Even though sloppy is fine, it might be a bit of a good idea to arrange this particular page because, to be quite frank, as it is right now, it is just absolute garbage.
- For the adult version of this character, see Lord English.
Caliborn, also known by his chathandle “undyingUmbrage”, is a male cherub with cherry red blood
from a dead session of the game who shares a body with Calliope. He was confirmed to be the young Lord English.
Biography
Caliborn is the mentioned "brother" Calliope is working with, and is generally an antithesis of her. He is very rude and ornery (which contrasts Calliope's politeness). Caliborn's typing quirk is also the opposite of Calliope's, capitalizing every letter except u. Like Karkat and Calliope, he types in a shade of grey, having abolished "hemotyping" as part of a game he has been playing with Calliope for most of his life. However Caliborn changes his text color to the color of Calliope's blood as a sort of trophy.
He is confirmed to be a Derse dreamer, calling himself a "Derse guy" when explaining to Dirk why he had to hire the archagent to kill his sister instead of doing it himself. Calliope also mentions that she is a Prospit dreamer and that her brother must enjoy his "“netherworldly affiliation”".
Caliborn has been confirmed as the Lord of Time, one of two essential aspects to a session, along with Calliope as the Muse of Space. This is the male Master Class, parallel to Calliope's title. It is revealed by Calliope to be the most active class, and reserved for male players. Caliborn's reveal as the Lord of Time ties in with his adult self being the time travelling English.
Etymology
Like Calliope, his name bears reference to a certain puppet, which can also be seen as a reference to Lord English being "born" from Cal. External to MSPA, his name may also reference the following:
- Caliborn's name also bears resemblance to "Caliburn", an archaic name for the sword of Arthurian legend, Excalibur. Dave's sword Caledfwlch/Caledscratch also references an outdated and foreign term for the sword.
- His name is also highly reminiscent of "Caliban", the name of a monstrous supporting character in Shakespeare's The Tempest, who is sometimes depicted as green, and shares Caliborn's misanthropy. He also has a Uranian moon named after him.
- Although no obvious connections present themselves, his name is very similar to the nearly phonetically identical elf character "Celeborn" from Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.
- Caliborn (and Calliope) could be a reference to the Hindu goddess, Kali, who is known as the goddess of death, time, change, and also revered as the redeemer of the universe. This hints at the ongoing duality of the cherubic pair.
Symbol
Caliborn's symbol is a dark grey "U" with a red tilde (~) across it. Like Calliope, Caliborn's symbol is based on an astrological symbol for Ophiuchus, but his is more modern in comparison. It was proposed by British astrologer Walter Berg in 1995, and gained widespread popularity in Japan before being incorporated into the Unicode typographical standard in 2010.
History
Caliborn spent most of his life in a single room "together" with his other half Calliope. It is not until the dawn of their Sburb session that he breaks out of this situation.
By having Calliope's dream self assassinated by Jack Noir he prematurely takes full control of their shared body. This dominance is visualized by his cheek marks turning into full red circles, as seen in his future self English. He then chews off his still shackled leg, as only Calliope would have been able to open said shackle. This marks another two physical changes that are seen later in Lord English, the loss of a leg and one tooth. He replaces his lost leg with a robotic leg he prepared, and later replaces his tooth with one piece of candy corn obtained when he trashed MSPaint Adventures. At some point before talking to Jake, he apparently replaced this with a gold tooth.
After entering the medium he begins to explore his planet, meeting Gamzee Makara along the way. He politely declines Gamzee's offer to be his guide. He also finds a weird tower that lets him communicate with Andrew Hussie. He decides to go through with his plan to paint his words with Calliope's blood and changes his text color to #2ed73a. This combined with the caps lock on the towers keyboard results in the typing style he would continue to use as Lord English (when he isn't using the flashing color text). He begrudgingly starts to accept Gamzee's presents and guidance, due to Hussie's compelling arguments. ♫
After unlocking planets other than Earth, he largely abandons Gamzee as a guide and friend and builds up a crew of minions, one member at a time, to serve as his replacement.
Caliborn's Lord of Time outfit.
He eventually reaches and ascends the god tiers, unlocking the skeleton key badge on his Kiddie Camper Handysash, which he uses to assume control of the narrative. At this point in time it is also seen that he has a solid gold robo-leg, yet another step closer to English's adult appearance.
He spends an exorbitant amount of time writing his own parody of Homestuck, which he mockingly entitles "Homosuck." The plot of Homosuck quickly branches from our narrative's main plot: after a number of aimless housebound shenanigans, John dies without entering the game. As Caliborn is laughing at this, he accidentally hits the caps lock key, which opens a panel in his Sburb station where someone (presumably Hussie) had left a ludicrous amount of small horses, a "How to Draw Manga" book, and most importantly an A6A6 game cartridge, intended to allow us, the readers, to experience the real story behind Caliborn's back during the intermissions of Homosuck. Irked by this, Caliborn fills the game cartridge with special stardust, which causes large portions of the A6A6 intermissions to be filled with tangible glitchy artifacts.
In the next installment, all four female kids appear in Dave Alpha Male's room, at which point they go adventuring on LOSHIT (Land of Someone's Handicrafts I Took). This involves a lot of flying horses and slaying randomized enemies. John, having zapped into said story, becomes infuriated with Caliborn's misogyny and terrible writing and lashes out at the bogus surroundings, before being buried under a pile of Alpha Males.
Caliborn's god tier outfit from the mid-torso up.
After the events of Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 2, Caliborn welcomes us back (parallel to the end of a real world year long hiatus) and notifies us that he has begun to "master" the artform of manga. Initially, he shows us the great troll characters he has created in his typical Homosuck style, all granted ridiculous nicknames. In addition to that, he shows us his "before trolls," a flipped image of the full spritesheet with inverted colors which is apparently meant to represent the Beforus trolls. After throwing all those sprites in the trash, as they are beneath him now, he shows us his incredible progress, some of which is posted on his actually real DeviantArt account. Some of his first actions, after having Dave and Karkat hold hands erotically, included killing his versions of Nepeta , Terezi , and Vriska pretty much immediately.
After this, Caliborn's self-insert OC enters the frame. This OC draws its entire appearance (save for the red cheeks) from the first speculatory fanart of Lord English, created four years prior to this point in the story, and conceptualized as a humanized Bec Noir wearing English's coat. As he is showing us this, John appears on the scene. Caliborn ignores John's initial bids for attention as he gives his OC flashing the Felt colored eyes, directly parallel to English. After Caliborn looks up and has an intense staredown with John, he continues to speak in a narrative tone, threatening notable and non-fatal injury to John. They then proceed to fight at length, resulting in Caliborn being injured and bloodied on the ground as John teleported away again.
Later, Caliborn explains through the narrative, and the art of claymation (his so-called "masterpiece"), a vision he had of his future. He has somehow obtained Lord English's signature flashing billiards ball eyes, and has won his juju and the Ring of Void from Yaldabaoth. The four alpha kids and beta kids are teleported into his room by way of John's zappy powers, and a fight ensues. Caliborn uses his juju to seal the four beta kids within, turning it intangible, and making it into the weapon that could be used to destroy him. He traps the juju within his chest, and uses the Ring of Void to hide it in the Furthest Ring. Eventually, he manages to knock out all the alpha kids, but Jake counterattacks with a powerful hope field. Arquiusprite appears out of nowhere to subdue him, allowing Dirk to rip his soul out of his body (along with Arquiusprite's and half of Gamzee), and place it in Lil Cal. Roxy then uses her Void powers to hide the puppet as Caliborn hid his juju.
Caliborn challenging John
Caliborn then resigns from the narrative and announces that he is going to fight Yaldabaoth. After killing Yaldaboth, he gains access to his own God Tier clock, as well as the red Juju Chest containing the Treasure. He proceeds to destroy his own God Tier clock with Crowbar's crowbar and absorbs its energy, gaining the famed clockwork majyyk he frequently uses as Lord English.
Caliborn is last seen after the credits, daring John to fight him, directly leading onto the events of Caliborn's masterpiece.
Personality
Caliborn's art skills have significantly improved.
Caliborn is perhaps the most alien of all the voiced characters. He has a terrifying obsession with playing games, so much so that Calliope claims his love for them surpasses human comprehension of what love is. Additionally, he is obsessed with superstitions and Jujus, which define much of the relationship and "game" with his sister. Thirdly, he shares his sister's interest in romantic relationships, but unlike Calliope, he sees them as disgusting and pornographic.
Despite this obsession, he is apathetic towards Sburb, seeing it mostly as a means of escaping his dead home planet. He still intends to play it, but he plans to treat the game as a competition against Calliope instead of the cooperative game it is meant to be, which could make winning the session impossible.
A few conversations after his introduction, he takes up drawing as a hobby. Although his drawings are at first far from intelligible at all, later attempts do show very slight signs of improvement, with features such as limbs and faces becoming recognizable, and his artwork's quality continues to progress through sheer determination. Caliborn eventually comes to describe himself as an artist rather than a villain (though he later states his masterpiece spent his attention span for any future creative endeavors). He also mentions that he has a learning disorder.
Despite his cartoon villain spiel and bizarre hobbies, Caliborn can be quite clever. He enjoys deploying "shitty" twists to spoil his "opponent's" game (such as pretending to switch positions of two chess pieces but merely camouflaging them as each other), and could be quite threatening if he was not so obsessed with theater.
Additionally, he has a strong prejudice against women. He shows multiple times that he believes women cannot handle much due to their heightened emotional state. It is clear that Caliborn strongly believes women to be inferior to men.
His outfit is seen to be a black short-sleeved shirt with his symbol, a red bowtie and green suspenders. This is the same outfit as Calliope's with the jacket removed.
Relationships
Caliborn's magnificent shoulders.
Calliope
Caliborn has a conflicted, aggressive relationship with Calliope, and often threatened to kill her dream self – an act he eventually performs by hiring his Session's Jack Noir, who then stabbed her. In addition to the larger game between him and Calliope, the two regularly play chess, with Calliope winning all but once.
It was revealed that Calliope and Caliborn are two halves of one body, in a relationship that is perhaps somewhat akin to Jekyll and Hyde; one could say they are each the yin to the other's yang, calling to mind the shape of the cancer symbol. This had been heavily foreshadowed by several conversations and incidents. In her conversation with Jane in LOCAH, Calliope states that after a "dreadfUl nap" she "woke Up to find [her] coplayer has made a terrible mess here." This prompts a string of questions from Jane which Calliope is uncomfortable with, including whether or not she and Caliborn have actually met. It also explains why Calliope and Caliborn are incapable of simultaneously cheering/jeering one another and why they need to infer, rather than observe, one another's actions (such as Calliope suspecting that Caliborn is possibly eating the chesspieces). It is also mentioned that Caliborn would like to get his hands on Calliope's Juju (just as she would like to do with his, for that matter), this likely being the cause for their "game". A potential reason for this could be explained in an awkward slip of the tongue when he says there are only a few moves left before he "CAN MATE WITH HER" by which he could have possibly meant that they would become one; by the one obtaining the Juju of the other, said other would effectively cease to exist, leaving only the one and freeing them.
Calmasis
Caliborn's first attempt at drawing something. Top: Dirk, and Caliborn in some sort of green attire, with what appears to be a red bowtie and swirl mark. Bottom: Jane and Roxy. Possibly rendering them in "giant snake form" in an attempt to seem pornographic.
Calmasis in the films, displaying both Calliope and Caliborn's symbols, and holding Scratch's gun.
Continued revelations concerning the Complacency of the Learned books foreshadowed that Calliope and Caliborn are two parts of the same being. In Dirk's conversation with Jake in 2008, the discussion of the books brings up an image of Calmasis bound by two shackles, the right foot's shackle bearing Calliope's Caduceus sign standing on red ground and the left foot's shackle bearing the lesser-known Ophiuchus symbol of Caliborn on green ground. The right foot standing on red ground could symbolize that the left brain, which controls the right side of the body, is Caliborn's domain. Meanwhile the right brain belongs to Calliope. The theory of right/left brain separation between Caliborn and Calliope holds up fairly well when looking at drawing skill, but falls apart when looking at chess, where the left brain (Caliborn) should have an advantage over the right brain (Calliope) (Caliborn does, however, end up winning at least one game despite his relative lack of skill). It should be noted that the more common Ophiuchus symbol is often confused with the Caduceus symbol. Andrew Hussie may have been using this to imply that they are represented by the same astrological sign, which happens to be the 13th sign of the Zodiac in some cultures, which foreshadowed that the two cherubs are one.
Dirk Strider
Caliborn admires and respects Dirk, and refers to him as a “PRETTYBOY NINJA STUD”. He also played a game with Dirk in which he threatened to kill Calliope's dream self unless Dirk drew him pictures of the B2 kids in various romantic pairings. When Dirk won by making him too uncomfortable to keep playing, Caliborn revealed that he had already killed Calliope's dream self before he started the game with Dirk. Dirk also assisted him in building his robotic leg. It is possible that he has a caliginous crush on Dirk.
Lil Cal
Caliborn initially thinks of Lil Cal as a bad omen and cursed juju. However, after obtaining and "communing" with Lil Cal in person, he considers him no longer disconcerting, as he feels the bad vibes coming from it do in fact spell doom for all, but a doom that he himself will supply. He can feel that Cal will serve as a vessel for his soul at one point.
Karkat Vantas
Caliborn is the antithesis of Calliope, who, in turn, character wise, is an antithesis of Karkat. This implies association with Karkat (except while Karkat hates mostly himself, Caliborn hates everything else). His ornery nature, tendency to ramble, his typing quirk ( which though originally is one with all u's in lower case, is eventually changed to one that mirrors Karkats), their shared blood color and their tendency not to type with their own blood colour all support a possible connection to Karkat, or, as suggested by the cancer symbol displayed on Calliope's sleeves, merely with cancer itself. He has also been shown to have slips of tongue much like Karkat when using figures of speech.
While originally speculated to have some concrete connection to Karkat or his ancestor this became unlikely once revealed as cherub and is now only one of many parallels between situations and characters.
When Calliope checked Rose's tome she discovered Karkat's attempted relationship timetable which resembled Caliborn's drawing, causing her to speculate that Caliborn did have some connection and that maybe he was "already there", a phrase associated with English. This could be a joke Hussie played on the fandom for connecting those two (or four) characters in the first place (fitting, since Calliope is "the obnoxious fandom avatar character", making up theories about the story).
Connections to Saw
Many aspects of Caliborn appear to be related to the Jigsaw Killer from the movie series Saw. Both force people into playing their games (with Caliborn's greeting "I want to play a game" reminiscent of how Jigsaw greets his victims), use a black and red color scheme, and unveil twists that undo any progress or reward a "player" might achieve at the end. Caliborn also bears a resemblance to Jigsaw's puppet Billy, as he was revealed to be a cherub like Calliope. This race was shown to have blood-colored spirals on their cheeks and have a puppet-like appearance. In addition, Calliope's outfit is remarkably similar to Billy's, color notwithstanding. Billy was a puppet with red spirals on his cheeks, and the red-blooded Caliborn bears the same markings. In addition, Caliborn chewed off his leg, which is reminiscent of the victims having to saw off their legs in the first Saw movie. When Calliope said Caliborn's love for games was more akin to horror than love this may have been a reference to Caliborn's connection to Saw, seeing how the Saw series is of the horror genre.
While not actually part of the Saw movies, Caliborn's requests for pornography do have a connection to them; in a famous MSPA Forums thread entitled "Cheerfulbear - PLAY ME", a user adopting the identity of Jigsaw demanded that Andrew Hussie draw him Muppet Babies porn. Furthermore, when Caliborn requests said pornography of Dirk's friends, he speaks with a similar demeanor as the user.
At one point while Caliborn is talking to Dirk, he claims he will do "THE LIVELIEST JIG YOu EVER SAW", Which is clearly referencing the "Jigsaw" murderer.
Trivia
While trivia sections are fine, it might be a good idea to merge some of this material into relevant sections of the main text, because this trivia section is bloated.
In particular: While we all know cherubs have much symbolism, it may be good to mention this in an apart section.
- Although Caliborn and Calliope's birthday and age are not mentioned in canon, Hussie has stated that it would make sense that their birthday is 11/11 and that they are eleven "units" old.
- Caliborn's text color hex code is #323232, 32 being the atomic number of element Germanium, a brittle grey crystalline element used as a semiconductor and anemia treatment.
- The word Umbrage can mean an offense or an annoyance. It can also refer to a shadow, likely a parallel to the Umbra portion of uranianUmbra.
- Umbrage can also mean an overshadowing influence, and having an eternal or "undying" influence is in line with his belief that “THE MORE I GROW IN POWER. THE MORE STUFF IT SHOULD TURN OUT I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR. UP TO AND INCLUDING. EVERYTHING THAT EVER HAPPENS.”
- Umbrage can also mean an overshadowing influence, and having an eternal or "undying" influence is in line with his belief that “THE MORE I GROW IN POWER. THE MORE STUFF IT SHOULD TURN OUT I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR. UP TO AND INCLUDING. EVERYTHING THAT EVER HAPPENS.”
- Caliborn and Calliope display a number of connections to Karkat.
- In line with previous heavy-handed references to The Sufferer, Caliborn makes a long speech about suffering here.
- The typing colors of Calliope (#929292) and pre-takeover Caliborn (#323232) are equidistant from Karkat's (#626262).
- Karkat and Caliborn share the same blood color, while Calliope calls her blood lime blood, which is the blood color that Karkat might have had, were it not for his mutation.
- The red in Caliborn's symbol matches his blood color, while the shade of grey in the symbol is the color he originally typed in.
- Actually, the grey in his symbol is #2B2B2B, which alludes to Hamlet's soliloquy and fits with the theme of quoting “CHERUB SHAKESPEARE” and holding Lil Cal's head aloft like Yorick's skull.
- Actually, the grey in his symbol is #2B2B2B, which alludes to Hamlet's soliloquy and fits with the theme of quoting “CHERUB SHAKESPEARE”
- In line with previous heavy-handed references to The Sufferer, Caliborn makes a long speech about suffering here.
- Caliborn "jeers" his chat partner, as opposed to Calliope's "cheers".
- Caliborn seems to represent different aspects of the Homestuck fan community from Calliope, particularly his impatience with the speed at which things unfold. As many less fanatic readers do, he complains about long pesterlogs formatted strangely in unusual colors. Calliope's relationship with him mirrors the fans who keep pestering their friends to read Homestuck, even though they're not interested or don't "get" the story.
- His title, the Lord of Time, could be a reference to long-running British television program, "Doctor Who"; the main character, the Doctor, hails from a time-travelling alien race known as "Time Lords".
- In addition, Caliborn's outfit may be inspired by that of the Eleventh Doctor, who is usually wearing a bow-tie and suspenders.
- As the Doctor is portrayed by British (or English) actors, one could say he is an "English Time Lord", which could be hinting at Caliborn's transformation into Lord English. His previous form / host being a "Doctor" also strengthens this connection.
- Caliborn's tie-ins with the Eleventh Doctor could further associate him with the arc-number of the post-scratch kids' universe: 11 11 11.
- Caliborn's Sarswapagus/Lord English's sarcophagus is similar to the TARDIS in the fact that both can hold more than thought possible judging by their sizes, as shown here, when English appears in the dream bubble. Lord English's sarcophagus is obviously smaller than him. The sarcophagus is also English's time travel device, like the TARDIS to the Doctor. The sarcophagus and the TARDIS both travel in a similar way, disappearing there and reappearing here by de- and re-materializing.
- Caliborn's "tumut" emote is one letter from "tumult", which means chaos or disorder, possibly a reference to his rather aggressive personality as well as his handle.
- Caliborn is the only character in Homestuck to use lowercase letters for the initials of his screen name.
- The closeup of Caliborn's and Calliope's eyes are the same image as the closeup of Lil Cal's and the Tricksters' eyes, except in their respective colors.
- Other than Lil Cal, Caliborn is the only male character in Homestuck to be drawn with visible eyelashes in sprite mode.
- Caliborn's trolltag undyingUmbrage is a reference to uracil, and thus is in keeping with the DNA motif of all the other chumhandles/trolltags.
- Despite the fact that they share a body, Caliborn's tongue is black while Calliope's is white.
- This is yet another reference to their Yin-Yang theme.
- Caliborn's temporary candy corn tooth is likely a reference to Problem Sleuth, as PS has candy corn teeth in his Candy Corn Vampire form.
- Caliborn considers himself an artist, even though he can barely draw a circle. Even on a larger scale it's still made entirely out of lots of straight lines.
- What Caliborn describes is a method of approximating a circle with line segments, and touches on the concept of a mathematical limit, an essential component of calculus.
- Later on he proved his worth as an artist with a visually astounding retelling of Homestuck: Act 1. He provides the following truly encouraging professional advice: “DRAWING IS EASY. DON'T LET ANYONE EVER TELL YOU IT ISN'T. YOU WORK HARD. AND HONE YOUR CRAFT. AND IGNORE THE HATERS. UNTIL YOU ARE IN. "THE ZONE".”
- What Caliborn describes
- On his DeviantArt account, he actually commented on the four year old fanwork which the update was homaging.
- In the interest section of his DeviantArt account, Caliborn states that he's never watched any movies or television. He also mentions that he likes meat.
- He is quite amazing at making clay sculptures.
- Caliborn is the only character in Homestuck who has made confirmed vocalisations in-comic, by providing sound effects for his Masterpiece. The only other character implied to have vocalised is John, if one believes the chanting in "Warhammer of Zillyhoo" to be him.
- Caliborn is shown to use a Wacom tablet when he is drawing the Homosuck characters. Though he's not really good at it.
