#tips and reference

By mez82 Lots of people use Jade as a side character-especially before the EOA5, mainly because of the Kids she seems to be the only one that is not a jerk to people that she likes (John is such a douchebag sometimes, kawaii moe angel he is not-but that’s a soapbox for another day). Maybe because she's a bit more two-dimensional compared to the other kids, or it's more widely accepted that she doesn't have enough depth, I don't know.

 Jade, however, is not perpetually cheerful, and in fact seems to be using that as a sort of ‘shield’ so that she can function. After the [S] Wake, she was legit terrified and bewildered and was really, really snappy with the trolls and Jadesprite and anyone who she didn’t like. However, when one of the Kids tried talking to her she immediately reverted back to her “:D I am very cool with things and also how are you john!” sort of attitude.

 It’s telling because up till now we thought that was the only side of her. Now it begs the question-how many times has she felt like crap and still sent a million smiley faces to the other kids? She doesn’t seem to confide in them at all!

But I don’t think it’s trust issues. She really does love and trust the Kids. I think it’s because she just thinks that her problems can’t measure up to the problems of other people. She thinks that something’s bad, then something happens to her friends-and suddenly Jade thinks, “holy moses, I can’t bog them down with my bad thinking! I have to go make sure I am nice and adjusted so that they don’t have to worry about me!! They’ve got enough on their plate!”

It’s similar to Rose trying to mask her true emotions with snark and psychoanalysis, except Rose is more transparent. Probably because we expected her to be something like that, while Jade seemed like a straight-up dose of sugar.

And when she has to own up to the fact that she's scared, she does not take it well. Jadesprite represented all the feelings she tried desperately to repress from people she admired, who she thought wouldn't like her or something if she had to use them as an emotional crutch. They're two opposite ends of the spectrum, and as a rule the situation was played for laughs. Haha, Jade is slapping herself up like Karkat! Oh, this is some fresh irony here!

Yeah, that was a teenage girl trying to beat down any show of weakness.

In fact, you can tell when someone's become her friend by how fast she is quick to redirect the conversation if it tries to be about her. Karkat obviously hit that friendship event horizon when he tried to ask her if she was okay after Dave died, and she countered with "i'm fine!!! dont worry karkat i'm sure that jack was just trying to be like bec" or something along that vein.