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Jujus are a variety of magical objects with a complex system of rules governing their use.

Jujus lack any sort of traceable origin, and some cherubs believe they simply appear spontaneously out of nothing. Each juju exists as a single entity across all realities and cannot be copied or permanently destroyed. Should there ever appear to be two copies of one juju, one of the "copies" is either an illusion or an error that will eventually be erased from existence, or more commonly, is destined to end up becoming the other version at some later time. According to Caliborn, a juju always has an owner, and one can only take someone's juju if the original owner is killed or willingly gives it away. HS

During the course of the Midnight Crew Intermission, many jujus possessing varying levels of control over time had been used by members of the Felt. The Midnight Crew used a few of these items as they fought the Felt, despite many cases where the owners didn't die or hand over the items. Many of the Felt's jujus resurfaced as memories within the dream bubbles occupied by the pre-scratch trolls for unknown reasons.

These traits are similar to the traits of objects in a bootstrap paradox, where an object travels through time from the future, to the past, thereby creating itself in an eternal cycle. Because the item is always becoming itself, it has no true or "traceable origin". This would also explain why a juju cannot be destroyed, because destroying it at any point in time would result in the juju not being able to exist in the first place so that it could be destroyed, creating a grandfather paradox, an unstable loop that would result in a doomed timeline. But the abilities of juju breakers also disputes this somewhat.

Meenah collected numerous Jujus during the Act 6 Intermission 3 minigame.

Known jujus[]

Caliborn and Calliope's jujus[]

Lil Cal[]

Main article: Lil Cal
Lil Cal

Lil Cal is the most prominent juju in the comic, a seemingly innocuous if slightly unnerving puppet that in truth is a cursed vessel of misfortune. It has been stated to exist solely to ruin the lives of those within the universe containing it. As an element of his curse and perhaps its origin, Cal's essence is entangled with Caliborn's; his eyes serving as "the most beautiful windows into [Caliborn's] hideous soul." Lil Cal's origins are paradoxical and occur across multiple universes, making him one of the more temporally convoluted jujus. Caliborn previously feared the curse Cal contained, but became relieved and excited when, in his communion with Cal, he realized that the curse would be brought about by himself. Originally believing there to exist two separate instances of Cal within the same universe, one on Earth, one in Dirk's Dersite room, Caliborn had demanded that Dirk Strider destroyed his personal real world rendition which had acted as his guardian in the absence of his Bro, to enforce its inherent singular nature as a juju. Despite his reluctance to do so, Dirk's selves are rendered unconscious and his waking self dropped his Cal into the ocean, which was currently on fire. However, this rendition of Cal was then found by Gamzee Makara in Earth's far future and delivered to a delighted Caliborn.

Dave Strider has a long history with Lil Cal through his ownership by his Bro. Initially believed by Dave to be thoroughly awesome, Lil Cal slowly began to both disturb him over years of interaction, leading him to eventually flip the fuck out, through a combination of disquieting aesthetic and appearing very suddenly and inexplicably (though in most instances the latter is orchestrated by Dave's brother). These two traits have been burned into his subconscious by Gamzee, which lead to the creation of a "dream self" for Cal that paradoxically became the very puppet owned by his Bro that haunted Dave's waking self and then in turn branched off into all other instances of Cal from there. Specifically, Dream Cal was ultimately sent by Skaia, via the Reckoning, to become the Cal of both an early universe B1 and B2 due to the scratch. Both renditions of Cal seem to be influenced by the same curse, as suggested by Gamzee's hypnotic gaze into the eyes of a repaired B1 Cal. This provides a correlation between Gamzee's friendship of Lil Cal, and his early knowledge of, and devotion to, cherubs.

Lil Cal also seems to have had a hypnotic effect on Jack Noir, causing him to stab out his eyes and replace them with those of Lil Cal, as well as cut off his shackled leg, freeing him and giving a strikingly similar appearance to Lord English. This seems to have provided him with an increase in power, as he promptly exploded out of the Prospitian prison cell that had held him for many months.

Having had his eyes removed using a juju breaker implies that the iteration of Cal given to Jack has been destroyed as a juju. However, it may be that the juju properties have been transferred to the still-intact eyes, or indeed, the eyes may have been the true juju all along.

Suckers[]

Main article: Sucker
Spiral Sucker

Caliborn and Calliope each have their own color-coded juju sucker. In close proximity, the suckers undergo a magnet-like pull toward each other, and when put together fuse into one spiral sucker. Anyone holding the fused juju feels the irresistible urge to lick it; doing so engages Trickster Mode.

Treasure[]

Main article: Ultimate weapon
IntangibleJuju

A weapon hidden in the Furthest Ring is supposedly one of the keys to defeating Lord English. A glowing, transparent house-window resembling the Sburb logo, this juju seemingly represents Homestuck itself in some way, owing to its "ultimate" nature.

Chess set[]

The chess set

Calliope and Caliborn own a chess set, believed by Meenah Peixes to be a juju. Rather than white and black, the piece colors match their blood colors of lime and red respectively. Calliope believes her brother to have deliberately lost or eaten many of its pieces. Notably, the shape of the rooks resembles the outline of Doc Scratch's clock.

A single game of chess has been seen, in which Calliope successfully forced Caliborn into checkmate; this ended awry when Caliborn revealed his king and queen to have been disguised as each other for its duration while still performing legal moves. This prompted Calliope to both continue playing the game after its supposed end and ultimately suffer defeat by forfeit. This references the story of the duel between Calmasis and Zazzerpan in Complacency of the Learned.

The effect of the chess set as a juju is unknown.

the Felt's jujus[]

Die's doll and pins[]

Die's doll and pins

Die has a set of pins, each corresponding to a member of the Felt or the Midnight Crew. If these pins are inserted into the voodoo doll, the person holding the doll jumps to a timeline where that member is dead. If a pin is removed, they will jump to a timeline where that member is still alive. Spades Slick stole this and used it to commit time shenanigans.

A line from Caliborn implies that the doll and pins were with Die as soon as he unlocked him.HS He appears to initially have all of the pins in the doll (likely excluding the minions unlocked before him), and takes one pin out every time a new minion is unlocked.

Slick later used the doll to bring back all members of the Felt except for Snowman HS. It seems to actually summon them to the current timeline, instead of transporting Slick to a timeline where they are all alive, which conflicts with the previous mechanics of the doll. This may be a result of using the doll outside of its native universe.

Stitch's effigies[]

Stitchs effigies

Stitch's effigies

Stitch's effigies have magical properties binding [them] to the mortality of someone, depending on what hat it wears.[1] Through this, tailor/medic Stitch can not only observe the physical condition of his the Felt teammates but also heal any damage done to themHS - though naturally, this can also be used in reverse to harm someone in effigy, much like a voodoo doll.[citation needed] Spades Slick and the Midnight Crew take advantage of Stitch's medical skills by having the leprechaun put their own backup hats on some of the effigies and fix Slick's slashed eye; care should be taken, however, to make sure one's sprite is flipped the same way as the effigy when this is done.HS

Presumably, a backup piece of clothing placed on an effigy can also be used to repair the other copy of this article of clothing, as Stitch uses a backup of Lord English's Cairo Overcoat to repair tears in the fabric of spacetime.HS

Eggs' timer[]

Eggs's timer

Eggs uses his timer to go back in time haphazardly and stupidly, and is prone to making a mess of it. Eggs usually takes Biscuits with him in the latter's oven, creating an army of Eggs and Biscuits duplicates.

Biscuits' oven[]

Biscuits' oven

Biscuits' oven has the power to send him forward in time by the amount he sets it to, at an astounding speed of one second per second. Despite this rather unremarkable power, it would be incorrect to say that it does nothing; Clubs Deuce set some C4 to detonate in a few seconds and tossed it in, but they still had time to safely wheel it away. It is possible that the inside of the oven is "paused" for the set amount of time, though the outside remains unaffected. If this is the case, the thick bulk of outside seems to protect the inside from the crowbar. Another possibility for its supposed juju powers is that it appears to be bigger on the inside; the entirety of the Felt went into the oven so that it could be taken through Doc Scratch's clock when it was implied that they couldn't fit through otherwise. The oven being 'bigger on the inside' could be another reference to Doctor Who, as frequently found in Homestuck and especially surrounding the Felt.

Biscuits' oven appears identical to the appliance in John Egbert and Jane Crocker's homesHS. In Jane's caseHS, the oven is accompanied by an egg timer also identical in appearance to Eggs' juju, and both are associated with the same signature sound effects of their juju counterparts.

Quarters's quarters[]

Quarters owns one coin for each two members of the Felt. With a flip of the coin, the paired up members can switch positions on different timelines. One makes an appearance in the sidebar comic during Doc Scratch's narration in the closing stages of Act 5 Act 2. This coin is marked with a 4-ball on one side and a 14-ball on the other, and has the power to summon either Clover or Quarters into the current timeline, depending on which side it lands on when flipped. Clover flips the coin while Spades Slick is fighting Matchsticks, and it lands on 14, removing Clover from the scene and summoning Quarters in his place. This coin was in the possession of Clover because flipping one's own number has terrible consequences, something that can not happen to him because of his incredible luck. Despite this risk Quarters is seenHS flipping the 4/14 coin a short while after joining Caliborn's army of leprechauns.

Regardless of the thematic pairings on each coin, Quarters' coins link pairs aligned on the Midnight Crew's mugshots of the group[citation needed]. The top row is paired directly to the bottom row (Itchy with Matchsticks, Doze with Eggs etc) skipping over the middle row. Excluding Snowman, the middle row coin pairs with the member after the 1st member in the sequence (Die with Stitch and Crowbar with Sawbuck).

Juju breaker[]

Crowbar Openbound

Juju breakers are extremely rare, dangerous, and particularly blasphemous[2] objects, the only known example of which is a red crowbar which serves as the signature tool of, well, Crowbar, and can pry anything out of a time loop, stable or otherwise.HS It has proven to be able to nullify the effects of Eggs' timerHS and Lord English's vaultHS, and has been used to destroy Caliborn and Doc Scratch's magic timepiece on twoHS separate occasions.

Kurloz Makara gave Gamzee a version of the crowbar in a dream bubble during the second part of Openbound, which Gamzee later gave to Jack Noir along with Lil Cal, with which to pry out the puppet's pool ball eyes. At another point in the timeline, Gamzee gave the same crowbar to Caliborn, which the cherub then used in combat against Yaldabaoth in Collide before breaking the clock in the center of the Earth in Act 7 and presumably passing it on to his minion Crowbar, who lost it to Spades Slick.

As of the end of Homestuck, this makes two known instances of the crowbar in circulation; however, if the defeat of the juju-powered Jack Noir caused a black hole to open up between the Land of Tombs and Krypton and Caliborn's Earth, this may explain how the version of the crowbar in the B2 session came into Caliborn's possession in the future. It is unknown how the Crowbar in Slick's possession might have come into Kurloz' hands.

Juju chests[]

Calliope's Juju Chest
VriskaJujuChest

Juju chests are special containers that cherubs use to store their jujus. Supposedly, they can only opened by cherubs, however Vriska is able to open the juju chest containing Caliborn's juju without any difficultyHS (possibly due to her Class, or the fact that this occurred within a Dream bubble. or because the Juju inside, which had once been only usable by him, was now usable by anyone). Calliope kept her sucker inside one of these chests and it is likely that Caliborn did the same with his. Kurloz possesses a rendition of a chest but does not know what kind of juju is inside it and believes that it would be blasphemous to even wonder what its contents may be. Dave's Bro had a similar puppet chestHS in which he used to take Lil Cal out on gigs.

Suspected jujus[]


Magic cue ball[]

Main article: Magic cue ball
Vriska holding a magic cue ball

Previously owned by Doc Scratch, the magic cue ball, unlike a classic magic 8-Ball, always reveals the truth to its owner and makes predictions with alarming precision and specificity, but has no window to actually read what they say. It is one of Doc Scratch's 'seeds' and suspected by Meenah to be a juju.

Doc Scratch's grandfather clock[]

Main article: Magic timepiece

The enigmatic clock holds the ability to analyse, or perhaps arbitrate, the circumstances of a god tier player's death and potential resurrection.

The Felt's safe[]

The Felt's safe conceals a hatch behind its seemingly enchanted doors; a hatch that, if an exile scans their barcode, allows access to a terminal able to empower the post-scratch trolls. Access to it served as the primary goal of the Midnight Crew during the events of the intermission, and was gained by the use of Crowbar's juju breaker.

The Rings of Life and Void[]

A pair of mysterious rings that provide powerful aspect-related abilities. The Ring of Life can be used to resurrect spirits in the Furthest Ring, and the Ring of Void provides complete invisibility and intangibility to the wearer. They are said to be correspondent with one another, one being lost whenever its counterpart is found. The Ring of Life was used by Aranea Serket in GAME OVER, via mind-controlled Gamzee; however, after the events of GAME OVER, The Condesce ripped it off her finger and snapped her neck. It is currently unknown whether someone who has worn the ring will stay alive after wearing it, as Aranea was killed immediately after the Condesce took it (however, as Aranea's eyes seem to turn a ghostly white before she falls into the fire, it is possible that having the ring removed does remove their living properties. The condence snapping Aranea's neck would not have caused her eyes to turn white, it would have just killed her). It is now in the possession of Roxy Lalonde after "retcon shenanigans" by John Egbert, who has passed it to Calliope, rendering her alive again.

References[]

  1. Openbound part 1.HS You got a JUJU! / An EFFIGY, to be precise. It has magical properties binding it to the mortality of someone, depending on what hat it wears. Hey, maybe you'll hang it from this tree? Nah, that's a bit morbid. / #you'll just hock it to some chump
  2. Openbound part 2.HS You got a JUJU BREAKER! / This is an extremely rare, dangerous, and particularly blasphemous item. The thought of destroying a precious juju makes your blood boil. This must be guarded carefully. You cannot let it fall into the wrong hands.
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