For the post-scratch version of this character, see John Crocker.

John Egbert is one of the main characters in Homestuck. He, according to , hadn't been given a name until his thirteenth birthday; however, this is just a framing mechanism. In the past, he had ended letters with “-ghostyTrickster (john)”. While originally given the name , the game rejected it and settled for John.

John uses an online application known as Pesterchum to communicate with his friends. His chumhandle is “ectoBiologist”. It used to be “ghostyTrickster”, but he to avoid the trolls. Oddly, he chose the name ectoBiologist based on by one of the trolls.

His title may be a pun on his associated classical element, because interchanging the first and last words produces "breath of air".

His web browser of choice is Typheus, who coincidentally is the mate of Echidna, the namesake of Jade's web browser.

John's associated Classical element is air, and his Associated Item is oil.

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Biography Edit

Childhood Edit

John, traveling by meteor, arrived on Earth as an infant, which the death of his ectobiological mother. He was adopted and raised by his half-brother who took the role of his Dad. At some point during his childhood, Gamzee Makara on John, causing a doll resembling Jack Noir to appear in his dream room on Prospit. This caused John to write self-depreciating remarks and draw pictures of harlequins on his walls while sleeping, however he was not cognizant of these while awake. His dad, who was generally supportive of his interests, began showing an interest in harlequins too, in an attempt to bond with John, but failed to realize John's distaste for them.

At some point John became friends with Rose, Dave and Jade over the internet. Little is known about this other than Jade John on one of his birthdays. All four would go on to play Sburb together. On , after being by trolls, John changed his Pesterchum handle from “ghostyTrickster” to “ectoBiologist”.

Sburb Edit

The story begins on his birthday, when his copy of Sburb arrives. He an awesome Bunny from his friend Dave. He with Rose as his server.

Despite his penchant for video games, he initially does not have a firm grasp on the concepts of Sburb and rarely understands what is going on with some of the more technical commands. However, he later show some more proficiency at playing by the game's rules, and gets the ingenious idea of combining two punched cards to create a new weapon with the Alchemiter. He then makes other items based on the same principle.

After John with the harlequin doll his father got him for his birthday, the area around his house is hit by a Meteor and engulfed in flames. He the Cruxite Apple and enters The Medium, sparing his house from absolute destruction by suspending it on a pillar of rock in the Land of Wind and Shade, the setting Sburb had prepared for his personal quest.

His Dad is kidnapped upon entering the game; consequently, his only guides in the Medium at first are Nannasprite and Wayward Vagabond's voices in his head. His house is also overrun by Shale Imps. After messing around his house fighting imps and ogres for a while, John the first Gate, sending him to the surface of LOWAS. He his land and begins talking to some trolls.

Terezi is able to into attempting to fight his denizen long before he was ready, and this creates an alternate timeline where John is killed. Dave eventually travels back in time and stops him. The John who died in that timeline later deceased Vriska in a dream bubble, and they date each other for a time before breaking up. This John was eventually obliterated by Lord English​.

Despite Terezi deceiving him, he decides to trust her again, and which led to Rose's house. Rose is asleep at the time, so he takes her birthday gift to him: a bunny similar to the one he got from Dave. Tired of waiting for her to awaken, he leaves to explore the Land of Light and Rain and with a transportalizer, which leads to The Veil. Here he does some ectobiology, , including himself, as paradox clones and giving them gifts.

Initially John's dream self has mostly been asleep, with only brief glimpses of waking up and sleepwalking. This changes when Jack Noir begins The Reckoning and , causing the moon to come crashing out of orbit. Dream Jade attempts to wake John before sacrificing herself to save him from certain death. Dream John awakens after the celestial collision and face down on Skaia's Battlefield. He takes the White Queen's ring from Jade and foresees his destination in the clouds.

Meanwhile, his other self, sleeping in the Veil, is saved by an Authority Regulator of Derse. On the Battlefield he from Jade by a Parcel Mistress, which was the same bunny as his other presents, but this time enhanced with cybernetic upgrades. He is confronted by Jack Noir, who assumes the bunny would continue to help him, but this was a mistake. Jack flees leaving John to wander the Battlefield. Soon he his Dad and Rose's Mom, but before reuniting with them, John is awakened by Vriska's powers and loses the Queen's ring.

He becomes friends with Vriska, whom gives him advice on matters which he was going to do anyway; all part of her paradoxical efforts to be the guiding hand behind Jack Noir's ascension and eventual (at least in her mind) defeat. John retrieves his server copy of Sburb to connect to Jade, however he is put back to sleep by Vriska before prototyping her kernel. Later he is seen in mortal danger, as Jack Noir was using his new first guardian powers to destroy LOWAS with green fire.

With WV's help he to 'do The Windy Thing', putting out the fire on LOWAS. Later, on the advice of Vriska, he goes to sleep on his Quest Bed and gets by Jack Noir, and his dreamself ascends to god tier.

John travels through Skaia in his new form with the Wizardly Vassal and drills the planet to retrieve The Tumor. He comes across the Courtyard Droll who had been carrying Liv Tyler with him, getting its Warhammer of Zillyhoo. He sends Liv, CD? and WV? to Derse to drop off the Tumor at the moon and gives his wallet to WV?, forgetting it carried his Crosbytop where Jade messages him later about .

John finds a grimdark Rose descending to the castle where her mother and John's father were slain. They reunite and Rose tries to explain the situation but could only speak in eldritch tongues. Rose leads John to the top of the castle where his parents lie and , but as his strife began Jack immediately stabbed John. Due to his death being neither just nor heroic, he comes back to life later, only to discover a dead Rose. Following Vriska's advice, he kisses Rose, allowing her dream self to survive. Then, following Karkat's orders, John goes to the Land of Heat and Clockwork. It is here that Karkat first trolled John from his perspective .

Future Karkat explains how to initiate the scratch which John . Later he is transported to Jade, who had just acquired god tier, and observes as Jade fulfilles Echidna's request traveling to a new session through the Fourth wall.

Crossing the Yellow Yard Edit

As he begins to cross the Yellow Yard on a Prospitian battleship, Jade the journey to the post-scratch session will take three years. She of sending him to the trolls' meteor so he can spend the next years with Dave, Rose, and the trolls, but he declines since Jade can't accompany him and he doesn't want to abandon her. Instead, he sends to the meteor crew.

Later he encounters Bec Noir and initiates a brief fight where John scores a hit on a distraught Jack before he flees. Wandering through a desert, he finds a gold ring in the sand and picks it up. Tavros claims that the ring is his, but their ownership dispute is broken up by Vriska's arrival.

Vriska informs John about the existence of Lord English along with the various plans being proposed to try and stop him from destroying reality. John expresses interest in helping her but is forced awake by another troll. The ring leaves the dream bubbles with him, remaining in his hand.

While the ship continues on course to the new session, John remains asleep and Vriska and Tavros again along with other dead trolls. After he enters a skull cave (which looks surprisingly similar to a cherub skull) and find the treasure, John . Throughout past panels of Homestuck John's arm appears many times. Eventually his dream projection disappears and his waking self begins teleporting wildly throughout many other panels. Eventually he ends up on LOMAX and wanders around, later with the meteor crew (except Gamzee) .

Jade then appears, brainwashed by the Condesce, and begins to beat him up, at which point he once again disappears. He realizes that he had become unstuck in existence from sticking his hand in the treasure. Using a combination of his wind powers and newfound teleporting abilities, he begins to elude Jade. He appears on LOHAC, LOFAF and LOLAR and has a conversation with Rose and Terezi. After telling them what happened before they were separated, he says he believes that he may now be able to change established events on the alpha timeline.

He eventually ends up in the middle of Dave and Jade's conversations and Dave tells John he can feel that he's changing the alpha timeline, due to his instincts as a Hero of Time. This conversation is averted when John's future self appears and takes John away before Dave notices, sending him away to find Roxy.

Meanwhile, on Derse, Roxy mentions Calliope and how they're a ghost in danger of being destroyed by Lord English. John suggests using his ring to bring Calliope back, but finds that the ring is missing upon returning to the Prospitian ship. He once again zaps away and finds himself in Caliborn's Homosuck drawings, which he is disturbed by.

He goes through a series of misadventures in the story and eventually is zapped out to Caliborn's room, where he quickly pieces together that Caliborn is behind the horrific comic. The two fight each other, John promptly giving Caliborn a thorough beating before being zapped away once more, leaving a horrified, bloodied Caliborn behind.

Back to the B2 session, he finds himself in the aftermath of a catastrophic massacre. While searching for answers as to what exactly happened, he stumbles across a Dirk Strider being consumed by disordered glitches and later a still-alive Roxy cradling the body of Rose. He catches up with them on LOPAN and stands by as Rose speaks her final words before dying. The two discuss how terrible their current circumstances are and get interrupted when a wounded Terezi crash lands into the planet, walks over to John and headbutts him, demanding that he “F1X TH1S”.

The three decide the best chance they have at fixing the current situation is for John to get a handle on his canon-altering powers and seek the aid of Typheus. John encourages Roxy to also go see her denizen. In Typheus's palace, John finds him at the planet's core and accepts the Choice. Typheus opens the pipes leading to the core, which causes the oil to begin flooding the chamber, submerging John and thus preventing him from turning into the breeze to escape. John eventually comes up with a smart solution to the quest: zapping away the oil and spreading it throughout reality.

He plays the pipe organ in Typheus's palace, thereby completing his quest to free the fireflies and knocking the A6A6 cartridge out. LOWAS is teleported somewhere which appears to be outside of the story. Exploring his land, he comes across Roxy, and they discuss the similar Choices they were given. John uses his now-controllable powers to go back to the time when he, Terezi, and Roxy were talking on LOPAN.

John tells his past alternative self to go see Typheus while he and Terezi work out a plan. She writes instructions on her scarf in her own blood, giving John key terms from her memory to zap to those points in her timeline and make subtle changes that would ultimately result in a better outcome. Along other things, he retrieves the ring of life before Gamzee could find it and knocks out Vriska before Terezi could kill her. After a short conversation with the trolls, John decides he has "messed enough of this timeline" and zaps away.

He goes to his own timeline to zap Roxy and his planet into the new timeline and arrives on the victory platform where everyone else stands. After some chatting, Vriska lets everyone decide who will take on which villain, with John going with Rose and Roxy to fight the Condesce. The Condesce eventually overpowers the kids, however Roxy is able to stealth impale her, ending the fight.

John is seen exploring the new world created after Act 7, and notably celebrating his birthdays with his friends, who grow more and more distant with time. John eventually gets a challenge from Caliborn which he accepts. It is implied this leads to the events shown in Caliborn's Masterpiece.

Caliborn's Masterpiece Edit

Years in the future ( but not many) , John uses his retcon powers to confront Caliborn along with the Homestuck Kids, but he and the beta kids are sucked into Caliborn's House-shaped juju, supposedly trapped forever. It is implied that he is released when Vriska unleashes the juju at Lord English during the events of Act 7.

New Timeline Edit

The John native to the post-retcon timeline was on his version of LOWAS when it exploded in the three-year trip due to pre-retcon John's Choice, and presumably died a heroic death.

Personality and Traits Edit

John's physical appearance could be described as a kid with black messy hair. He has an obvious nerdy look about him, a trait inherited from his ectobiological mother. His outfit has a picture of what appears to be Slimer from Ghostbusters, but is in fact a Japanese knock-off.

John's interests are movies (especially Con Air), web comics, and video games. He enjoys paranormal lore, practical japery, and magic tricks, the latter of which he also performs. He owns a computer and likes to make programs, no matter how bad they may be. He also has a long-standing hatred of the Betty Crocker brand and can play the piano quite well.

His room has various items to suggest his hobbies, such as a Magic Chest filled with trick objects. His walls are littered with posters of movies, web comics, and video games. One example of a real-world videogame that John has played is . Notably, this collection of items, when colored, are typically green, but John associates with the color blue.

John tends to be a bit of a goofball, making bad jokes and using off-beat humor and subtle irony. He tends to be passive in nature, complying with commands not because they made logical sense, but because he was told to. His “optimism through stalwart skepticism” causes his friends think of him as the leader, while he prefers just being their friend.

From Dave's description, John is the kind of person who generally does not get emotionally wavered by events that would drive others to the brink, but instead gets riled up and irrationally stubborn over ridiculous minutia, to the amusement or confusion of others. This is proven true on a number of occasions throughout the comic, as he is shown to react calmly and appropriately during some of the more traumatic events of their session, but loses his mind when he briefly loses interest in Con Air. In a sense, he is one of the most innocent characters in the comic.

John is more prone to bad ideas than his friends and is made the butt of a lot of jokes when chatting with them through Pesterchum. He also celebrates the birthdays of his friends, sending them gifts. John has a tendency to be given commands about making noises and shitting on things. Fortunately, he hasn't complied with any of these, though he often seems to consider them against his better judgement.

John is by far one of the most inventive of the main characters; from the beginning, he shows more innovative prowess in combining items than any of the others, even before the introduction of the alchemiter; he demonstrates this with his poster-nailing and harlequin-funniness-amplifying abilities. He is the most grounded of the main characters, contrasting Rose's bookish, logical demeanor, Dave's unceasing pursuit of transcendent irony, and Jade's air-headed, scatterbrained antics. He is also the kindest - Rose is generally very cold emotionally, Dave is quite willing to put the pursuit of irony before consideration for others, and Jade's ideas of kindness tend to be a bit odd, although not out of actual malice.

John proves to be quite generous and spends more time than the others helping his Consorts. This is in special contrast to Rose who actively antagonizes them and intentionally sets about destroying her own planet once she learns their session is null and Dave, who appears to have disregarded them entirely when he wasn't stealing all of their money through the LOHAC Stock Exchange. His post-scratch self is described by Dirk as being “a real kindly old cornball” and that “a nicer guy you couldn't hope to meet”.

He also has a strong propensity for self-described "HILARIOUS ANTICS", and has all of the points on his Prankster's Gambit. All of them. Although Rose and Dave both frequently take potshots at the quality of his jokes and pranks, he appears to have a genuine talent for comedy, as his post-scratch self became a world-famous comedian.

Relationships Edit

Beta Kids Edit

Dave, Rose and Jade are John's best friends, and have been for quite some time. None of their feelings for each other has changed since the session has started, although he does think Rose has gotten "crazier," and has half-jokingly sworn to rescue her from the clutches of evil caused by her commune with the deep ones. John is seen to have a close sibling relationship with Jade, as he refused to leave her alone and stayed with her on the ship for 3 years. John does think that Dave is cool, but only says this between him and Dave as seen in the birthday note he sent him. On multiple occasions, Dave has described the two of them as "best bros."

He appears to be nervous about Karkat's idea of him marrying Rose; although John has brought up the shipping grid and marrying Rose on quite a few occasions, despite his supposed hesitance. Additionally, around the time of Seer: Descend, John began to show multiple signs of having a romantic crush on Rose. His reactions to Jade asking him if he was "in love with Rose" on also suggest this. However, after meeting her again three years later, John no longer behaves this way around her.

Roxy Lalonde Edit

Mirroring the aforementioned romantic crush John may have had on Rose as well as the relationship between Rose's Mom and Dad Egbert, Roxy's crush on Jake, and even Roxy's crush on Jane's Dad, John and Roxy hit it off upon meeting - John attempts to keep them entertained, and Roxy makes a mental note to mack on John, considering him "possible boyfriend material." When they met again on Roxy's planet after the events of [S] GAME OVER, John attempted to comfort Roxy. Terezi insisted that his awkward goodbyes displayed “P41NFULLY 3V1D3NT ROM4NT1C T3NS1ON”. They meet again after John finishes his quest and discuss what to do next in terms of the main plot. After several timeline-related shenanigans, Roxy is visibly happy to see John return to LOWAS. John hands the ring of life over to an especially happy Roxy, and they in turn grab John's hand as they venture onward into what can only be assumed to be even more timeline related shenanigans. John describes Roxy to Dave as “really nice” and “fun and easy to talk to”. John also stated that he felt worse for Roxy after the catastrophic events that he witnessed than they felt for himself. After John tells Dave about his experiences with Roxy, Dave notes these highly probable romantic feelings, telling John that “it sounds like you like her”, to which John responds “maybe”.

In [S] ACT 7 he is seen walking with Roxy and Calliope.

Jake English Edit

John quickly develops a friendly relationship with Jake when they meet - they have, among other similarities, a common fondness for movies and similar personalities. John invites Jake to join him, Rose, and Roxy in making plans for dealing with the villains, likely so that he can spend more time with him. John's stated that Jake strikes him as “a nice regular dude who likes movies and stuff”.

Karkat Vantas Edit

John's relationship with Karkat had become a duo of hate and friendship. John now enjoys all of Karkat's hate-filled rants because of the sheer "insane trolling" Karkat is capable of. While not his patron troll, Karkat has trolled him backward through almost every step of his journey. After he finished his backward trolling, Karkat's feelings toward John became far less antagonistic, and he has even apologized for all his bad behavior to him and his friends. John considers Karkat to be his favorite troll.

Terezi Pyrope Edit

John's talks with Terezi have been strained at best. The first time they talked, Terezi threatened to kill him as a prank, which caused him to change his Pesterchum handle. Later on, he gets involved in Terezi's plot to mess up the timeline, although they constantly antagonized each other. Since Dave has started working together with Terezi, she has stopped talking to John for the most part, as Vriska became his new patron troll.

Having met up after the bloodbath on LOFAF, the two of them began scheming to use John's powers to “F1X TH1S”. Although their plot was successful, Terezi and John still appear to be on bad terms, with Terezi calling him a “N3RD” and making belittling remarks, and John thinking that she's been pranking him, also frequently calling her either weird or insane. After John explains to Dave his interactions with Terezi , Karkat insists that John has a caliginous crush on Terezi, although John argues that humans cannot have those kinds of relations. Dave, however, supports Karkat's claim, saying that “karkat knows his shit when it comes to quadrants”. John later has mixed feelings about the idea, denying that he is black for her but heavily implying otherwise. It is possible that Terezi returns John's black feelings (or has some sort of other feelings for him), supported when she says to Vriska, , and does not finish her sentence. Later, John and Terezi have a conversation, which, although we don't get to see what they say, seems to be filled with black flirting and trading insults. When Terezi leaves, John retorts with “BYE, IDIOT!!!!!!!” and then blushes as Roxy looks at him.

Kanaya Maryam Edit

John has talked to Kanaya twice: first (from John's perspective) months in the past, and second during Sburb through Rose's account. John said she was “kinda cool” after their first conversation.

Aradia Megido Edit

John has twice talked to Aradia since joining Vriska's pirate crew. The first time he was introduced to her, he questioned her ghostliness, to which she responded with her claim to being alive. The second time, he asked her about her opinions on Vriska's crew's adventure. However, her response, to which John replied “you are all so insane!”, seemed to have .

Vriska Serket Edit

John's relationship with Vriska is a very complex one. It seems to fluctuate between admiring and disliking her. At first, Vriska decided to help John on his quest as a means of competing with Terezi, who was helping Dave. Vriska was very bossy and a controlling of John at first, which he found mildly annoying, but still enjoyed talking with her. Vriska and John's feelings continued to develop; John used more of her typing quirk to please her, Vriska made an outfit for John that she said made him totally hot, and John showed her Nicolas Cage, who became her fangirl crush. However, after Vriska killed Tavros, Vriska opened up with more of her feelings than she had with anybody else. She held John's opinion of her in the highest respect, fearing that he would be angry with her. She has told John about not only her remorse for the killing of Tavros and others, but how her views of killing compared to those of troll society, how much she admired humans for being weaker but nicer, and her entire background. Though he was a bit freaked out after hearing that Vriska had murdered twice and killed thousands to feed her Lusus, he didn't seem to think less of her after receiving the shock.

John was shown to still care about Vriska's wellbeing afterward, and Vriska reciprocated these feelings, hoping that John would get strong enough to stop Jack and protect his friends in case she died trying to fight him. Before her death, Vriska asked John out on a date, confirming that Vriska's feelings for John were red after all. John accepted, but Vriska was killed by Terezi, leaving a visibly shaken Karkat to look through their last pesterlog and respond through her account. After switching to his own account, he asked John if he genuinely liked Vriska, upon which John confirmed he did—prompting Karkat to withhold the information of Vriska's death and the specifics of Gamzee's rampage "for now" to avoid distracting John from the important tasks at hand.

During the ride to the new session, John claimed to no longer care much about romance. When Jade asked what this meant about Vriska, he said what he and Vriska talked about, and that is was a bit silly to base a romance on just a day's worth of conversations. John referred to her as “that troll girl who was sort of into me”, suggesting that he forgot about Vriska somewhat, but when he talked to Meenah a little later, he asks her if she has seen Karkat or Vriska (the only two trolls he really got to know well) around, showing that John does remember her more than his conversations with Jade suggested.

He later met Vriska's ghost in dream bubbles twice, and after seeing she was using the other dead trolls' ghosts as bait to defeat Lord English, he began to be somewhat disturbed by her, considering her to be dangerous. John confessed to Roxy that he was beginning to think he might actually “kind of hate her”, and went so far as to call her “diabolical”. However, during John's retcon shenanigans, he interferes during Terezi and Vriska's standoff. Per future Terezi's directions, he prevents Vriska's death by punching her in the face, showing no hesitation in punching her nor in preventing her death. Soon afterward, he does apologize to the unconscious Vriska for punching her, and admits that it will be neat to meet her alive self, showing that his former hatred for her either diminished over time or was vented out in that punch. After arriving in the new timeline with Roxy, John is happy to see Vriska, saying that “[her], um, *ways* probably are more valuable to have here, in the land of the living”, and her thought-out plan for taking on all the threats in the session.

Gallery Edit

Trivia Edit

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