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Who to thank for what.
(no subject)
Applicant Info
Name: Ty
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
alternatively or a PM.
Current Character(s): N/A
Reserve: Link!
Character Info
Character's Name: John Egbert
Character's Canon: Homestuck
Character's Age: 16
Canon Point: Act 6, Intermission 4, Pg 8957
Background/History: Sweet, another link.
Strengths:
-An optimistic leader. John tends to be the one who keeps his team together by looking on the bright side of things, driving people forward and refusing to let his teammates fall behind. Throughout his journey, John finds himself doing things that others may deem as silly or flighty, and at one point one of his friends even calls him a fickle idiot. But the thing about that is even if his actions seem irrational or goofy John seems to know what he's doing about half the time. John isn't afraid to experiment and he isn't afraid to explore new environments even if he doesn't always quite grasp the situation at hand. Though "smart" isn't necessarily a word one would automatically associate with him, John is what one could describe as clever. He's quick to think on his feet and capable of making plans when he really puts his mind to it.
-Easygoing nature. John's also incredibly easy to get along with and some may even say that he's prone to being passive in a lot of cases especially around his friends. The core of who John is as a person resides in being able to support his friends in action and help them get to where they need to go. John has a tendency to see most people as an equal and he's not one to turn his back on someone in need whether it's a friend he's had for several years or it's someone he's just met that day. He's the type of guy who's thoughtful and generous, and though sometimes he puts his foot in his mouth he's quick to correct himself and think of people's feelings. It's in his nature to forgive people and even those who have manipulated him tend to be forgiven. He has a tendency to want everyone to get along and even in other timelines it's hard for anyone to say anything bad about John Egbert.
-Determination. John's not great at giving up! John actually sucks at giving up! Even when he's faced with the end of the world John does his best to try and find a way to fix things and no matter how frustrated or downtrodden he is, he's quick to bring himself around and not wallow for too long. John recognizes the value of teamwork and making sure people aren't left behind. He tends to usually be the calming force. Unlike some of the other kids, John has the ability to stay grounded even in crisis and doesn't let things knock him back that easily. He doesn't let very much bother him overall and his motivation very rarely wavers. It's a certain kind of bravery that comes from someone who knows what he has to do and refuses to let things fall to the wayside for long. Though sometimes John can find situations hard to believe and even grow a bit frustrated, he tries to see the positive and neutral grounds in all situations.
Weaknesses:
-Anger. John can get easily frustrated and a lot of John's anger that manifests tends to come from preying on his interpersonal relationships with people. When there's a threat to his friends/ family John springs into action without second thought. On the other hand, there's anger and there's frustration, and with his frustration comes John's self-doubt. Though he is the leader John does have a sufficient amount of self-doubt especially later in his journey. Wanting to be reassured his friends will still be his friends in the end, and later feeling like a failure for being unable to stop the events of Game Over, give us an inside look to how he really views his flaws. Though he doesn't let negative thinking impact him for too long, it's something that shapes a lot of his drive. If he were a less optimistic person John could easily resign to his own feelings of doubt and uncertainty.
-Impulsive naivety. John's fairly easy to influence and often times doesn't really question when people tell him to do things. This is seen especially early on when Terezi tricks him into seeing his Denizen and he gets himself killed in an alternate timeline, forcing Dave to go back in time and stop him. This is also seen when John follows Vriska's advice and seeks out his quest bed, not knowing that Vriska had rigged things so that John would die and ascend to his godtier status. Along with being easy to influence, John has really poor impulse control and he tends to act and then figure things out later. There are several instances in canon where this, along with some of his absent-minded traits, end up putting him out of touch with the others in his session. A running gag in canon is John's inability to hold onto a phone or computer for very long as he has a tendency to either leave them somewhere without thinking, or in one case throwing it into an ocean of oil simply because he was annoyed and only later asking "why did I do that." John usually can bail himself out of tough situations, but it can be said that if he put a little more thought into things he wouldn't get in those situations in the first place.
-Stubbornness. Like any teenager, John likes to think he's right and he knows what he's doing even though that's not always the case. John can be awkward and fumble on serious subjects, often times turning things into a joke to make things more light-hearted when he refuses to back down. In some cases he can be blunt or sarcastic to the point that he's outright rude to people, seeing how John isn't exactly someone who hides his true feelings very often if at all. In addition, when he really sets his mind on something it takes a large force to interfere and derail him, and even then that doesn't always work. There are just some opinions he won't change.
Powers/Abilities:
-John is capable of using an item called a sylladex! This is essentially a magical inventory system that he can shove Captchalogue cards with items on them to carry at his leisure. This also allows him to house a strife deck (see below.) Each sylladex comes with a Fetch Modus that the kids use to obtain items. Over the course of the Homestuck canon, John obtains three different moduses.
The first is the Stack modus which is just about as stupid as you'd expect. The Stack modus allows players to pull items out of their sylladex one at a time based on what is at the top of their stack. While they can combine items should the items be able to fuse (hammer + nails for example), if the sylladex is too full while using this modus the item at the bottom of the stack will drop out. This is the most inconvenient modus ever.
The second is the Queue modus which is also pretty useless. With Queue, only the card on the bottom of the stack may be used as this is essentially the reverse of the Stack modus.
The third is the Array modus which allows John to draw any card from his sylladex at will! What a useful and simple modus to use, this must be the perfect modus for John Egbert!
...but no. This ties right back into John being "inventive" and "creative", as he finds the Array modus to be fairly useless to him. With the ability to combine his moduses, this leads to his final modus.
The Queuestack Array modus is a combination of the three above and divides all of the cards in John's sylladex into four stacks of six cards each. This allows John to take either the first or the last card from one of these four stacks. Why he decided to do this is still a mystery to literally everyone, but he sure does have that ability.
-All of the kids also have access to something called a strife specibus, i.e. their specific form of fighting. Of note, John actually has two.
The first and his main strife specibus that John uses is known as Hammerkind. Hammerkind is exactly what it sounds like in which John can utilize any kind of hammer of his creation to attack his enemies. Examples of hammers John's used over the course of his adventure include a regular hammer (claw hammer), the Wrinklefucker (a hammer alchemized with two irons), the Warhammer Zillyhoo, and the Pop-a-Matic Vrillyhoo.
His second strife specibus is known as Bunnykind. This is essentially useless, though it does make a specific stuffed bunny (Liv Tyler) loyal to John so I guess there's that.
So now. Godtier! In the Homestuck canon, godtier status means a whole lot of things and essentially means that the kids have become gods and have tapped into their aspects and classes. John's class is that of the Heir and his aspect is Breath.
-As an Heir of Breath, John is capable of manipulating the wind around him! Basically this means he's just a whimsical asshole who can change the direction of the breeze to suit him. Examples of this include being able to change the direction of the breeze, create tornados, fly, use the breeze to mask his scent/cover his tracks (as seen while hopping timelines to hide from Grimbark Jade), and even playing the breeze with such immense power to clear out the clutter on his planet and fulfill part of his personal quest. There's also the fact that he can turn himself into the wind and disappear whenever he feels like it. Thanks, John.
-As just John Egbert, Heir of Breath, John has also gained the ability to travel back and forth to different points in a timeline to help manipulate/change events in history. Thanks to sticking his hand through a powerful magic item, he has the ability to concentrate on certain points in time and appear there in order to observe and change events subtly to change the overall timeline. This is best seen through Terezi's quest for him.
-Being godtier also comes with its own perks such as the ability to fly and being immortal! Mostly. However, this doesn't mean that John can't be killed. John can definitely be killed, but the only time he will actually stay dead is if his death is considered heroic or just. Being godtier also means he gets to rock a cool set of threads in his favorite color that are eternally clean and comfortable. ...no seriously, they're self-cleaning and seem to grow with the kids? Who knows how they work.
I understand some of his powers may need to be capped for the game (particularly his conditional immortality) but please let me know!
I'm really sorry for Homestuck specifically.
Other Noteworthy Traits:
-John's a talented musician when it comes to the piano, capable of playing complicated pieces and he has been playing since he was at least a toddler.
-He knows some computer coding! He's bad at it, but he knows it! (Save him.) Additionally he knows how to utilize technology enough to work his way around computers and PDAs.
-John's other "talents" include beginner's stage magic, pranking, and proooobably some second-hand baking skills as much as he doesn't want them.
-In a whole other vein, John is very clever at alchemizing items/inventive when it comes to alchemy. He's the first of the kids to figure out how to take ghost captures of items to put onto cards, not to mention combining two punched cards to create new items. (This is probably not relevant without an alchemiter, but he's generally a creative person who tends to find loopholes in things.)
Weapons & Other Special Inventory:
On his person
Everything in his sylladex, technically, which includes:
-His hammers (though most likely due to alchemizing he only has Vrillyhoo on his person. It's an incredibly strong hammer and it's also equip with a roll mechanic that means when John delivers a final blow, the dice at the top will roll and produce a random pre-programmed outcome.)
-Whatever other random crap he carries in there so nothing super detailed. Think like maybe some candy, snacks, random rocks he's picked up, playing cards, a laptop, his phone, (both of which will not work), etc.
-His godtier outfit, which is this stupid thing.
Additional item:
Ideally I would like a piano but obviously this may be too large to be considered reasonable. If so, is it possible to have something he lost earlier in canon? Specifically this stuffed rabbit from the movie Con Air.
Color: #0715cd, which is a blue. This color was chosen solely because it's the exact hex color of the font he uses in his canon texts/chats with the other characters + it also matches his exact eye color (a trait all of the Homestuck kids share.)
Sample: TDM top-level!
[ OPTIONAL ] World Aspect: In the Homestuck canon there are these friendly (usually) and helpful (sometimes) little guys called Sprites which serve to be as Sburb players' guide through the game! Initially they're just floaty little energy balls, but once prototyped (i.e. you throw inanimate stuff into them, they take on those forms) and even further customized prototyped, they can help with quests by providing information and intel and generally being chatty friends. All of the information is on the page which is a lot but for game purposes I thought perhaps the following could be a thing:
-Characters can obtain Kernelsprites (the little balls) and prototype them with anything they find/anything they have on them/etc.
-These Sprites can then accompany characters on quests for the Town and serve as a guide while the characters do the work on these given quests.
-Unlike in Homestuck, these would be downgraded so they cannot fight for characters (i.e. they don't shoot lasers, etc.) and they cannot use powers to create things that do not already exist.
Name: Ty
Contact:
Current Character(s): N/A
Reserve: Link!
Character Info
Character's Name: John Egbert
Character's Canon: Homestuck
Character's Age: 16
Canon Point: Act 6, Intermission 4, Pg 8957
Background/History: Sweet, another link.
Strengths:
-An optimistic leader. John tends to be the one who keeps his team together by looking on the bright side of things, driving people forward and refusing to let his teammates fall behind. Throughout his journey, John finds himself doing things that others may deem as silly or flighty, and at one point one of his friends even calls him a fickle idiot. But the thing about that is even if his actions seem irrational or goofy John seems to know what he's doing about half the time. John isn't afraid to experiment and he isn't afraid to explore new environments even if he doesn't always quite grasp the situation at hand. Though "smart" isn't necessarily a word one would automatically associate with him, John is what one could describe as clever. He's quick to think on his feet and capable of making plans when he really puts his mind to it.
-Easygoing nature. John's also incredibly easy to get along with and some may even say that he's prone to being passive in a lot of cases especially around his friends. The core of who John is as a person resides in being able to support his friends in action and help them get to where they need to go. John has a tendency to see most people as an equal and he's not one to turn his back on someone in need whether it's a friend he's had for several years or it's someone he's just met that day. He's the type of guy who's thoughtful and generous, and though sometimes he puts his foot in his mouth he's quick to correct himself and think of people's feelings. It's in his nature to forgive people and even those who have manipulated him tend to be forgiven. He has a tendency to want everyone to get along and even in other timelines it's hard for anyone to say anything bad about John Egbert.
-Determination. John's not great at giving up! John actually sucks at giving up! Even when he's faced with the end of the world John does his best to try and find a way to fix things and no matter how frustrated or downtrodden he is, he's quick to bring himself around and not wallow for too long. John recognizes the value of teamwork and making sure people aren't left behind. He tends to usually be the calming force. Unlike some of the other kids, John has the ability to stay grounded even in crisis and doesn't let things knock him back that easily. He doesn't let very much bother him overall and his motivation very rarely wavers. It's a certain kind of bravery that comes from someone who knows what he has to do and refuses to let things fall to the wayside for long. Though sometimes John can find situations hard to believe and even grow a bit frustrated, he tries to see the positive and neutral grounds in all situations.
Weaknesses:
-Anger. John can get easily frustrated and a lot of John's anger that manifests tends to come from preying on his interpersonal relationships with people. When there's a threat to his friends/ family John springs into action without second thought. On the other hand, there's anger and there's frustration, and with his frustration comes John's self-doubt. Though he is the leader John does have a sufficient amount of self-doubt especially later in his journey. Wanting to be reassured his friends will still be his friends in the end, and later feeling like a failure for being unable to stop the events of Game Over, give us an inside look to how he really views his flaws. Though he doesn't let negative thinking impact him for too long, it's something that shapes a lot of his drive. If he were a less optimistic person John could easily resign to his own feelings of doubt and uncertainty.
-Impulsive naivety. John's fairly easy to influence and often times doesn't really question when people tell him to do things. This is seen especially early on when Terezi tricks him into seeing his Denizen and he gets himself killed in an alternate timeline, forcing Dave to go back in time and stop him. This is also seen when John follows Vriska's advice and seeks out his quest bed, not knowing that Vriska had rigged things so that John would die and ascend to his godtier status. Along with being easy to influence, John has really poor impulse control and he tends to act and then figure things out later. There are several instances in canon where this, along with some of his absent-minded traits, end up putting him out of touch with the others in his session. A running gag in canon is John's inability to hold onto a phone or computer for very long as he has a tendency to either leave them somewhere without thinking, or in one case throwing it into an ocean of oil simply because he was annoyed and only later asking "why did I do that." John usually can bail himself out of tough situations, but it can be said that if he put a little more thought into things he wouldn't get in those situations in the first place.
-Stubbornness. Like any teenager, John likes to think he's right and he knows what he's doing even though that's not always the case. John can be awkward and fumble on serious subjects, often times turning things into a joke to make things more light-hearted when he refuses to back down. In some cases he can be blunt or sarcastic to the point that he's outright rude to people, seeing how John isn't exactly someone who hides his true feelings very often if at all. In addition, when he really sets his mind on something it takes a large force to interfere and derail him, and even then that doesn't always work. There are just some opinions he won't change.
Powers/Abilities:
-John is capable of using an item called a sylladex! This is essentially a magical inventory system that he can shove Captchalogue cards with items on them to carry at his leisure. This also allows him to house a strife deck (see below.) Each sylladex comes with a Fetch Modus that the kids use to obtain items. Over the course of the Homestuck canon, John obtains three different moduses.
The first is the Stack modus which is just about as stupid as you'd expect. The Stack modus allows players to pull items out of their sylladex one at a time based on what is at the top of their stack. While they can combine items should the items be able to fuse (hammer + nails for example), if the sylladex is too full while using this modus the item at the bottom of the stack will drop out. This is the most inconvenient modus ever.
The second is the Queue modus which is also pretty useless. With Queue, only the card on the bottom of the stack may be used as this is essentially the reverse of the Stack modus.
The third is the Array modus which allows John to draw any card from his sylladex at will! What a useful and simple modus to use, this must be the perfect modus for John Egbert!
...but no. This ties right back into John being "inventive" and "creative", as he finds the Array modus to be fairly useless to him. With the ability to combine his moduses, this leads to his final modus.
The Queuestack Array modus is a combination of the three above and divides all of the cards in John's sylladex into four stacks of six cards each. This allows John to take either the first or the last card from one of these four stacks. Why he decided to do this is still a mystery to literally everyone, but he sure does have that ability.
-All of the kids also have access to something called a strife specibus, i.e. their specific form of fighting. Of note, John actually has two.
The first and his main strife specibus that John uses is known as Hammerkind. Hammerkind is exactly what it sounds like in which John can utilize any kind of hammer of his creation to attack his enemies. Examples of hammers John's used over the course of his adventure include a regular hammer (claw hammer), the Wrinklefucker (a hammer alchemized with two irons), the Warhammer Zillyhoo, and the Pop-a-Matic Vrillyhoo.
His second strife specibus is known as Bunnykind. This is essentially useless, though it does make a specific stuffed bunny (Liv Tyler) loyal to John so I guess there's that.
So now. Godtier! In the Homestuck canon, godtier status means a whole lot of things and essentially means that the kids have become gods and have tapped into their aspects and classes. John's class is that of the Heir and his aspect is Breath.
-As an Heir of Breath, John is capable of manipulating the wind around him! Basically this means he's just a whimsical asshole who can change the direction of the breeze to suit him. Examples of this include being able to change the direction of the breeze, create tornados, fly, use the breeze to mask his scent/cover his tracks (as seen while hopping timelines to hide from Grimbark Jade), and even playing the breeze with such immense power to clear out the clutter on his planet and fulfill part of his personal quest. There's also the fact that he can turn himself into the wind and disappear whenever he feels like it. Thanks, John.
-As just John Egbert, Heir of Breath, John has also gained the ability to travel back and forth to different points in a timeline to help manipulate/change events in history. Thanks to sticking his hand through a powerful magic item, he has the ability to concentrate on certain points in time and appear there in order to observe and change events subtly to change the overall timeline. This is best seen through Terezi's quest for him.
-Being godtier also comes with its own perks such as the ability to fly and being immortal! Mostly. However, this doesn't mean that John can't be killed. John can definitely be killed, but the only time he will actually stay dead is if his death is considered heroic or just. Being godtier also means he gets to rock a cool set of threads in his favorite color that are eternally clean and comfortable. ...no seriously, they're self-cleaning and seem to grow with the kids? Who knows how they work.
I understand some of his powers may need to be capped for the game (particularly his conditional immortality) but please let me know!
I'm really sorry for Homestuck specifically.
Other Noteworthy Traits:
-John's a talented musician when it comes to the piano, capable of playing complicated pieces and he has been playing since he was at least a toddler.
-He knows some computer coding! He's bad at it, but he knows it! (Save him.) Additionally he knows how to utilize technology enough to work his way around computers and PDAs.
-John's other "talents" include beginner's stage magic, pranking, and proooobably some second-hand baking skills as much as he doesn't want them.
-In a whole other vein, John is very clever at alchemizing items/inventive when it comes to alchemy. He's the first of the kids to figure out how to take ghost captures of items to put onto cards, not to mention combining two punched cards to create new items. (This is probably not relevant without an alchemiter, but he's generally a creative person who tends to find loopholes in things.)
Weapons & Other Special Inventory:
On his person
Everything in his sylladex, technically, which includes:
-His hammers (though most likely due to alchemizing he only has Vrillyhoo on his person. It's an incredibly strong hammer and it's also equip with a roll mechanic that means when John delivers a final blow, the dice at the top will roll and produce a random pre-programmed outcome.)
-Whatever other random crap he carries in there so nothing super detailed. Think like maybe some candy, snacks, random rocks he's picked up, playing cards, a laptop, his phone, (both of which will not work), etc.
-His godtier outfit, which is this stupid thing.
Additional item:
Ideally I would like a piano but obviously this may be too large to be considered reasonable. If so, is it possible to have something he lost earlier in canon? Specifically this stuffed rabbit from the movie Con Air.
Color: #0715cd, which is a blue. This color was chosen solely because it's the exact hex color of the font he uses in his canon texts/chats with the other characters + it also matches his exact eye color (a trait all of the Homestuck kids share.)
Sample: TDM top-level!
[ OPTIONAL ] World Aspect: In the Homestuck canon there are these friendly (usually) and helpful (sometimes) little guys called Sprites which serve to be as Sburb players' guide through the game! Initially they're just floaty little energy balls, but once prototyped (i.e. you throw inanimate stuff into them, they take on those forms) and even further customized prototyped, they can help with quests by providing information and intel and generally being chatty friends. All of the information is on the page which is a lot but for game purposes I thought perhaps the following could be a thing:
-Characters can obtain Kernelsprites (the little balls) and prototype them with anything they find/anything they have on them/etc.
-These Sprites can then accompany characters on quests for the Town and serve as a guide while the characters do the work on these given quests.
-Unlike in Homestuck, these would be downgraded so they cannot fight for characters (i.e. they don't shoot lasers, etc.) and they cannot use powers to create things that do not already exist.
Spellbind App
OOC INFO;
NAME: Ty
AGE: 18+
CONTACT:
IC INFO;
CHARACTER NAME: John Egbert
CANON & HISTORY: Homestuck, John's history
AGE: 16
CANON POINT: This page in Act 6, Act 6, Intermission 4 in which he promises Terezi he will learn how to use his time-altering powers and he and Roxy split up to seek out their deizeins.
PERSONALITY:
Okay so John Egbert. John Egbert sure does happen a lot and is generally considered the one person in his world that starts the adventure and helps end it. The thing is that it's never been John's desire to be the hero or be the leader. It wasn't his primary goal to be the one to set action into motion, but instead he finds himself thrown directly into it and rides the waves as they come.
TG: but the weird thing is thats whats cool about you. youre this naive guy like pinocchio tumbled ass backwards off the turnip truck and started liking ghostbusters. then the fairy godmother kissed your nose or some shit and you turned out to be not made of wood and also pretty cool to talk to. one day your gooberish ways are gonna land you in a jam and i know im going to have to get you off the hook but its cool i got your back bro.
At the beginning of their adventure, John is a normal teenage boy with a variety of normal teenage hobbies. As a boy who loves his sense of humor above all else, John finds himself content with life and surrounding himself with lowkey yet slightly whimsical hobbies (including comedy/pranks magic tricks, music, video games, computer programming and watching movies.) He's raised in arguably the most normal household of his friends, surrounded by the love and sometimes hovering of his father whom John clearly has a close bond with. Unsurprisingly, the stability of his every day life and these certain hobbies actually help shape who John is and allow him the ability to think more openly than most of his peers.
JADE: somehow he understood the only way was to conceive of a third option
JADE: an idea beyond the simple binary set of outcomes before him
JADE: and interestingly
JADE: it was coming to this understanding which gave him the first glimpse of how to control the power
Due to his sense of curiosity and, frankly, poor impulse control, along with the idea that there is always a way to solve everything, John tends to be an innovative kid and this trait lends him well on his journey. For instance, it's this very core component that helps John learn to start alchemizing items at the beginning of the game, fusing cards and solving puzzles along the way. John's strategy of thinking outside of the box is also what helps him ultimately complete his personal quest and learn to use his powers. Learning to use these powers was important, as it's the only way for John to be able to fix the broken timeline, go backwards, and alter things enough to save everyone he cares about and make things right. As the first of the Betas to begin the game, he's the one who paves the way for what they're supposed to be doing and though sometimes his friends remark that they "have no idea what the fuck he's doing there", it allows for others to follow his example.
Throughout his journey, John finds himself doing things that others may deem as silly or flighty, and at one point one of his friends even calls him a fickle idiot. But the thing about that is even if his actions seem irrational or goofy John seems to know what he's doing about half the time. John isn't afraid to experiment and he isn't afraid to explore new environments even if he doesn't always quite grasp the situation at hand. Though "smart" isn't necessarily a word one would automatically associate with him (as that term tends to fall more in line with his friends Rose and Jade), John is what one could describe as clever. He's quick to think on his feet and capable of making plans when he really puts his mind to it. On the other hand, he tends to get restless when left to his own devices for too long and that further drives him to follow some of his more ridiculous ideas, such as fuse a hammer and a child's pogo ride, or stick his arm right through a portal that no one knows how to use. Or even, in fact, ironing his pants while waiting around for everyone else to catch up with him at the meeting place his friends were supposed to arrive to.
Yet somehow even being impulsive usually works as a positive trait for him. It's a certain kind of bravery that comes from someone who knows what he has to do and refuses to let things fall to the wayside for long. Though sometimes John can find situations hard to believe and even grow a bit frustrated, he doesn't let things bring him down for long and instead tries to see the positive and neutral grounds in all situations.
TT: That's why you're our leader, John.
EB: huh?
TT: Optimism through stalwart skepticism is a defect not everyone is lucky enough to be cursed with.
EB: that's stupid.
EB: i'm not your leader, i am your FRIEND, there is a BIG difference!
TT: Statements like that are also why you're our leader.
EB: pff.
EB: laaaaaaaame.
Even though several people reference him as the leader early on, John isn't someone who sees himself as a leader at first. Or, like, ever. Even right before their final battle begins when they're dividing their group and making plans, though he'll admit to being the leader it's said with an exasperated kind of fondness that comes from knowing his friends are counting on him. The core of who John is as a person resides in being able to support his friends in action and help them get to where they need to go. John has a tendency to see most people as an equal and he's not one to turn his back on someone in need whether it's a friend he's had for several years or it's someone he's just met that day. He's the type of guy who's thoughtful and generous, and though sometimes he puts his foot in his mouth he's quick to correct himself and think of people's feelings. We also see this in his interaction with the Betas (Dave, Jade and Rose) and how he goes out of his way to send them all individualized birthday gifts and letters that indicate he really takes the time to understand his friends as best as he can.
He makes friends very easily and takes care of people when he can, being the positive force behind their team and the one to encourage them. One of the most obvious instances of this is his conversation with Roxy and Terezi in which he recognizes that he has to mobilize those who are left in order to fix reality as they know it. This is also prevalent in his early conversations with Roxy about Calliope in which John promises to find a way to go backwards, reclaim the ring of life that he lost, and bring it back to Roxy to give to Calliope despite never meeting Calliope at this point and barely knowing Roxy herself.
John recognizes the value of teamwork and making sure people aren't left behind. He tends to usually be the calming force and his determination and kindness help lend to the "leader" qualities as well. ("ROXY: (yoo troll grouch... john is so nice agh its fuckin me up) TEREZI: (1 KNOW) TEREZI: (1T'S D1SGUST1NG)") Unlike some of the other kids, John has the ability to stay grounded even in crisis and doesn't let things knock him back that easily. He doesn't let very much bother him overall and his motivation very rarely wavers.
One of the other important things about John that truly defines him is how he really is the first of the Betas to accomplish several great feats. Aside from being the first of them to enter their session, John is the first to ascend to godtier status as seen in the flash [S] John: Rise Up. What this means is that he's the first to obtain great power and also the first to learn to really use his powers. John is capable of extraordinary feats when he really puts his mind to it and concentrates, and though he finds it frustrating and annoying at first he later uses his own experiences to help other people reach their full potential.
JADE: i dunno, i havent minded much... maybe its different for me though because i used to live all alone?
JOHN: oh sure, i'm sure it's GREAT for you. you get to spend your days smooching and breaking up with dave sprite and what not, and you can shrink down to any old planet you feel like, any time. whereas i have to make this whole big deal of ASKING you to shrink or unshrink me, and...
JADE: but i dont mind doing that any time!!!
JOHN: i know, but you think i want to bug you about that at the drop of a hat? when you're busy and on dates and stuff? i just happen to have respect for something called PERSONAL BOUNDARIES, jade.
JOHN: and it's not like there's really anyone else to talk to, except the inscrutable chess people and a bunch of brainless consorts and an idiot cat princess. oh and also nanna, but i mean, she's my grandmother, and she's great, but a guy can only spend so much quality time with his grandmother before he starts to feel like kind of a loser whose friends are too busy to spend time with him!
JADE: john... if you told me this earlier i would have...
JOHN: and i still never visit any interesting dream bubbles, and we can't even finish our cool planet quests because the moment we broke through the window all our denizens decided to go back to sleep, and...
JOHN: i guess what i'm saying is, i'm MORE than ready to get to the other window and meet our friends and other new people and stuff.
....
JADE: but id be more than happy to talk about them if youd like. actually i would enjoy that because i never really get to talk about science wi...
JOHN: no, i don't want to talk about physics! i don't know anything about the laws of physics, because they are hard and boring.
JOHN: i simply would like them to behave in a way that is most convenient to ME and MY LIFE! is that really asking too much?
JADE: yes as a matter of fact it is!
JOHN: well, guess what? SCIENCE IS STUPID BULLSHIT!!!
JADE: you take that back!!!!!
JOHN: no.
JOHN: magic is awesome.
JOHN: science blows.
JOHN: the end.
But that doesn't mean he's simply a nice boy. John is still a typical teenager and still has plenty of qualities that can bite back. Though John doesn't get angry about much, when he does his temper can get a bit out of control. One instance of this comes in his first face-to-face interaction with Caliborn where he's so angry that the cherub's slandering his friends' reputations he outright attacks him and punches him repeatedly. Another instance is when Davesprite plays a joke on him, leaving a note for John as a mimicry of his deceased father, and John's response is to ask Jade for a hammer so he can hunt down the sprite and make him pay.
A lot of John's anger that manifests tends to come from preying on his interpersonal relationships with people. When there's a threat to his friends or his family John springs into action without second thought. On the other hand, there's anger and there's frustration, and with his frustration comes John's self-doubt. Though he is the leader of the Betas John does have a sufficient amount of self-doubt especially later in his journey. Wanting to be reassured his friends will still be his friends in the end, and later feeling like a failure for being unable to stop the events of Game Over, give us an inside look to John's psyche and how he really views himself.
"I got here too late to do anything. Because as far as I may think I've come...I still don't know what i'm doing. Dave's bro in the funny pants was right. But not about himself. I was the one who let everybody down. I'm the failure. It's me."
Though he doesn't let negative thinking impact him for too long, it's something that shapes a lot of his drive and if he were a less optimistic person John may be someone who resigns to his own feelings of doubt and uncertainty. Like most of the kids in the Homestuck canon John has faced a large amount of loss and trauma including the death of his father and the death of all of his friends after Game Over. At first he doesn't even believe it when Terezi says everyone is dead and he tries to justify the information as being wrong. ("Did you take Jade's pulse? You know she likes to sleep a lot.") It's this form of naivety that also works against John in several cases. He's fairly easy to influence and often times doesn't really question when people tell him to do things. This is seen especially early on when Terezi tricks him into seeing his Deizein (a large monster residing on his planet) and he gets himself killed in an alternate timeline, forcing Dave to go backwards in time and stop John from following Terezi's orders. This is also seen when John follows Vriska's advice and seeks out his quest bed, not knowing that Vriska had rigged things so that John would die and ascend to his godtier status.
Along with being easy to influence, it's important to go back to John's poor impulse control and his tendency to act and then figure things out later. There are several instances in canon where this, along with some of his absent-minded traits, end up putting him out of touch with the others in his session. A running gag in the Homestuck canon is John's inability to hold onto a cell phone or a laptop for very long as he has a tendency to either leave them somewhere without thinking, or in one case throwing it into an ocean of oil simply because he was annoyed and only later asking "why did I do that." John usually can bail himself out of tough situations, but it can be said that if he put a little more thought into things he wouldn't get in those situations in the first place.
John can also be awkward and fumble on serious subjects, often times turning things into a joke to make things more light-hearted. In some cases he can be blunt or sarcastic to the point that he's outright rude to people, seeing how John isn't exactly someone who hides his true feelings very often if at all. At one point John even describes himself as being shy and it's easy to say that he can be somewhat passive especially with his friends. He's prone to wandering off on his own and doing his own thing without warning which makes him somewhat of a wildcard, but in the end he always comes back. While these flaws can interfere with his relationships with his friends, it's the positive traits John tries to focus on.
It's in his nature to forgive people. People will and have manipulated him and made his life a mess but even those people earn John's forgiveness in the end. He has a tendency to want everyone to get along and he often acts as a connecting bridge and helps keep his friends together. It's hard for anyone to say anything bad about John Egbert, and this transcends time and space as well. His post-scratch self (an alternate version of himself) is described as a kindly old cornball and it's said that there isn't "a nicer guy you couldn't hope to meet."
So overall, John is a boy who's been thrown into a role he didn't want in the first place but takes it in stride, rising up above everything and bringing everybody else along for the ride. In the interest of his friends and saving the world, he'll do anything to finish anything he sets out to do and keep his sense of humor along the way. And that, perhaps, is exactly the true reason he is the leader.
POWERS:
-John is capable of using an item called a sylladex! This is essentially a magical inventory system that he can shove Captchalogue cards with items on them to carry at his leisure. This also allows him to house a strife deck (see below.) Each sylladex comes with a Fetch Modus that the kids use to obtain items. Over the course of the Homestuck canon, John obtains three different moduses.
The first is the Stack modus which is just about as stupid as you'd expect. The Stack modus allows players to pull items out of their sylladex one at a time based on what is at the top of their stack. While they can combine items should the items be able to fuse (hammer + nails for example), if the sylladex is too full while using this modus the item at the bottom of the stack will drop out. This is the most inconvenient modus ever.
The second is the Queue modus which is also pretty useless. With Queue, only the card on the bottom of the stack may be used as this is essentially the reverse of the Stack modus.
The third is the Array modus which allows John to draw any card from his sylladex at will! What a useful and simple modus to use, this must be the perfect modus for John Egbert!
...but no. This ties right back into John being "inventive" and "creative", as he finds the Array modus to be fairly useless to him. With the ability to combine his moduses, this leads to his final modus.
The Queuestack Array modus is a combination of the three above and divides all of the cards in John's sylladex into four stacks of six cards each. This allows John to take either the first or the last card from one of these four stacks. Why he decided to do this is still a mystery to literally everyone, but he sure does have that ability.
-All of the kids also have access to something called a strife specibus, i.e. their specific form of fighting. Of note, John actually has two.
The first and his main strife specibus that John uses is known as Hammerkind. Hammerkind is exactly what it sounds like in which John can utilize any kind of hammer of his creation to attack his enemies. Examples of hammers John's used over the course of his adventure include a regular hammer (claw hammer), the Wrinklefucker (a hammer alchemized with two irons), the Warhammer Zillyhoo, and the Pop-a-Matic Vrillyhoo.
His second strife specibus is known as Bunnykind. This is essentially useless, though it does make a specific stuffed bunny (Liv Tyler) loyal to John so I guess there's that.
So now. Godtier! In the homestuck canon, godtier status means a whole lot of things and essentially means that the kids have become gods and have tapped into their aspects and classes. John's class is that of the Heir and his aspect is Breath.
-As an Heir of Breath, John is capable of manipulating the wind around him! Basically this means he's just a whimsical asshole who can change the direction of the breeze to suit him. Examples of this include being able to change the direction of the breeze, create tornados, fly, use the breeze to mask his scent/cover his tracks (as seen while hopping timelines to hide from Grimbark Jade), and even playing the breeze with such immense power to clear out the clutter on his planet and fulfill part of his personal quest. There's also the fact that he can turn himself into the wind and disappear whenever he feels like it. Thanks, John.
-As just John Egbert, Heir of Breath, John has also gained the ability to travel back and forth to different points in a timeline to help manipulate/change events in history. Thanks to sticking his hand through a powerful magic item, he has the ability to concentrate on certain points in time and appear there in order to observe and change events subtly to change the overall timeline. This is best seen through Terezi's quest for him.
-Being godtier also comes with its own perks such as the ability to fly and being immortal! However, this doesn't mean that John can't be killed. John can definitely be killed, but the only time he will actually stay dead is if his death is considered heroic or just. Being godtier also means he gets to rock a cool set of threads in his favorite color that are eternally clean and comfortable.
These are all powers that would...you know, be depowered.
OTHER:
Of note, aside from being a windy thing, John is an accomplished pianist and capable of playing complex pieces even from a young age. He knows a handful of computer coding, loves incorporating pranks into his daily life, and overall knows how to make his way around modern society.
GAME INFO;
MAGIC ABILITY: John Egbert can fuse any two items together regardless of size to create something new.
PRICE: His planet, Land of Wind and Shade. This planet has been shrunken down and is carried with him on his three-year journey to their new universe and contains several beings. This planet is also important as it's where he needs to go to accomplish things to fix his timeline at his current canon point.
ACCLIMATION: 8. Homestuck is a canon in which the characters are playing a very dangerous game that results in a lot of destruction and rebuilding and obtaining new powers that require some getting used to. With shenanigans such as new planets, alternate timelines and in John's particular case being able to rewrite some of the events of his own timeline, going through different quests and world-hopping will not be unusual for him and he will be very proactive in his explorations. There will be some hesitations in some of the planets, and his chosen canon point does allow for him to be somewhat uncertain of what he's doing here, but ultimate it will drive him forward. In addition, he will always idly be wondering about working on borrowed time and getting back to fix his timeline, but his sense of loyalty and needing to get things done will mean he accomplishes tasks here first.
SAMPLE;
LINKED SAMPLE: TDM top-level and thread with castmates here, and TDM thread with non-castmate
BE THE HERO;
PLAYER
YOUR NAME: Ty
18+?: Y
CONTACT:alternatively
YOUR NAME: Ty
18+?: Y
CONTACT:
CHARACTER: CANON SECTION
NAME: John Egbert
AGE: By the time HS ends he's like. 20?
CANON: Homestuck
NAME: John Egbert
AGE: By the time HS ends he's like. 20?
CANON: Homestuck
CANON HISTORY: Laughs sadly
CANON PERSONALITY:
Okay so John Egbert. John Egbert sure does happen a lot and is generally considered the one person in his world that starts the adventure and helps end it. The thing is that it's never been John's desire to be the hero or be the leader. It wasn't his primary goal to be the one to set action into motion, but instead he finds himself thrown directly into it and rides the waves as they come.
TG: but the weird thing is thats whats cool about you. youre this naive guy like pinocchio tumbled ass backwards off the turnip truck and started liking ghostbusters. then the fairy godmother kissed your nose or some shit and you turned out to be not made of wood and also pretty cool to talk to. one day your gooberish ways are gonna land you in a jam and i know im going to have to get you off the hook but its cool i got your back bro.
At the beginning of their adventure, John is a normal teenage boy with a variety of normal teenage hobbies. As a boy who loves his sense of humor above all else, John finds himself content with life and surrounding himself with lowkey yet slightly whimsical hobbies (including comedy/pranks magic tricks, music, video games, computer programming and watching movies.) He's raised in arguably the most normal household of his friends, surrounded by the love and sometimes hovering of his father whom John clearly has a close bond with. Unsurprisingly, the stability of his every day life and these certain hobbies actually help shape who John is and allow him the ability to think more openly than most of his peers.
JADE: somehow he understood the only way was to conceive of a third option
JADE: an idea beyond the simple binary set of outcomes before him
JADE: and interestingly
JADE: it was coming to this understanding which gave him the first glimpse of how to control the power
Due to his sense of curiosity and, frankly, poor impulse control, along with the idea that there is always a way to solve everything, John tends to be an innovative kid and this trait lends him well on his journey. For instance, it's this very core component that helps John learn to start alchemizing items at the beginning of the game, fusing cards and solving puzzles along the way. John's strategy of thinking outside of the box is also what helps him ultimately complete his personal quest and learn to use his powers. Learning to use these powers was important, as it's the only way for John to be able to fix the broken timeline, go backwards, and alter things enough to save everyone he cares about and make things right. As the first of the Betas to begin the game, he's the one who paves the way for what they're supposed to be doing and though sometimes his friends remark that they "have no idea what the fuck he's doing there", it allows for others to follow his example.
Throughout his journey, John finds himself doing things that others may deem as silly or flighty, and at one point one of his friends even calls him a fickle idiot. But the thing about that is even if his actions seem irrational or goofy John seems to know what he's doing about half the time. John isn't afraid to experiment and he isn't afraid to explore new environments even if he doesn't always quite grasp the situation at hand. Though "smart" isn't necessarily a word one would automatically associate with him (as that term tends to fall more in line with his friends Rose and Jade), John is what one could describe as clever. He's quick to think on his feet and capable of making plans when he really puts his mind to it. On the other hand, he tends to get restless when left to his own devices for too long and that further drives him to follow some of his more ridiculous ideas, such as fuse a hammer and a child's pogo ride, or stick his arm right through a portal that no one knows how to use. Or even, in fact, ironing his pants while waiting around for everyone else to catch up with him at the meeting place his friends were supposed to arrive to.
Yet somehow even being impulsive usually works as a positive trait for him. It's a certain kind of bravery that comes from someone who knows what he has to do and refuses to let things fall to the wayside for long. Though sometimes John can find situations hard to believe and even grow a bit frustrated, he doesn't let things bring him down for long and instead tries to see the positive and neutral grounds in all situations.
TT: That's why you're our leader, John.
EB: huh?
TT: Optimism through stalwart skepticism is a defect not everyone is lucky enough to be cursed with.
EB: that's stupid.
EB: i'm not your leader, i am your FRIEND, there is a BIG difference!
TT: Statements like that are also why you're our leader.
EB: pff.
EB: laaaaaaaame.
Even though several people reference him as the leader early on, John isn't someone who sees himself as a leader at first. Or, like, ever. Even right before their final battle begins when they're dividing their group and making plans, though he'll admit to being the leader it's said with an exasperated kind of fondness that comes from knowing his friends are counting on him. The core of who John is as a person resides in being able to support his friends in action and help them get to where they need to go. John has a tendency to see most people as an equal and he's not one to turn his back on someone in need whether it's a friend he's had for several years or it's someone he's just met that day. He's the type of guy who's thoughtful and generous, and though sometimes he puts his foot in his mouth he's quick to correct himself and think of people's feelings. We also see this in his interaction with the Betas (Dave, Jade and Rose) and how he goes out of his way to send them all individualized birthday gifts and letters that indicate he really takes the time to understand his friends as best as he can.
He makes friends very easily and takes care of people when he can, being the positive force behind their team and the one to encourage them. One of the most obvious instances of this is his conversation with Roxy and Terezi in which he recognizes that he has to mobilize those who are left in order to fix reality as they know it. This is also prevalent in his early conversations with Roxy about Calliope in which John promises to find a way to go backwards, reclaim the ring of life that he lost, and bring it back to Roxy to give to Calliope despite never meeting Calliope at this point and barely knowing Roxy herself.
John recognizes the value of teamwork and making sure people aren't left behind. He tends to usually be the calming force and his determination and kindness help lend to the "leader" qualities as well. ("ROXY: (yoo troll grouch... john is so nice agh its fuckin me up) TEREZI: (1 KNOW) TEREZI: (1T'S D1SGUST1NG)") Unlike some of the other kids, John has the ability to stay grounded even in crisis and doesn't let things knock him back that easily. He doesn't let very much bother him overall and his motivation very rarely wavers.
One of the other important things about John that truly defines him is how he really is the first of the Betas to accomplish several great feats. Aside from being the first of them to enter their session, John is the first to ascend to godtier status as seen in the flash [S] John: Rise Up. What this means is that he's the first to obtain great power and also the first to learn to really use his powers. John is capable of extraordinary feats when he really puts his mind to it and concentrates, and though he finds it frustrating and annoying at first he later uses his own experiences to help other people reach their full potential.
JADE: i dunno, i havent minded much... maybe its different for me though because i used to live all alone?
JOHN: oh sure, i'm sure it's GREAT for you. you get to spend your days smooching and breaking up with dave sprite and what not, and you can shrink down to any old planet you feel like, any time. whereas i have to make this whole big deal of ASKING you to shrink or unshrink me, and...
JADE: but i dont mind doing that any time!!!
JOHN: i know, but you think i want to bug you about that at the drop of a hat? when you're busy and on dates and stuff? i just happen to have respect for something called PERSONAL BOUNDARIES, jade.
JOHN: and it's not like there's really anyone else to talk to, except the inscrutable chess people and a bunch of brainless consorts and an idiot cat princess. oh and also nanna, but i mean, she's my grandmother, and she's great, but a guy can only spend so much quality time with his grandmother before he starts to feel like kind of a loser whose friends are too busy to spend time with him!
JADE: john... if you told me this earlier i would have...
JOHN: and i still never visit any interesting dream bubbles, and we can't even finish our cool planet quests because the moment we broke through the window all our denizens decided to go back to sleep, and...
JOHN: i guess what i'm saying is, i'm MORE than ready to get to the other window and meet our friends and other new people and stuff.
....
JADE: but id be more than happy to talk about them if youd like. actually i would enjoy that because i never really get to talk about science wi...
JOHN: no, i don't want to talk about physics! i don't know anything about the laws of physics, because they are hard and boring.
JOHN: i simply would like them to behave in a way that is most convenient to ME and MY LIFE! is that really asking too much?
JADE: yes as a matter of fact it is!
JOHN: well, guess what? SCIENCE IS STUPID BULLSHIT!!!
JADE: you take that back!!!!!
JOHN: no.
JOHN: magic is awesome.
JOHN: science blows.
JOHN: the end.
But that doesn't mean he's simply a nice boy. John is still a typical teenager and still has plenty of qualities that can bite back. Though John doesn't get angry about much, when he does his temper can get a bit out of control. One instance of this comes in his first face-to-face interaction with Caliborn where he's so angry that the cherub's slandering his friends' reputations he outright attacks him and punches him repeatedly. Another instance is when Davesprite plays a joke on him, leaving a note for John as a mimicry of his deceased father, and John's response is to ask Jade for a hammer so he can hunt down the sprite and make him pay.
A lot of John's anger that manifests tends to come from preying on his interpersonal relationships with people. When there's a threat to his friends or his family John springs into action without second thought. On the other hand, there's anger and there's frustration, and with his frustration comes John's self-doubt. Though he is the leader of the Betas John does have a sufficient amount of self-doubt especially later in his journey. Wanting to be reassured his friends will still be his friends in the end, and later feeling like a failure for being unable to stop the events of Game Over, give us an inside look to John's psyche and how he really views himself.
"I got here too late to do anything. Because as far as i may think i've come...I still don't know what i'm doing. Dave's bro in the funny pants was right. But not about himself. I was the one who let everybody down. I'm the failure. It's me."
Though he doesn't let negative thinking impact him for too long, it's something that shapes a lot of his drive and if he were a less optimistic person John may be someone who resigns to his own feelings of doubt and uncertainty. Like most of the kids in the Homestuck canon John has faced a large amount of loss and trauma including the death of his father and the death of all of his events after Game Over. At first he doesn't even believe it when Terezi says everyone is dead and he tries to justify the information as being wrong. ("Did you take Jade's pulse? You know she likes to sleep a lot.") It's this form of naivety that also works against John in several cases. He's fairly easy to influence and often times doesn't really question when people tell him to do things. This is seen especially early on when Terezi tricks him into seeing his Deizein (a large monster residing on his planet) and he gets himself killed in an alternate timeline, forcing Dave to go backwards in time and stop John from following Terezi's orders. This is also seen when John follows Vriska's advice and seeks out his quest bed, not knowing that Vriska had rigged things so that John would die and ascend to his godtier status.
Along with being easy to influence, it's important to go back to John's poor impulse control and his tendency to act and then figure things out later. There are several instances in canon where this, along with some of his absent-minded traits, end up putting him out of touch with the others in his session. A running gag in the Homestuck canon is John's inability to hold onto a cell phone or a laptop for very long as he has a tendency to either leave them somewhere without thinking, or in one case throwing it into an ocean of oil simply because he was annoyed and only later asking "why did I do that." John usually can bail himself out of tough situations, but it can be said that if he put a little more thought into things he wouldn't get in those situations in the first place.
John can also be awkward and fumble on serious subjects, often times turning things into a joke to make things more light-hearted. In some cases he can be blunt or sarcastic to the point that he's outright rude to people, seeing how John isn't exactly someone who hides his true feelings very often if at all. At one point John even describes himself as being shy and it's easy to say that he can be somewhat passive especially with his friends. He's prone to wandering off on his own and doing his own thing without warning which makes him somewhat of a wildcard, but in the end he always comes back. While these flaws can interfere with his relationships with his friends, it's the positive traits John tries to focus on.
It's in his nature to forgive people. People will and have manipulated him and made his life a mess but even those people earn John's forgiveness in the end. He has a tendency to want everyone to get along and he often acts as a connecting bridge and helps keep his friends together. It's hard for anyone to say anything bad about John Egbert, and this transcends time and space as well. His post-scratch self (an alternate version of himself) is described as a kindly old cornball and it's said that there isn't "a nicer guy you couldn't hope to meet."
So overall, John is a boy who's been thrown into a role he didn't want in the first place but takes it in stride, rising up above everything and bringing everybody else along for the ride. In the interest of his friends and saving the world, he'll do anything to finish anything he sets out to do and keep his sense of humor along the way. And that, perhaps, is exactly the true reason he is the leader.
SKILLS/ABILITIES:
Let's start with the John Human Egbert skills.
-At the age of 13, it's clear that John's a talented musician when it comes to the piano, capable of playing a somewhat complicated piece without much thought.
-He knows some computer coding! He's bad at it, but he knows it! (Save him.) Additionally he knows how to utilize technology enough to work his way around computers and PDAs.
-John's other "talents" include beginner's stage magic, pranking, and proooobably some second-hand baking skills as much as he doesn't want them.
-In a whole other vein, John is very clever at alchemizing items/inventive when it comes to alchemy. He's the first of the kids to figure out how to take ghost captures of items to put onto cards, not to mention combining two punched cards to create new items.
-John is capable of using an item called a sylladex! This is essentially a magical inventory system that he can shove Captchalogue cards with items on them to carry at his leisure. This also allows him to house a strife deck (see below.) Each sylladex comes with a Fetch Modus that the kids use to obtain items. Over the course of the Homestuck canon, John obtains three different moduses.
The first is the Stack modus which is just about as stupid as you'd expect. The Stack modus allows players to pull items out of their sylladex one at a time based on what is at the top of their stack. While they can combine items should the items be able to fuse (hammer + nails for example), if the sylladex is too full while using this modus the item at the bottom of the stack will drop out. This is the most inconvenient modus ever.
The second is the Queue modus which is also pretty useless. With Queue, only the card on the bottom of the stack may be used as this is essentially the reverse of the Stack modus.
The third is the Array modus which allows John to draw any card from his sylladex at will! What a useful and simple modus to use, this must be the perfect modus for John Egbert!
...but no. This ties right back into John being "inventive" and "creative", as he finds the Array modus to be fairly useless to him. With the ability to combine his moduses, this leads to his final modus.
The Queuestack Array modus is a combination of the three above and divides all of the cards in John's sylladex into four stacks of six cards each. This allows John to take either the first or the last card from one of these four stacks. Why he decided to do this is still a mystery to literally everyone, but he sure does have that ability.
-All of the kids also have access to something called a strife specibus, i.e. their specific form of fighting. Of note, John actually has two.
The first and his main strife specibus that John uses is known as Hammerkind. Hammerkind is exactly what it sounds like in which John can utilize any kind of hammer of his creation to attack his enemies. Examples of hammers John's used over the course of his adventure include a regular hammer (claw hammer), the Wrinklefucker (a hammer alchemized with two irons), the Warhammer Zillyhoo, and the Pop-a-Matic Vrillyhoo.
His second strife specibus is known as Bunnykind. This is essentially useless, though it does make a specific stuffed bunny (Liv Tyler) loyal to John so I guess there's that.
So now. Godtier! In the homestuck canon, godtier status means a whole lot of things and essentially means that the kids have become gods and have tapped into their aspects and classes. John's class is that of the Heir and his aspect is Breath.
-As an Heir of Breath, John is capable of manipulating the wind around him! Basically this means he's just a whimsical asshole who can change the direction of the breeze to suit him. Examples of this include being able to change the direction of the breeze, create tornados, fly, use the breeze to mask his scent/cover his tracks (as seen while hopping timelines to hide from Grimbark Jade), and even playing the breeze with such immense power to clear out the clutter on his planet and fulfill part of his personal quest. There's also the fact that he can turn himself into the wind and disappear whenever he feels like it. Thanks, John.
-As just John Egbert, Heir of Breath, John has also gained the ability to travel back and forth to different points in a timeline to help manipulate/change events in history. Thanks to sticking his hand through a powerful magic item, he has the ability to concentrate on certain points in time and appear there in order to observe and change events subtly to change the overall timeline. This is best seen through Terezi's quest for him.
-Being godtier also comes with its own perks such as the ability to fly and being immortal! However, this doesn't mean that John can't be killed. John can definitely be killed, but the only time he will actually stay dead is if his death is considered heroic or just. Being godtier also means he gets to rock a cool set of threads in his favorite color that are eternally clean and comfortable.
CANON PERSONALITY:
Okay so John Egbert. John Egbert sure does happen a lot and is generally considered the one person in his world that starts the adventure and helps end it. The thing is that it's never been John's desire to be the hero or be the leader. It wasn't his primary goal to be the one to set action into motion, but instead he finds himself thrown directly into it and rides the waves as they come.
TG: but the weird thing is thats whats cool about you. youre this naive guy like pinocchio tumbled ass backwards off the turnip truck and started liking ghostbusters. then the fairy godmother kissed your nose or some shit and you turned out to be not made of wood and also pretty cool to talk to. one day your gooberish ways are gonna land you in a jam and i know im going to have to get you off the hook but its cool i got your back bro.
At the beginning of their adventure, John is a normal teenage boy with a variety of normal teenage hobbies. As a boy who loves his sense of humor above all else, John finds himself content with life and surrounding himself with lowkey yet slightly whimsical hobbies (including comedy/pranks magic tricks, music, video games, computer programming and watching movies.) He's raised in arguably the most normal household of his friends, surrounded by the love and sometimes hovering of his father whom John clearly has a close bond with. Unsurprisingly, the stability of his every day life and these certain hobbies actually help shape who John is and allow him the ability to think more openly than most of his peers.
JADE: somehow he understood the only way was to conceive of a third option
JADE: an idea beyond the simple binary set of outcomes before him
JADE: and interestingly
JADE: it was coming to this understanding which gave him the first glimpse of how to control the power
Due to his sense of curiosity and, frankly, poor impulse control, along with the idea that there is always a way to solve everything, John tends to be an innovative kid and this trait lends him well on his journey. For instance, it's this very core component that helps John learn to start alchemizing items at the beginning of the game, fusing cards and solving puzzles along the way. John's strategy of thinking outside of the box is also what helps him ultimately complete his personal quest and learn to use his powers. Learning to use these powers was important, as it's the only way for John to be able to fix the broken timeline, go backwards, and alter things enough to save everyone he cares about and make things right. As the first of the Betas to begin the game, he's the one who paves the way for what they're supposed to be doing and though sometimes his friends remark that they "have no idea what the fuck he's doing there", it allows for others to follow his example.
Throughout his journey, John finds himself doing things that others may deem as silly or flighty, and at one point one of his friends even calls him a fickle idiot. But the thing about that is even if his actions seem irrational or goofy John seems to know what he's doing about half the time. John isn't afraid to experiment and he isn't afraid to explore new environments even if he doesn't always quite grasp the situation at hand. Though "smart" isn't necessarily a word one would automatically associate with him (as that term tends to fall more in line with his friends Rose and Jade), John is what one could describe as clever. He's quick to think on his feet and capable of making plans when he really puts his mind to it. On the other hand, he tends to get restless when left to his own devices for too long and that further drives him to follow some of his more ridiculous ideas, such as fuse a hammer and a child's pogo ride, or stick his arm right through a portal that no one knows how to use. Or even, in fact, ironing his pants while waiting around for everyone else to catch up with him at the meeting place his friends were supposed to arrive to.
Yet somehow even being impulsive usually works as a positive trait for him. It's a certain kind of bravery that comes from someone who knows what he has to do and refuses to let things fall to the wayside for long. Though sometimes John can find situations hard to believe and even grow a bit frustrated, he doesn't let things bring him down for long and instead tries to see the positive and neutral grounds in all situations.
TT: That's why you're our leader, John.
EB: huh?
TT: Optimism through stalwart skepticism is a defect not everyone is lucky enough to be cursed with.
EB: that's stupid.
EB: i'm not your leader, i am your FRIEND, there is a BIG difference!
TT: Statements like that are also why you're our leader.
EB: pff.
EB: laaaaaaaame.
Even though several people reference him as the leader early on, John isn't someone who sees himself as a leader at first. Or, like, ever. Even right before their final battle begins when they're dividing their group and making plans, though he'll admit to being the leader it's said with an exasperated kind of fondness that comes from knowing his friends are counting on him. The core of who John is as a person resides in being able to support his friends in action and help them get to where they need to go. John has a tendency to see most people as an equal and he's not one to turn his back on someone in need whether it's a friend he's had for several years or it's someone he's just met that day. He's the type of guy who's thoughtful and generous, and though sometimes he puts his foot in his mouth he's quick to correct himself and think of people's feelings. We also see this in his interaction with the Betas (Dave, Jade and Rose) and how he goes out of his way to send them all individualized birthday gifts and letters that indicate he really takes the time to understand his friends as best as he can.
He makes friends very easily and takes care of people when he can, being the positive force behind their team and the one to encourage them. One of the most obvious instances of this is his conversation with Roxy and Terezi in which he recognizes that he has to mobilize those who are left in order to fix reality as they know it. This is also prevalent in his early conversations with Roxy about Calliope in which John promises to find a way to go backwards, reclaim the ring of life that he lost, and bring it back to Roxy to give to Calliope despite never meeting Calliope at this point and barely knowing Roxy herself.
John recognizes the value of teamwork and making sure people aren't left behind. He tends to usually be the calming force and his determination and kindness help lend to the "leader" qualities as well. ("ROXY: (yoo troll grouch... john is so nice agh its fuckin me up) TEREZI: (1 KNOW) TEREZI: (1T'S D1SGUST1NG)") Unlike some of the other kids, John has the ability to stay grounded even in crisis and doesn't let things knock him back that easily. He doesn't let very much bother him overall and his motivation very rarely wavers.
One of the other important things about John that truly defines him is how he really is the first of the Betas to accomplish several great feats. Aside from being the first of them to enter their session, John is the first to ascend to godtier status as seen in the flash [S] John: Rise Up. What this means is that he's the first to obtain great power and also the first to learn to really use his powers. John is capable of extraordinary feats when he really puts his mind to it and concentrates, and though he finds it frustrating and annoying at first he later uses his own experiences to help other people reach their full potential.
JADE: i dunno, i havent minded much... maybe its different for me though because i used to live all alone?
JOHN: oh sure, i'm sure it's GREAT for you. you get to spend your days smooching and breaking up with dave sprite and what not, and you can shrink down to any old planet you feel like, any time. whereas i have to make this whole big deal of ASKING you to shrink or unshrink me, and...
JADE: but i dont mind doing that any time!!!
JOHN: i know, but you think i want to bug you about that at the drop of a hat? when you're busy and on dates and stuff? i just happen to have respect for something called PERSONAL BOUNDARIES, jade.
JOHN: and it's not like there's really anyone else to talk to, except the inscrutable chess people and a bunch of brainless consorts and an idiot cat princess. oh and also nanna, but i mean, she's my grandmother, and she's great, but a guy can only spend so much quality time with his grandmother before he starts to feel like kind of a loser whose friends are too busy to spend time with him!
JADE: john... if you told me this earlier i would have...
JOHN: and i still never visit any interesting dream bubbles, and we can't even finish our cool planet quests because the moment we broke through the window all our denizens decided to go back to sleep, and...
JOHN: i guess what i'm saying is, i'm MORE than ready to get to the other window and meet our friends and other new people and stuff.
....
JADE: but id be more than happy to talk about them if youd like. actually i would enjoy that because i never really get to talk about science wi...
JOHN: no, i don't want to talk about physics! i don't know anything about the laws of physics, because they are hard and boring.
JOHN: i simply would like them to behave in a way that is most convenient to ME and MY LIFE! is that really asking too much?
JADE: yes as a matter of fact it is!
JOHN: well, guess what? SCIENCE IS STUPID BULLSHIT!!!
JADE: you take that back!!!!!
JOHN: no.
JOHN: magic is awesome.
JOHN: science blows.
JOHN: the end.
But that doesn't mean he's simply a nice boy. John is still a typical teenager and still has plenty of qualities that can bite back. Though John doesn't get angry about much, when he does his temper can get a bit out of control. One instance of this comes in his first face-to-face interaction with Caliborn where he's so angry that the cherub's slandering his friends' reputations he outright attacks him and punches him repeatedly. Another instance is when Davesprite plays a joke on him, leaving a note for John as a mimicry of his deceased father, and John's response is to ask Jade for a hammer so he can hunt down the sprite and make him pay.
A lot of John's anger that manifests tends to come from preying on his interpersonal relationships with people. When there's a threat to his friends or his family John springs into action without second thought. On the other hand, there's anger and there's frustration, and with his frustration comes John's self-doubt. Though he is the leader of the Betas John does have a sufficient amount of self-doubt especially later in his journey. Wanting to be reassured his friends will still be his friends in the end, and later feeling like a failure for being unable to stop the events of Game Over, give us an inside look to John's psyche and how he really views himself.
"I got here too late to do anything. Because as far as i may think i've come...I still don't know what i'm doing. Dave's bro in the funny pants was right. But not about himself. I was the one who let everybody down. I'm the failure. It's me."
Though he doesn't let negative thinking impact him for too long, it's something that shapes a lot of his drive and if he were a less optimistic person John may be someone who resigns to his own feelings of doubt and uncertainty. Like most of the kids in the Homestuck canon John has faced a large amount of loss and trauma including the death of his father and the death of all of his events after Game Over. At first he doesn't even believe it when Terezi says everyone is dead and he tries to justify the information as being wrong. ("Did you take Jade's pulse? You know she likes to sleep a lot.") It's this form of naivety that also works against John in several cases. He's fairly easy to influence and often times doesn't really question when people tell him to do things. This is seen especially early on when Terezi tricks him into seeing his Deizein (a large monster residing on his planet) and he gets himself killed in an alternate timeline, forcing Dave to go backwards in time and stop John from following Terezi's orders. This is also seen when John follows Vriska's advice and seeks out his quest bed, not knowing that Vriska had rigged things so that John would die and ascend to his godtier status.
Along with being easy to influence, it's important to go back to John's poor impulse control and his tendency to act and then figure things out later. There are several instances in canon where this, along with some of his absent-minded traits, end up putting him out of touch with the others in his session. A running gag in the Homestuck canon is John's inability to hold onto a cell phone or a laptop for very long as he has a tendency to either leave them somewhere without thinking, or in one case throwing it into an ocean of oil simply because he was annoyed and only later asking "why did I do that." John usually can bail himself out of tough situations, but it can be said that if he put a little more thought into things he wouldn't get in those situations in the first place.
John can also be awkward and fumble on serious subjects, often times turning things into a joke to make things more light-hearted. In some cases he can be blunt or sarcastic to the point that he's outright rude to people, seeing how John isn't exactly someone who hides his true feelings very often if at all. At one point John even describes himself as being shy and it's easy to say that he can be somewhat passive especially with his friends. He's prone to wandering off on his own and doing his own thing without warning which makes him somewhat of a wildcard, but in the end he always comes back. While these flaws can interfere with his relationships with his friends, it's the positive traits John tries to focus on.
It's in his nature to forgive people. People will and have manipulated him and made his life a mess but even those people earn John's forgiveness in the end. He has a tendency to want everyone to get along and he often acts as a connecting bridge and helps keep his friends together. It's hard for anyone to say anything bad about John Egbert, and this transcends time and space as well. His post-scratch self (an alternate version of himself) is described as a kindly old cornball and it's said that there isn't "a nicer guy you couldn't hope to meet."
So overall, John is a boy who's been thrown into a role he didn't want in the first place but takes it in stride, rising up above everything and bringing everybody else along for the ride. In the interest of his friends and saving the world, he'll do anything to finish anything he sets out to do and keep his sense of humor along the way. And that, perhaps, is exactly the true reason he is the leader.
SKILLS/ABILITIES:
Let's start with the John Human Egbert skills.
-At the age of 13, it's clear that John's a talented musician when it comes to the piano, capable of playing a somewhat complicated piece without much thought.
-He knows some computer coding! He's bad at it, but he knows it! (Save him.) Additionally he knows how to utilize technology enough to work his way around computers and PDAs.
-John's other "talents" include beginner's stage magic, pranking, and proooobably some second-hand baking skills as much as he doesn't want them.
-In a whole other vein, John is very clever at alchemizing items/inventive when it comes to alchemy. He's the first of the kids to figure out how to take ghost captures of items to put onto cards, not to mention combining two punched cards to create new items.
-John is capable of using an item called a sylladex! This is essentially a magical inventory system that he can shove Captchalogue cards with items on them to carry at his leisure. This also allows him to house a strife deck (see below.) Each sylladex comes with a Fetch Modus that the kids use to obtain items. Over the course of the Homestuck canon, John obtains three different moduses.
The first is the Stack modus which is just about as stupid as you'd expect. The Stack modus allows players to pull items out of their sylladex one at a time based on what is at the top of their stack. While they can combine items should the items be able to fuse (hammer + nails for example), if the sylladex is too full while using this modus the item at the bottom of the stack will drop out. This is the most inconvenient modus ever.
The second is the Queue modus which is also pretty useless. With Queue, only the card on the bottom of the stack may be used as this is essentially the reverse of the Stack modus.
The third is the Array modus which allows John to draw any card from his sylladex at will! What a useful and simple modus to use, this must be the perfect modus for John Egbert!
...but no. This ties right back into John being "inventive" and "creative", as he finds the Array modus to be fairly useless to him. With the ability to combine his moduses, this leads to his final modus.
The Queuestack Array modus is a combination of the three above and divides all of the cards in John's sylladex into four stacks of six cards each. This allows John to take either the first or the last card from one of these four stacks. Why he decided to do this is still a mystery to literally everyone, but he sure does have that ability.
-All of the kids also have access to something called a strife specibus, i.e. their specific form of fighting. Of note, John actually has two.
The first and his main strife specibus that John uses is known as Hammerkind. Hammerkind is exactly what it sounds like in which John can utilize any kind of hammer of his creation to attack his enemies. Examples of hammers John's used over the course of his adventure include a regular hammer (claw hammer), the Wrinklefucker (a hammer alchemized with two irons), the Warhammer Zillyhoo, and the Pop-a-Matic Vrillyhoo.
His second strife specibus is known as Bunnykind. This is essentially useless, though it does make a specific stuffed bunny (Liv Tyler) loyal to John so I guess there's that.
So now. Godtier! In the homestuck canon, godtier status means a whole lot of things and essentially means that the kids have become gods and have tapped into their aspects and classes. John's class is that of the Heir and his aspect is Breath.
-As an Heir of Breath, John is capable of manipulating the wind around him! Basically this means he's just a whimsical asshole who can change the direction of the breeze to suit him. Examples of this include being able to change the direction of the breeze, create tornados, fly, use the breeze to mask his scent/cover his tracks (as seen while hopping timelines to hide from Grimbark Jade), and even playing the breeze with such immense power to clear out the clutter on his planet and fulfill part of his personal quest. There's also the fact that he can turn himself into the wind and disappear whenever he feels like it. Thanks, John.
-As just John Egbert, Heir of Breath, John has also gained the ability to travel back and forth to different points in a timeline to help manipulate/change events in history. Thanks to sticking his hand through a powerful magic item, he has the ability to concentrate on certain points in time and appear there in order to observe and change events subtly to change the overall timeline. This is best seen through Terezi's quest for him.
-Being godtier also comes with its own perks such as the ability to fly and being immortal! However, this doesn't mean that John can't be killed. John can definitely be killed, but the only time he will actually stay dead is if his death is considered heroic or just. Being godtier also means he gets to rock a cool set of threads in his favorite color that are eternally clean and comfortable.
CHARACTER: AU SECTION
AU NAME: John Egbert
AU AGE: 18
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: He's maybe a little taller and his eyes aren't so aggressively blue but otherwise he's pretty much the same nerd as before, albeit a tiny bit more athletic than his canon-self.
AU NAME: John Egbert
AU AGE: 18
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: He's maybe a little taller and his eyes aren't so aggressively blue but otherwise he's pretty much the same nerd as before, albeit a tiny bit more athletic than his canon-self.
AU HISTORY:-John Egbert grew up in Seattle, WA as an only child.
-With his mother dying during childbirth, John grew up without her.
-While he was immensely curious about her, overall this was okay by John because he was raised by his father and his father's mother, affectionately known as Nanna.
-John has never known a life without Nanna in it and thanks to the influence of both of the adults in his life he was encouraged to grow up having a somewhat light-hearted, whimsical spirit.
-John went through elementary school and most of junior high skating by with somewhat decent grades and mostly building his popularity on being the class clown. It sometimes got him in trouble but for the most part he was liked among his peers and his teachers because he was generally a good kid.
-Granted, that didn't mean that John had a lot of very close friends. He was content to make friends with people but he found joy most often screwing around in his room at home or hanging out with his dad and his grandmother.
-As such, he grew up honing two specific crafts: baking, and playing the piano.
-Baking was a trial and error but he took to music like a duck to water, so to speak. Never formally taking lessons, John learned how to play under the guidance of his dad and having an ear for music.
-While kids his age spent hours with their friends doing things like hanging out at the mall or skateparks or amusement parks, John entertained himself by composing stacks and stacks of music that he's never done anything with.
-Overall, his childhood was a pretty happy place for a while.
-When he was 13, however, one day his father left and never came back. It was something he couldn't understand and didn't have a frame of reference for, and though Nanna told him he'd be back someday, by the time John packed up to go to college that has yet to be true. He's never been quite sure if it's because of work or because his dad needed to go find himself or what the fuck. Nanna was elusive about the whole thing and that also added to John's frustration of the situation.
-Eventually, like most things, John just sort of accepted that and came to rely more on himself and doing his best to be a good grandson anyway.
-Once he hit high school, he decided to pursue something that would keep him outside of the house for a while so he wouldn't be reminded of this weird absent fact.
-This is about the point that he decided he would pick up a sport, and soccer seemed like the easiest one to go after. He was good enough at it and preferred to play more for fun than profit, but he played for all four years of high school.
-Of course, John's interests wander and soccer only occupied him in the fall. One day on a whim he tried out for the baseball team and found that he was better than good enough. He played for all four years of high school as well, eventually finding himself on the varsity team his senior year. Not bad for something meant to be a hobby.
-He coasted by with decent grades as usual, but started to find himself wanting to be around people more and more instead of his coveted alone time.
-John made friends with everyone he possibly could and did his best to be the best friend possible. He quickly made a reputation for himself as the nice, light-hearted jock who was not only good for giving advice but also had enough hook-ups to get things for free because of the friends he'd made. While those friends didn't really know much about John himself (and he was content with that, preferring to keep to himself now more than ever), he did his best to learn as much as possible about those around him.
-When he didn't have plans in his real life he took to the internet and made friends there. This was where John allowed himself to be a little more. Well. Himself. And because of this he was able to make one very close friend on the internet who lived across the country. She was the only one he really spoke to at length about any subjects that were more than surface-level events.
-Outside of all of his friends, one girl managed to break through his bubble and he fell head over heels for her when he was sixteen. Their relationship was fast to start and fast to move and for a while John was perfectly happy allowing this to be so.
-But naturally all things must come to an end, and not long after John's 18th birthday the relationship ended poorly and left a bitter taste in his mouth about it.
-He still loved his friends and he still did his best constantly be surrounded by people, but over time he realized that…well, people change. And all things do come to an end.
-Perhaps it was childish in a way, but with that in mind and knowing that after high school things would change again, John jumped the gun started to look into options for college out of state.
-He's not exactly excited about college but it's a thing he should do and he knows it'll make Nanna proud, so he studies and applies a few places including to Recollé University under the recommendation of the one internet friend he trusts.
-The problem is John doesn't even know what he wants to study.
-In the rare span of time John found himself alone, he took up watching and reviewing movies. He has a blog that sometimes he remembers to update, but usually he forgets about it. This lead to John consuming a bunch of movies and developing his own independent tastes and even dabbling a little in the art of making his own films. None of these have seen the light of day, but they exist. It's one of the reasons a cinematography program piques his interests.
-On the other hand, he knows it's hard to get jobs in films so he also looks into colleges with a good biology program. It's been drilled into his brain that there are always jobs in science.
-Surprisingly, his grades are enough to scrape by and earn an acceptance letter to RU.
-Even knowing he wanted to leave and had to leave, there was a bit of hesitance to the decision. With Nanna being the only family he really cared about, and still being unsure of what he wants to do in life, he found himself stalling on saying yes to the offer for RU. On the other hand, it was with the guidance of Nanna and understanding he needed to grow up and move forward that he decided Recollé would be a good change for him.
-At the time of his arrival to the city, John will be a freshman attending RU and figuring out what path he really wants to take. He'll need a job and maybe some new friends, but how hard can that be?
-Be the hero, John.
AU PERSONALITY:
The main changes in John's life are obviously that he didn't play through SBURB and didn't lose a bunch of his friends and then bring them back to life and stupid game shenanigans. So there's that.
John being raised by Nanna changes how he interacts with people, and the difference of his father leaving versus his father being killed also changes John's motivations. Being raised by Nanna especially in his teenage years has led to John still being lighthearted and ready to whip out a joke and a grin for anyone he meets, but he's also more likely to give into his more whimsical impulses. Nanna has always encouraged John to be his own person and though John's never caused trouble he's more likely to follow his own guidelines now and may have a harder time being reined in.
On the other hand, with his father leaving and not communicating with John, John's desire not to be forgotten has amplified. He won't actively say so, but he's more concerned about mattering to people and being thought about and will have more of a tendency to really engage with people. It's a complicated set of circumstances as he's continually at war with himself over wanting to matter and not wanting to get close to people in case they disappear again. As such, he's even more aggressively bold in his attempt to make friends even if he's less likely to share things about himself and disclose his own weaknesses.
While he's sociable in his canon, in his AU life he's even less shy and has a tendency to bounce between groups of people. He's a lot harder to really get to know and he's nowhere near as trusting and naive as his canonical self as well, but he's still at his core a reliable friend. He's more ingrained to follow his own leads and be less passive than his canon self, leading to a headstrong boy who may need to be told to sit the fuck down more often than usual.
-With his mother dying during childbirth, John grew up without her.
-While he was immensely curious about her, overall this was okay by John because he was raised by his father and his father's mother, affectionately known as Nanna.
-John has never known a life without Nanna in it and thanks to the influence of both of the adults in his life he was encouraged to grow up having a somewhat light-hearted, whimsical spirit.
-John went through elementary school and most of junior high skating by with somewhat decent grades and mostly building his popularity on being the class clown. It sometimes got him in trouble but for the most part he was liked among his peers and his teachers because he was generally a good kid.
-Granted, that didn't mean that John had a lot of very close friends. He was content to make friends with people but he found joy most often screwing around in his room at home or hanging out with his dad and his grandmother.
-As such, he grew up honing two specific crafts: baking, and playing the piano.
-Baking was a trial and error but he took to music like a duck to water, so to speak. Never formally taking lessons, John learned how to play under the guidance of his dad and having an ear for music.
-While kids his age spent hours with their friends doing things like hanging out at the mall or skateparks or amusement parks, John entertained himself by composing stacks and stacks of music that he's never done anything with.
-Overall, his childhood was a pretty happy place for a while.
-When he was 13, however, one day his father left and never came back. It was something he couldn't understand and didn't have a frame of reference for, and though Nanna told him he'd be back someday, by the time John packed up to go to college that has yet to be true. He's never been quite sure if it's because of work or because his dad needed to go find himself or what the fuck. Nanna was elusive about the whole thing and that also added to John's frustration of the situation.
-Eventually, like most things, John just sort of accepted that and came to rely more on himself and doing his best to be a good grandson anyway.
-Once he hit high school, he decided to pursue something that would keep him outside of the house for a while so he wouldn't be reminded of this weird absent fact.
-This is about the point that he decided he would pick up a sport, and soccer seemed like the easiest one to go after. He was good enough at it and preferred to play more for fun than profit, but he played for all four years of high school.
-Of course, John's interests wander and soccer only occupied him in the fall. One day on a whim he tried out for the baseball team and found that he was better than good enough. He played for all four years of high school as well, eventually finding himself on the varsity team his senior year. Not bad for something meant to be a hobby.
-He coasted by with decent grades as usual, but started to find himself wanting to be around people more and more instead of his coveted alone time.
-John made friends with everyone he possibly could and did his best to be the best friend possible. He quickly made a reputation for himself as the nice, light-hearted jock who was not only good for giving advice but also had enough hook-ups to get things for free because of the friends he'd made. While those friends didn't really know much about John himself (and he was content with that, preferring to keep to himself now more than ever), he did his best to learn as much as possible about those around him.
-When he didn't have plans in his real life he took to the internet and made friends there. This was where John allowed himself to be a little more. Well. Himself. And because of this he was able to make one very close friend on the internet who lived across the country. She was the only one he really spoke to at length about any subjects that were more than surface-level events.
-Outside of all of his friends, one girl managed to break through his bubble and he fell head over heels for her when he was sixteen. Their relationship was fast to start and fast to move and for a while John was perfectly happy allowing this to be so.
-But naturally all things must come to an end, and not long after John's 18th birthday the relationship ended poorly and left a bitter taste in his mouth about it.
-He still loved his friends and he still did his best constantly be surrounded by people, but over time he realized that…well, people change. And all things do come to an end.
-Perhaps it was childish in a way, but with that in mind and knowing that after high school things would change again, John jumped the gun started to look into options for college out of state.
-He's not exactly excited about college but it's a thing he should do and he knows it'll make Nanna proud, so he studies and applies a few places including to Recollé University under the recommendation of the one internet friend he trusts.
-The problem is John doesn't even know what he wants to study.
-In the rare span of time John found himself alone, he took up watching and reviewing movies. He has a blog that sometimes he remembers to update, but usually he forgets about it. This lead to John consuming a bunch of movies and developing his own independent tastes and even dabbling a little in the art of making his own films. None of these have seen the light of day, but they exist. It's one of the reasons a cinematography program piques his interests.
-On the other hand, he knows it's hard to get jobs in films so he also looks into colleges with a good biology program. It's been drilled into his brain that there are always jobs in science.
-Surprisingly, his grades are enough to scrape by and earn an acceptance letter to RU.
-Even knowing he wanted to leave and had to leave, there was a bit of hesitance to the decision. With Nanna being the only family he really cared about, and still being unsure of what he wants to do in life, he found himself stalling on saying yes to the offer for RU. On the other hand, it was with the guidance of Nanna and understanding he needed to grow up and move forward that he decided Recollé would be a good change for him.
-At the time of his arrival to the city, John will be a freshman attending RU and figuring out what path he really wants to take. He'll need a job and maybe some new friends, but how hard can that be?
-Be the hero, John.
AU PERSONALITY:
The main changes in John's life are obviously that he didn't play through SBURB and didn't lose a bunch of his friends and then bring them back to life and stupid game shenanigans. So there's that.
John being raised by Nanna changes how he interacts with people, and the difference of his father leaving versus his father being killed also changes John's motivations. Being raised by Nanna especially in his teenage years has led to John still being lighthearted and ready to whip out a joke and a grin for anyone he meets, but he's also more likely to give into his more whimsical impulses. Nanna has always encouraged John to be his own person and though John's never caused trouble he's more likely to follow his own guidelines now and may have a harder time being reined in.
On the other hand, with his father leaving and not communicating with John, John's desire not to be forgotten has amplified. He won't actively say so, but he's more concerned about mattering to people and being thought about and will have more of a tendency to really engage with people. It's a complicated set of circumstances as he's continually at war with himself over wanting to matter and not wanting to get close to people in case they disappear again. As such, he's even more aggressively bold in his attempt to make friends even if he's less likely to share things about himself and disclose his own weaknesses.
While he's sociable in his canon, in his AU life he's even less shy and has a tendency to bounce between groups of people. He's a lot harder to really get to know and he's nowhere near as trusting and naive as his canonical self as well, but he's still at his core a reliable friend. He's more ingrained to follow his own leads and be less passive than his canon self, leading to a headstrong boy who may need to be told to sit the fuck down more often than usual.
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