itself much later through a Berserk Button, or even something only vaguely related to whatever's bothering him. For instance, when his father dies, he doesn't outwardly show strong emotion about it until he's on the meteor and has to deal with Davesprite.
    • During the credits, John lives alone while his friends slowly drift away from him with their new responsibilities, but continues smiling throughout his Snapchat story. He stops when Caliborn contacts him, smashes his phone, and disappears, presumably to meet Caliborn's challenge.
  • Super Smoke: As demonstrated in his first real fight against Jack.
  • Take a Third Option:
  • Terrible Artist: Whenever he has to draw something, it's always a crude scribble accompanied by an apology for the drawing looking so bad.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • He takes quite a few, until in Act 5 he's the strongest Kid of all.
    • On a smaller scale, once he grasps the various ways the trolls are, well, trolling them, he manages to counter-troll them ridiculously well. At one point, thanks to the trolls' time shenanigans, he managed to simultaneously troll Rose, Kanaya, and himself.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Not that he was ever a real jerk (although he has his moments), but his overall niceness is much more apparent in later acts. This temporarily snapped back later in Act 6 due to severe Cabin Fever, but he overcame it.
  • Toothy Issue: He has quite the overbite.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: John loves Fruit Gushers. Until he found out they are made by Betty Crocker, at which point he has a mental breakdown.
  • Trial-and-Error Gameplay: One description on how John starts his Sylladex's Fetch Modus operating.
  • Troll: Successfully trolls Dave in the comic's very first pesterlog regarding the apple juice. And once he gets the hang of time-travel trolling, he demolishes Karkat and Kanaya, and leaves Vriska struggling to keep pace. Only Terezi can get the better of him and she's The Empath.
  • Truly Single Parent: John stumbled upon some scientific equipment which can copy the DNA of any subjects it focuses on. Using this, he accidentally clones his grandmother, Rose's mom, Dave's bro, and Jane's grandpa by copying their DNA from the past instead of mixing two separate DNA codes. The clones then proceed to be sent back in time, where they grow up to become the exact people John cloned, making John the father of his grandmother from a certain point of view.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Zig-Zagged. When John is angry, it's usually played for laughs...but when he's seriously pissed, even Jack Noir seems worried.
  • Unwitting Pawn:
    • Not only is he tricked into giving Dave the codes for Rose's journals, but he also immediately trusts Terezi to lead him through the game faster, which leads to his death in an alternate future. May in turn make him a Spanner in the Works: he may have got himself killed in that timeline, but he got a sweet jetpack and hammer out of it, not to mention saving Dave from the horrors of Calsprite. And giving Dave the codes for the journals may have screwed them over, but at the same time it was essential for getting Dave's spare beta copies to Jade so that they both have the means to enter the Medium.
    • He was instructed by Rose to retrieve the Tumor from the heart of the Battlefield and bring it to her — so she could use it as a bomb in her Self-Sacrifice Scheme to take out the Green Sun and Bec Noir. John wasn't happy when he found out the specifics.
  • Verbal Tic: For some reason, John doesn't use compound words. Instead, he uses the individual words with a space between them, like Dave sprite or Bat man instead of Davesprite and Batman.
  • Victory Is Boring: By the epilogue, seven years after the events of Collide, John has sunk into a depressed funk, rarely speaking to his friends or doing much of anything. It's implied that most of the other kids aren't doing much better.
  • Weirdness Censor: John doesn't tend to react very much to some of the weirder issues of the comic, from the ability of a video game to restructure his entire house to the near extinction of the human race.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Inverted. John's Dad seems to tell him how proud he is constantly to the extent that it's lost most of its meaning, leading to a lot of ennui on John's part. This becomes a lot more meaningful when it's revealed that John wrote messages all over his wall in his sleep that he couldn't see, calling himself a loser and a dumb kid. His dad may have been trying to encourage him because of that. They are genuinely happy to see each other again, for the brief moment they meet, and John flew into one of his few moments shown of genuine anger upon finding his corpse.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Both literally and with his wind powers. John's powers are relatively simple compared to his friends' but he uses them in creative ways, and the sheer level of power backing them as of ascending to the God Tiers certainly helps.

    Rose 

Rose Lalonde

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tentacleTherapist_6789.gif
At the god tiers: 

Paradox Space Appearances: "John's Birthday" | "Prototyped" | "A Fun Day For Jaspers" | "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse" | "Her Pale Passions" | "Soul-Fraying Games" | "The Viceroy and the Lady Grimme" | "Go Fetch" | "Garbage Day" | "Secret Sufferer" | "Lady Grimme and the Red Knight" | "Three out of Five Hats" | "Summerteen Romance"

You have a passion for RATHER OBSCURE LITERATURE. You enjoy creative writing and are SOMEWHAT SECRETIVE ABOUT IT. You have a fondness for the BESTIALLY STRANGE AND FICTITIOUS, and sometimes dabble in PSYCHOANALYSIS. You also like to KNIT, and your room is a BIT OF A MESS. And on occasion, if just the right one strikes your fancy, you like to play VIDEO GAMES with your friends.

A girl with a fondness for psychoanalysis, writing, and wizards, who lives with her mother in an isolated mansion situated atop Rainbow Falls in New York.

In Sburb, she is the Seer of Light. Her Chumhandle is "tentacleTherapist".

She has allocated her STRIFE SPECIBUS with the NEEDLEKIND ABSTRATUS. She can play haunting refrains on her violin. She is a clone of Mom Lalonde and Bro Strider's paradox ghost slime, and is Dave's biological sister.

Types with stringent punctuation and capitalization syntax, with a tendency toward excessive verbosity.
After Act 5, she's prone to adding in some silliness. ;)

  • Accidental Misnaming: Calls her matesprit Kanaya "Kakaka", "Yakaya", "Kayolo", and "Papaya" in the span of one conversation while very drunk.
  • Action Girl: Like John, she has no combat training; unlike John, she's still perfectly capable of taking on underlings with little trouble- and that's before she alchemizes her needles into Magic Wands and becomes a verifiable One-Man Army.
  • Admiring the Abomination: Her interests include the Zoologically Dubious, the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors, and the Underlings themselves, for starters. Deconstructed later on, though: she ends up becoming their Unwitting Pawn, which leads to an Unstoppable Rage resulting in her death.
  • Agent Mulder: Rose emphatically believes in magic, to the point where she argues with The Omnipotent about it.
  • Alchemy Is Magic: The notable aversion in a series that otherwise breezes past real-life alchemy. She takes it up on the meteor's voyage, mostly to entertain herself and to enhance her Seer visions.
  • Alcohol Hic: She has one when she brews up some booze on the way to the reset universe.
  • All Girls Like Ponies: No matter how resentful Rose is of her mother, she cannot help but love her mother's pony. Her name is MAPLEHOOF.
  • All Psychology Is Freudian: Subverted. As someone interested in psychology, she notes that Freud is heavily discredited, but she always brings up his theories when talking with Dave, who accidentally hits on his sister, mother, and her Alternate Universe self. This doesn't help when he meets Roxy, who is Ms. Fanservice In-Universe, and also incredibly like him in both appearance and personality. Rose just can't help but tease him, saying that he saves all Freudian psychology from discreditation.
  • Ambiguously Jewish: During the credits, after Rose and Kanaya's wedding, they can be seen doing the Hora, a traditional Jewish dance done at weddings. Despite this, shes never been fully confirmed to be Jewish, and doesn’t display typical Jewish beliefs or mannerisms.
  • Animal Motifs: Cats. Her sprite is made using her deceased housecat Jaspers, she picks up a four-eyed mutant kitten as a pet for a while, and a sprite of her made using the body of an alternate Rose is accidentally fused with Jaspersprite to create Jasprosesprite^2, who has cat ears and feline mannerisms. She also fits the traditional aloof and snarky personalities associated with cats.
  • The Atoner: While it's left ambiguous whether her alternate timeline self ceased to be after her dreamself merged with alpha Rose's or whether she continued living in the doomed timeline, either way is rather unfortunate.
  • Author Appeal: Seemingly parodied with Complacency of The Learned, about an androgynous Villain Sue Draco in Leather Pants and every page being a Wall of Text exercise in Purple Prose, Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, and Sophisticated as Hell. Yet in the Alternate Universe, it is not only successful, but a huge part of La Résistance's campaign against Her Imperious Condescension's attack against humanity.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: Reaching the God Tiers grants Rose a comprehensive understanding of fortune. This lets her know exactly what needs to happen to achieve the most favorable outcome for everyone.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
    • Has a few moments like this with her mother. When her mother dies she goes somewhat insane, and any time she talks about her mother afterwards is always a Tear Jerker.
      ROSE: Tell her...
      ROSE: Tell her I'm sorry for being such a shitty daughter?
      ROSE: Wait, no.
      ROSE: That wouldn't make any sense to her.
      ROSE: This girl has no clue what a shitty daughter I was.
    • It eventually gets worse — Rose and Roxy are finally united during [S] GAME OVER, only for Rose to be mortally wounded by the Condesce and finally tells her mother that she loves her in her dying breaths shortly after.
  • Babies Ever After: She and Kanaya spend the years after the comic helping to clone more trolls so that the race can continue into the foreseeable future.
  • Back from the Dead:
    • After being killed by Jack, she was revived by John as her Dream Self on Derse, which also had the benefit of knocking her out from her grimdark state. Technically also happens when she ascends to the God Tiers.
    • John retcons the timeline so that, in the new alpha timeline, the events of [S] Game Over don't happen and Rose doesn't die. The now-alternate-timeline Rose from Game Over also is resurrected as Roxy's sprite.
    • She apparently dies at one point during the final battle against the Condesce, and is revived by Jane.
  • Badass Bookworm: She apparently has a fondness for somewhat obscure literature, as evidenced by her room on Derse.
  • Big Damn Kiss: With Kanaya, complete with being a full page spread.
  • Black Magic: Despite being the Seer of Light, she uses a mixture of both dark and light magic. It's later revealed that Light doesn't translate to literal light (though Light heroes are implied to have better perception of light, and Seers also implied to have this ability) but rather fortune and fate.
  • Black Speech: She was stuck talking in it after she went Grimdark. After her real self was killed, she's seemingly back to talking normally.
  • Blind Seer: Not actually blind, but her God Tier hood is clearly designed to be evocative of this trope by being large enough to cover her eyes.
  • Broken Pedestal:
    • Minor example: Kanaya thought that Rose's session must have gone better than it did after reading her guide, and was quite disappointed when she actually found Rose and saw what actually became of her session, finding the real Rose couldn't live up to her lofty expectations.
    • Played with in the "Flighty Broads and their Snarky Horseshit" sequence before being completely subverted when Kanaya learns that Rose really did blow up her first gate. Inverted later when it turns out Rose's "failed" session actually has turned out better than Kanaya's.
  • Can't Spit It Out: Rose is reluctant to admit outright she cares for others, which make her incredibly guilty after her Mother's death and Kanaya's demise in [S] Game Over. She can't even bring up the courage to go on a date with Kanaya without getting smashed. As Dave puts it:
    DAVE: this is infuriating
    DAVE: why do you even bother with this stupid charade
    DAVE: you could be at like a drive in movie making out with each other
    DAVE: all exchanging class rings while giving birth to each others fucking children
    DAVE: and you would still be all coy like IS IT A DATE OR ISNT IT HMMMM WHO CAN REALLY SAY FOR SURE???
  • Casting a Shadow: As Rose begins to rebel against the game more and more in Acts 4 and 5, she learns more and more dark magic, contrasting with her assigned role as a Light player. This comes to a head when she attempts to understand the Gods of the Furthest Ring while emotionally vulnerable, resulting in her going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge while bring a rainstorm of darkness with her.
  • Cats Are Magic: Her association with cats through Jaspers and his sprite form. She turns out to actually love cats, but she never lets it show.
  • Chaotic Evil: invoked In "Soul-Fraying Games", Rose casts herself as a Chaotic Evil male wizard, explaining that she wanted to "explore identities which are otherwise alien to oneself." This relieves Terezi, until Rose notes that's not why she picked her alignment. The joke works because of Rose's constant fascination with the insane and the occult, along with the fact that she became both as Grimdark Rose.
  • Character Development: Subverted. While she gets some, she dies before she can overcome her alcoholism and fully repair her relationship with Kanaya. Even after Vriska's resurrection, Rose still explicitly rejects her Quest and goes into hysterics over her lack of an "arc."
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: Mixed with The Unfettered and Determinator, Rose is completely dedicated to making sure her friends survive, and is a bit hasty in throwing herself into suicide missions. This gets used against her and doesn't really end well.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Not as much as Jade, but she has a few shades of this. Her love of the mystical, supernatural, and odd hobbies probably developed as a result of living on a laboratory on a massive hill mostly alone were all contributing factors.
  • Combat Pragmatist:
    • She uses extremely painful dirty-fighting tactics in battle... when she's not simply blasting her enemies to atoms with raw eldritch power.
    • Double Subverted. When she rides an ogre down a waterfall with a pair of needles and a ball of yarn before it has any chance to retaliate, Dave is shocked and asks her to put it out of its misery. She doesn't, not because it's suffering, but because the grist would sink.
  • Covert Pervert: Is said to enjoy Bro's websites in the Homestuck book commentary and gleefully grabs a trashy troll romance novel away from Karkat.
  • Creepy Good: She's friendly enough, but her tastes veer toward the dark, gothic, and be-tentacled.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: The victim of two. The first was with Jack: while she posed a threat to him, she was quickly killed without much effort. The second was with the Condesce. It doesn't end well.
  • Curse of Babel: When she's Grimdark, she speaks what seems to be the language of the Horrorterrors themselves.
  • Cute Witch: Rose loves to play up her black magical powers and connections with the occult, but she also loves to wear elaborate dresses and she begrudgingly loves the pony her mother gifted to her.
  • Dark Is Not Evil:
    • On one hand, she's a Black Magician Girl who consults Eldritch Abominations... but she's mostly doing it to try and save her and her friends' lives. On the other, she's the 'Seer of Light' in the Kid's SBURB session, and there's evidence to suggest she's not really following her quest pathline, as she mainly spends time ripping the game apart with dark magic wands, communing with horrorterrors and Doc Scratch, and generally trying to see the game achieve victory by any means necessary.
    • Bounced heavily towards legitimate evil and went Grimdark during Act 5 for a time, but with her God Tier ascension, seems to fully have settled into Light Is Good.
  • Dark Magical Girl: For a character not in a Magical Girl series, she ticks off a surprising number of traits: cynicism, slight ruthlessness, outward creepiness, damaged family bonds, a hidden need for friendship, and her embrace of Black Magic. Unlike the most versions of the trope, she starts out a good guy and stays there, even through her descent into darkness, but her arc and character growth fit well in the genre from striking it out alone to apprenticing to the villain to revelation of how she's been played and return to the bonds of friendship.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Particularly when Dave is involved. Her description of a "corpse party" (read: funeral) takes this and runs with it. According to Rose, it involves making jokes about the recently departed, standing out in the rain all day, and then your mother passing out on the couch.
  • Determinator: Part of being The Unfettered. When Rose focuses on something, she goes all out. Partially Deconstructed as her desperation to plow through and find a way to save everyone leads to her taking many shortcuts, such as communing with the Horrorterrors and Doc Scratch, and it's the latter action that directly causes her to go grimdark.
  • Did Not Think This Through: Her plan to kill Jack boils down to her fighting a nigh unstoppable demon monster. Karkat calls her out on it. Though she later embraces her role as a Light player.
  • Disappeared Dad: She only has her mother taking care of her. Her dad, through genetics, is Dave's Bro.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: In order to keep a pace "characterized by a reduction in granularity," Doc Scratch treats her thus:
    Doc Scratch: The duel ends. The Seer dies. The Slayer departs.
  • Drowning My Sorrows:
    • In the doomed timeline Davesprite originated from; with both John and Jade dead, their session was moot, and Rose was doomed to either stay there forever or meld with the Alpha Rose, leading her to drink.
    • Happens frequently during the three-year gap on the meteor; her efforts to both mourn her mother and honor her memory lead to her following in her footsteps and becoming an alcoholic.
  • Dual Wielding: A pair of magic wands/knitting needles. The only one of the kids to dual wield consistently as well.
  • Deuteragonist: For the first 3 Acts, Rose appears almost as much as John and is the most important in helping him get through the game. Come Act 5, the deuteragonist baton gets passed onto Karkat and later Roxy.
  • Elegant Classical Musician: At one point, shows off her violin skills, and her ability to waste precious time.
  • Empathic Environment: Upon discovering her Mother's corpse, a rain cloud of black liquid sorrow appears. Justified in that it's Rose who summoned it.
  • Escalating War: With her mother. The only one that's shown on screen, however, is the fridge gag: Rose spelled "shrew" on the fridge using magnets, but had to use two Vs. Her mother went out to the store, and bought a pack of Ws, and stuck them to the fridge. Rose then wrote a thank you note and had it legally notarized with a drop of her blood. Her mother saw that part of it was touching the floor, and supported it using a velvet pillow. Of course, due to Sburb's meteor about to strike her house, the war goes unfinished. And it's probably best not to get her started on the "bronzed vacuum-cleaner with a cup-holder for her mother's alcohol" incident...
  • Eye Twitch:
  • Fantastic Angst: Rose develops an alcohol problems at two points in the comic, both caused by fantasy devices. The first time it happens because she's stuck in a Bad Future where she will soon meet Cessation of Existence, and the other time it's because she's anxious about seeing an Alternate Dimension version of her mother.
  • The Fashionista: Especially compared to Jade, Rose feels no shame for creating elegant, purple dresses for herself as the world gets pummeled by meteors.
  • Flash Step: Demonstrates this while swiping a terribly-written Troll Romance book away. Twice. And the second time, she did this while the book was in another map entirely. She also does the same with Complacency of the Learned, albeit she was right next to it that time.
  • Fling a Light into the Future: Rips her walkthrough out of the internet and puts it into a server in the Furthest Ring for other SBURB players to find. In an inversion, one of the people to find it is Kanaya, in the past.
  • Fortune Teller: What her title boils down to. She can predict the future using fortune, and can see the more likely path to succeeding in her group's goals.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: After officially going grimdark, her eyes are covered by a white light.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: Rose asked Doc Scratch's omniscient cue ball if the horrorterrors were evil or not. Whatever the actual answer was, it was not healthy for her psyche. Played with in that she's doesn't go THAT crazy, she just can't speak normally and really really wants to kill Jack.
  • Goth: Of the Nightmare Fetishist variety. Loves the Zoologically Dubious, the dark and a general fascination with death and the supernatural to boot.
  • Goth Girls Know Magic: She has dark and gothic tastes, and has used Horror-terror magic as well as other forms of sorcery.
  • Graceful Ladies Like Purple: She's reserved and aloof, and has purple text and eye colour.
  • Genre Blind: You'd think she'd know better than to ask the infallibly accurate information-gathering device for a glimpse into the psychology of Eldritch Abominations, considering her choice of light reading material.
  • Happily Married: As revealed in the end credits slideshow posted after Act 7, Rose and Kanaya got married after one to two years on Earth C and raised new broods of ectobiologically created clones together.
  • Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Becomes an alcoholic and presumably behaves like pre-sobriety Roxy in the last year of the meteor's voyage.
  • Heroic BSoD: Jade should not have brought up her mother's death.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: After Kanaya dies, she attacks the Condesce directly in a fit of rage. She dies shortly after, although time shenanigans come into play to bring them both back.
  • Heroic RRoD: Asking if the horrorterrors are evil or not to the magic cue ball does not end well for her.
  • Honor Before Reason: She uses her clunky and outright dangerous tree Sylladex because she thinks it's refined and sophisticated.
  • Hope Spot: Rose is stabbed during the chaos in [S] Game Over, but Roxy manages to save her from being disintegrated using her Void powers. Despite this, Rose still bleeds to death later on, and since she was mortally wounded while trying to avenge Kanaya, her death is ruled heroic, so it sticks. Though, luckily, John retcons these events to make sure that this never happens in the alpha timeline.
  • Horrible Judge of Character: She ended up seriously underestimating Doc, which allowed him to manipulate her to her first death and to a second, nearly permanent one.
  • Hot-Blooded: Shows shades of this when she asks a question so hard it ends up breaking reality on a small scale, and her mind on a bigger scale.
  • Humanoid Abomination: After her grimdark broodfester throes, she can only speak in Black Speech, is surrounded by Black Magic, and has dark gray skin. But, she still seems to be herself when she's with John, so it's ultimately subverted.
  • I Let Gwen Stacy Die: She blames herself for her mother's death since she spent that day discovering the secrets of Sburb rather than heeding to her friends and family.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Has the least practical Strife Specibus amongst the Kids. However it's quickly subverted when she basically uses them to create magic wands.
  • Improvised Weapon: Just after she begins the session with John, she notices that she'll have to set her Strife Specibus. She considers setting it to an encyclopedia of horrorterrors but decides not to, for obvious reasons. She instead opts for her knitting needles, reasoning that she'd be more comfortable with them. The fact that she kills several imps and an ogre without any effort before using them to channel the power of dark gods borders Achievements in Ignorance.
  • Infinity +1 Sword: Her Quills of Echidna that John used to initiate the Scratch. In the later parts of Act 6 she finally uses them in conflict, her blasts even form Echidna when fired from her wand.
  • Interspecies Romance: With Kanaya, a troll. The two become inseparable.
  • It's Personal: When the Condesce kills Kanaya, Rose immediately goes for the offensive. It doesn't end well for her.
  • Jumped at the Call: She was more than ready to become John's server player, and she was even quicker to enter the game itself.
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: "As is now painfully obvious to anyone with a brain, you have basically gone completely off the deep end in every way." Though it ends up being not as bad as it sounds, since she's not evil and in fact seems to mostly keep her personality despite being Grimdark.
  • Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: The outfit she makes out of unfinished knitting projects.
  • Kissing Under the Influence: Which leads to her Relationship Upgrade with Kanaya.
  • Lady of Black Magic: Becomes this after upgrading her weapons with magic, and has reserve and quiet intelligence. Doing so eventually bites her in the ass. She's since abandoned using Horrorterror-related magic, and relies on alternative forms of sorcery instead.
  • The Lancer:
    • Rose, with her cold focus and verbal control, is a Foil to John, who is dominated by his emotional whims and honesty.
    • While John leads the team with The Power of Friendship, Rose's attempts to chorale the group involve more logical approaches based on arcane knowledge and eldritch lore.
    • She communicates least with the others, going rogue to try and stop Jack Noir with the powers of the Horrorterrors, and attempting to destroy the Green Sun despite Dave and Jade both calling the idea insane.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: Considering her Hot-Blooded nature, her Genre Blindness, and her Chronic Hero Syndrome, this should not come as a surprise in the slightest. Lampshaded by John after she dies as a result of doing it a second time in "Game Over".
  • Little Miss Badass: She's only a 13 year old girl, and it's not long before she gains the ability to reduce her enemies to nothing on an atomic level by harnessing the power of dark Gods beyond the veil of time and space. She mellows out later, though.
  • Light 'em Up: Rose's natural class is the Seer of Light, but her rebelliousness prevents her from actually claiming this role until after he mother's death. Fittingly, Rose unlocks her powers as a Light player after inadvertently creating the Green Sun, the largest source of light in existence
  • Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Dark Feminine to Jade's Light Feminine.
  • Lipstick Lesbian: Rose hasn't canonically expressed interest in a male, but is in a relationship with Kanaya. She's also fairly blatantly hitting on Meenah in the first Openbound flash, and when a version of her combines with her cat Jaspers, she becomes madly in love with Nepeta and says that Jane is attractive.
  • Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Nannasprite calls her John's "pretty friend", at least implying this.
  • Magic Wand: A pair of knitting needles turned into magic wands that channel the power of the dark gods. Presumably, they can still be used to knit.
  • Mirror Character: To her mother. It turns out that their interest in wizards was shared, as was their bizarre sense of humor; she just didn't want to admit it because she saw everything she did regarding their mutual interests as crass mockery.
  • More Expendable Than You: She pulls this on Dave, as part of her Self-Sacrifice Scheme.
  • Ms. Exposition: The baton is passed to her for Act 6 intermissions as the Seer. In addition, she and Kanaya compile all the experiences their sessions had with all the data they find about Sburb into a Tome, which serves to inform Calliope and in turn make her the Ms. Exposition to the Post-Scratch kids.
  • Named Weapons: Rose's initial foray in alchemization results in a pair of Black Magic Wands called the Thorns of Oglogoth. She later replaces them with the safer, but still powerful, Quills of Echidna.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: At least according to Aradia, Rose's actions of deliberately tearing apart Sburb and listening to the dark gods beyond the Veil has (or will have) some huge consequences. It also turns out that her plan to destroy the Green Sun in fact created it.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Her love of the Zoologically Dubious. She's also seen making abominations in the snow.
  • Not So Above It All:
  • Not So Stoic:
    • She knows John means well with his word play, but sometimes his barbs are a little harsh to her. In the same log, she also confesses that she finds "flying across rainbow oceans with a couple of magic wands and a salamander in a little cowl" both practical and fun, even if it is absurd.
    • Her mother's death also garnered quite a reaction. She went a bit crazy afterward, though not as bad as some were thinking.
    • She doesn't take Kanaya's death well, either.
    • And then there's Drunk Rose
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Played with. Kanaya thinks that she's pretending to be much dumber than she is for the sake of being a flighty broad with sarcastic horseshit, though it turns out to be John on her computer talking with Kanaya when they first meet.
  • Official Couple: She gets married to Kanaya during the credits.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: With Vriska's Brutal Honesty, she manages to beat her alcoholism and stabilize her relationship with Kanaya.
  • Omniscient Hero: Upon reaching God Tier, Rose can see the path most likely to bring success, allowing her to map a timeless, spaceless abyss of pure darkness. Dave and the trolls even insist she's omniscient before Rose argues that she isn't that knowledgable in practice.
  • Oracular Urchin: Her job as a Seer of Light is to direct her group towards victory at all costs.
  • Out-Gambitted: By Doc Scratch — to be fair, he was manipulating just about everyone, though Rose got it the worst. Despite multiple warnings not to dabble with Doc Scratch, Rose continues plying him for information, seeking out ways to rip Sburb apart, and it is this which causes her to seek him out after learning of her mother's death. In her heightened emotional state, Doc Scratch easily convinces her to ask the cue ball if the Horrorterrors are evil — and the answer, whatever it may have been, sends her careening into darkness.
  • Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Had this sort of back and forth with her mother, as she thinks her obsession with wizards and blatant alcoholism are over played to make fun of her creative writing, among other things. She and Dave also communicate this way for the majority of the comic, though these are much more in jest.
  • Personality Powers: Light is implied to be a manifestation of knowledge. She's also the intellectual out of her group.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • Or rather, the cat. Looks like Rose still cares after all.
    • Even when she went Grimdark, she still had time for some cute moments with John in this Flash. Even if her half of the conversation is in an eldritch tongue, it's clear that Rose is still in there somewhere.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Upon meeting Roxy, Rose speculates that her mom wasn't being passive aggressive or mocking her interests as her younger counterpart was naturally an eccentric person with an affinity for many things, some of her interests genuinely overlapping with Rose's. Knowing this earlier would have saved the two a lot of hassle and probably given them a better relationship overall.
  • Power Glows: Uniquely, her Grimdark self is powerful that she glows black.
  • Punny Name: The innuendo of her chumhandle is never mentioned in the comic. It gains a new level of significance when you consider her "love of the Zoologically dubious" and her tendency to "dabble in PSYCHOANALYSIS."
  • Purple Prose: And it's even a visual pun. Lampshaded by denial: "My introduction will be sparse. There will be no majestic prose blustering into the sails of a galleon as we embark on this voyage together. Nor will there by any hamfisted prose whipping its limbs under a bedsheet like a retarded ghost, for that matter."
  • Proper Lady: Tries to be, though was one before the Sburb session.
  • Reclusive Artist: In-Universe. In the Alternate Universe, she becomes a highly successful author.
  • Refusal of the Call: Subverted. She was eager to play Sburb, but she doesn't fit into her role as a Seer of Light at first. She further contradicts her role by going crazy and going on a rampage against Jack. Ultimately, she never meets Cetus and leaves her land's quest uncompleted.
  • Relationship Upgrade: Is shown marrying Kanaya in the "post-canon content" update / "[S] Credits".
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
    • "You make a halfhearted attempt to resist the urge. Alas, one is not easily shaken from the broodfester tongues. They are stubborn throes."
    • She gets even angrier when Jack kills John.
    • Also when the Condesce kills Kanaya and Bec Noir kills Dave.
  • Rule of Symbolism: Rose's natural fashion choice tends towards purple, but her Seer of Light outfit is bright yellow. This mirrors the dichotomy between Derse and Prospit; ie Dark and Light in Sburb.
  • Scarf Of Ass Kicking: It's pink. She seemed to have ditched it after it got singed in the house fire, though, but made another one as part of her black-and-white squiddle robe and uses it as a belt.
  • Screw Destiny: "I am not playing by the rules anymore. I will fly around this candy-coated rock and comb the white sand until I find answers. Nobody can tell me our fate can't be repaired.". Though it is for naught, as while she thinks she's in control of her own destiny she's really playing right into the tentacles of the horrorterrors, who pretty much only have their self-preservation in mind and nothing else.
  • Secret-Keeper: She is supposed to be one with regards to Gamzee's kismesissitude with Terezi, though she gets drunk and tells Kanaya a couple of pages later. Mostly she just needs to keep the secret from Dave and Karkat, though it turns out they already knew.
  • Seers: Though Sburb's definition of a "seer" isn't someone able to see into the future, but rather who provides their team with information and directs their group towards success. She doesn't really understand it herself, which she admits on the meteor's voyage. Though she does start getting more realistic visions as time passes.
  • Self-Sacrifice Scheme: Her plan to take The Tumor and destroy The Green Sun. She knocked Dave out to ensure that she would be the one to take the fall rather than him.
  • Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness:
  • She's Back: After her drinking, failure at Auspisticism and loss of faith in herself that took her in the meteor intermission, she finally sobers up after a confrontation with Kanaya. On LOFAF she forcibly tries to stop Gamzee's beating of Terezi, pulling the Quills of Echidna, not having wielded a weapon since Jack killed her in her Grimdark phase, finally showing the confidence in taking action she used to have.
  • Shout-Out: Her hairstyle and hair color strongly resembles that worn by Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
  • The Shrink: Her interests include psychoanalysis.
  • Significant Wardrobe Shift: Gets it on both ends. As she slides farther and farther down the slippery slope thanks to Doc Scratch and the Horrorterrors's manipulations, she dresses in darker and darker tones, culminating in a skull-adorned robe that's all-black sans a pink waist ribbon. After redeeming herself, dying, then coming back God-Tiered, her outfits change predominately to yellow and golden colors (most notably her Seer's robe), reflecting her improved outlook and generally cheerier personality than before.
  • Skewed Priorities: When Gamzee is beating Terezi up, she's too busy thinking about whether it's a Troll romance thing or not. When she does eventually intervene, it's too late.
  • Sophisticated as Hell: Rose loves to talk like her mouth comes with a thesaurus while slipping in a few "[w]elcome to the party, motherfuckers" to keep people on their toes. She's been increasingly vulgar in Act 6, probably due to Dave's influence.
    TT: Consider me at your disposal to help craft a comeuppance of such unqualified devastation, the angels will weep pearlstrings of little urban fellows cantillating an unbroken chorus of Oh Snaps.
    • Even more so while drunk. She's just as intelligent and thoughtful as ever, but it's buried under a mountain of chat typos, goofy quirks, and general Alcohol-Induced Idiocy.
  • Stealth Pun:
    • Her name is Rose. Her primary weapons for most of Sburb are the Thorns of Oglogoth.
    • Her aspect is Light, and the symbol for it is a stylized sun that resembles a compass rose.
  • Stepford Snarker: Utilized as a way to deal with the absolute chaos that the session brought about.
  • The Stoic: At first she has the least amount of freakouts and intense emotions alongside with Dave. She eventually became Not So Stoic.
  • The Straight Man:
  • Sugar-and-Ice Personality:
    • For all her snarkiness and "spookiness" she does care about her companions and will occasionally show Not So Stoic colors.
    • Displayed heartbreakingly so in her conversation with Jade after learning of the death of Mom. After spending the series passing off her mother's affections as sarcastic Rose reveals how highly she thought of her, all while seemingly on the verge of tears.
  • Squishy Wizard: Immensely powerful, but like Dave, she can't take as many hits as John.
  • Swiss-Army Weapon: Her magic needlewands basically can be used for anything she wants to do. Later on it's revealed it's not actually magic.
  • Technicolor Magic: She's associated with purple and magic, and uses purple magic for a while.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Fighting Jack against everyone's advice, and possibly to a lesser extent trusting Doc and the Elder Gods to begin with.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Rose proves to be a bonafide Action Girl the second she enters the Medium, but still manages to achieve two significant jumps in power over the course of the story.
    • The first time is when she alchemizes the Thorns of Oglogoth, graduating from a Badass Normal into a powerful magician capable of wiping out enemies that even John struggled with. Notably, she's also the only character in the entire cast to achieve Flight without alchemized gear or God Tier powers. Unfortunately, this massive bump in power comes accordingly with a massive bump to her ego that ultimately ends in her death by Jack.
    • The second time is when, alongside Dave, she hits God Tier and unlocks her full Light powers, the subsequent meteor segments showing she's finally taking her role as a Seer seriously and relying on her class's innate abilities instead of looking for power from elsewhere. [S]Game Over and [S]Collide both demonstrate that she hasn't lost her immense magic power, either.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Just like Dave, she lets her soft side show more. Act 5 marked the biggest change in her personality.
  • Tranquil Fury: As demonstrated in [S] Seer: Descend, and the following page. It's when she's calm, passive, and coordinated when she's the most likely to reduce things to atoms with magic in blinding rage.
  • Trash of the Titans: Implied to be done as a jab towards her mother, who loathes housework.
  • The Unfettered: Turned into this in her desire to break the game. It was used against her.
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Rose becomes an alcoholic like her Mom and Roxy at the age of fifteen.
  • Undeathly Pallor: When she goes Grimdark, her skin goes dark grey.
  • Unreliable Expositor: She initially describes her feelings towards Jaspers as "lukewarm". Later, it becomes apparent she really did care about him.
  • Unreliable Narrator:
    • Her mother was never challenging her passive-aggressively, but the reader is led to believe it because Rose does.
    • She initially gives the impression that she dislikes wizards. Much later, she clarifies that she does like wizards; it's her mother's supposed feigned interest in them (another thing she's wrong about) she dislikes.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Doesn't take John's "death" at Jack's hand well. It turns out to be a Senseless Sacrifice.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Her attempt to destroy the Green Sun creates it. Just as Scratch planned. Double Subversion though, as she fully knows and anticipates that Doc and the Gods are using her to further their own plans, but underestimates to what extent.
  • Voice with an Internet Connection: During Act 1 and 2 mainly. She takes a more direct role in the story later on.
  • Wakeup Makeup: Though replace "Wakeup" with "being born".
  • Water Is Womanly: Among the quartet, Rose is associated with water: her former house was based off Fallingwater, her denizen is the water monster Cetus, her planet is covered in ocean, and her color resembles the deep sea. She also likes wearing elegant dresses and is a reserved young Lady of Black Magic.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: A Hot-Blooded nature, magic bestowed by the dark gods, and mostly good intentions do not mix well, as Rose has shown multiple times.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: As of the March 30 update, Kanaya has finally gotten tired of beating about the bush about Rose's drinking. Here.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: In terms of both range and firepower, the Thorns of Oglogoth are probably the most powerful item crafted by any of the kids so far. But they don't seem to be doing much for Rose's mental health either, whether directly or indirectly.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Sure, trust the Big Bad, whose whole thing is manipulating people, with a plan that appeals to your Chronic Hero Syndrome and whose information you have no third party sources for. That sounds like a great idea.
  • Yaoi Fangirl: Judging from her reaction to the smutty Troll romance novel, she's this. It's debatable whether or not she's actually attracted to men, but she seems to enjoy reading about their romance.
  • Yuri Fan: As said novel also features a romance between two Troll women.
  • You Killed My Father: Rose goes berserk in grief when Kanaya is vaporised by the Condesce and attempts to engage her in combat, only to receive a trident to the chest and die a Heroic death shortly after.

    Dave 

Dave Strider

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/turntechGodhead_4873.gif
At the god tiers: 

Paradox Space Appearances: "John's Birthday" | "Prototyped" | "Quality Time" | "Nak Worth" | "Indemnity Double Reacharound" | "Soul-Fraying Games" | "Garbage Day" | "Secret Sufferer" | "Lady Grimme and the Red Knight" | "Three out of Five Hats" | "Steward of Void" | "Summerteen Romance"

You have a penchant for spinning out UNBELIEVABLY ILL JAMS with your TURNTABLES AND MIXING GEAR. You like to rave about BANDS NO ONE'S EVER HEARD OF BUT YOU. You collect WEIRD DEAD THINGS PRESERVED IN VARIOUS WAYS. You are an AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER and operate your own MAKESHIFT DARKROOM. You maintain a number of IRONICALLY HUMOROUS BLOGS, WEBSITES, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING PROFILES. And if the inspiration strikes, you won't hesitate to drop some PHAT RHYMES on a mofo and REPRESENT.

A boy unceasingly devoted to the pursuit of (what he perceives to be) irony in all aspects of life, who lives with his Bro in an apartment in Houston, Texas.

In Sburb, he is the Knight of Time. His Chumhandle is "turntechGodhead".

He had allocated his STRIFE SPECIBUS with the BLADEKIND ABSTRATUS, but an incident with Bro and a "cheap piece of shit" turns it into the 1/2BLADEKIND ABSTRATUS. He is a clone of Mom Lalonde and Bro Strider's paradox ghost slime, and is Rose's biological brother.

He is also the author of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.

types with no caps and no punctuation except sarcastic question marks and occasional ellipsis

  • Abusive Parents: Dave comes to realize that Bro's parenting style was not the best for him to endure as he grew up. There are certainly shades of this from the beginning, such as when Dave quietly admits that his bro's "jokes" do sometimes unsettle him to the core, but this becomes much more clear in Act 6. He even speculates whether or not Bro really cared about him, and wonders if Lil Cal's influence had done something to warp his mind, but he stops that train of thought out of concern that it's just wish fulfillment.
  • Always Someone Better: Bro, Davesprite, the Future Daves and, ultimately, John. Learning to cope with this, to stop comparing himself with others and accept himself for who he is (a pretty cool dude, when all's said and done) seems to be the goal of his character arc.
  • Animal Motifs: Especially towards the beginning of the story, he's associated with crows — a large flock of them roosts outside of his house at the start, one steals his copy of the game and is prototyped as his sprite, hatching an egg serves as his entrance trial, an alternate Dave is later fused with the crow sprite, and his hair is shaped like a roosting bird.
  • Badass Boast: Upon figuring out his own way to remove a legendary sword from the stone block it's stuck in.
    TG: bow down before your new king bitch
  • Badass Cape: As the Knight of Time, his god-tier outfit doesn't just have a trailing god-hood, but a full-blown crimson cape.
    DAVE: dude dont touch my cape
    DAVE: ...
    DAVE: huh
    KARKAT: WHAT
    DAVE: i cant believe i seriously just said dude dont touch my cape to somebody and was serious about it
  • Beneath the Mask:
    • While he tries to act like his ultra-hipster Bro, at heart Dave's actually more like his mother of all people.
    • After having a long conversation with Dirk, his bro's alternate universe counterpart, he eventually decides to hug him awkwardly, and apologizes while doing so. And we're talking about a guy who was presented to us as the coolest dude around.
  • Be Yourself: His Character Development. Under his Hipster persona, he's a goofy idiot who uses Irony as a defensive mechanism to cope with his brother's obsessive fetish for puppets.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows: Damn, son.
  • Big "WHAT?!": While most of his whats are flat, he gets the occasional big one:
    JADE: oh yeah by the way dave...
    JADE: youre a pretty good kisser!
    JADE: even when youve got cat lips ;)
    DAVE: WHAT
  • Big "NO!": Gives a huge one, when Grimbark Jade threw the Mayor into magma.
  • Broken Pedestal: For Bro, starting in Act 6. Dave spent the first 13 years of his life idolizing his brother as a badass hipster paragon while rationalizing away the uncomfortable and traumatic aspects of their life together as irony beyond his own ken. The extent to which Dave's worldview is based on Bro's invincibility is painfully clear when he finds Bro's corpse and has a Heroic BSoD. Three years on the meteor with people who give him much healthier forms of affection finally break through Dave's denial, forcing him to confront how fucked up and abusive his relationship with Bro really was. Unloading all this baggage on Dirk finally allows Dave to move past his anger and focus on his more positive memories of Bro. However, he's also way past emulating the impenetrable irony schtick, focusing instead on being a decent guy.
  • Call-Back: At one point, Roxy muses over the possibility of a romantic relationship with a carapacian. Dave has a very affectionate and borderline homoerotic relationship with WV during their time on the meteor.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Instead of just talking about his feelings Dave either goes on elaborate tangents to avoid the topic or just clams up altogether. His inability to talk explicitly about his feelings is referenced by many other characters, especially Rose. He gets a bit better in Act 6.
  • Can't Catch Up: Dave's certainly not weak, but by Act 5 he's concerned about the growing power gap between him and John, especially after John achieves God Tier. A doomed Dave from a timeline offshoot tries to gain the God Tier levels, but Dave doesn't have the heart to kill himself. Subverted in [S] Cascade, when what he believes to be a Suicide Mission raises him to God Tier instead. Given the kind of power Aradia displays as a God Tier Time player, he more than catches up.
  • Cerebus Retcon: While his brother's fetishes and training regimen are played for laughs in the early acts, when Dave finally comes face-to-face with Dirk he not only calls Bro's behavior straight-up abuse but also describes suffering PTSD from it. It's also caused Dave a great deal of self-image issues; Dave considered his bro to be the absolute definition of a hero, and began to both resent himself for not living up to that standard, and to resent the very concept of a "hero" because of the cruel, callous way his "hero" guardian treated him.
  • Characterization Marches On: Hussie did not settle into a fully characterized "voice" for Dave until after the readers selected a name for him. In Act 2, he used more punctuation, had a wider emotional range, was less likely to ramble, and was easily trolled by John. In short, he acted more like an actual kid.
  • Closet Geek: Dave likes to portray himself as a hipster and warrior with a mastery of humor and combat; in reality, he's incredibly socially impaired, wants to be a paleontologist and if "Soul-Fraying Games" is to be believed, loves The Lord of the Rings. The "Closet" part of it comes from the warrior lifestyle Dave's Bro tried to force upon him, and fittingly enough, it's Bro's alternate self who help Dave come to terms with not meeting some absurd definition of coolness.
    Dirk: I pictured [Alternate Dave] as probably being "too cool" to be the type of guy you are. But you know what, fuck being too cool for that.
    Dave: ... you ... ... ... you dont think im cool?
    Dirk: Nah. I mean, in the right way, yes. I think you are. But, in the way that doesn't mean anything and doesn't matter, not particularly.
  • Clothing Damage: It's dramatic rather than fan service; the record emblem is cut in two but his shirt is still intact from his fight with Bro.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: A few updates imply that beneath his coolkid exterior is a very...strange (in a good way) kid; among his quirks include a fondness for collecting dead things in jars, a habit of going on long tangents about nothing—sometimes to the point of seemingly forgetting what he was originally talking about—and, of course, writing Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. He gets it from his Mom.
  • The Collector of the Strange: He collects preserved dead things.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Dave is not above using his friend (whom their foe cannot bring himself to harm) as a human shield. AUTO-HARLEY!
  • Cool Shades: They even belonged to Ben Stiller (which is also a Call-Back to Problem Sleuth).
  • Cutting the Knot: When he can't pull the sword in the Crocodile Statue out of its stone, he breaks it out.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Particularly when Rose is involved.
  • Dual Wielding: Inverted. He uses half a sword.
  • Elemental Punch: His Snoop Dogg Snow Cone Machete has freezing powers, as befits his cool dude status.
  • Establishing Character Moment: Chopping his name bar in half when it is attempted to give him the name 'Insufferable Prick'.
  • Flat-Earth Atheist: Believes that "pretty much all religions are wrong," and has much fun in poking at Gamzee's beliefs especially, but only because he does not yet know the reality of the threat that Gamzee's "mirthful messiahs" pose, or that at least one of them is presumably Lord English.
  • Flat "What": Most of his whats are, since he refuses to punctuate his sentences, but he gets a few standouts:
    DAVE: (rose whos the john looking kid)
    ROSE: (I think it's young Father-Grandad Harleybert.)
    DAVE: (what)
  • Flash Step: With decent proficiency, but nowhere near the level that his Bro is at.
  • Fragile Speedster: Hits harder and faster than John, but doesn't take nearly as many hits to drop, either.
  • Freak Out: Despite his insistence to the contrary, Lil' Cal and the other puppets in his Bro's room send him into this.
  • Freudian Slippery Slope: Falls victim to this when talking to Roxy, as even though he tries to call her by name, he always ends up referring to her as "mom". It happens for a second time later on when talking about Jane, finding assorted ways of calling her "John's hot mom" completely by accident. Terezi and Rose tease him mercilessly for it.
  • Gay Bravado: Though due to the inherently bisexual nature of troll society, it goes over their heads. Deconstructed in that it's inherited from his neglectful brother and sometimes puts people off with its "ironic" contrived insincerity, and Dave eventually admits that it is a cover for his own repressed sexuality.
  • Genre Savvy: When John starts to dismiss the idea of there being monsters in his house, Dave — despite having originally stated as much himself — argues against this on the basis of how, when someone says that monsters aren't real, that's very reliably when they get eaten by monsters.
    EB: like monsters or something.
    TG: howie???
    EB: haha I WISH.
    TG: dude monsters arent real
    TG: thats stupid kids stuff for stupid babies
    EB: maybe. yeah you're right.
    TG: what are you an idiot
    TG: of course there are monsters in your house
    TG: youre in some weird evil monster dimension come on
    TG: fuck you mom and dad how many times are we going to watch this trope unfold it wasnt goddamn funny the first time i saw it
    TG: "OH SHIT EVERYONE IN THE MINIVAN"
    TG: be fuckin dad of the year right there
  • Gretzky Has the Ball : Dave doesn't know much about sports, but insists otherwise. His attempt to talk Rose out of her mission to destroy the Green Sun devolved into a fantastic series of bungled sports metaphors.
    TT: I forget what we were doing exactly.
    TT: Were we pursuing the hackneyed debate over who has the best claim to self-sacrifice,
    TT: Or seeing who can out-dumbass the other with obtuse sports lingo?
    TG: there obviously stopped being a difference between those things the question is offensive
  • Heroic BSoD: Pretty much constantly in Act 5 from Bro's death on. Most evident in his dream conversation with Rose, where Rose's Self-Sacrifice Scheme almost pushes him over the edge again. Since it's Dave, it's hard to tell how much is actual nervous breakdown and how much is snark but he's clearly got some lingering issues even late in Act 6.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: In "Game Over", fights both Bec Noir and PM (who both have the power of the Green Sun, leaving Dave hopelessly outmatched) so he can try to resurrect Jade. Although he holds his own for a short while, he doesn't survive the battle; dying a Heroic death. Luckily, his death is undone when John retcons the timeline.
    • He and Rose also believe they're going through with one of these in order to destroy the Green Sun, but it's Subverted when they both go God Tier instead.
  • Hilariously Abusive Childhood: The abusive aspect is confirmed by this Paradox Space story. Bro decorated their apartment with pornographic puppets and swords, kicked Dave's ass regularly with a puppet to "toughen him up", and once threw infant Dave off a roof to teach him how to Flash Step. If there was any question as to how badly this has messed with Dave's head, Lil' Cal, is, due to Weird Time Shit and some meddling by Gamzee, a manifestation of Dave's nightmares from living with Lil' Cal. It gets even Harsher in Hindsight when Dirk is adamantly against ever having kids, partly because he's not into girls, and partly because he thinks he'd be a terrible parent. When Dave finally meets Dirk face-to-face, the abusive nature of the relationship is Cerebus Retconed as a serious issue. Dave had to learn how to do things like launder clothes all on his own, and Bro's "training" left him with a deep distaste for fighting and the idea of being a hero. It was only with time, distance, and spending time with friends that he could even begin to see his former life for the disaster it was.
  • Hipster: Prior to character development, was obsessed with doing things ironically.
  • Hurricane of Euphemisms: In this pesterlog, he starts with "knob" and moves on to "throbbing beef truncheon," "crotch-dachshund," and "naked spam porpoise."
  • I Just Want to Be Normal:
    TG: well maybe i never wanted to be a knight of time
    TG: maybe id rather just be like
    TG: the dave of guy
    TG: you know just some dude
    DAVE: like ill wonder if im being reluctant enough to cut it or if im actually just being reluctant to be reluctant
    DAVE: it turns into like meta reluctance and then all i can think about is how fucking stupid the whole thing is
    DAVE: i think im probably just too self aware for this hero bullshit so dont even waste your time on me #ironic self pity
  • Inferiority Superiority Complex: Talks himself up a lot, but part of his Character Development revolves around learning that he doesn't need to compete with Bro or John for the limelight, but can be awesome as his own person. That most of his bragging seems to have been passed down to him from Bro is probably one of the reasons for this.
  • Interspecies Romance: Confirmed to have been in a relationship with Terezi while they were on the meteor in the GAME OVER timeline. It lasted until he learned about her kismesissitude with Gamzee. In an unusual case of Incompatible Orientation, the problem wasn't gender vs. orientation but Dave's monogamy vs. Terezi's polyfidelity.
  • Irony:
    • Used to be his main drive in life. Not so much anymore.
    • Then again, in a somewhat dramatic way: he couldn't muster the guts to kill himself to ascend to the God Tiers. Then, he effectively commits suicide by Jack Noir when fighting him, because Dave knew it was preordained.
    • Brought up back in his Strife against Bro. He lost the Strife against Bro, who proceeded to break Dave's Sword and shirt symbol. Why is this ironic? Someone broke Dave's stride.
  • It Was a Gift: Dave's shades were actually a gift from John on his birthday, and Dave's triangle shades before were a gift from his Bro.
  • Jar of the Bizarre: He collects "weird dead things preserved in various ways", including a fetus in a jar.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he does get quite abrasive sometimes, he’s not nearly as much of a jerk as he lets on. He mostly does it to differentiate between himself and John, who he compared himself to constantly.
  • Let Us Never Speak of This Again: No one can ever know about this.
  • LGBT Awakening: In the post-retcon timeline, he becomes close with Karkat and in the process discovers that he's not straight. He can hardly bring himself to say it when he asks Dirk, who is openly gay, how he told his friends.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Ultimately develops into this.
  • Loophole Abuse: His Strife Specibus forces him to wield broken swords, but he gets around this through the creation of a time travelling sword that can cycle through various phases of its existence, including a time when it was not broken.
  • Maybe Ever After: The narrative implies he and Karkat got together during the three-years, but it continued to skirt around confirming it in-comic. Then Dave and Jade received a last minute Ship Tease, and the story ends with the three sitting down for a picnic, leaving it ambiguous who got together or if all three are together.
  • Medium Awareness: In the opening Act 6 Intermission 3 flash this is Dave's reaction if you try to "be" him. He even says he's becoming meta.
  • Momma's Boy: When he and Roxy finally meet he takes to the idea of her being his mom straight away, immediately wanting to know everything about her and her life. During their conversation he repeatedly (but only semi-accidentally) keeps referring to her as "mom" despite the two of them technically being the same age. Fortunately for him, Roxy doesn't mind a bit.
  • Named Weapons: Dave's primary weapon is a sword called Caledscratch.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Accidentally managed to set Gamzee off on a rage that ended with the Universe getting terminal cancer.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Has a collection of preserved dead things in his room, including an alchemized copy of his own brain... although by Derse dreamer standards that's pretty damn tame. He's terrified of Lil Cal (unlike Dirk), doesn't share Rose's fascination with Horrorterrors, and lacks Roxy's interest in gooshy innards.
  • Not So Stoic:
    • In this conversation with Rose, we can see that he definitely cares about his friends' wellbeing.
    • It's more transparent in this conversation with Terezi. She even calls him out on it.
    • When he's arguing with Rose about who gets to bring The Tumor to the Green Sun, Dave almost completely drops his coolkid act.
      TG: but i dont want you to die
    • And when Dream Dirk leaves with Dream Roxy, Dave makes this face.
    • The A6I3 segments have given him a smiling portrait (well, more of a smug half-smile,) which is appearing surprisingly frequently.
    • He can't stand the second-hand embarrassment of watching his sister drunk. When he tries to talk her out of going on her date with Kanaya while hammered they both remark how out of character it is for him. He immediately backpedals and claims he doesn't care what they do.
    • By the time everyone's met up again he's almost as emotional as his Prospit friends. He smiles, laughs and even shouts when Grimdark Jade throws The Mayor off a ledge.
  • Parental Neglect: His Bro is largely absent aside from forced sparring sessions. Basics like laundry and putting food in the fridge were not in the curriculum.
  • Phrase Catcher: STRIIIIIIIIIIIDEEEEEEEEEERRR
  • Potty Emergency: Dave undergoes one after a cleaning mishap sends his toilet crashing through the ceiling.
    TG: its like fucking christmas up in my bladder here 
    TG: and where do i find my toilet
    TG: oh look here it is
    TG: amputated in my room
    TG: gagged with a towel like a fucking prison hostage
  • Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Is a textbook example, given his passion for rapping.
  • Punny Name: (K)night of Time.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue Oni to John's Red Oni, as well as Red to Rose's Blue.
  • Rule of Symbolism:
    • He's the Knight of Time of the Kids' Sburb Game, which involves a lot of looping back to the past. His symbol? A broken record.
    • His other motif, the broken sword, evokes symbolic comparisons with a different Strider — and the fact that he (and Davesprite) had to break Caledfwlch while "maybe if john was to try with his pure heart and shit it woulda popped out like a champagne cork and fuckin hero confetti woulda blasted him in the face" leads to symbolism with Lancelot and Arthur. In fact, Caledfwlch is the Welsh name of Excalibur.
    • When he finally ascends to the God Tiers, his hood makes him look like a chain-mail wearing knight.
  • Save Scumming:
    • The real purpose of Dave's time powers is to basically act as the reset button if something goes wrong with the Alpha timeline.
    • One of the earliest demonstrations of this was Dave essentially New Game Plussing himself.
  • Senseless Sacrifice:
    • Karkat at least considers Dave's death at Bec Noir's hands to be this, as there was no way he didn't know it was going to happen. Dave doesn't know what to think about it, because he knew it was inevitable.
    • Dave's argument with Rose over who gets to carry out a Suicide Mission ends with them both doing it, Dave having chased after Rose and joined her after she knocked him out and got a head start.
    • Played with in "Game Over". In order to protect the deceased Jade, he fights Bec Noir and PM, despite the fact that, thanks to Becquerel's love for Jade that they inherited, they also only wanted to help her. Dave wanted to stop them from taking her away because Jane could have revived her, but Jane also dies during "Game Over", meaning that Dave fought two omniscient beings he had no chance of defeating and died for the sake of an already-dead girl whom it was no longer possible to save.
  • Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Manly Man to John's Sensitive Guy.
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot: The most openly profane of the Kids.
  • Socially Awkward Hero: Has a few moments of this, before adopting it over his Hipster persona and comparing himself to others.
  • Stacy's Mom: Has expressed interest in Rose's Mom, and says that there's nothing wrong with him thinking about her "choice ass" and her being in her underwear. This gets Played for Laughs mercilessly at Dave's expense later when the nature of Mom's relation to him is revealed. Needless to say, Rose never lets him live it down, especially once Roxy, Mom's post-scratch counterpart, comes into the story. Further extending the Running Gag is when he also outright calls Jane "John's hot mom".
  • The Stoic:
    • His mouth is almost always flat. His sunglasses edge him into Frozen Face territory, especially since he usually lacks a mouth when drawn in hero mode. Prior to Acts 4 and 5, which saw a lot more of this art style, he made various facial expressions from time to time. Act 5 also saw him becoming more emotionally closed-off.
    • The following is Dave's reaction to his own death:
      TG: welp
  • Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Even more so than Rose, as he puts more importance than she does on maintaining his facade in front of others. But he cares way more than he lets on, as seen in his argument with his sister over who should take the suicide mission to the Green Sun.
  • Sunglasses at Night:
    • He always wears his sunglasses, which he received as a present from John.
    • Before that, he wore a pair that matched his bro's. He's been wearing them since he was an infant.
  • Super-Speed: Though not as fast as Bro, Dave is able to Flash Step. Which makes sense, given that he's the Knight of Time. One of his more impressive feats is waking up, sitting up, and putting on his spare pair of shades ''in between one animation frame and the next''.
  • Surprise Incest:
    • Happens twice. He used to hit on Rose (ironically) before learning that they were brother and sister. In Act 6, he and Rose see Roxy (who is genetically their mother) in a dream, resulting in the following conversation months later:
      ROSE: You're wondering why I didn't tell you?
      DAVE: no
      ROSE: You're specifically wondering why I wasn't forthcoming with an answer to your question at the time, "hey who was that choice babe in the pajamas?"
      DAVE: god fucking dammit
    • At one point, he says that it's okay to for him to think of Rose's Mom's "choice ass" because she's not his mom. She even asks him what if she actually is his mom, to which he's unable to answer, but she relents and says that he's probably safe, and that it's unlikely that's the case. Uh, yeah... about that... Naturally, Rose never lets him hear the end of it.
  • Talks Like a Simile: And he has something of a tendency to get lost in them.
  • Temporal Duplication: Thanks to his time powers, at one point there are over 40 Daves running around. They're all however, the same individual at different points in time. He is so good at this that he turns it into a combat technique without ever causing a single paradox.
  • Threesome Subtext: Dave clearly had feelings for Jade in the early part of the story, and was heavily implied to be dating Karkat in the post-retcon timeline. He ends up living with both of them in the epilogue, but the throuple dynamic actually ends up driving them apart.
  • Time Master: He is the Knight of Time.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball: Dave doesn't particularly know how his time travel works, and in his words it's better that way:
    TG: the thing with time travel is
    TG: you cant overthink it
    TG: just roll with it and see what happens
    TG: and above all try not to do anything retarded
  • Too Clever by Half: There's a reason he was almost named "Insufferable Prick." Just like his sister, he can be a bit too smart with his quips, and sometimes gets lost in his own nested metaphors to the point that even he forgets what he was trying to say.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Post Character Development he drops drops his cool guy persona and becomes gentler and more considerate in the process. He considers his acts of "irony" and his borderline Hipster lifestyle an Old Shame, and is amused by them in a mixture of laughter and tears.
  • Training from Hell: Pretty much his entire life with Bro, even back when he was a baby, involved being attacked with a Katana until he learned to fight. He was also on edge at all times, as Bro laid booby traps and other unsettling things throughout the house for Dave to find, and would sometimes attack him out of nowhere to "prepare" him. All of these things have significant consequences for Dave; see Cerebus Retcon above.
  • Tragic Time Traveler: He spends the majority of Act 5 Act 2 on a spur of time travel adventures, wherein he creates multiple timelines and Daves, quite a few of whom happen to be dead. Dave comes to terms with having to kill another Dave to God Tier and leaves him alone, only for that Dave to die anyways. What also doesn't help is him finding his Bro dead not too long after. Despite all of this, he would continue to fulfill his purpose as a Knight of Time, and never give up.
  • Unusual Euphemism: Throws around a lot of them here.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Along with Rose, he helps create the Green Sun they were trying to destroy in the first place.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds:
    • With Rose for the first few acts; their constant sarcasm and quips always held an undercurrent of fondness. Becomes significantly lessened as the stakes of the game increase, though doesn't disappear by any means.
    • By the time of Act 6 Intermission 5, Dave's sarcastic tirades against Karkat are accompanied by legitimate concern and affection for the angry little man.
  • Weak-Willed: Unlike other characters, Dave immediately lapses into repeating what AR says when AR uses his terminal, much to Terezi's amusement. This is possibly because he was very emotional at the time, having just discovered his dead Bro.
  • Wrecked Weapon: Dave's specibus is less Sword than PIECE OF SHIT. Circumstances contrive to leave him break his blades, starting with his original katana. He takes Caledfwlch with a mixture of Genre Savvy and Screw Destiny, knowing he's not The Hero enough to pull the sword from the stone, but determined to have it even if he has to shatter it, rendering it a LEGENDARY PIECE OF SHIT. When claiming his Bro's sword, he attempts to break it off instead of pulling it out. His ultimate weapon too is a broken sword, carried by the bunny. When he reaches godhood, he acquires a sword which comes conveniently prebroken.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: Ends a fight with Karkat by randomly suplexing him into a table.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: The thing that seems to haunt Dave most about SBURB is the endless hell of doomed timelines he has to navigate, knowing that every one of them involves the deaths of all his friends. He plays it off well enough but during his conversations with Rose it becomes clear this has left a mark.

    Jade 

Jade Harley

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gardenGnostic_2451.gif
Jadesprite: 
At the god tiers: 

Paradox Space Appearances: "John's Birthday" | "Prototyped" | "A Fun Day For Bec" | "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse" | "Go Fetch" | "Deck It All" | "Birds and Bees" | "Spritecon"

You are an avid follower of CARTOON SHOWS OF CONSIDERABLE NOSTALGIC APPEAL. You have a profound zeal for marvelous and fantastical FAUNA OF AN ANTHROPOMORPHOLOGICAL PERSUASION. You have an uncanny knack for NUCLEAR PHYSICS, and not infrequently can be found dabbling in RATHER ADVANCED GADGETRY. You enjoy sporadic fits of NARCOLEPSY; your love of GARDENING transcends the glass confines of your ATRIUM; and you are at times prone to patterns of PRECOGNITIVE PROGNOSTICATION.

A quirky, upbeat girl living alone on a remote island off the northeast coast of Australia, guarded only by her "dog" Becquerel and the taxidermied body of her late Grandpa.

In Sburb, she is the Witch of Space. Her Chumhandle is "gardenGnostic".

She has allocated her STRIFE SPECIBUS with the RIFLEKIND ABSTRATUS and PAPERKIND ABSTRACTUS. She is a clone of Nanna Egbert and Grandpa Harley's paradox ghost slime and is John's biological sister.

Additionally, Jade's dream self spent some time as Jadesprite, her sprite prototyped with Becquerel and the corpse of her dream self. Jadesprite was merged back into normal Jade when said normal Jade ascended to the God Tiers, so tropes for Jadesprite are folded in here as well, as they are not really separate characters.

types with no caps or periods but often overpunctuates with exclamation marks and ellipses!!!!! she also likes to use smilies and hearts <3
as jadesprite she also barks occasionally woof woof!!!!!!
since reaching god tier she has a bit of a verbal tic woof!!

  • Accidental Murder: Jack tricks her into firing into his portal-creating body, redirecting the shot to hit Dave instead.
  • Action Girl:
    • Somewhat less so than Rose, but she has a gun, knows how to use it, and uses it well enough that she refuses to get a bigger one.
    • She ziplines from the top of her tower with nothing but a harpoon gun to go outside.
  • Affably Evil: While under control of the Condesce, she exchanges some friendly banter with her old friends.
  • The Aloner: Jade became this in the post-retcon timeline; due to John's deal with his denizen, Typheus, the post-retcon version of John, as well as Davesprite, were both killed very early into the 3 year journey by the sudden explosion of John's planet. As a result, Jade ends up completely alone on the ship, with only the residents of the remaining planets for comfort.
  • Angst Dissonance: In-universe. Jade is... not too pleased about Jadesprite having trouble calming down, to say the least — although, from Jadesprite's perspective, she's been dead for thirteen years and it's realistic for her to have trouble coping with suddenly being dragged back into Sburb.
  • Animal Jingoism: God-Tier Jade has an uncontrollable urge to growl and bark at Jaspersprite when the latter meows the song "Happy Birthday" to John thanks to instincts inherited from Bec. She says she's not even mad at him, but she can't help it.
  • Animal Motifs: Jade is associated with dogs. She was raised by radioactive god dog that later serves as her sprite, and which she merges with when entering the God Tiers. As a result, afterwards, Jade retains dog ears, a tendency to bark, and instinctive animosity towards cats.
  • Anti-Villain: Even under mind control, she isn't really evil — she just does things that she typically wouldn't do while retaining most of her personality.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: Alternate dream selves, teleporting devilbeast dog, and basically all of Sburb? Perfectly acceptable. Aliens called trolls who happen to be able to contact you at any time during your life using a chatroom? Ridiculous. Justified in that she's known all of the former (except Sburb) her entire life. And the trolls have been, well, trolling her for so long that she never exactly felt inclined to believe any of the things they said; she even calls Karkat out on it, and points out that maybe if they had just been a little nicer to her she might have believed them and they could have worked together to solve both of their problems.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: While her first death does display some physical damage from the explosion that killed her, in [S]: Game Over, her body looks surprisingly intact for someone who's just been crushed by a several-ton piece of masonry.
  • Being Evil Sucks: She tries to kill the Mayor, but absolutely fails because Dave comes along and swoops him away, leaving her to wonder why it's so hard for her to be evil. It doesn't help that she outright sucks at being evil, even under mind control.
  • Berserk Button: Don't even think about meowing near her. However, she doesn't really consciously control it either.
  • Beware the Nice Ones:
    • ...did she just use dream kung-fu to beat the tar out of Courtyard Droll?
    • She delivers a hell of a verbal smackdown to both Past and Future Karkat here. Later she gives one to Jadesprite.
  • Big Damn Heroes: She shows up just in time to save Jane and Jake from certain death.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: After arriving in the Alpha sessions, she is mind-controlled by the Condesce and goes Grimbark as a result.
  • Brought Down to Badass:
    • With the death of her dream self and the increasing destruction of her home, Jade lost much of the advantages that she had over the other kids, and given that she didn't communicate with the trolls and had been asleep for hours, she was out of the loop entirely about Sburb. Averted shortly after her entry, future Dave helps her make a shitload of cool new stuff and she catches up on the info pretty quick. Further averted once she became Godtier, where she's possibly the most potent of the kids.
    • She's briefly brought down again while she travels to the new session via pocket dimension. This is Justified, since she can't use her powers without energy from the Green Sun, which is only accessible in-game. That said, she retains her godtier and sprite abilites with or without access to the Green Sun and is a very capable fighter in her own right.
  • Came Back Wrong: Apparently normal creatures aren't too compatible with First Guardians. Among other things, Jadesprite's grief is due to being either heavily annoyed or even blinded by the ever-present light of the Green Sun, besides being pulled out of her afterlife dream bubble. God Tier Jade has none of these problems.
  • Carpe Diem: Before waking up, Alternate Calliope and Davepetasprite^2 both tell her to try and live her own life.
  • Catapult Nightmare: Twice; the first time occurs when Dave, realizing that Jade is asleep and communicating via her Dreambot, tricks her into slapping herself awake. The second time occurs when Jade is sleeping after the destruction of Prospit and the death of her dream self; as they are in the Medium and the only respite left for dreamers are the dream bubbles, Jade has her first encounter with the Horrorterrors (first appearing as Squiddles, then their true selves), and runs into Feferi as well. The sight is so terrifying that she wakes up completely on her own.
  • Character Catchphrase: Jades says "oh nooooooo" a lot early in the story.
  • Comes Great Responsibility: Her nigh omnipotence as a God Tier forces her to use her powers far more carefully than the other kids.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: She's quite ditzy and sweet, though she's ultimately a Genius Ditz.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: During her brief angry shouting matches, she starts cursing a lot more.
  • Daddy's Girl: She was very close with Grandpa Harley, even if he wasn't the most responsible guardian, and honored the family tradition for him by stuffing him after his death.
  • Dead All Along: Inverted with the version of her from the retconned timeline. She appears to be dead when meeting with Jane and Calliope, but Vriska simply knocked her unconscious.
  • Decon-Recon Switch: She starts off as a borderline Parody Sue, before getting deconstructed during the End of Act 4 flash and through the first half of Act 5-2, and reconstructed through the second half of Act 5-2, culminating in the End of Act 5 flash. This has her become probably the most powerful heroic character in the comic, with dog ears to boot, saving the day while The Hero looks on gobsmacked. And, remarkably, it makes complete sense in context.
  • Demoted to Extra: In Act 6 Jade's importance shrinks when in comparison to the other 3. During the intermissions, Rose and Dave feature prominently in the meteor segments, but when the narrative moves to the battleship, it's mostly John who takes the spotlight. Jade is completely absent from the walk around segments (and as such never receives a talk sprite), and when they finally arrive at the session, Jade spends quite a bit of time Brainwashed and Crazy or asleep. She does gain more focus when recounting the story to Calliope and Jane, but in the final battle, Jade has the least to do.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Jadesprite has a breakdown over being brought back to life and believing that their destiny was a lie and everyone had died for nothing.
  • Distaff Counterpart: Of John, at least in looks and purehearted innocence. They happen to be related.
  • The Ditz: As Dave points out, she's kind of an idiot when she's asleep.
  • Dude Magnet: Dave and Davesprite, Karkat, Tavros, and Eridan (who, granted, is desperate enough to settle for anyone) have all had crushes on her to some degree.
  • Dynamic Entry: As seen here.
  • Expressive Shirt: Unlike the other characters, the design on Jade's shirt has changed multiple times, from an atom to a pumpkin to a leaf, with a total of ten different designs. Readers voted to pin it to these three: Atom, Spirograph, and Sun. When her Wardrobifier was destroyed, the design is stuck on Bec's face.
  • Fainting Seer: Well, narcoleptic precognitive, at any rate. Apparently, it's not really narcolepsy or precognition- her tendency to fall asleep at inappropriate times is actually due to Vriska's Psychic Powers, while she owes her ability to see the future to the clouds of Skaia, which she can see earlier and easier than others due to an odd quirk associated with Space players.
  • Fairytale Motif: Her Witch of Space outfit has black and white striped socks and ruby slippers. There are deliberate parallels between her various incarnations and other Oz characters.
    • Jadebot = the Tin Man
    • Stuffed dream self = the Scarecrow
    • Jadesprite = the Cowardly Lion
    • Grimbark Jade = the Wicked Witch, complete with getting crushed under a house.
    • And Becquerel, of course, is Toto.
  • Fallen Hero: When the kids arrive in the Alpha session, she's placed under the Condesce's mind control.
  • Fangs Are Evil: She gains prominent canines after being placed under mind control.
  • Finger Framing: She does this while she's enlarging the Fourth Wall, probably just to look cool.
  • Flashy Teleportation: As her telporution is derived from First Guardian powers rather than Space player powers, it's always accompanied by a dramatic green flash.
  • Friend to All Living Things: She even gives Jack Noir the benefit of the doubt right after he killed Dave right in front of her. She seems to assume that he killed Dave by accident, and treats him like a misunderstood, misbehaving dog. Of course, since he's wearing Bec's face and gained some of his personality, it could be less of this and more that she's desperately trying to convince herself that her dog's not capable of killing her friends on purpose.
  • Friendly Sniper: Being the long-range fighter of the pre-Scratch kids, her kindness is matched only by her dead aim.
  • Furry Reminder: After becoming part dog, she occasionally woofs and gets riled up by meows. When she becomes grimbark, this becomes much more apparent, growling, barking and admitting to wanting snausages (a dog treat).
  • Genki Girl: Mostly in the first four Acts, but still present throughout (even when Grimbark).
  • Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: She tries this on Jadesprite, who upon being revived is constantly bawling and blubbering. When it obviously isn't working, she upgrades the Bright Slap to bright-beatdown, then just starts beating her to make her shut up.
  • Girls Love Stuffed Animals: She loves to play with her Squiddle toys and her Manthro Chaps.
  • The Gunslinger: She has experience in target shooting and keeps rifles in her room, though she refuses to aim at anything innocent, ANTHROPOMORPHICALLY PERSUADED OR OTHERWISE. She is definitely a fan of More Dakka too.
  • Hades Shaded: Her normally pale skin gets dinged an ashy-grey color while under the Condesce's control.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: By the time Homestuck's run ends, Jade is approximately one half human, one quarter sprite and one quarter dog.
  • Harpoon Gun: Inherited from Grandpa, and can be used as a Grappling-Hook Pistol in a pinch.
  • The Heart: Jade keeps everyone's spirits up about playing Sburb and is one of the few people Rose and Dave talk to without layers of sarcasm on top.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: She tossed John out of the path of the massive meteor bearing down on them both, losing her dream self in the process.
  • Hope Spot: She briefly loses her Grimbarkness when Jake bests her in a Beam-O-War... Only to be killed by Aranea moments afterward.
  • Humanoid Abomination: After the Condesce turns her Grimbark.
  • Hypocritical Humor: When Jade can't take any more of Jadesprite's despair she starts RANTING AND RAVING IN ALLCAPS FOR HER TO PULL HERSELF TOGETHER YOU BIG PANSY WHO CARES WHAT YOURE GOING THROUGH WEVE GOT A FUTURE TO FIGHT FOR just like a certain someone she couldn't stand talking to, who was probably about to warn her of this very situation. And was later called out on this by Karkat.
  • I Hate Past Me: She's really pissed off by how selfish and overly emotional Jadesprite acts after being revived. She later admits that she overreacted.
  • Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: When she's possessed by the Condesce, despite being nearly omnipotent.
    "Why is being a bad guy so hard?"
  • Is This What Anger Feels Like?: The normally bubbly and cheerful Jade occasionally flies into a rage when someone is being uncontrollably obnoxious around her. See Hypocritical Humor and "Reason You Suck" Speech.
  • Karmic Death: Suffered a Just death due to her actions while mind-controlled by the Condesce. This also serves as a Shout-Out to the Wizard of Oz.
  • Kubrick Stare: Jade has a fondness for plants, so witnessing a potted plant rain triggers this look.
  • Little Bit Beastly:
    • Her God Tier dog ears, a product of merging with Jadesprite. Word of God is that is the only part of her anatomy that's changed.
    • When she's grimbark, she has pointed teeth and nails.
  • Meaningful Name: Her name is Jade, and she's associated with the colour green.
  • Medium Awareness: She lets the audience play with her memory modus for a while, but, ironically, you don't get to play.
  • Mind over Matter: Part of her God Tier powers include absolute control over the motion of objects, which works like this in practice. She's powerful enough to accelerate a ship the size of an aircraft carrier to light speed without even concentrating, and does so to save both John and herself from the Scratch destroying their session.
  • Mind Rape: The Squiddle nightmare left her seriously unsettled.
  • Minion with an F in Evil: When she's under the Condesce's control. Although she does still manage to carry out her orders, so she's a bit better at the whole minioning thing that the Droll.
  • My Greatest Failure: Post-retcon, she believes for three years that she was responsible for John's and Davesprite's deaths by allowing them to visit John's planet only for it to explode. This is not the case.
  • Named Weapons: On entering the Medium, Jade creates two named guns, the Girl's Best Friend and Green Sun Streetsweeper.
  • Nice Girl: She is very polite in almost all situations. She even gave Karkat the benefit of the doubt.
  • Nietzsche Wannabe: Jadesprite insists everything is pointless. Probably pretty justifiable since she, well, died.
  • Official Couple: Davesprite and Jade dated offscreen, building off the close relationship Jade had with the non-sprite Dave. It doesn't last and then get erased from existence. Last time Jade meets Davesprite, he kisses her and she lets Dave know he's a good kisser before going into the final battle.
  • Offscreen Breakup: She and Davesprite get together offscreen and Davesprite ends their relationship offscreen.
  • Only Sane Man: Post Character Development, she learns how to balance and her fantasies and reality... only to learn that everyone else has gone insane.
  • Oracular Urchin: Jade often sees visions of the past, present and future in Skaia's clouds while dreaming on Prospit's moon. This leads her to know a lot of things before the other kids do, making her this.
  • Parental Abandonment: Her grandfather is dead and taxidermied, leaving her in the care of her pet devilbeast, Bec.
  • The Pollyanna:
    • Like John. Though since it's been revealed that she saw her dreamself's corpse in her Grandpa's lab and she didn't know that dreamselves could die for most of her life, she's a bit more so as she continued to put on a smile when she assumed that she would die very young.
    • And then that broke down when she couldn't take Jadesprite's constant woe and crying anymore and just flipped the fuck out.
  • Raised by Wolves: She was taken care of more by Bec than by her grandfather. Mentioned here. As a result, she had no idea what a toilet was used for.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After enduring a memo of almost nothing but Karkat arguing with himself, she goes off on both of them. Future Karkat approves.
  • Reckless Gun Usage: A really good example of exactly why wigglers should not be allowed to dual-wield flintlock pistols...
  • Relationship Upgrade: Gets one offscreen with Davesprite.
  • Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Jade deciding to give Dave's apartment "a woman's touch." She starts with wetting a towel in the toilet. "This is how ordinary people clean ordinary houses, right?"
  • Rummage Sale Reject: All the kids have moments of this, but Jade truly went above and beyond in turning it into an art form.
  • Scary Shiny Glasses: Once she gets brainwashed by Betty Crocker, Jade's lenses become bright white, covering her pupils, as she hunts down her friends and forces them to serve her new master.
  • Shadow Archetype: Possibly why Jadesprite's despair disturbs Jades so much: that she, who has grown up with firearms, hellhounds, and psychic powers, can become unhinged due to dying without all the facts. With help from acting-psychiatrist Karkat:
    GG: wait...
    GG: so me arguing with my dead dream self
    GG: and smacking her around while screaming at her
    GG: makes me SANE???
    CG: YES, ABSOLUTELY.
    CG: IT MEANS ALL OF YOUR HIDEOUS FLAWS DISGUST YOU.
  • Shoot the Dog: Subverted by being a goofy, carefree, non-villainous example. When she 2nd-tier prototypes Becsprite with her dreamself, she wipes his personality out of existence, and even Lampshades what's she's doing:
    Becquerel comes quickly at the promise of irradiated steak. He is such a good boy, and truly the best friend a girl could ever hope for.
    You're sure gonna miss him!
  • Sleepy Head:
    • Thanks to Vriska's meddling, She frequently falls asleep on random occasions; she even finds time to nap while strifing with her Grandfather!
    • This comes full circle in Act 6 Act 6, when Vriska puts Jade to sleep for the last half of the Act to protect her from Betty Crocker's psychic attacks.
  • Small Girl, Big Gun: Even her normal rifle was pretty big for her, but once she's in the medium her weapons are at least the same size as her. She displays visible sadness when she's unable to make a cannon easily twice her size.
  • Space Master: Upon ascension to the God Tiers, she promptly demonstrates this ability by shrinking all four Lands and the Battlefield to the size of tennis balls.
  • Star-Spangled Spandex:
    • Her Three in the Morning Dress. It's derived from Snowman, whose trenchcoat also does the same thing on occasion.
    • Her Witch of Space outfit also invokes this, and even her hair.
  • Stepford Smiler: To the same extent, if not worse, than John — she believed that she would die young after seeing her dream self's stuffed corpse amongst her grandfather's things, has spent the first 13 years of her life completely devoid of any human contact ( 16 years in the post-retcon timeline, since John and Davesprite died very early into the trip), and was led to believe she'd been the one to (accidentally) kill her grandfather as a child. She maintains her cheery personality for the most part, but absolutely snaps on the one person who she resents more than anyone else — herself, via Jadesprite.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: Played with. She takes after her mother and father equally, but she's like her father in terms of personality. This further contrasts her with John, who takes after his mother, both in appearance and personality.
  • Surveillance as the Plot Demands: Her Junior Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles allow her to see anything going on in the Incipisphere. They're also computers.
  • Talking to Plants: She plays music to them. And it works.
  • Teleportation: Her combination of Space and First Guardian powers allows her to teleport herself, others, and random objects more or less at will.
  • Threesome Subtext: In the epilogue, Jade is living with Dave and Karkat.
  • Undignified Death: In [S] Cascade, she's killed when the Courtyard Droll blows her to kingdom come by igniting a tremendous amount of shaving cream.
  • Unusual Ears: When she reaches god tier and fuses with the partly-canine Jadesprite, she gains dog ears.
  • Verbal Tic: Jadesprite is part dog, and as such occasionally barks. It ended up being carried over to Jade after ascending to the God Tiers.
  • Waif Prophet: She has shown impressive precognitive abilities, even predicting the player's attempt to name her. Rose and Dave are aware of this, but she tries to keep it a secret from John. Ultimately subverted when her apparent clairvoyance is actually due to having woken up early on Prospit and being able to view Skaia's future-foretelling clouds while she dreams (and thus, after her dreamself's death not long into the session, she loses this ability). Kanaya and Calliope, the comic's other Space players, both share this ability.
  • Weak-Willed: Jade had a demonstrated weakness to Vriska's powers before merging with Bec, who was weak to Tavros. So after the Condesce masters both powers, she gained a perfect pawn the moment Jade pops into the post-scratch session.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: In Fruity Rumpus Asshole Factory, Jade tells Karkat that if he had approached her and her friends with any kind of civility instead of acting like a jackass to them she probably would have been willing to listen to them.


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