[witchesreign application]
Name: Poptart
Journal: princesscurls
Contact: [AIM] Kuroupouri
OC or AU: AU
Character Name: John Egbert
Series: Homestuck
Gender: Male
Age: 13 years old/6 solar sweeps
Requested Sponsor: Carbuncle
Entry position (Cadet, SeeD, Instructor, other): Cadet
Appearance:
In this AU, John is a troll. He has gray skin, yellow sclera, gray irises, horns with an elegant, forward swoop, fangs and blue blood. He is a bit shorter than normal humans. He looks like his usual self, except a troll. His usual self is:
History:
A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, is this young man's birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!
What will the name of this young man be?
> ZOOSMELL POOPLORD JOHN EGBERT|
Hold on to your seatbelts, this is going to be a wild ride.
(Or you can click that picture above there instead of reading half of this)
The story of John here literally begins here, on this very page, where he is given a name -- an identity. As we read on, we learn that he is a pretty normal nerd from suburban Washington, emphasis on "normal", with a variety of interests and a cake-obsessed Dad. He is waiting around his room stuck, in a sense, bordering on the titular for the waves of presents he's expecting from his other, nerdy, online friends and Dad, and for the super cool Game of the Year that should've arrived days ago, Sburb Beta. While waiting, he idly toggles around his Sylladex, misquotes poets, and topples sacred urns. Through a series of antics, he eventually succeeds on getting the game, and connects to Rose as her client player.
Rose messes around the house, moves bathtubs, and scatters essential elements of the game around the house. They find out that there is a timer ticking, and if it hits zero, a meteor hits John's house unless they accomplish one of the games' puzzles. They succeed, and John finally gets his cruxite item, an apple resembling the fruit from the book of Genesis to symbolize the loss of innocence, and gets into the real game. His entire lawn is magically moved to The Incipisphere, and he starts adventuring, kicking monster ass and taking names like a real life .hack character.
While adventuring, he is pestered by two trolls, carcinoGeneticist and gallowsCalibrator. They are, for the most part, unhelpful and abrasive. GC (Terezi) even tricks him into his death via the hands of his denizen at some point which, apparently, is relevant. That creates a doomed timeline, so to preserve the Alpha timeline, doomed Dave returns to the past and tells him not to do it. He listens, and calls GC out on her bullshit. She apologizes, and actually helps him. He gets to Rose's land, and then leaves, and then beholds a lot of salamander robes.
He finally wakes up as his dreamself to find that one of his friends, Jade, died to save him. He is saddened by this. He finds his Dad on Prospit, but their tearful reunion is cut short by Vriska, another troll, who's proposing to help him. And she does help him a lot! She is his Patron troll because of this.
He goes back to his house, Server player disc in hand. Rose tells him to get the Tumor. He connects to Jade and successfully gets her into the Medium. Vriska makes him fall asleep so he won't create a doomed timeline; as a repercussion of this, they create an unbeatable boss. LOWAS burns during his slumber, because it is a stupid oil planet, and he extinguishes this flame by using The Windy Thing. Because of that, he suddenly has all the levels. Vriska tells him that he does not, yet, truly have all the levels. She tells him to go nap at his quest bed, where he is killed.
Not permanently, of course. Turns out that if your real self gets killed on the quest bed with all the levels, and as long as your dreamself is still alive, you rise to GOD TIERS which is exactly what it sounds like -- your mythological role is recognized, you get god powers of your element and you get action pajamas as a bonus. John goes god tier and wakes up on checkerboard Skaia, the battlefield. He meets WV, and they cruise the sky because the heavens have no speed limit. Jade tells him that his parents are in a castle, so he starts looking for that castle.
While looking for Dad, Vriska apparently killed her crush and comes to John about it because she is a bitch with no friends. John becomes culturally sensitive and tells her she will always be his friend despite her having murdered thousands of trolls for her spidermom. She says goodbye, and then he drills Skaia and doctors out The Tumor, a giant bomb that would detonate to erase the fruitless session. He friend-orders his crew of WV, Liv Tyler the stuffed bunny and a Dersian carapace to deliver The Tumor to Rose and Dave on Derse. He then searches for his father again and finds an ominous, black cloud over one of the castles, freaky, Eldritch tentacles swishing every whichway -- yes, he thinks. My Dad is totally in there.
He goes there, finds Rose, their parents' mutilated corpses and Jack, and then gets stabbed AGAIN in the chest. He wakes up, because he is cool and immortal, and finds Jack gone, and Rose dead. He smooches Rose back to life, tells Vriska that YES! Oh my God, yes, he will go on a date with her! (Minus 50% of the enthusiasm.)
Karkat tells him to initiate the scratch. He does.
He and Jade escape through the Fourth wall; Dave and Rose chill in the furthest ring. They are safe from having resetted lives, retaining all memories of their past and dwelling outside space/time as respective gods of their elements.
PSYCHE.
(Alternate Universe:)
By a stroke of bad luck, or a twist of fate maybe, THEY DON'T MAKE IT. The whole session is resetted and they make a shady deal with Doc Scratch to save their skins. The details of the deal is iffy, however, and the humans wake up as trolls, memories intact, and the place around them suggests that, before they woke up as trolls, their bodies have been living troll lives. They have no idea what their troll selves were like before that happened; all they know is that they replaced them permanently. Dave is a mutant redblood with an eagle lusus; Jade is a greenblood with a wolf lusus; John is a blueblood with a cow lusus and a Fortress; and Rose is a subjugglator living by the sea with an octopuss (half-cat, half-octopus) lusus. They are having a hard time adjusting with their new bodies and new biochemistry.
A couple of months later, Rose's mentor, her troll mom, gives them Sburb (II). Through this, they find out that all the original trolls are alive and turned into humans. To complete the game cycle, they apparently have to connect to them to form the cycle, but they couldn't communicate with them yet because there is no such thing as interstellar internet.
That's where I'm taking him; before they connect to the human trolls.
World History:
Earth
The four kids that play Sburb come from the Planet Earth, our own homeplanet with a few minor alterations. Basically, you take Earth from 2009 with its Ironman, Con Air, Snoop Dogg and H.P. Lovecraft, and you tweak it a little bit so real life could be just like a video game.
Here, everyone has a Sylladex, which is a card-based inventory. In order to put (or, “captchalogue”) items in one’s Sylladex, that would require a Fetch Modus. A Fetch Modus is the setting a person uses to retrieve their items; for example, John uses the Queustack Array that helps him pick out any item he wants as long as they’re on the bottom or top cards. If a person happens to put an item over a card that’s already containing a different one, i.e. captchalogueing a bunny on a card that already has a book in it, the book would fling off the inventory. There’s usually a size limit to what you can put in a Sylladex (you can’t captchalogue a doll bigger than you) with the exemption of Dad’s wallet.
A Strife Specibus is a special card that a person uses for battle. People can have as many weapons as they want as long as they have a decent Strife Portfolio and the right cards. Before anyone can use a weapon, however, they have to allocate it into the -kind Abastrus; for example, Strider wants to use a shitty sword as his weapon, so he allocates it a sword to swordkind.
Sburb Beta
Of course, every story has its premise. Homestuck is about a kid and his friends and they play a game, and this game is Sburb. Sburb is a sandbox-type of game resembling the Sims in the sense you can control the environment with a cursor, except it takes place in the real world.
Players
Upon receiving the game, the player would notice there are two discs to use: The Server and The Client discs. Whoever it is needs a partner to be able to play.
The Server Player
The Server Player is the one with the cursor that manipulates the environment. His goal is to assist The Client to enter The Medium (more on that later). The Server is given a default menu of controls to do this; he can copy items, delete them, and set up things The Client has to use as long as he has enough building grist, which is the compensation for building things. Anyway, while The Server has access to view the Client’s environment, his span of control is limited. He can’t control anything past The Client’s lawn or anything where The Client has never been i.e. The Client has never been to his dad’s room, so the view to that room is obscured.
The Client Player
The Client Player is the receiving player with the objective to get into The Medium. Like any other game, it provides the players with a life-death puzzle to solve.
To enter the game, they need to prototype the kernelsprite with one or two items to complete their assigned task. Each player gets a task to overcome a certain area they’re personally having difficulty in, to make sure they’re worthy of their titles. For John, he had to bite the Cruxite Apple to symbolize loss of innocence to prep him up for responsibilities to come. He succeeds, and enters the Medium.
Which brings us to…
The Incipisphere
This is the universe where the real game takes place. It’s in a dimension completely different from ours, meant only to house the players of the game.
Skaia
Skaia is the realm of unlimited imagination and where dreams come true. The armies of Light and Darkness duel here, where they’re stuck in a perpetual, perfect stalemate which Light is always destined to lose. With each prototyping of the kernelsprite, the battle only grows more intense, and Skaia evolves into something more elaborate. Skaia has to reach its last transformation for the players to create a new universe and claim the prize.
Prospit and Derse
Prospit is The Kingdom of Light; it’s the closest planet the orbits around Skaia, and its goal is to protect it from Derse. Derse is The Kingdom of Darkness; it’s the planet furthest from Skaia, tucked behind an asteroid belt called The Veil, and its goal is to defeat Prospit. Their architectures are similar but Prospit is light-themed whereas Derse is dark themed.
These are both dream worlds, where players wake up as their dream selves to complete certain game objectives.
The Medium
These are the planets that each player would end up in. This is where most of the adventuring goes. Each player has their own, unique planet design, mythological roles, consorts and denizen. For a player to reach Skaia, they must enter through all The Seven Gates, defeat their denizens, rescue their consorts and defeat The Black King and Black Queen. The planets in this session would be:
Egbert = The Land of Wind and Shade
Lalonde = The Land of Light and Rain
Strider = The Land of Heat and Clockwork
Harley = The Land of Frost and Frogs
Consorts are the assigned citizens of each planet. They’re usually very stupid, but they drop hints about the player’s quest, kind of like villager NPC's in RPG's.
Purpose
At the beginning of the game, no one really knows the point of Sburb but during the course of it, they’ll find out why it exists. It exists just to CREATE A NEW UNIVERSE, but in order to do that, the players must SACRIFICE THEIR OLD WORLD.
The prize for winning the game is a universe made for them to rule in whatever way they please.
Alternia
Remember when I said the game’s purpose is to create a new universe at the expense of the old one? To create Earth’s universe, players from the previous session had to sacrifice their planet for it, and that planet was Alternia.
The Trolls
Trolls are the nocturnal, violent creatures that run Alternia. They are basically what would happen if humanoids evolved from insects instead of monkeys. They have black hair, grey skin, yellow sclera with gray pupils, fangs and blood colors ranging from maroon to magenta.
Blood Color
To understand Alternian society, one must understand the Hemospectrum. The Hemospectrum is a caste system where the importance of a troll is determined by their blood color. Maroon would be the lowest blood color on the spectrum, along the ranks of peasantry, and Magenta would be the highest. Jade is extremely rare, while Red is a mutation. Every troll wears their insignia and blood color proudly on their shirts unless they prefer to hide it under gray anonymity, as was the case with a certain Karkat Vantas.
Blood isn't just used to determine your caste, though; it also actually affects trolls biologically. Trolls on the lower end of the spectrum, like maroon and yellow, are more likely to have psychic powers, weaker bodies and minds more susceptible to mind control. Trolls on the higher end have stronger bodies and are more resistant to mind control. Anything above indigo are seadwellers, and they are some of the highest forms of nobility.
Birth & Childhood
During troll mating season, the Imperial Drones come knocking to every troll's door and asks the resident to fill up their filial pails (more on that later) or die. They will then proceed to dump the sludge for the Mother Grub where it will lay eggs of the new, baby trolls. Those eggs will hatch into grubs, but not so fast -- this society is survival of the fittest, so the newly hatched wrigglers would have to go through the brooding caverns.
If they make it out alive, a wild animal referred to as a lusus will take one of them in, provided they have the same blood color, and act as the grubs' custodian. Like any custodian, they come in every shape and color. You might be lucky and get a sweet, little bull fairy, or you might end up with a high-maintenance monster that will eat you if you don't feed it properly.
The young trolls stay on the planet until maturation. There are literally no adult trolls on Alternia.
Adulthood
When a troll is old enough, they set off to space and they undertake a lot of dangerous business. They have a lot of jobs to choose from, especially if they're a blueblood; some good examples are law enforcement and space piracy.
During adulthood, their bodies change as well. Their horns get longer, teeth sharper and their blood color starts to fill in their eyes. Adult trolls are vicious, and are known to cull younger trolls.
Troll Romance
Unlike us humans, trolls have a different kind of romance. Whereas we only have <3, they have <3, <>, c3< and <3<.
Red romance focuses on positive feelings. Black romance focuses on hate. Concupiscent romance focuses on reproduction and sexual reproduction. Conciliatory romance focuses on comfort and conciliating.
Matespritship (<3) - Concupiscent; Red. It is a lot like human love. Moving on.
Moiraillegiance (<>) - Conciliatory; Red. Soul mates. It is where a violent troll is pacified and kept in line by their moirail.
Auspistice (c3<) - Conciliatory; Black. It is a three-person romance where a troll steps in between a party to make them stop hating each other. Since trolls are a violent race, without this romance, there would be a widespread black infidelity.
Kismesistude (<3<) - Concupiscent; Black. Hatelove. You hate a person so much that you want to hate them forever, so you don't want them to die. You want to punch someone and then kiss them, basically.
Misc
There are also a bunch of cultural differences like:
~ Due to their species' long history in movies, they cannot afford short movie titles anymore; every movie's title is the summary of its plot, hence the titles are extremely long and cumbersome.
~ Since they're a brooding, violent society, their version of "goth" are trolls that bask in the sunlight. They even have vampires, and they call them Rainbow drinkers.
~ Everything seems to be grub-themed. Their games are grubs, their paints are made from grubs and even their sauce are made from grubs.
~ Their beds are coccoons called recuperacoons. It is full of sopor, which is a sort of sedative that prevents trolls from having nightmares.
And so on.
> SCRATCH
> Connect|
See the thing here is, despite my thorough explanation of canon over there, I am still apping an AU character, and here is how my character is an AU: Though both sessions were catastrophic failures because of Karkat giving the human universe cancer, in this Alternate Universe, the children weren't lucky enough to escape space/time before The Scratch affected them.
The Scratch is the game's very own Reset button, and it jumbles up the session so the game would be more "winnable". For example, the trolls weren't the first players of their kind; the winners were playing a scratched session, and the previous session had a very, very different Alternia -- there, the planet was peaceful instead of violent. Unlike what the mspawiki said, there is no way to predict the kind of difference that would spawn out of a Scratched session; it's like a big, unpredictable round of bingo.
Through Doc Scratch's influence, this new, Scratched universe turns out very, very weird. The primary difference from the original kids and troll being: The kids (John, Rose, Dave, Jade) are now trolls, and the trolls are now humans and they now have to replay the game, while somehow connecting two sessions from different universes, and win. Luckily enough, the live players before the Scratch happened retained their memories.
Note: In this AU, Alternia is more fleshed out, so it has minor details like:
~ Adolescent trolls are comparatively shorter than adolescent humans, but they WILL be bigger as they age.
~ Troll and human biochemistry are radically different, so the trolls-turned-humans are super mellow compared to their troll selves while the humans-turned-trolls are violent and more open to their quadrants, since mate-or-die was not an idea they grew up with. Neither of the groups knows how to deal with this.
~ Trolls mostly hunt for food.
~ Trolls have more brain cells, apparently.
~ Horn length and fangs are good measures of attractiveness.
~ The higher the blood color, the more violent/less human they are.
And that's mostly it!
Abilities & Physical Abnormalities:
Well, he's not 100% human outside. He's a troll. I already mentioned his appearance earlier -- he has gray skin, yellow sclera, protruding horns, fangs and blue blood.
As a human, he was already amazingly strong, especially for his age, and his strong, troll body probably amplified that twofold. He could probably destroy a table if he hits on it too hard, like a goddamn karate master.
He lost his wind powers, though. Shit sucks.
Personality:
John, at first, gives off the vibe of a regular 13 year old boy - immature and irresponsible; facetiously overconfident and habitually self-deprecating; and rebellious around parents and tactless around peers. He loves pranks, goofing off and just kind of doing stuff without thinking, often for the sake of comedy.
The more we learn about him, the more evident it becomes that he is actually the very embodiment of childishness. He is a fresh, curious mind that soaks up ideas like a huge sponge and puts them in a fresh, unique perspective, making him incredibly innovative, perhaps even the most creative of their group. He is incredibly adaptive and accepting of odd things, save for, hilariously enough, occasional menial things, like how a proper gentleman is only a proper gentleman if they possess a monocle. His feelings and opinions take precedence over anything else (e.g. society) and he is always ready to defend them; he doesn’t give a shit if everybody thinks Con Air is bad because, in his heart, it is flawless. He understands life on his own terms, plays by his own rules, and if other people don’t like it, then too bad.
His curiosity, naturally, gives him a variety of interests. A little while after he was introduced, we get a page that tells us that he has a passion for terrible movies, computer programming, albeit not very well, paranormal lore, magic and games. Later, we learn that he likes pranks, webcomics, anime and Math. On the other side of the spectrum, he hates cake, and he’s allergic to peanuts. As far as mannerisms go, he’s very animated; he makes elaborate, and occasionally fruity, hand gestures and exaggerated expressions.
Although tactless at times, John is the emotional heart of their group. He is a surprisingly awesome judge of character, incredibly sensitive, and generally charismatic. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you did, as long as you come to him with your problems, he is there to lend an ear and keep an open mind. There is just something about him that is incredibly magnetic, and that’s probably why he not only befriended a handful of assholes (the cynical Rose, the emotionally-guarded Dave, the short-tempered Karkat and the conniving Vriska), but three-quarters of said assholes plus Jade reached a point where they would risk everything and die for him.
Childishness isn’t just all fun and games, though. Like everything, it has its downside. Innocence, as Sburb hinted, is the major character flaw that he needs to work on. While the ability of easily adapting into ideas and situations is nice to have, it makes him short-sighted and he often underestimates the severity of situations until too late. Rose says Earth is doomed; John says, well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go save it! His head is too much in the clouds that his feet forgot what the ground felt like. In fact, the more he is forced to land on the ground, the more he recoils and floats away; that is to say, his number one method of coping is to sprinkle everything with humor, and forget the problem ever existed. Throughout the course of Sburb, however, he is starting to learn responsibility and manning up and facing his problems. It’s a long way to maturity, but he’s getting there and he’s shaping to be a bright, young man.
John as a troll isn’t very different from usual. The essence of his character is still there; he’s still optimistic, bright and friendly, but with a few alterations. First, the Egbert thing to do isn’t to resist change; it is to adapt. Only a couple months passed when he woke up as a troll, so he’s doing his best living like a troll, but his attempts aren’t going to be all that successful; he’s going to inevitably misinterpret things because, after all, try as he might, this isn’t his culture. Second, the violent, uninhibited biochemistry of blue bloods is going to mess him up something fierce. He’s going to be angry, condescending and even cunning at times, but not intentionally, and he’s going to feel bad. It is going to be a thing that he has to deal with, along with his new, fluid sexuality and ability to feel the emotions necessary for quadrants. He’s also going to keep underestimating the extent of his STRENGTH, at least at first.
To sum this all up, John Egbert is what you would get if you put a class clown, a Mysterious Waif and Belle from Beauty in the Beast into a sandwich along with troll condiments, and then shrugging the ungodly existentialist off and calling it a heroic protagonist.
What are your plans for the character in-game?
I have tons! Classic Egbertian shenanigans and ADVENTURE are a given. Additionally, he is going to be adapting to this new, foreign world and this new, foreign body.
Anything else?
Complete TWO out of the FOUR options.
i) IC Questionnaire
What do you prefer to be known as?
john is fine, thank you!
How old are you?
i am six sweeps old. that is thirteen years old, in case you didn't know!
Do you have any history in combat?
oh, boy, do i! you are talking to the hunting MASTER.
If so, have you ever killed?
you mean like animals and stuff? yeah!
i) How do you feel when you get involved in some project that calls for immediate and rapid activity?
immediate and rapid are the only activities for me because i am a "today" person, you know?
ii) Do you organize and initiate leisure activities?
i don't think i have the money for that kind of stuff???
but i guess if you mean troll xbox parties at rose's, then totally!
iii) What role do you take when working in a group?
i am a respected and esteemed friendleader!
iv) How talkative are you around other people?
i am the right amount of talkative.
v) What three things would you want to have with you on a desert island? State your reasoning.
oh man! this is so hard.
i would take my laptop first because i need it. it is my only means of contact to my friends, and also it has all my movies.
i need my hammer so i can catch food, so that is number two.
i would also take... hm, let's see... my glasses? wait, does that already go with my clothes?
vi) Is it important to be liked by a wide range of people?
i don't really have any dreams of being prom king but being liked is nice.
vii) When the odds are against you, is it worth taking a chance?
definitely. winners never quit, and nothing is impossible when you have good friends to count on!
viii) Do you consider yourself to be an impulsive person?
i am mr. spontaneous. it's me.
ix) Would you agree that planning things ahead takes the fun out of life?
totally. you should just dive in and keep a positive attitude.
x) Do you like surprises?
i LOVE surprises!
xi) Do you sometimes wonder if there is something wrong with you?
sometimes. i think it is the clowns.
xii) Do you consider yourself to be smarter than your superiors, and disagree with their decisions?
they are definitely smarter because they have been through college!
i have better taste than them though.
xiii) Lastly, how do you feel about cabbages?
um... i don't really have strong feelings towards cabbages.
ii) Prose sample.
Getting used to this new lifestyle is pretty hard, John thought, exasperated, as he wriggled out of his recuperacoon, spilling sopor slime everywhere in the process. Everywhere. Contrary to what many of his favourite troll movies have taught him, the hardest part of living in Alternia wasn’t the wild animals, or the psychopathic adults; it was getting used to the sludge you have to work with every, goddamn day because they’re the better alternative from nightmares.
He slipped into the bathtub, hoping to get the slime off and thinking that maybe he was blowing up for no good reason. He seemed to have been doing that a lot lately, and he always felt a bit bad, but maybe that was better than when he freaked out weeks previous and threw a lamp out the window and woke up some of the neighbours. Boy, they sure weren’t happy about that, and it was a pretty great lamp too. He scrubbed the slime out of him, as well as the negativity he was festering in lately! Clean bodies made for clean living, or however that went.
He got dressed and ran downstairs. His fortress sure had a lot of stairs; he better be careful. He laughed, and practically skipped to the kitchen, expecting breakfast -
- to find nothing on the table.
His blood was boiling again. All right, maybe Cowmeron deliberately forgot the most important meal of the night because they had cereal stocked. Sure. (Even though cereal wasn’t even a type of real breakfast.) He opened the fridge, the drawers, and the cupboards, and there was nothing, na-da, zilch, and he was so hungry. He kicked one of the table’s legs, and before he karate chopped it to death (again), he stopped himself. “No, John,” he told himself, taking a deep breath in. “Dude, not cool.”
Listening to the wise, composed John’s advice, he took out his hammer. So they don’t have food stocked! That was no reason to be inexplicably mad. He was a Zen Master, a fucking Buddhist monk, right, champ? Right. Motivated, he ran outside and looked for something to eat.
There were so many bluebloods outside. Some of them were busy doing shady things; some of them FLARPING. Whatever their activity, he always seemed out of his place, what with the happy smile on his face and the skip in his step. It made him a bit uncomfortable, but he went on his way.
He ended up on a nearby forest. He treaded in there carefully. The trick was never to startle them. He found a weird cougar-bear hybrid watching him with intense, golden eyes. It tried to stare him down and intimidate him, only to have him stare at it back. It growled; he growled, he didn’t even know he could do that. And then, it lunged at him, fierce, deadly and, most of all, hungry. Months ago, he would’ve been startled, and ran. But it was different now; he violently smashed his hammer against its face, cracking skull and killing it with one, deadly blow. The impact of the attack vibrated up his arm and made it ache, though that was nonissue, as he just nonchalantly wrapped a bloody claw around its neck and dragged it back to his hive.
For some reason, he found himself staring at his hand for a second there. That’s funny. He could barely remember what his old hand looked like.