Lil Cal

Lil' Cal is a puppet that belongs to Dave Strider's older brother in the adventure Homestuck. Another, identical one belongs to Andrew Hussie.

For a long time, Dave thought that the puppets his brother kept around were awesome but, more recently, he's begun to be disturbed by them; especially Lil' Cal. In Dave's defense, Lil' Cal has a rather unnerving aesthetic and seems to possess the ability to appear very suddenly (which is one of Bro's many ways of tormenting his younger brother).

Bro's mind games involving Lil' Cal have given Dave occasional nightmares where Cal talks, causing him to wake up in a cold sweat. This is likely because Cal appeared to move on his own on Derse, though he was probably being moved by Dave's subconscious.

During Strife, Bro uses Cal as a weapon, manipulating him so that it appears that Cal is fighting while keeping out of sight using his ninja-like speed. This succeeds in delivering quite the beatdown, and untold psychological damage. This suggests that Bro has the puppetKind Kind Abstratus. However, since Bro is a guardian, chances are he either has a nigh-infinite number of slots to add weaponry to, or, more likely, he is simply an exception to the system altogether.

During Bro and Dave's final strife, Cal is trapped between them and cut to pieces.

After accelerating to a future scene, Cal is shown to have been used as a Tier Two Prototype in Dave's Sprite. When Dave goes back in time, he prototypes the seppucrow with himself, as the Calsprite doesn't seem capable of communication beyond mocking laughter.



Cal can be considered a Paradox clone of sorts, but is not made through Ectobiology. Rather, as Dave was raised by Bro and Cal, he grew fearful of him due to his creepy aesthetic, burning this fear into his subconscious. This causes a manifestation of these fears to make a 'Dream Cal' which continues to antagonize Dave in his dreams. Rose became annoyed by him and threw him to Derse, but he lands on Bro's hoverboard and is brought to the Ectobiology lab in The Veil by a Transportalizer. This Dream Cal is sent back in time with Baby Bro to grow up with him, become the 'real' Cal, and raise Dave, leading to his paradoxical origins as he causes subconscious trauma that creates him in the first place.

Also, as he could move on his own on Derse, it is speculated that Cal was "alive the whole time", though he could just be animated by Dave's subconscious in his dream, as he no longer moves on his own outside of dream Dave's room.

Cal is later stitched back together by Bro at an unknown time and appears with him when he faces Jack Noir in the Land of Wind and Shade. After Bro is defeated by the Becquerel-prototyped Noir, he is taken by Noir for unknown reasons (along with Bro's awesome shades). When he throws away all of his trophies Jack Noir keeps Cal. The reason being that he could never stay mad at Cal, and he is a true friend. The only one he has ever known. Jack stores Cal in some sort of First Guardian dimensional pocket within his own body. 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, and when they arrive they are promptly hit by a meteor and into one of Skaia's defensive portals. Cal lands on Alternia, near Aradia's hive and before the creation of Sgrub, and the impact reveals a Frog Temple. She then gives him to Sollux, who in turn gives him to Kanaya. She makes him a new Felt-like outfit, but decides to put him away in her respiteblock when she too becomes unnerved by him. Black Queen then targeted him with a Appearifier along with the Magic Cue Ball to create a Paradox Clone of Doc Scratch.

The fact that Bro carelessly allowed Cal to be cut to pieces, but went through a great deal of effort to stitch him back together, suggests that he may have intended for Dave to prototype with him.

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 sketch that Andrew Hussie did AGES AGO.