Lil Cal

Lil Cal is a puppet featured prominently in Homestuck. Many iterations of him have been observed to exist, such as one in the possession of pre-scratch Dave's older brother, another acting as the supposed guardian of Dirk in the post-scratch universe, and even an identical one belonging to Andrew Hussie as given to him by Eyes5.

Origin
Lil Cal has been identified as a juju, and as such, his existence is an ontological paradox, meaning he has no true point of origin.

Cal is first introduced as having been part of Dave's upbringing by his bro; however it HS 2369 (quickly becomes apparent) that Dave is severely unnerved by the puppet. This turns out to be partly due to the presence of a copy of Cal in Dave's dream room on Derse's moon. The existence of this version of Cal is not explained at this point in the story, and was assumed to simply be a consequence of Dave's exposure to Cal while awake.

Once the session begins, other characters become entangled in Cal's circuitous path through paradox space. During a visit to Dave's dream room, dream Rose becomes annoyed by Cal and throws him out of the tower. Rather than plummeting to an uncertain fate, Cal miraculously lands on Bro's traveling hoverboard, which brings the puppet to the ectobiology lab in the Veil through a transportalizer. During the events of The Reckoning, dream Cal is then assigned to a meteor with baby Dirk, who later grows into Dave's bro. This means that the real Cal who torments Dave in his waking hours is, in fact, a future version of the very same Cal who haunts his dreams.

Universe B1 (pre-scratch Earth)
Initially believed by Dave to be thoroughly awesome, Lil Cal slowly began to both disturb and flip him the fuck out over time. In Dave's defense, Lil Cal has a rather unnerving aesthetic and initially seems to possess independent mobility, including the ability to appear very suddenly. This movement is, in reality, the work of Dave's bro flash-stepping around and moving Cal as he does so. This has, however, also happened outside of the presence of Dave's bro, and some of these instances remain unexplained.

The effects of bro's mind games 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's moon, where he can seemingly move without external force. Cal possesses this ability there because that incarnation of him has (presumably) been animated by Dave's subconscious.

During strife, bro uses Cal as a weapon, making Cal a part of his supposed puppetkind abstratus. Bro manipulates Cal so that it appears that Cal is fighting with incredible speed and maneuverability. This succeeds in delivering both a physical beatdown and psychological trauma.

During bro and Dave's final strife, Cal is trapped between them and cut to pieces. These pieces are collected, along with a load of junk out of Dave's sylladex, by his seppucrow sprite and HS 3407 (made into a nest) for the cruxite egg that must hatch in order for Dave to enter the session. Shortly after Dave enters, he is then faced with the task of second tier prototyping the sprite, which HS 3537 (seems to want) him to prototype something unsettling, which is unsurprisingly HS 3541 (revealed) to be the pieces of Cal. However, this timeline is doomed by several factors resulting from John's death, so Dave is forced to go back in time. He then proceeds to HS 3550 (self-prototype) his sprite instead, resulting in Davesprite, and thus averting Calsprite's existence. In this corrected timeline, Dave soon loses track of the pieces of Cal.

It turns out that the pieces have been retrieved and stitched back together by bro, and Cal thus reprises his role as bro's weapon in strife with Jack Noir in the Land of Wind and Shade. However, after bro is defeated by the Becquerel-prototyped Noir, Cal is taken by the archagent as a trophy. Later, when Bec Noir comes to his senses and discards his trophies, he cannot bring himself to throw away Cal. He can never stay mad at Cal, as Cal is a true friend; the only one he has ever known. He stores Cal in HS 5451 (what appears to be a dimensional pocket) using first guardian powers.

Universe A2 (Alternia)
Bec Noir soon finds himself forced out of his session of origin by the scratch, and flees to the trolls' session. On arrival, he is held at bay by the Aradiabot army, at which point he throws Cal to entangle one of the attacking robots. That particular Aradiabot then travels through time, taking Cal with her. They are promptly hit by a meteor, and carried with it into one of Skaia's defensive portals.

The meteor lands on Alternia, near Aradia's hive, before the creation of Sgrub; Cal and the Aradiabot are ripped apart upon impact. The crater reveals one of the troll session's twin Frog Temples, which Aradia investigates, at which point she finds the remains of her and Cal.

Aradia gives Cal's remains to Sollux, who in turn passes them on to Kanaya. Kanaya stitches Cal up again and makes him a new Felt-style 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 Cal with an appearifier, along with the Magic Cue Ball, to ectobiologically create.

Later, after the trolls conclude their failed session of Sgrub, Cal has once again slipped off the radar. He eventually turns up in the possession of a sober and murderous Gamzee, who had retrieved Cal from Kanaya (or at least her house) at some point prior to Bec Noir's arrival. After finding Tavros murdered by Vriska, he makes out with the corpse for a while, then has a conversation with a past version of Dave. At this point, he HS 5931 (reveals) that he used his HS 5928 to create both the Jack doll in John's dream room, and the original dream version of Cal in Dave's dream room.

Gamzee subsequently proceeds to use Cal to taunt Terezi after tricking her into falling into the secret room of the base. Terezi then captchalogues the puppet before ascending to confront Vriska over the deaths of their fellow players. She removes Cal from her inventory at some point before the HS 5985 (rare and highly dangerous 5x SHOWDOWN COMBO), during which the now-blind Sollux mistakenly aims his confused feelings for Gamzee at the puppet. Following this, 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 iteration of Cal remains in Gamzee's possession, and is later seen with him on Derse in the post-scratch B2 universe's session. It now apparently contains Caliborn's soul, and is seen to rather disconcertingly HS 7581 (wink at Gamzee).

Universe B2 (post-scratch Earth)
The scratch produces a new iteration of the humans' universe with altered destination times for the meteors carrying the ectobiologically-created players. As such, a second version of Cal emerges, still with Dirk, but now landing on Earth four centuries later. Unlike in the B1 universe, Dirk does not give him a new outfit, instead keeping the Derse clothes. He is HS 6421 (very close) to Cal, referring to him as his guardian.

In conversation with Dirk, Caliborn is the first to describe Cal as a "juju" – a dominant concept in cherub culture. Caliborn tells Dirk that he should destroy his iteration of Cal, referring to the puppet as a bad omen. But Caliborn then reconsiders, describing this version of Cal as having dead-looking eyes; he speculates that this Cal may be "". However, he later changes his mind, now believing that the hollowness of Cal may make him even more dangerous. Caliborn also claims that only one version of any given juju can exist, and they cannot be copied, so if Cal appears in both reality and dreams, one of them 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 apparently dies, supposedly only leaving the real Lil Cal in the possession of Gamzee.

The B1 Cal is given by Gamzee, presumably on Caliborn's instruction, to the B2 Courtyard Droll, who then passes it on to the imprisoned B2 Jack Noir. Caliborn then uses the B2 Cal as a transmitter of sorts, channeling his curse through it into the B1 Cal, allowing him to control Jack and orchestrate the events that culminate in the end of Act 6 Act 5.

Caliborn's session
It turns out that B2 Cal was not destroyed, and escaped the Red Miles when HS 7396 (Earth was transported) to its new orbit in an unknown universe. He was therefore HS 7161 (brought into Caliborn's game session) along with the rest of the planet.

While aiding Caliborn in session, Gamzee excavates B2 Cal and gives him to Caliborn, who abandons his original juju and HS 7576 (makes Cal his new juju), with surprising enthusiasm given his previous fearful thoughts about the puppet. He explains that he previously feared the curse Cal contained, but he became relieved and excited when, in his communion with Cal, he realized that the curse would be brought about by himself. He does so by eventually using Cal as a vessel to contain his soul.

At the time when the Alpha players lie in their Quest Crypts, Gamzee arranges the delivery of B1 Cal, along with Crowbar's crowbar and an assortment of knives, to B2 Jack Noir. As soon as Jack picks Cal up, the curse within causes the puppet's eyes to become rotating pool balls and compels Jack to saw off his leg and gouge out his own eyes, so that he may replace them with a Prospitian spire and Cal's eyes, respectively. After releasing a massive blast of energy that destroys a large portion of Prospit, Jack is wreathed in an aura of rapidly varying colour, complementing his new resemblance to. Presumably, this marks the destruction of B1 Cal, thus completing the inevitable enforcement of the rule that there can only ever be one permanent version of any given juju.

Trivia

 * Lil Cal 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 the "most important character in Homestuck". This title is very fitting, as he seems omnipresent and has connections to multiple universes and characters, not to mention two major antagonists taking a liking to him, and two others heavily referencing him, with shared traits like head shape, eye shape, candy-red cheek symbols, and a single gold tooth.
 * As of HS 7384 (this page), the likelihood that he is the most important character has been increased.