Aster

Aster (AKA Jadey) is a character played by PeachyLaJadey.

Appearance
A human woman in her late twenties, Aster possesses black hair and brown eyes. She wears a pendant with a silver, four-point star around her neck. Her usual attire consists of a light and dark blue dress with detached, puffy sleeves and matching sneakers.

While under the influence of Dahlia's Chaos Sickness, she took on her colors and cried purple tears.

After being afflicted with the Shattering, visible cracks appear under Aster's left eye and on her right hand.

Bio
One of the few humans who arrived in Sockscraft, Aster already had been to another world with Mist a year and a half ago, albeit her memories of that time are somewhat faded. Within the first week of being in the world, she offered up her SOUL to La La Dog's portal in Vampire Australia. Her soul turned out to be a Blue Human SOUL, and the first of seven needed to activate the portal. Since then, she walked around the land as a SOULLESS human. This did not come without consequences.

Story
A doppelganger appeared shortly after Aster recovered from the extraction and haunted her. Some time later, ??? manifested in her house and warned her that her soullessness made her a target for creeping vessels to possess. ??? demonstrated the peril by hijacking her body before returning it. After they left her house, Aster walked down into Night Port, where she saw a peculiar manta ray swim into the bay. The manta ray flew out of the water and onto the docks without warning, shapeshifted into a jellybean, then a skeleton of a primate and pursued her. Aster fled to Deville as shadowy hands emerged from the ground. Despite her efforts, Blair Rattle could not distract them as they were focused on the woman in blue, who then fled to Vampire Australia. As she collapsed in front of her SOUL at the La La Portal, the entities gave up for the time being. ??? watched her carefully and gave her desserts to calm her down.

Aster would spend the next few months still soulless, occasionally haunted by her pursuers, and coping with the world's increasing number of dangers. At one point, cracks on her skin mysteriously appeared overnight.

Some time later, as the creeping entities grew more aggressive, Aster was drawn into another realm by a mysterious person named Solanum, who told her to find Jester and tell them the name "Sen." Unaware of Solanum's true intentions, Aster did as was told and spoke the name to Jester with disastrous results. When Aster returned to Solanum's domain after a brief respite to process her actions, she verbally lashed out at the indifferent specter. Solanum proceeded to possess Aster and inhabit her body after the second visit. However, due to an unknown force, Aster was able to regain control of her body but unable to fully expel the ghost from her.

The day after, Aster ended up in a dark, near-endless hallway where she encountered FAMILIAR, ETERNITY, and SAPRONOSIS. In the midst of confusion, FAMILIAR broke their usual mannerisms and immediately told her to follow and take a lily of the valley that appeared in the corridor. Upon taking the flower, Aster awoke in her home, with lily still in hand. The lily spoke to her, introducing itself as THETA, and thanks her for taking it along.

Personality
Though Aster is casual in conversation, she prefers to avoid large gatherings as it can be overwhelming. After the incident with the creeping entities, she exercises due caution when traveling alone, constantly inspecting the environment around her to see if those hands emerge. She is also more pessimistic, or perhaps she had always been that way?

As a side effect of her previous experience with Mist in another world, Aster becomes irritated in the presence of megalomaniacs such as Nameless and Duo who claim they will achieve their goals of destruction. She also displayed signs of trauma as she mentally broke down when Source returned and infected several residents.

Alternate Timelines
In a conversation between Timekeeper and Aldous, Timekeeper revealed that Aster perished from shattering in a doomed timeline.

Harbinger is an alternate timeline version of an Aster in late-stage shattering but far distanced from her counterpart. The circumstances on how she came to be are unknown.

Trivia

 * The name Aster means "Star" owing to the star motif the character has.
 * Aster was originally conceived in 2008 as a self-insert who was a magical girl and a princess, wielding her own version of the Star Rod from Paper Mario. This concept has since been scrapped and no longer applies to the current incarnation.