John Egbert

John Egbert is one of the main characters of the webcomic Homestuck and the first one who appears to the reader. John uses an online application known as Pesterchum to communicate with his other tech-savvy friends. His chumhandle is ectoBiologist. It used to be ghostyTrickster, but he changed it to avoid the trolls. He chose the name ectoBiologist based on a comment by Terezi.Page in Act 4
As of December 2014, there are 8,354 works on AO3 and 3,100 works on fanfiction.net with John listed as one of the characters. There may be some overlap between the two sites. The most popular Homestuck pairing on AO3 is John/Dave, with 3,023 works as of December 2014 and 4,471 works as of October 2017. It is difficult to track how popular he is on Tumblr, considering the archiving methods of the blogging platform.
==Canon==
===Biography===
He has a fairly warm and positive relationship with his parent, unlike the majority of Homestuck characters. He is the leader of his session, but considers himself more of a "friendleader."Page in Act 5 Act 2
===Relationships===
====Beta Kids====
Rose, Dave and Jade are his long-standing best friends. He got nervous about Karkat's suggestion that John and Rose should get married. Around the Seer: Descend flash, he became nervous when they met, but quickly warmed up to her, and even brought up the subject of marrying her, which he became embarrassed about.
====Alpha Kids====
====Dad====
====Trolls====
==Fandom==
=== 4/13 ===
Birthday art for 4/13 is a common way to celebrate the Homestuck anniversary, possibly along with Jane Crocker's birthday or Neil banging out the tunes.
===Shipping===
Popular ships include John/Karkat, John/Dave, John/Vriska, and John/Rose. Nicher ones include Dirk/John.
===Sexuality===
In canon John says to Karkat that he is "not a homosexual." There is much discussion and fights about whether or not this means that canon John is clearly heterosexual: other fans say that as a 13-year-old kid, John himself might not be clearly aware of his sexuality yet, and that sexuality is fluid. The statement features heavily in many fanworks that ship John with Dave or Karkat for added angst.
===Gender ===
Fans who have headcanoned or explored the idea of John being a transgender girl usually use the name "June" or "Joan." Joan has historically been a common name for genderbends or trans headcanons of characters named John (see: Joan Watson). 
With the release of The Homestuck Epilogues in 2019, interpretation of the character being trans became more prominent. This discussion was popular on Tumblr and AO3. Using the name "June" grew in popularity at this time for unclear reasons, possibly in reference to a pesterlog with Vriska.https://www.reddit.com/r/homestuck/comments/g0qxwf/vriska_and_names/June Egbert FAQ megathread on Reddit by MoreEpicThanYou747 At some point, Andrew Hussie was made aware of the the headcanon, and those close to him indicated his excitement for it. https://tomatograter.tumblr.com/post/186994621105/episode-49-live-in-renton-evil-women-w-aysha#notes
==== Toblerones ====
In August 2019, the first person to find the cache of candy in the first of Hussie's Toblerone hunts, Twitter user @placeholder4abn, posted her find to Twitter. Receiving a joking reply from another user of "CONGRATS ON BECOMING THE NEW HOMESTUCK AUTHOR," she replied in kind with a joke referencing the Bridges And Off-Ramps essay released in the previous day's episode of the Perfectly Generic Podcast: "Thank you all, having proven myself both conscientious and invested i declare June Egbert Real the direction of the will of the fans @eboy_hussie Take Note." Hussie replied, "you were the first to find my treasure, and so it will be done".https://web.archive.org/web/20190826181008/https://twitter.com/placeholder4abn/status/1165649722561855488
==== Fan Response ====
Some fans were thrilled and adopted the idea as canonical immediately.
Other fans were very upset by this development, which frustrated June Egbert fans browsing the relevant tag.https://tomatograter.tumblr.com/post/187321587370/i-know-the-news-might-come-as-a-surprise-to-a-lot
Still other fans enjoyed the headcanon, but felt like it was premature to declare June Egbert definitively canon.
==== Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon ====
It is expected that canonization of June would occur in Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon. Hints of setup for a gender arc were made in Candy timeline chapters, but in February 2021 the comic went on indefinite hiatus with a plan to be released all at once when it is finished.https://www.patreon.com/posts/future-approach-47431875https://homestuck.net/official/patreon/posts/future-approach-47431875/ In October 2023, the comic started up again with a new team.
==Fanworks==
=== Fanfiction ===
*Battlefield Terra by Asuka Kureru or Askerian
*Real Men Wear Tights by Bananaramses and SergeantMeow
*Don't Point That Finger at Me Unless You Intend To Use It by Blue_Thallium
*Godfeels series by Sarah Zedig is a popular fanwork featuring June Egbert and an exploration of the character as transfem.
=== Fanart ===
* i luv the junior ectobiologist lab suit soo much… by meruz
* it is in the nature of the wind to change by tomatograter
* JUNE EGBERT: is it possible to have a deep rooted fear, but only in retrospect? by synodicatalyst 
=== MSPFAs ===
* Failure to Launch by cutelilufo
=== Games ===
* Pink Sky, a post-canon visual novel directed by Dani Lalonders
=== Meta ===
* John’s a really interesting case of this blank-slate, everyman sort of character surrounded by a very deep, richly written supporting cast by heir-of-puns (Jan 19th, 2017)
* John’s narrative in the epilogues - specially candy- feels very trans-like by tomatograter (August 14th, 2019)
==Archives and Links==	
*John Egbert tag at Archive of Our Own
*John Egbert at FanFiction.net
==References==
Category:Homestuck Characters‎