Lil Cal

Lil Cal is a puppet featured prominently in Homestuck. Many renditions of him are seen to exist, including those owned by Dave Strider's pre-Scratch older brother, acting as supposed guardian of Dirk Strider, and an identical one belonging to Andrew Hussie as given to him by Eyes5.

Origin
Lil Cal's origins are paradoxical and occur across multiple universes. Before he and his co-players began playing SBURB, Dave was raised by Bro and Cal. However, Dave grew fearful of Cal due to his creepy aesthetic. Gamzee Makara then psychologically HS 5931 (burned this fear into Dave's subconscious) using his "". This caused a manifestation of these fears to appear in Dave's dreams and on Derse, creating a Dream Cal which continued to antagonize Dave in his dreams.

Once Dave's session begins, other characters become involved in Cal's origins. During a visit to Dave's tower on Derse, Rose becomes annoyed by Cal and throws him out of the tower. However, instead of falling to his supposed demise on Derse, Cal miraculously lands on Bro's traveling hoverboard, which brings the puppet to the Ectobiology lab in The Veil through a Transportalizer. Dream Cal is then sent back in time with Baby Bro to grow up with him, become the real Lil Cal, and raise Dave, leading to his paradoxical origins as he causes subconscious trauma that causes his original manifestation on Derse. Via the Scratch the Lil Cal owned by Dirk has the exact same origins.

Universe B1 (Pre-Scratch Earth)
Initially believed by Dave to be thoroughly awesome, Lil Cal slowly began to both disturb and HS 2365 (flip him the fuck out) over time. In Dave's defense, Lil Cal has a rather unnerving aesthetic and seems to possess the ability to appear very suddenly.

The effects of Bro's mind games involving Lil Cal on Dave give Dave occasional nightmares in which Cal talks, causing him to wake up in a cold sweat. This is due to Cal's presence on Derse, where he can seemingly move without external force. Cal possesses this ability on Derse because his Derse incarnation has been animated by Dave's subconscious.

During Strife, Bro uses Cal as a weapon, making Cal a part of Bro's supposed puppetkind Abstratus. In Strife, Bro manipulates Cal so that it appears that Cal is fighting with incredible speed and maneuverability. This succeeds in delivering both a beatdown and psychological damage.

During Bro and Dave's final strife, Cal is trapped between them and cut to pieces. Although this appears to be Cal's demise, the puppet is later shown in two different timelines. In the first instance, Cal has been prototyped into Dave's Sprite, forming Calsprite. However, Calsprite doesn't seem capable of communication beyond mocking laughter, so Dave goes back in time and prototypes his sprite with himself instead, leaving Calsprite in a doomed timeline.

In the second instance, "alpha Cal" is stitched back together by Bro and appears with him when he faces Jack Noir in the Land of Wind and Shade. However, after Bro is defeated by the Becquerel-prototyped Noir, Lil Cal is taken by Noir as a trophy. Later, when Noir throws away all of his trophies, he cannot bring himself to throw away Cal. Noir could never stay mad at Cal, as Cal is a true friend: the only one he has ever known.

Universe A2 (Alternia)
Jack stores stiched up Lil Cal in some sort of First Guardian dimensional pocket within his own body before leaving his original session. When Jack battles the Aradia army upon entering the trolls' session, he sends Cal to entangle one of the attacking robots. That particular Aradia then travels through time, taking Cal with her. When they arrive on Skaia, they are promptly hit by a meteor and into one of Skaia's defensive portals. Cal lands on Alternia near Aradia's hive before the creation of Sgrub, but he and Aradiabot are destroyed upon impact. His impact reveals a Frog Temple. Aradia then gives Cal's remains to Sollux, who in turn gives them to Kanaya. Kanaya stiches Cal up again and makes him a new Felt-like outfit, but decides to put him away in her respiteblock when she too becomes unnerved by him, just as Dave was. Unbeknownst to the trolls, their session's Black Queen then targets Lil Cal with an Appearifier along with the Magic Cue Ball to create via Ectobiology.

Later, after the trolls ended their failed session of SGRUB, Cal is with sober and murderous Gamzee, who had retrieved Cal from Kanaya at some point prior to Jack Noir's arrival. Gamzee uses Cal to taunt Terezi after tricking her into falling into the Music Room of the base. Terezi captchalogues the puppet when ascending to confront Vriska over the deaths of their fellow players. Terezi removes Cal from her inventory at some point before HS 5985 (Attempt rare and highly dangerous 5x SHOWDOWN COMBO), during which the blind Sollux aims his confusing feelings for Gamzee at the present Lil Cal. Following the "duel," Lil Cal sits in Gamzee's lap as they watch HS 5119 (the miracle of a new beginning) and talk to at the Critical Moment. This instance of Cal has not been seen since, but is presumably either still with Gamzee or in the post-Scratch Sburb session by now.

Universe B2 (Post-Scratch Earth)
Since the Scratch altered the arrival time of the meteors from the Ectobiology lab but not their contents, Dream Cal enters the Post-Scratch Earth together with Dirk. Unlike in the B1 Universe Dirk does not give Cal a new outfit and instead keeps him in his Derse clothes. Dirk is very close to Cal and considers him somewhat of a guardian.

Cal is referred to by Caliborn as one of many jujus, a dominant concept in Cherub culture. Caliborn tells Dirk he should cut up and burn his Lil Cal, referring to the puppet as a bad omen. Lil Cal's eyes are described by Caliborn as dead-looking, and Caliborn speculates that the Lil Cal may be untainted. However, Caliborn later changes his mind, now believing that the hollowness of Cal may make him even more dangerous. Caliborn also claims that only one juju can exist at any given time and cannot be copied, so if Cal appears in both reality and dreams, one of the Lil Cals must be either an illusion or an error that will soon be corrected. This has been proven to be true at least once, when Derse Cal became real Cal by reaching earth on a meteor.

When Dirk's dream self is knocked out by falling rubble on Derse, his waking body is knocked out as well. Lil Cal is dropped into the fiery ocean below, to which Caliborn repeats his claim that HS 7094 (there) HS 7095 (can) HS 7096 (only) HS 7097 (be) HS 7098 (one.) Thus, the Dream Cal dies, supposedly only leaving the real Lil Cal in the possession of Gamzee. He is later shown to have survived though.



In the Cherub Universe
Though it would appear that the version of the Lil Cal from the post-Scratch universe was destroyed due to the Red Miles wrecking Earth and Lil Cal's descent into the fiery ocean below Dirk's apartment, Lil Cal was saved when HS 7396 (the planet was transported to the) cherub's solar system and later HS 7161 (into Caliborn's game session.)

While aiding Caliborn in the cherub session, Gamzee excavates Cal from the ruined ground of the destroyed Earth. Gamzee gives him to Caliborn, who abandons his original juju and HS 7576 (makes Lil Cal his new juju), with surprising enthusiasm given his previous fearful thoughts about the puppet.

Trivia

 * It is speculated that Cal has had some kind of unique or special ability all along, as Caliborn reveals Lil Cal to be a juju. However, Caliborn does have his doubts, as the dead look in Cal's eyes suggests Cal may have died after leaving Derse. Caliborn also dislikes mentioning Lil Cal's name, which may be due to its similarity to "Calliope," which when uttered would cause Caliborn to fall asleep.
 * MSPA Forums user Eyes5 constructed a real life Lil Cal puppet which is now in the possession of one Andrew Hussie.
 * Lil Cal also shares his name with a character that Andrew Hussie created ages ago.
 * In Cascade, Cal was shown to be sitting on Gamzee's lap during a certain HS 5119 (critical moment.) This makes him a candidate for "most important character in Homestuck". And this title is very fitting, as he seems omnipresent and has connections to multiple universes and characters, not to mention two major antagonists took a liking to him, and two others heavily reference him, with shared traits like head shape, eye shape, candy-red cheek symbols, and a single gold tooth in each of their mouths.
 * As of HS 7384 (this page), his status as most important character has been practically confirmed.