Jade Toledo

Jade Toledo image

## Character

Jade is a 25-year-old graduate student who has big dreams of being a successful fiction author, specifically in the fairytale/folklore fantasy genre. Before the start of her second year of graduate school, her and her friends, Elon and Nubia, decide to pool their income into a nicer Brooklyn apartment located in Sangrina View to escape their unpleasant roommate situations. After settling in, the girls are plagued by the constant thrum of RnB music from their upstairs neighbor at random hours of the day and night. Thus, prompting Jade to go against her anti-confrontational nature and speak to said neighbor, Enzo, about keeping the noise down. She hadn’t expected, however, for her interaction with him to turn into a crush— and eventually, even more.

### Appearance

Short in stature, Jade stands at 5’1 as she inherited her father’s height. Her most noticeable physical features (outside of her face) are her, wide hips, thick thighs and large backside. This body type runs in the maternal side of her family, and it seems that her older sibling, Oli, was the only person to be unaffected by it. On  her face, however, her most notable features are her thick eyebrows and pouty lips.

Because of persistent bullying in her adolescence, Jade held onto a skewed perception of herself that she still fights to this day. On instances when she isn’t wearing something baggy to cover her curves, she might either be around people’s she comfortable with, or with people who’ll deter weird men from attempting to catcall her.

She has two tattoos: a butterfly tattoo in the center of her chest, and a magnolia flower on her upper right thigh. Both are symbols linked to her manuscript/thesis for her master’s program in Creative Writing. She also has several piercings: three in both her ears, a navel piercing, and nipple piercings.

## Personality

The best word to describe Jade’s outward personality is soft. She’s incredibly soft-spoken and timid, only really letting her true personality show when she’s around close friends. Around everyone else, her anxiety tends to make her retreat as she clams up in scenarios she hasn’t encountered before. This also contributes to Jade’s hesitance to try new things. She has a desire to be adventurous, however, it’s easy for her to get overwhelmed and overthink things before she even gets the chance to start a new activity.

Jade has a strong desire to nurture others. She is generally compassionate and kind to everyone she comes in contact with, albeit a bit nervous. While she does possess an innate drive to take care of those around her, by extension, she often forgets to take care of herself in basic ways (i.e., eating well-balanced and regular meals, getting enough sleep at night, keeping her room clean). Because of this, her personal life tends to be very chaotic and disorganized. Jade does an incredible job of making people think she’s far more put together than she actually is.

As a good listener, people often come to her with their problems in search of advice or simply to vent. While Jade usually has no issue obliging them, she doesn’t take into account how emotionally taxing it can be to carry others problems around on top of her own. She tends to keep her own concerns to herself, as she “doesn’t like to make her problems other people’s problems as well”. When her pent up emotions do get the best of her, Jade sometimes has loud outbursts as her ability to her articulate herself well becomes swallowed by her feelings. She always profusely apologizes for her outbursts when they happen.

## Background

Jade grew up with her older siblings, Zirconia and Oli, in Brooklyn, New York. Despite her parents being successful geologists, given their own upbringing and frugality, they’ve always lived below their means so their children could have college funds. Being the youngest sibling, Jade was often able to get out of trouble unscathed even if things were her fault. This caused tension between her and her other siblings; Zirconia often held the most animosity toward Jade as the eldest sibling who took the brunt of most punishments. Oli, being the more relaxed of the three, frequently would act as a mediator with mixed success rates. As adults, Jade and her siblings have much healthier relationships, however she and Zirconia still don’t always see eye to eye.

Jade’s paternal grandparent’s don’t speak much English, and as a result, her and her siblings were taught Spanish growing up in order to communicate with her extended family. In her late childhood and early preteens, her grandparents moved back to Mexico but still wanted to spend time with their grandchildren. This resulted in Jade and her siblings being dropped off in Guanajuato City for typically around a month during their summer vacations, and has given Jade strong memories of late summer nights with her cousins and extended family.

On her maternal side, her great-grandmother spent ample time watching over Jade and her sisters because of her parent’s busy work schedules. She almost acted as a second mother to them, taking them to get their hair done as well as instilling a sense of structure in their lives from a young age.

## Relationships

### Elon & Nubia

Jade, Elon and Nubia met in undergrad while taking an African-American Women’s Studies course, and being assigned as group mates on a semester long project. Over that semester, they grew close enough to become an unbreakable trio of sorts, remaining friends well into their graduate careers.

Elon is one of the main people that helps Jade come out of her shell, encouraging her to meet new people and join her and Nubia on their outings around the city. Nubia is calm and level-headed but blunt; she tends to be the voice of reason cutting through Jade’s anxiety and Elon’s impulsivity, acting as the de facto “mom friend” of the group sometimes. Elon also was the main proponent of Jade pursuing Enzo romantically while Nubia had some initial judgements about their age difference, which have since subsided upon getting to know Enzo better.

### Holden Ulrich

Holden is a fellow graduate assistant in Jade's Creative Writing Master's program who cannot seem to grasp the fact that Jade has both no interest in him and no desire to facilitate a relationship with him, platonic or romantic. Jade doesn't complain about a lot, but Holden being a general nuisance is one of those few things.

## Notes

* Jade is extremely disorganized. Her bedroom door stays closed at all times because of how messy it can get and how much she does’t want other people to see what it looks like.
* She's very bad at cooking despite her family most definitely showing her how to cook.
* Jade needs glasses to see, but most times opts for her contact lenses instead.
* She is known for not getting enough sleep at night.
* She writes fanfiction in her spare time, which is something even Nubia and Elon don’t know about.
* Russ has offhandedly compared Jade, Elon and Nubia's friendship to that of Alvin & The Chipmunks