Jasper Fairburn 💫

* male (he/him)
* monster hunter stories protag! (i bought stories bc of sendingstone and bc i wanted to get into monhun; jas is based off my blind playthrough!)
* 13-14 years old (13 at the very start of stories 1, 14 by the end), 18/19 years old (stories 2)
* primarily mains greatsword, but switches between all four weapon types in stories 1 on a case by case basis (greatsword, hammer, sword/shield, hunting horn)
* playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/04QseYBMuRGvSToabEruWz?si=607f46dc630140b1

* jazz or jas are common nicknames
* a bit shy around people when he first meets them if he doesn't immediately pick up their vibe, but loves to talk about monsters + his monsties!! this is a very easy way to break the ice with him. under that shell he's a huge, excitable sweetheart who barks bigger than he can bite sometimes, especially when it comes to monsters he's managed to defeat.
* has a bit of a reckless streak, not hesitating to take on monsters that are stronger than him, but he and his monsties are usually able to think their way through it if they realize they've bitten off more than they can chew.
* this realization, however, is usually exclusive to monsters. people, on the other hand, are a different story. if he sees a person who he knows has hurt someone he's cared about, he will charge them without thinking (or, at least, be Very tempted to do so), and you're gonna have to hold the kid by the scruff and drill it into him why charging this person might be a very, Very bad idea, lest he get himself wrecked before the realization kicks in.
    * mistook a pink rathian for ratha once and nearly fought it. thank gods it was asleep or else he would've been flattened
    * he's only gotten seriously hurt/scars from a few monsters, being the blighted yian garuga, a black diablos, a pink rathian, and the black dread. im pretty sure the latter left some kind of scar but im not sure what

* commonly worn armor sets: guild knight armor, red khezu armor, lagiacrus armor, rath heart armor, agnaktor armor, crimson qurupeco armor, uragaan armor
     * please ask for reference images of these if you plan on drawing them in color!!!

* his Current lineup is ratha, tiger eye (bulldrome), cinnabar (iodrome), spinel (pink rathian), garnet (red khezu) and citrine (kecha wacha)! he will happily talk about every single one of his monsties though if you ask. his personal goal post-story is to complete his monstiepedia
      * his closest bond is with ratha, the very first monstie he hatched himself. he first truly realized this after the events on the dovan volcano (and the threat cheval threw at him) were the thing that made him truly crumble for the first time, as he was mortified twice over at the thought of losing one of his closest friends, and this bond was even more solidified as the story went on.
      * he also cares deeply for firestone, the baby rathalos he hatched much later in the story that i talk about a bit later here, and garnet, his red khezu that's by far his most powerful monstie after ratha himself
* yes i named 90% of the monsters after gemstones and rocks yes i will happily answer any questions for particular monsties i named

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* cheval and jasper lost some touch after the attack on the village. jas Definitely tried talking to him about it several times before the story really kicked up but i don't think he ever got anywhere with it; every single time he was respectful of chev's privacy and didn't push it. as the story goes on he particularly becomes more and more concerned for cheval, feeling like something has gone Seriously Wrong Here, but after the confrontation on top of dovan volcano he's not sure what to think of him. after the one again in pondry cave he's rightfully pissed, especially after the insults he threw at ratha and navirou. however, he still cared for him, and the presumption that he died after being blasted off the cliff by makili pietru was one of the factors in his breakdown right before the deviljho fight on mt. celion. he was happy to see cheval come around by the end, though, and still sees him as a Very close friend, though they did have some apologies to exchange first. after postgame, both of them grew to realize they had feelings for each other, and i imagine they eventually end up either dating or qpps when they're both a bit older
* he loves lilia like a sister and is super proud of her for joining the scriveners!!!!! shes very good and they are still very close to this day
* jasper and reverto have some mentor/apprentice vibes going for them, not so much brotherly as it is a teacher thing, though theyre still really good friends, and jasper definitely seeks rev out for comfort time and time again. postgame rev, however, definitely lowkey adopts all three of the hakum trio, acting as a guardian figure to them. reverto and navirou, on the other hand, are idiot brothers who cannot be stopped and i love them. they would probably burn food together, it's GREAT
* jasper's navirou is basically like. a guide for him. one of his absolute closest friends and partners. sure, navirou can be a bit of an immature brat on occasion but he's also traveled a lot and he knows things and he'll act as the braincell if jasper gets Too reckless. as immature as he may be, he cares for jasper deeply and would lay everything down to defend him if he was gonna get hurt. they are Blood Brothers
* his only other kinda unique dynamic is with avinia. after her subquest he kind of realized that she maybe has a crush on him and he honestly has no idea what to do with that. she's pretty and she has a really strong monstie and she's Also a rider but like???? he's never dated anyone before and his parents said not to date when he was too young?????? and also she's a friend??? and what if he's misreading it???? (he's not misreading it he's just Nervous.) eventually they talked about it and they were both okay being just close friends! (avinia also pointed out his obvious feelings for cheval and he was like WAIT WHAT)

* HIS PARENTS ARE DECENT! his dad's a rider, his mom's a hunter! they became really interested in each other's cultures, and then in each other! and then there was jasper. a monster attacked his mom's village when he was really little so they decided to send him to hakum village so he'd be safe. he spends time writing letters to his family through the story, and another one of his post-game goals is to try finding them again.

* his story goes pretty similarly to canon / my playthrough for the most part, AND THEN YOU HIT THE DOVAN ARC. BECAUSE. HOLY FRICK
* jasper hated the laboratory and seeing what was being done to monsters and felynes alike. he didn't like manelger before, not by any stretch, but this and everything that happened in the lab made him Despise him
* note: at this point he'd been talking in a groupchat consisting of other riders/hunters from other worlds, specifically with a girl named ciela fairburn. right before confronting manelger, he dmed her saying he was going to do it, and without hesitation she made do on a promise she made to him earlier to come visit him when he was done with the journey. (by no means was this the end of said journey for him, but she knew from experience that he shouldn't have to face this alone)
* figuring out what had been done to navirou and his family was Bad, the agnaktor fight was Bad (he was thrown off ratha's back several times by agnaktor's charging thrust), he was already kind of pissed, and then it got Worse
* i would describe the event but i did that in 16 pages so here

* once he's able to start adventuring again, things go pretty similarly to canon again except for nearly dying against yian garuga. he probably forced his way back to camp knowing (or not) he was Badly Injured and promptly collapsed and they had to get a healer for him there too because Many Poison
* probably took him a bit to recover from that too, like around a week, then it goes similarly to canon until he's given the mission to find the other kinship ores. at the advice of some of the others to Freaking Take A Break he decides to do so
* while he does this, going on different errands (read: sidequests) and such, one of his tasks is to slay a rathalos. he... has a bit of a hard time with it, more emotionally than anything else, because while fighting it it reminds him so much of ratha that it feels like he's killing him. (this is a surprise tool that will help us later)
* then the rathalos retreats to its den, and jasper follows, hoping just to pick up some materials, but he accidentally wakes it up and is forced to finish the job. out of obligation/atonement to the monster, he takes one of its eggs under his care, refusing to let go of it until it hatches, even with reverto trying to ease his concerns. he names the baby firestone! he's like a younger brother to ratha. ratha and jasper love him a lot and would die for him
* soon after this, he decides it's time to go deal with the kinship ores. upon discovering cheval is on the side of the doctor he feels. pretty betrayed. but then cheval gets thrown off a cliff. jasper, thinking he's Dead, pushes down all his grief and charges up mt. celion to finish this off, logging off the groupchat for the first time in the process.
* after struggling a bit to take down the blighted brachydios, he's stopped once again by ciela... and another cheval, this one riding a pink rathian. after a bit of talking him down/getting through to him he straight up breaks down for like twenty minutes and they go to the nearby felyne hideout to recuperate while jasper processes everything. (and then they hear lilia's whistle and jasper bursts into tears again out of oh my gods cheval's Alive)
* then the pre-final boss fight happens and all of jasper's fears come to life in the form of having to fight a blighted ratha. (remember what i said before about slaying the rathalos?) it took both ciela And navirou talking sense into him to get him to do it, and the best monstie he could use to face him down was his own pink rathian, spinel. when he charges ratha and holds him to get him to settle down, he does not care that he's taking direct hits of blighted energy. ratha is his partner, and he wants him safe.
* during the actual boss fight against the black dread, he's on his a-game, taking all of his knowledge and pouring it into this one fight. everyone's watching as blow after blow is exchanged, including a move known as the "black reprimand" that should've killed him, a move that he gets straight back up from.
* while a good portion of this can be dedicated to his own determination, the other half can be dedicated to gale making a clutch play using a moxie gem a bit before this attack. she knows he would've died otherwise. we then proceeded to beat the boss in one try and vern was LOSING IT it was AMAZING

* but after he's defeated makili pietru, once the dust has settled, he just... Drops
* ciela decides to take him to her dimension to recover, for a bit longer this time. the amount of damage he took from blighted attacks in that battle--specifically from the black reprimand, because. jesus--cause... something to happen.
* ciela, though, is happy to name jasper a fairburn and a paragon for his bravery.

* AND NOW I TALK ABOUT THE BLIGHT
* so! the black reprimand! he survived that! that comes with the cost of jas being residually blighted. this really openly shows itself in a few ways--during the first couple weeks of his recovery post-makili, he dealt w pretty bad nightmares (blightmares, if you will) and seemed to be really blighted. the physical symptoms of this show his eyes turning purple, a purple flush on his face (like a fever) and starting to exhale purple mist/smoke
* as he recovers the blightmares go away, but he still has a chance of entering this blighted state when one of two conditions is met: he reaches an emotional fever pitch (a la shadow pokemon's hyper mode), or he gets badly hurt in some kind of battle. when either of these things happens his blight kicks into overdrive and gives him enough strength/adrenaline to finish whatever battle he's in, whether he's badly injured or not.