Chapter Text
Comic books weren’t something Jade expected to get into, especially on Earth C. But when Jake came to her with something he’d alchemited that had every comic Marvel or DC had ever published on it...well, dang, why not indulge her dancestor a little? Check out stuff he recommended? It’s not like she had much better to do, with all the Dave and Karkat stuff going on.
The first story she read was a spider-man one, on Jake’s advice. Spidey was...fun!! He was funny, he was as nice as he could be, and he stopped bad stuff from happening to good people. That was pretty much what a superhero was in her mind-all she really knew was Spider-man, Batman, and Superman. Apparently on Jake’s world there were a bunch of movies about the marvel guys? All she knew about was when John mentioned going to see Iron Man. But the important thing is-
In that story, Spider-man needed to help his friend, Curt Connors! He had tried to grow his arm back with lizard juice, but the lizard juice made him a big evil lizard man!! So after he KO’d the Lizard version, he needed to get help from another big science guy who knew about genetics, so he went to...a weird mansion called the Xavier mansion. And met-
“JAKE!! You didn’t tell me there were furries in comics!!”
He peered over her shoulder as she read the comics digitally on her iBark, a tablet shaped like a wolf howling at the moon. “Oh, righto! That’s Beast, from the X-men!”
Jade found herself...extremely interested. Who was this weirdo...blue...fancy lion scientist? What possible permutation of events would lead to Big Furry Blue Science Lion? Jake kept talking, rambling about classic storylines, epic confrontations, battles beyond reckoning-until he mentioned one storyline.
“-and the Dark Phoenix Saga, where Jean Gray is corrupted by the phoenix force and-”
“That sounds pretty interesting, where does that start?”
Jade navigated to the start of the New X-Men, where all the (apparently?) iconic ones showed up. Storm! Wolverine! Colossus! Nightcrawler!! If we’re being honest, she was mostly in it for nightcrawler. Over the next few days, she read-learned about the characters, about Storm’s attic garden, about Colossus loving his friends and just being a big friendly russian, about Nightcrawler actually being like, super catholic? Which was fucked up??
But then she met Jean Gray.
The strongest of the X-men, an omega level telepath and telekinetic who spent most of the franchise…
Not doing anything. Being fought over. Argued over. Either she was spending her time being commanded, being captured, fawning over the man she was Supposed To Love, getting mind-controlled by a creep, or being evil because some new outside force was puppeteering her, being fought over by straight white guys that were apparently supposed to represent minorities? That particular metaphor fell apart quickly, but…
Jade was looking at a mirror image of herself, crafted by men who probably didn’t realize that they were writing the character study of a teenage goddess who’d outlive all of them and also be half dog. Reading stories with Jean Gray left a pit in her stomach that felt oh-so-right to feed. So she kept going
Until the end of the Dark Phoenix Saga came.
Forced onto the...breathable part of the moon (what?) by some aliens as part of the trial for the entire solar system she destroyed as Dark Phoenix, Jean and the rest of the X-men are fighting for their lives...until Jean realizes that she’s been letting the forces of the universe, of the... narrative, essentially, push her around for too long. She faces Scott Summers, a man who is literally only interesting when he’s having dick measuring contests with a knife fisted canadian dwarf or being morally repugnant, a man she is supposed to love because in the original team he was the leader and she was the girl….and she makes the only actual choice she’s ever gotten to make in her decades of existence as a character.
She kills herself.
Jade read this final part of the Phoenix story at 3:42 AM, her room dark, her heart sunken. She...couldn’t. She could not let herself reach that point. She couldn't let herself be hung by the puppet strings anymore, at her limbs or at her throat. No more narrative. No more whims. Jade was going to make herself happy. Jade was going to go out and pursue her happiness. By 4 AM, jade had shaved her hair (save for the dog ears, those stayed fuzzy) and had already messaged Karkat and Dave a long, long, LONG rant about...well, a thousand different things. But the core message was:
GG: i love you guys but grow the fuck up already and just start fucking DATING!!!! Im gonna go top vriska now!!
And so she did. And you know what? It felt GOOD to make her own choices. To start cutting a path that wasn’t laid out for her by...fate, or whatever the fuck you call it. No narrator would tell her what she was doing anymore!! And I guess that means me. Onto the next story…
NEXT ISSUE: John Egbert and Superman