i thought lil cal was a juju and only one can exist at a time?
This is an excellent thing to address, because that’s what I used to think, too! But I think I’ve figured it out. Only one Lil Cal can exist at a time, true, but that means there is one Lil Cal PER TIMELINE.
And this plays right into my doomed timeline theory.
So before I go explaining everything, let’s revisit how doomed timelines are made. A lot of people, including me, think of the timelines in homestuck existing like so:
when in REALITY they look more like this
See, a doomed timeline is created when a character makes a choice. The timeline then splits. Version A of that character, who made the correct choice, continues living in the alpha timeline. While version B becomes part of the doomed timeline.
Doomed timelines eventually disappear into nothing, but they can linger for up to several months, as we know from this conversation between doomed Dave and doomed Rose:
Doomed timelines linger when the people in them will eventually aid the alpha timeline. This is when doomed Dave rewinds time to go back to the split in the timeline he made, and then he became Davesprite.
And we know Lil Cal exists in doomed timelines, because we’ve SEEN HIM in doomed timelines.
This is the point in which Dave makes the choice that fractures the timeline. Here we see Lil Cal, who will one day become sewn up by Kanaya and meet Gamzee. Dave dooms himself when he fails to stop John from making a suicidal move.
This leads to John dying. But Lil Cal still exists in this timeline, because Dave later prototypes his kernelsprite with it to create Calsprite.
And again, when John interrupts this scene between Terezi and Gamzee:
Lil Cal continues to exist in this new timeline that John has created. Nor has Lil Cal disappeared from the pre-retcon timeline, because we know Gamzee eventually brings that Lil Cal to Caliborn.
And I think this is all really important to realize, because it helps explain WHY Gamzee turns murderous in doomed timelines.
I think Karkat was right when he said this:
Not that this particular moment was a doomed timeline, but I do think that Gamzee going into “murder mode” is a clear sign that a timeline has become doomed. Why? Well, who is Lil Cal?
Lord English. Lord English is the Lord of Time, plus he’s semi-omniscient from being born from Doc Scratch. So Lord English, and additionally Lil Cal, is aware of not just everything that DOES happen, but also everything that COULD happen.
Which is why, when the timeline splinters off into a doomed branch, it becomes Lil Cal’s job to destroy everyone in said timeline. Why?
Well, so that the people in the doomed timeline can’t interfere or help the people in the alpha timeline. Because of this, Lord English gets to decide which timeline IS THE ALPHA TIMELINE. And we know how the alpha timeline ends, because we see Caliborn tell us about it here:
THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE ALPHA TIMELINE IS TO CREATE LORD ENGLISH.
THIS is why the kids could never win in any timeline. Because Lord English is leading them all to this point in time, in which he creates himself. THIS is why the only way John could save everyone was by creating his own timeline.
Because THIS
is a doomed timeline, too. Aranea doomed it when she took control over Gamzee. Because we know from this that Gamzee was not meant to go into murder mode again:
But then Aranea interfered, and doomed everyone, because Lil Cal was no longer controlling the timeline. So when Aranea’s hold over Gamzee broke, he went berserk almost immediately:
BECAUSE IT WAS A DOOMED TIMELINE, and would not serve in creating Lord English, so Lil Cal had to have it destroyed!
So Gamzee kind of serves a dual purpose to Lil Cal. He acts in ways that will eventually lead to Lord English’s creation, and in doomed timelines, he acts as a self destruct button, to stop it from interfering with the alpha timeline.
queerhomestuck 