this is the first day of my life;
Soul Application
PLAYER INFORMATION
Your Name: Scarfle
OOC Journal:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
long_scarves / ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scarfle
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: nope nope nope
Email + IM: clockpunktime@gmail.com + AIM: ikaros flying
Characters Played at Ataraxion: nope nope nope
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: John Egbert
Canon: Homestuck
Original or Alternate Universe: OU
Canon Point: Beginning of the three year journey with Jade, after he sends the bucket into Karkat's face
Number: 001; if taken, 186 or RNG ;u;
Setting: What is Homestuck?
History:
Now this is a story all about how John Egbert's life got flipped, turned upside down, and I like to take a minute, just sit right there, and I'll tell you how John Egbert became the breath and rightful heir. In Maple Valley, Washington, born and raised, on his computer he spent most of his days, chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool, hanging out with Rose, Dave, and Jade online after school, when a game called Sburb, it was up to no good, started throwing meteors all at his neighborhood. He got in a bunch of fights and his dad got raided, and his entire house got taken to the Land of Wind and Shaded. Trolls whistled for him, and when they came near, the troll named Vriska said listen here, killed him off in his quest bed, you could say that was rare, but John said nah, forget it, now he's the hero of breath/air. Pulled up to LOHAC, beat the imps seven or eighter, yelled to his session, yo home, smell you later. Looked at his friends, he was finally there, to sit on his throne as hero of breath/air.
That's basically it, yeah, except there's that long and unfortunate part about John being the main character of Let me tell you about Homestuck. Let's just say John dies in the end/middle/every other time. So, I'm sorry, but let me tell you about Homestuck.
The beginning of John is basically the middle of John, too. In the simplest terms, he created himself; he is a stable time loop. In some lab out there in something called the Medium, John used the power of weird science aka ectobiology to create himself, his friends, and guardian babies, and after a tearful reenactment of Con Air, the best movie ever, he sends them all through time and space and they all land somewhere, and yada yada yada. He arrives on a meteor, incidentally killing Nanna, and gets raised by Dad. Nanna, his adoptive grandmother, is his genetic mother. Dad, as his adoptive father, is his genetic half-brother.
The story begins on the thirteenth of April, when John turns thirteen. We see our protagonist,Zoosmell Pooplord John Egbert, getting all his gifts. He gets a cake, a harlequin, stuffed bunnies, and he's waiting excitedly for the beta release of a game called Sburb, which surely has nothing to do with the plot. Up until that point, he's lived a fairly normal life, even if his Dad was weirdly obsessed with clowns. John, by this age, has already made online friends, such as Dave (cool guy), Jade (sleepy girl), and Rose (wordy girl). His online username used to be ghostyTrickster, but some dealings with a troll lead him to change his name to ectoBiologist. He's had some pesky trouble with trolls, as did his friends, and the trolls were kinda weird and pretended they were aliens or whatever? Weird. Must have nothing to do with the plot, either.
He manages to retrieve the game, pop it in, and start playing. There are two discs in Sburb: Client and Server. The Server is able to manipulate the Client's environment at will. Giving kids absolute control over another's house goes as well as you expect. Rose, as John's Server, tests out these shenanigans. Sitting in a bathtub in the middle of the hallway, John asks her what's wrong with this picture. Nothing, John, you are just being weird. After his house is in ruins, though, shit gets real(er). A meteor starts hurtling towards his house, which isn't a great start to being thirteen, but it could be worse. There's more hasty shenanigans, with plenty of haunting tunes, but the dealio is that the game provides these machines that make stuff, and he and Rose make a Cruxite Apple in some weird significance. By biting into it, he gets transported to the Medium, where his house is now stuck over the Land of Wind and Shade. You could say he was house trapped, though I don't know why anybody would want to say that.
There's a bunch of imps leaving oil around his house (wipe your feet!), and what he supposes are their defacement on his cool (read: loser) movie posters. He assumes the imps had done it, since he only noticed the defacements after he entered into his father's room. John had this idea that his father was weirdly obsessed with harlequins and that he was a WACKY GUY, but when he entered into his father's room, it was all suitcases and wallets and ties. He had to come to a realization that his image of his father was not correct. Rose, however, tells him that those drawings were there all along, and he drew those weird harlequins himself. In fact, that was why his father was weirdly obsessed with them. He was only trying to connect to his son. Nope nope nope, except yep. That's a little messed up, but he fights his way down, passes the Gate, and ends up on the Land of Wind and Shade, where he begins talking to two trolls, gallowsCalibrator (Terezi) and carcinoGeneticist (Karkat). They surely must not be important at all. His conversations with Karkat are kinda weird (friendship as an emotion?? buddies??? whatever you say, karkat!) but his conversations with Terezi are quite straightforward. She tells him to fight Typheus, the Denizen, through a shortcut, so he does.
And quite straightforwardly gets killed.
Because there's this whole thing about the trolls: they are angry because of something the kids do in the future that apparently interrupts their session. It's complicated and hard, and full of time shenanigans, and at this time, John doesn't know it all yet, either. Karkat trolls backwards, Terezi trolls linearly, but something's going to happen, to the point that the dead John is part of a doomed timeline. Fortunately, the Dave of the doomed timeline knows what's what, and goes back in time to warn John not to fight the Denizen. Everything goes well from that part on.
Except for the part where John is like nope nope nope oh Dave you and your pathetic trolling you can't prank the pranking MASTER. Thank you, John. He rockets off anyway to go fight the Denizen. But he remembers his friendship and bonds, reconsiiiiiiddeerrrrs, and doesn't go to fight the Denizen, after all. The Denizen is called Typheus, which is only as important if you recognize it as a reference to the father of winds. (Also, as a reference point, the John of the doomed timeline apparently just chatted with the Denizen before getting killed. Oh, John.)
Instead, following Terezi's advice again, he crashes into Rose's house in the Land of Light and Rain. Here, he trolls Kanaya by pretending to be Rose and pretending, as Rose, to be really into Little Monsters. Here, he also gets tricked by Dave to showing the codes to Rose's wizard fanfiction and super important genetic code, but that's not super relevant to John's storyline at the moment. After stopping to put a bucket over her door, he goes to the Veil, and through some weird science, makes himself and all the others. That was how he created himself and all their guardians. And reenacts the scene of Con Air. How does he get through one night without his baby friends? What kind of life would that be? He needs them in his arms, need them to hold-
This.
is.
stupid.
While he's busy making the paradox clones, there's something going on dreamland. Literally. The kids have these dream selves that are asleep on the moons of Derse and Prospit. John's dream self has never woken up on Prospit's moon, but he really should, because Jack Noir (for simplicity's sake, the big bad; for more complicated's sake, though the kids don't know it yet, the guy who will grow so powerful, he will mess up their sessions) crashed the moon. Jade's dream self sacrifices herself to save him, and so John wakes up to a bunch of bloodshed and yeah, maybe there's better ways to celebrate your thirteenth birthday. But not with cake. There's just too much cake.
In the dreamland, he gets a powerful bunny toy that has a bunch of weapons stuffed into it (since it was his present from Jade that got tumbled around through time shenanigans), manages to survive an encounter with Jack Noir (by the bunny), and sees his father (still looking sharp, Dad). But before he could do a beautiful run-and-hug, Vriska (troll) wakes him up with her mind powers. It would have been beautiful to be reunited with his father. It didn't happen.
Vriska, though, has her own plans. She's a troll who doesn't want a doomed timeline, but helps Jack Noir in order to kill him at the right moment. It's complicated, but basically she has the power of making the kids fall asleep. John befriends her, and thinks she's pretty nice. You know how it is. He gets his Sburb disc to be the Server to Jade, but before he can prototype something that would have made Jack Noir lose both arms, both eyes, give him silly blue hair, and possibly made him a girl, Vriska makes him fall asleep, leaving Bec, the first guardian to be the prototype instead. The short part of that is: shit happens, and then shit really happens.
The long part doesn't have much to do with John's biography, but is pretty important to the plot. Basically, Bec is a First Guardian of the world: good dog, best friend, but ultra super-powerful. Anything that is prototyped before the session becomes part of the enemies in the world. For example, John had prototyped a harlequin without an arm and with a scratch over its eye. Jack Noir, of that world, didn't have an arm and had a scratch on his eye. Likewise, the imps also donned on harlequin outfits. So, Bec + Jack Noir = terrible. So terrible, that Jack Noir went to the session of the trolls, who had been on the brink of victory, and ruined everything. That's pretty terrible. The problem is that John fell asleep before he could prototype anything, and if you don't prototype something before the game begins, then it's also super bad. But now Jack Noir has the powers of the First Guardian.
Upon waking up to Karkat's angry gray capslock, John also finds his land is being burned by green fire. Smokey the Bear would have been upset at that. Fortunately, he uses his Windy Thing to put it out. That's not a metaphor for farting. It's his cool wind power, and that's pretty cool, and makes him pretty powerful. Can't get more powerful than that, nope nope nope. His ranks goes all the way up, and the salamander people are happy they have been saved from an emerald-tinted death. Vriska offers to help him take a nap on this bed that's on the top of a mountain, but there's nothing suspicious in that, nope nope nope. Everything is pretty cool now.
So then Jack Noir kills him while he's sleeping.
Fortunately, it's just a flesh wound. There's these parameters for ascending into God Tier, and that's one of them. God Tier is basically what it sounds like, having great powers and being nigh immortal, except not really, which comes later. The important thing is John dies in the middle and gets resurrected, in a great scene with a bunch of fireflies. He ascends, and assumes the title of Heir of Breath. This is all his dream self, now, so this will now take place in the dream land, Skaia. The bunny is still there, and gives him the Warhammer of Zillyhoo, which is a powerful weapon, with a haunting but silly song. Off to find his father, then! Nothing could go wrong with that. He sees a cloud of darkness over there, and decides to head over it, because John is a master of good decisions.
There, he finds his bff Rose, who had succumbed to grimdarkness. Oh, Rose. She tried to tell him something, but she was speaking in weird tongues. Oh, Rose. But he sees what she was trying to tell him. His father and her mother had both been killed by Jack Noir.
Oh, Rose.
They get into a strife with Jack Noir, turning up to the thousands of an epic battle, can't even contain all this epicness, except you can, because John gets stabbed really quickly.
Thanks John.
Fortunately, god-tier means that you can only die if the death was either justice or heroic. Getting stabbed wasn't justice, and the anti-climatic death certainly wasn't heroic. He awakes to find a dead Rose, and then kisses her to wake up her dreamself, as well. Kissing apparently wakes up dream selves. Who knew. But from here on out, they have a plan. They want to initiate the Scratch, which is basically a giant reset button that says, give us a chance to win. The trolls did it, which is why the Ancestors are now troll kids and the troll kids now are Ancestors, etc. In this new plan, John goes to Dave's land and fends off the minions. While he's doing that, a bunch of stuff is going on, and basically he gets roped on a ship to apparently travel three years to reach their destination. With Jade, he travels on a giganto ship through the fourth wall. Oh, but not before sending a message in a bucket, which goes directly onto Karkat's face.
Oh, John.
To sum it up because that's probably a little (read: a lot) confusing! John, thirteen, gets a game called SBURB. There's meteors coming to his world and basically, vaguely, beating the game means becoming gods to the new world, or rather to procreate a universe. He has his own land, the Land of Wind and Shade, and then meets these trolls who are trolling him backwards through time because, through Vriska, he fell asleep and let Bec prototype into Jack Noir. Jack Noir, as the villain, then goes to the troll's session and destroys their end goal. John almost dies, but Dave travels back in time to save him; John actually dies, but in doing so, he ascends to God Tier; John dies again after he sees his father dies, but since he's God Tier, he comes back and revives Rose as well; and now John is off off and away.
Personality:
John is three parts cute and a little bit of a dick. Basically, a good kid. We're introduced to him as a guy who loves bad movies, pranks, and magic tricks. And by loves bad movies, he really loves bad movies. He doesn't love them ironically, he loves them in the way he keeps his bedroom plastered with terrible, horrible movies. The most notable is Con Air, a movie that is great because Nic Cage is in it, so great that John takes the time to reenact the end scene of the movie by giving bunnies to his friends, even when they're babies. That's kinda terrible. To say the least, he is really, really involved in his movies. He named the killer bunny Liz Tyler, and was visibly moved through the reenactment scenario. But he also loves pranks, calling himself the pranking master, even though his sort of jokes are more hearkening the Mark Twain humor rather than anything malicious or adult. His type of humor is pretty squeaky clean. He likes web comics, and video games. He's a little bit nerdy in his love, and wears a Japanese knock-off of a Ghostbusters shirt. That's part of his personality, almost as important as he's allergic to peanut butter.
Less important than peanut butter, John is a pretty honest guy. He trusts people that he probably shouldn't trust off the bat - Vriska, Terezi, Karkat, WV, etc. He's also been used by other people while remaining oblivious to it. Vriska, for one, who kills him off so he could ascend to God Tier, or Dave, asking him to flip over books in Rose's rooms so he could copy the code to her wizard fanfiction. Though he's somewhat gullible, that doesn't stop him from being a pranking master. For his own squeaky clean fun, nobody can beat him. He trolls Karkat right on back, with the dubiousness of friendship as an emotion, and then trolls Kanaya by pretending to be Rose, which is a heavy hand in the start of their relationship. Basically, he can be manipulated easily, but in pranks, he has no equal.
Whether he's a good judge of character, that's more difficult to tell. To say the least, he is, despite being John, a good judge of his friends. He sends gifts to his friends that fit their personality, and that they're seen still using. Shades to Dave, knitting stuff to Rose, pumpkin seeds to Jade. In his letters, he pinpoints their strengths and weaknesses, still bearing that John warmth. He is just a really friendly sort of guy who trusts people and trolls, and forgives them pretty easily. He trusts a random stranger who sends him off to his death, and after all that, trusts her again. He also remained friends with Vriska, even after she killed him, in part because he ascended to God Tier, and in part because he's John. In fact, he remained very good friends with Vriska, to the part where romantic feelings are implicated to follow. He's a good judge of character for his friends, and obliviously trusting of others, but totally oblivious when it comes to romance. It took Karkat's angry capslocked screams to even get that through to him.
He is the sort of guy who believes in stuff if he believed in them already. That is to say, he has a mild breakdown when confronted with the fact that he may have drawn LAME KID and harlequin designs over his movie posters. He also refuses to believe Dave initially when told not to go jetpacking off to his death, instead trusting a random stranger. He's a good friend, but partially set in his ways.
The kids have different approaches when it comes to being in a doomed session. His approach is optimistic, or "stalwart optimism" as Rose puts it. In contrast to other approaches, he believes there is still a way. He sees the good side of things, and his bread is metaphorically buttered right side up. Rose accounts for the trait as one of the reasons he is a good leader, another being that he doesn't call himself a leader. He calls himself their friend. And, yeah, he's a really good friend. He's a little bit of a perfect hero, with that optimistic strength and heady determination. Though his trust in others often has lead him to bad decisions and doomed ends, he comes out alive because of them, and cheerfully attributes these to his murderers.
Heroes don't come without their downfalls, though, as if John's unerring optimism wasn't enough. There is a sense of an undercurrent in him that isn't as average as it seems. Through Gamzee's influence, he was oblivious to defacing his own room with harlequin figures. He called himself a "fool" and "lame kid" in his writings, pointing to himself. These perhaps prompted his father to display those strange traits that John always seemed exasperated by, such as dealing with his father's strange obsession with harlequins (his father trying to connect to his son) and his father's reassurances that he was proud of him (perhaps in response to the letters on the wall). Though he's a pretty well-adjusted kid, there appears to be a side of him that's not fully acknowledged, a side that perhaps denies the importance of being called leader in return for friend. It's a side of him that treats his father's doting with a sense of yeah, yeah, whatever, where he acts desensitized to the reality.
He sometimes displays a cunning knowledge of his own setting, such as when reading a letter from Jade's penpal that called her a grandmother, he understood it as time shenanigans. Likewise, his irrational loathing of Betty Crocker, which appeared often in the face of his father's oft-baked cakes, is justified. His accusations against the evil hidden in Betty Crocker looks more formulated in the alpha setting. That being said, even though he ironically notes several aspects of his world and the game, he often remains confused to many parts of it. That doesn't bother him, though Rose did reprimand him to learn the terminology. On the ship, boarded for a three year journey, he doesn't understand Jade's explanation of what will occur. All his plans to defeat Jack Noir bypass his own invincibility, leading him to heroic deaths. He wasn't that great at initially handling his sylladex, often shooting things out or merging them together in a gooey mess. He's meta-aware, but not quite aware inside the setting.
He's a nice boy, but silly, nevertheless. In times of great danger, he doesn't leave the kernelsprite hanging. At the very least, he resists squawking like an imbecile and shitting on his desk. It took some effort, but he resisted. When he sees Dave ascended to God Tier, he takes the opportunity to mock him for looking stupid in his pajamas, despite the time running out to remain there. But he's a good friend. A really good friend. He doesn't leave Jade alone on the ship for that reason, though she would have other company. He befriends people and lizards easily, and named Casey the lizard as his impromptu daughter in another reenactment of Con Air. He tries his best to be culturally sensitive, even if he has to kick an imp off his house. Well. Maybe especially if he gets to kick an imp off his house. But it was wielding a broom. Being culturally sensitive is hard.
John, though, isn't the sharpest nut in the bucket. He is a guy who does things without thinking, which leads to consequences. When he goes to join Rose in Skaia, Jade had tried to warn him through their Pesterchum that his father was already dead. Unfortunately, not thinking too thoroughly ahead, he had given his Wallet and his communication devices to a stranger that was flying away very rapidly in a cab. He's also not that great at focusing, and ends up trying to make a bed fort even when Rose is trying to get his attention. He's just an earnest, sweet kid who doesn't really pay attention to stuff like consequences.
Before he goes to sleep on his quest bed, Vriska asks him whether he wants her to put her to sleep. She tells him that it's a choice that shows what sort of hero he would be; the choices that he will make to shape the hero that he is about to become. His answer: sure, whatever, Vriska, she can put him to sleep, so he doesn't see the harm in having her put him to sleep. That's the kind of hero that John has become. He relies on others, not from necessity, but out of trust. He takes the simplest route, and disregards the mass that is destiny, fate, and character. That stuff is complicated. What's important, and what's simple, is that there is a way. That's the Heir of Breath.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
John, as the Heir of Breath, can do the Windy Thing. That's basically just a lot of wind, which is powerful enough to propel a taxi into the air. Take that, Harry Potter. I don't see any particular reason to limit it, since it's just wind, but I wouldn't mind limiting it, either.
He can also hit people with really big hammers. You can say he gets his hammer out of his hammerspace haha no I don't see any reason to limit, either, but I don't mind either way.
He is also a pranking MASTER. I understand any need to limit that. Sometimes, those pranks are just too much.
As for his mental strength and weaknesses, they're basically the same thing. He's optimistic and trusting, which leads him to bad situations. But these same traits allows him to persevere in these bad situations, and come out of said situations relatively unscathed.
Last but not least, God Tier means John will only die when his death is Just or Heroic. I imagine anything plot-related would indicate he would die a permanent Heroic death, but I'd still like to keep this power intact. However, I understand if this would need to be nerfed and therefore will leave it up to you.
Inventory:
His sylladex, whose fetch modus is wallet (basically a way to carry things around.) Inside that wallet is a Pop-a-matic Vrillyhood Hammer, which is just a big hammer that doesn't yet have a soundtrack. Also: Casey, the salamander that was his daughter in the tearful reenactment of Con Air.
Appearance: Black hair, buckteeth, glasses, and a can-do attitude. His first shirt was a Japanese knock-off of Ghostbusters. His current outfit is basically blue pajamas. He's the kid who looks like all the other Homestuck characters, but even moreso.
Age: 13; he's been killed two and a half times and seen the end of some worlds. He also plays a lot of video games. He can take it.
AU Clarification: N/A
SAMPLES
Log Sample:
His name is John Egbert, and he is twelve. Night falls in the neighborhood, and he can hear his father baking downstairs. It feels like a lazy night, as he scrunches up in his chair and watches Dave talk himself in a circle with his ill beats. Then maybe Rose would come online soon and talk to him about weird things that were very weird. Jade would come online whenever Jade came online. He felt giddy, though, and had to bite on his finger to stop giggling at the thought that he had sent off their presents today. He had to run himself ragged, because nooooooo, their birthdays couldn't be spaced out, but they had to make poor John find all the best presents. But he knew that he got the best presents for them, and they would all be mad thankful to him. He hoped so, anyway, because he was very mad thankful for his friends, too.
He was tempted to play a haunting refrain, but refrained from the refrain to opt for some YouTube music in the background. He was exhausted from the afternoon, having to send everything from the post and stuff. He might pop in a great movie to watch, and maybe see Bruce Willis's heroic mangrit and Liz Tyler's heartbroken yet hopeful face. That always cheered him up. But it wasn't like he was sad!
It just sometimes felt absent.
If Rose was here, maybe she'd drop some heavy sick psychoanalyticalizing all up in the house. She would be like hey John what did you dream about but he would be like he had a dream about Jodie Foster about how much she had to believe. Maybe he should tell her about the cake, too. He could still smell the cake wafting from downstairs as Betty Crocker sunk her snarled hands everywhere. Bluh, he didn't want to have to eat more cake tomorrow. Wait, what had he been thinking about? He was thinking about something. Resting his chin on his knee, he watched his compilation fail again and mess up the entirety of his code, and he remembered. Right, thinking about the absence.
Because it wasn't like he was a heavy thinker, like Rose. He was just John, and he didn't really think just thoughts that much. He thought about rockets and peanuts and cake. He thought about magic tricks and computer codes and video games. But he didn't think about being John. But since he was so tired that night, he thought, briefly, about the absence that lingered in the air. It felt like a slight pressure on him, something that was painfully missing, yet present. It wasn't something that was super painful, though. It just felt like the ache of a twelve year old waiting to turn thirteen, except maybe this absence was even more absent than that.
It made his head hurt, though, so he started another code from scratch. Now all his friends were thirteen, except he was still twelve. It wasn't that big of a deal, though he would be sure to give them a hard time about being old ladies and an old man. But at the same time, he was looking forward a little more to turning thirteen. He knew by now that there was no magical clicker that made him suddenly feel eleven, or twelve, and it wouldn't make him feel thirteen.
But he thought, maybe when he was thirteen, that vague feeling would eventually go away. He probably would have a great and exciting birthday. He'd get his copy of his game, maybe some presents, and then have a great time playing in his room until he was forced to eat more cake. Maybe he'd even get that super sweet poster of Little Monsters starring Howie Mandel. Then he'd go to sleep, and be thirteen. He didn't really want much more than that.
He rested his chin on both his knees, now, drawing them up as he watched an asteroid the size of Texas fly on his computer screen. Outside, the wind whistled, and then blew, harder, against his window, as if bringing him a secret from his future that only the wind could know.
Comms Sample:
ummmmmmmm i don't want to alarm anybody?
like no blaring horns or anything, no wooeewooee sort of thing!
that'd just be stupid.
but i don't think i'm supposed to be here?
unless i fell asleep and now i'm three years older.
wait...
oh wow.
maybe i am three years older?
i would have thought three years older me would have one of those really long white beards.
i guess what i'm trying to say is that breathymajigadoodo thing really sucked.
everything is really new here, and kinda sucky?
and i wonder why three years older me decided to get a tattoo of a number.
i don't think things are adding up...
i mean uh hello wouldn't a ghostbusters tattoo be even cooler??
and i don't know when i would have the time to get a tattoo if i was busy sleeping for three years, i guess.
oh!!!!!!!!
maybe this is like the numbers for the ghostbusters!
so now when anybody asks who're you going to call, i can just show them this number!
nice going older me.
boy, i'm really smart when i'm older!
PLAYER INFORMATION
Your Name: Scarfle
OOC Journal:
long_scarves / scarfleUnder 18? If yes, what is your age?: nope nope nope
Email + IM: clockpunktime@gmail.com + AIM: ikaros flying
Characters Played at Ataraxion: nope nope nope
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: John Egbert
Canon: Homestuck
Original or Alternate Universe: OU
Canon Point: Beginning of the three year journey with Jade, after he sends the bucket into Karkat's face
Number: 001; if taken, 186 or RNG ;u;
Setting: What is Homestuck?
History:
Now this is a story all about how John Egbert's life got flipped, turned upside down, and I like to take a minute, just sit right there, and I'll tell you how John Egbert became the breath and rightful heir. In Maple Valley, Washington, born and raised, on his computer he spent most of his days, chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool, hanging out with Rose, Dave, and Jade online after school, when a game called Sburb, it was up to no good, started throwing meteors all at his neighborhood. He got in a bunch of fights and his dad got raided, and his entire house got taken to the Land of Wind and Shaded. Trolls whistled for him, and when they came near, the troll named Vriska said listen here, killed him off in his quest bed, you could say that was rare, but John said nah, forget it, now he's the hero of breath/air. Pulled up to LOHAC, beat the imps seven or eighter, yelled to his session, yo home, smell you later. Looked at his friends, he was finally there, to sit on his throne as hero of breath/air.
That's basically it, yeah, except there's that long and unfortunate part about John being the main character of Let me tell you about Homestuck. Let's just say John dies in the end/middle/every other time. So, I'm sorry, but let me tell you about Homestuck.
The beginning of John is basically the middle of John, too. In the simplest terms, he created himself; he is a stable time loop. In some lab out there in something called the Medium, John used the power of weird science aka ectobiology to create himself, his friends, and guardian babies, and after a tearful reenactment of Con Air, the best movie ever, he sends them all through time and space and they all land somewhere, and yada yada yada. He arrives on a meteor, incidentally killing Nanna, and gets raised by Dad. Nanna, his adoptive grandmother, is his genetic mother. Dad, as his adoptive father, is his genetic half-brother.
The story begins on the thirteenth of April, when John turns thirteen. We see our protagonist,
He manages to retrieve the game, pop it in, and start playing. There are two discs in Sburb: Client and Server. The Server is able to manipulate the Client's environment at will. Giving kids absolute control over another's house goes as well as you expect. Rose, as John's Server, tests out these shenanigans. Sitting in a bathtub in the middle of the hallway, John asks her what's wrong with this picture. Nothing, John, you are just being weird. After his house is in ruins, though, shit gets real(er). A meteor starts hurtling towards his house, which isn't a great start to being thirteen, but it could be worse. There's more hasty shenanigans, with plenty of haunting tunes, but the dealio is that the game provides these machines that make stuff, and he and Rose make a Cruxite Apple in some weird significance. By biting into it, he gets transported to the Medium, where his house is now stuck over the Land of Wind and Shade. You could say he was house trapped, though I don't know why anybody would want to say that.
There's a bunch of imps leaving oil around his house (wipe your feet!), and what he supposes are their defacement on his cool (read: loser) movie posters. He assumes the imps had done it, since he only noticed the defacements after he entered into his father's room. John had this idea that his father was weirdly obsessed with harlequins and that he was a WACKY GUY, but when he entered into his father's room, it was all suitcases and wallets and ties. He had to come to a realization that his image of his father was not correct. Rose, however, tells him that those drawings were there all along, and he drew those weird harlequins himself. In fact, that was why his father was weirdly obsessed with them. He was only trying to connect to his son. Nope nope nope, except yep. That's a little messed up, but he fights his way down, passes the Gate, and ends up on the Land of Wind and Shade, where he begins talking to two trolls, gallowsCalibrator (Terezi) and carcinoGeneticist (Karkat). They surely must not be important at all. His conversations with Karkat are kinda weird (friendship as an emotion?? buddies??? whatever you say, karkat!) but his conversations with Terezi are quite straightforward. She tells him to fight Typheus, the Denizen, through a shortcut, so he does.
And quite straightforwardly gets killed.
Because there's this whole thing about the trolls: they are angry because of something the kids do in the future that apparently interrupts their session. It's complicated and hard, and full of time shenanigans, and at this time, John doesn't know it all yet, either. Karkat trolls backwards, Terezi trolls linearly, but something's going to happen, to the point that the dead John is part of a doomed timeline. Fortunately, the Dave of the doomed timeline knows what's what, and goes back in time to warn John not to fight the Denizen. Everything goes well from that part on.
Except for the part where John is like nope nope nope oh Dave you and your pathetic trolling you can't prank the pranking MASTER. Thank you, John. He rockets off anyway to go fight the Denizen. But he remembers his friendship and bonds, reconsiiiiiiddeerrrrs, and doesn't go to fight the Denizen, after all. The Denizen is called Typheus, which is only as important if you recognize it as a reference to the father of winds. (Also, as a reference point, the John of the doomed timeline apparently just chatted with the Denizen before getting killed. Oh, John.)
Instead, following Terezi's advice again, he crashes into Rose's house in the Land of Light and Rain. Here, he trolls Kanaya by pretending to be Rose and pretending, as Rose, to be really into Little Monsters. Here, he also gets tricked by Dave to showing the codes to Rose's wizard fanfiction and super important genetic code, but that's not super relevant to John's storyline at the moment. After stopping to put a bucket over her door, he goes to the Veil, and through some weird science, makes himself and all the others. That was how he created himself and all their guardians. And reenacts the scene of Con Air. How does he get through one night without his baby friends? What kind of life would that be? He needs them in his arms, need them to hold-
This.
is.
stupid.
While he's busy making the paradox clones, there's something going on dreamland. Literally. The kids have these dream selves that are asleep on the moons of Derse and Prospit. John's dream self has never woken up on Prospit's moon, but he really should, because Jack Noir (for simplicity's sake, the big bad; for more complicated's sake, though the kids don't know it yet, the guy who will grow so powerful, he will mess up their sessions) crashed the moon. Jade's dream self sacrifices herself to save him, and so John wakes up to a bunch of bloodshed and yeah, maybe there's better ways to celebrate your thirteenth birthday. But not with cake. There's just too much cake.
In the dreamland, he gets a powerful bunny toy that has a bunch of weapons stuffed into it (since it was his present from Jade that got tumbled around through time shenanigans), manages to survive an encounter with Jack Noir (by the bunny), and sees his father (still looking sharp, Dad). But before he could do a beautiful run-and-hug, Vriska (troll) wakes him up with her mind powers. It would have been beautiful to be reunited with his father. It didn't happen.
Vriska, though, has her own plans. She's a troll who doesn't want a doomed timeline, but helps Jack Noir in order to kill him at the right moment. It's complicated, but basically she has the power of making the kids fall asleep. John befriends her, and thinks she's pretty nice. You know how it is. He gets his Sburb disc to be the Server to Jade, but before he can prototype something that would have made Jack Noir lose both arms, both eyes, give him silly blue hair, and possibly made him a girl, Vriska makes him fall asleep, leaving Bec, the first guardian to be the prototype instead. The short part of that is: shit happens, and then shit really happens.
The long part doesn't have much to do with John's biography, but is pretty important to the plot. Basically, Bec is a First Guardian of the world: good dog, best friend, but ultra super-powerful. Anything that is prototyped before the session becomes part of the enemies in the world. For example, John had prototyped a harlequin without an arm and with a scratch over its eye. Jack Noir, of that world, didn't have an arm and had a scratch on his eye. Likewise, the imps also donned on harlequin outfits. So, Bec + Jack Noir = terrible. So terrible, that Jack Noir went to the session of the trolls, who had been on the brink of victory, and ruined everything. That's pretty terrible. The problem is that John fell asleep before he could prototype anything, and if you don't prototype something before the game begins, then it's also super bad. But now Jack Noir has the powers of the First Guardian.
Upon waking up to Karkat's angry gray capslock, John also finds his land is being burned by green fire. Smokey the Bear would have been upset at that. Fortunately, he uses his Windy Thing to put it out. That's not a metaphor for farting. It's his cool wind power, and that's pretty cool, and makes him pretty powerful. Can't get more powerful than that, nope nope nope. His ranks goes all the way up, and the salamander people are happy they have been saved from an emerald-tinted death. Vriska offers to help him take a nap on this bed that's on the top of a mountain, but there's nothing suspicious in that, nope nope nope. Everything is pretty cool now.
So then Jack Noir kills him while he's sleeping.
Fortunately, it's just a flesh wound. There's these parameters for ascending into God Tier, and that's one of them. God Tier is basically what it sounds like, having great powers and being nigh immortal, except not really, which comes later. The important thing is John dies in the middle and gets resurrected, in a great scene with a bunch of fireflies. He ascends, and assumes the title of Heir of Breath. This is all his dream self, now, so this will now take place in the dream land, Skaia. The bunny is still there, and gives him the Warhammer of Zillyhoo, which is a powerful weapon, with a haunting but silly song. Off to find his father, then! Nothing could go wrong with that. He sees a cloud of darkness over there, and decides to head over it, because John is a master of good decisions.
There, he finds his bff Rose, who had succumbed to grimdarkness. Oh, Rose. She tried to tell him something, but she was speaking in weird tongues. Oh, Rose. But he sees what she was trying to tell him. His father and her mother had both been killed by Jack Noir.
Oh, Rose.
They get into a strife with Jack Noir, turning up to the thousands of an epic battle, can't even contain all this epicness, except you can, because John gets stabbed really quickly.
Thanks John.
Fortunately, god-tier means that you can only die if the death was either justice or heroic. Getting stabbed wasn't justice, and the anti-climatic death certainly wasn't heroic. He awakes to find a dead Rose, and then kisses her to wake up her dreamself, as well. Kissing apparently wakes up dream selves. Who knew. But from here on out, they have a plan. They want to initiate the Scratch, which is basically a giant reset button that says, give us a chance to win. The trolls did it, which is why the Ancestors are now troll kids and the troll kids now are Ancestors, etc. In this new plan, John goes to Dave's land and fends off the minions. While he's doing that, a bunch of stuff is going on, and basically he gets roped on a ship to apparently travel three years to reach their destination. With Jade, he travels on a giganto ship through the fourth wall. Oh, but not before sending a message in a bucket, which goes directly onto Karkat's face.
Oh, John.
To sum it up because that's probably a little (read: a lot) confusing! John, thirteen, gets a game called SBURB. There's meteors coming to his world and basically, vaguely, beating the game means becoming gods to the new world, or rather to procreate a universe. He has his own land, the Land of Wind and Shade, and then meets these trolls who are trolling him backwards through time because, through Vriska, he fell asleep and let Bec prototype into Jack Noir. Jack Noir, as the villain, then goes to the troll's session and destroys their end goal. John almost dies, but Dave travels back in time to save him; John actually dies, but in doing so, he ascends to God Tier; John dies again after he sees his father dies, but since he's God Tier, he comes back and revives Rose as well; and now John is off off and away.
Personality:
John is three parts cute and a little bit of a dick. Basically, a good kid. We're introduced to him as a guy who loves bad movies, pranks, and magic tricks. And by loves bad movies, he really loves bad movies. He doesn't love them ironically, he loves them in the way he keeps his bedroom plastered with terrible, horrible movies. The most notable is Con Air, a movie that is great because Nic Cage is in it, so great that John takes the time to reenact the end scene of the movie by giving bunnies to his friends, even when they're babies. That's kinda terrible. To say the least, he is really, really involved in his movies. He named the killer bunny Liz Tyler, and was visibly moved through the reenactment scenario. But he also loves pranks, calling himself the pranking master, even though his sort of jokes are more hearkening the Mark Twain humor rather than anything malicious or adult. His type of humor is pretty squeaky clean. He likes web comics, and video games. He's a little bit nerdy in his love, and wears a Japanese knock-off of a Ghostbusters shirt. That's part of his personality, almost as important as he's allergic to peanut butter.
Less important than peanut butter, John is a pretty honest guy. He trusts people that he probably shouldn't trust off the bat - Vriska, Terezi, Karkat, WV, etc. He's also been used by other people while remaining oblivious to it. Vriska, for one, who kills him off so he could ascend to God Tier, or Dave, asking him to flip over books in Rose's rooms so he could copy the code to her wizard fanfiction. Though he's somewhat gullible, that doesn't stop him from being a pranking master. For his own squeaky clean fun, nobody can beat him. He trolls Karkat right on back, with the dubiousness of friendship as an emotion, and then trolls Kanaya by pretending to be Rose, which is a heavy hand in the start of their relationship. Basically, he can be manipulated easily, but in pranks, he has no equal.
Whether he's a good judge of character, that's more difficult to tell. To say the least, he is, despite being John, a good judge of his friends. He sends gifts to his friends that fit their personality, and that they're seen still using. Shades to Dave, knitting stuff to Rose, pumpkin seeds to Jade. In his letters, he pinpoints their strengths and weaknesses, still bearing that John warmth. He is just a really friendly sort of guy who trusts people and trolls, and forgives them pretty easily. He trusts a random stranger who sends him off to his death, and after all that, trusts her again. He also remained friends with Vriska, even after she killed him, in part because he ascended to God Tier, and in part because he's John. In fact, he remained very good friends with Vriska, to the part where romantic feelings are implicated to follow. He's a good judge of character for his friends, and obliviously trusting of others, but totally oblivious when it comes to romance. It took Karkat's angry capslocked screams to even get that through to him.
He is the sort of guy who believes in stuff if he believed in them already. That is to say, he has a mild breakdown when confronted with the fact that he may have drawn LAME KID and harlequin designs over his movie posters. He also refuses to believe Dave initially when told not to go jetpacking off to his death, instead trusting a random stranger. He's a good friend, but partially set in his ways.
The kids have different approaches when it comes to being in a doomed session. His approach is optimistic, or "stalwart optimism" as Rose puts it. In contrast to other approaches, he believes there is still a way. He sees the good side of things, and his bread is metaphorically buttered right side up. Rose accounts for the trait as one of the reasons he is a good leader, another being that he doesn't call himself a leader. He calls himself their friend. And, yeah, he's a really good friend. He's a little bit of a perfect hero, with that optimistic strength and heady determination. Though his trust in others often has lead him to bad decisions and doomed ends, he comes out alive because of them, and cheerfully attributes these to his murderers.
Heroes don't come without their downfalls, though, as if John's unerring optimism wasn't enough. There is a sense of an undercurrent in him that isn't as average as it seems. Through Gamzee's influence, he was oblivious to defacing his own room with harlequin figures. He called himself a "fool" and "lame kid" in his writings, pointing to himself. These perhaps prompted his father to display those strange traits that John always seemed exasperated by, such as dealing with his father's strange obsession with harlequins (his father trying to connect to his son) and his father's reassurances that he was proud of him (perhaps in response to the letters on the wall). Though he's a pretty well-adjusted kid, there appears to be a side of him that's not fully acknowledged, a side that perhaps denies the importance of being called leader in return for friend. It's a side of him that treats his father's doting with a sense of yeah, yeah, whatever, where he acts desensitized to the reality.
He sometimes displays a cunning knowledge of his own setting, such as when reading a letter from Jade's penpal that called her a grandmother, he understood it as time shenanigans. Likewise, his irrational loathing of Betty Crocker, which appeared often in the face of his father's oft-baked cakes, is justified. His accusations against the evil hidden in Betty Crocker looks more formulated in the alpha setting. That being said, even though he ironically notes several aspects of his world and the game, he often remains confused to many parts of it. That doesn't bother him, though Rose did reprimand him to learn the terminology. On the ship, boarded for a three year journey, he doesn't understand Jade's explanation of what will occur. All his plans to defeat Jack Noir bypass his own invincibility, leading him to heroic deaths. He wasn't that great at initially handling his sylladex, often shooting things out or merging them together in a gooey mess. He's meta-aware, but not quite aware inside the setting.
He's a nice boy, but silly, nevertheless. In times of great danger, he doesn't leave the kernelsprite hanging. At the very least, he resists squawking like an imbecile and shitting on his desk. It took some effort, but he resisted. When he sees Dave ascended to God Tier, he takes the opportunity to mock him for looking stupid in his pajamas, despite the time running out to remain there. But he's a good friend. A really good friend. He doesn't leave Jade alone on the ship for that reason, though she would have other company. He befriends people and lizards easily, and named Casey the lizard as his impromptu daughter in another reenactment of Con Air. He tries his best to be culturally sensitive, even if he has to kick an imp off his house. Well. Maybe especially if he gets to kick an imp off his house. But it was wielding a broom. Being culturally sensitive is hard.
John, though, isn't the sharpest nut in the bucket. He is a guy who does things without thinking, which leads to consequences. When he goes to join Rose in Skaia, Jade had tried to warn him through their Pesterchum that his father was already dead. Unfortunately, not thinking too thoroughly ahead, he had given his Wallet and his communication devices to a stranger that was flying away very rapidly in a cab. He's also not that great at focusing, and ends up trying to make a bed fort even when Rose is trying to get his attention. He's just an earnest, sweet kid who doesn't really pay attention to stuff like consequences.
Before he goes to sleep on his quest bed, Vriska asks him whether he wants her to put her to sleep. She tells him that it's a choice that shows what sort of hero he would be; the choices that he will make to shape the hero that he is about to become. His answer: sure, whatever, Vriska, she can put him to sleep, so he doesn't see the harm in having her put him to sleep. That's the kind of hero that John has become. He relies on others, not from necessity, but out of trust. He takes the simplest route, and disregards the mass that is destiny, fate, and character. That stuff is complicated. What's important, and what's simple, is that there is a way. That's the Heir of Breath.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
John, as the Heir of Breath, can do the Windy Thing. That's basically just a lot of wind, which is powerful enough to propel a taxi into the air. Take that, Harry Potter. I don't see any particular reason to limit it, since it's just wind, but I wouldn't mind limiting it, either.
He can also hit people with really big hammers. You can say he gets his hammer out of his hammerspace haha no I don't see any reason to limit, either, but I don't mind either way.
He is also a pranking MASTER. I understand any need to limit that. Sometimes, those pranks are just too much.
As for his mental strength and weaknesses, they're basically the same thing. He's optimistic and trusting, which leads him to bad situations. But these same traits allows him to persevere in these bad situations, and come out of said situations relatively unscathed.
Last but not least, God Tier means John will only die when his death is Just or Heroic. I imagine anything plot-related would indicate he would die a permanent Heroic death, but I'd still like to keep this power intact. However, I understand if this would need to be nerfed and therefore will leave it up to you.
Inventory:
His sylladex, whose fetch modus is wallet (basically a way to carry things around.) Inside that wallet is a Pop-a-matic Vrillyhood Hammer, which is just a big hammer that doesn't yet have a soundtrack. Also: Casey, the salamander that was his daughter in the tearful reenactment of Con Air.
Appearance: Black hair, buckteeth, glasses, and a can-do attitude. His first shirt was a Japanese knock-off of Ghostbusters. His current outfit is basically blue pajamas. He's the kid who looks like all the other Homestuck characters, but even moreso.
Age: 13; he's been killed two and a half times and seen the end of some worlds. He also plays a lot of video games. He can take it.
AU Clarification: N/A
SAMPLES
Log Sample:
His name is John Egbert, and he is twelve. Night falls in the neighborhood, and he can hear his father baking downstairs. It feels like a lazy night, as he scrunches up in his chair and watches Dave talk himself in a circle with his ill beats. Then maybe Rose would come online soon and talk to him about weird things that were very weird. Jade would come online whenever Jade came online. He felt giddy, though, and had to bite on his finger to stop giggling at the thought that he had sent off their presents today. He had to run himself ragged, because nooooooo, their birthdays couldn't be spaced out, but they had to make poor John find all the best presents. But he knew that he got the best presents for them, and they would all be mad thankful to him. He hoped so, anyway, because he was very mad thankful for his friends, too.
He was tempted to play a haunting refrain, but refrained from the refrain to opt for some YouTube music in the background. He was exhausted from the afternoon, having to send everything from the post and stuff. He might pop in a great movie to watch, and maybe see Bruce Willis's heroic mangrit and Liz Tyler's heartbroken yet hopeful face. That always cheered him up. But it wasn't like he was sad!
It just sometimes felt absent.
If Rose was here, maybe she'd drop some heavy sick psychoanalyticalizing all up in the house. She would be like hey John what did you dream about but he would be like he had a dream about Jodie Foster about how much she had to believe. Maybe he should tell her about the cake, too. He could still smell the cake wafting from downstairs as Betty Crocker sunk her snarled hands everywhere. Bluh, he didn't want to have to eat more cake tomorrow. Wait, what had he been thinking about? He was thinking about something. Resting his chin on his knee, he watched his compilation fail again and mess up the entirety of his code, and he remembered. Right, thinking about the absence.
Because it wasn't like he was a heavy thinker, like Rose. He was just John, and he didn't really think just thoughts that much. He thought about rockets and peanuts and cake. He thought about magic tricks and computer codes and video games. But he didn't think about being John. But since he was so tired that night, he thought, briefly, about the absence that lingered in the air. It felt like a slight pressure on him, something that was painfully missing, yet present. It wasn't something that was super painful, though. It just felt like the ache of a twelve year old waiting to turn thirteen, except maybe this absence was even more absent than that.
It made his head hurt, though, so he started another code from scratch. Now all his friends were thirteen, except he was still twelve. It wasn't that big of a deal, though he would be sure to give them a hard time about being old ladies and an old man. But at the same time, he was looking forward a little more to turning thirteen. He knew by now that there was no magical clicker that made him suddenly feel eleven, or twelve, and it wouldn't make him feel thirteen.
But he thought, maybe when he was thirteen, that vague feeling would eventually go away. He probably would have a great and exciting birthday. He'd get his copy of his game, maybe some presents, and then have a great time playing in his room until he was forced to eat more cake. Maybe he'd even get that super sweet poster of Little Monsters starring Howie Mandel. Then he'd go to sleep, and be thirteen. He didn't really want much more than that.
He rested his chin on both his knees, now, drawing them up as he watched an asteroid the size of Texas fly on his computer screen. Outside, the wind whistled, and then blew, harder, against his window, as if bringing him a secret from his future that only the wind could know.
Comms Sample:
ummmmmmmm i don't want to alarm anybody?
like no blaring horns or anything, no wooeewooee sort of thing!
that'd just be stupid.
but i don't think i'm supposed to be here?
unless i fell asleep and now i'm three years older.
wait...
oh wow.
maybe i am three years older?
i would have thought three years older me would have one of those really long white beards.
i guess what i'm trying to say is that breathymajigadoodo thing really sucked.
everything is really new here, and kinda sucky?
and i wonder why three years older me decided to get a tattoo of a number.
i don't think things are adding up...
i mean uh hello wouldn't a ghostbusters tattoo be even cooler??
and i don't know when i would have the time to get a tattoo if i was busy sleeping for three years, i guess.
oh!!!!!!!!
maybe this is like the numbers for the ghostbusters!
so now when anybody asks who're you going to call, i can just show them this number!
nice going older me.
boy, i'm really smart when i'm older!