Caliborn is not Lord English

hii ^-^ this is a thread about our favorite homestuck character, the cherub caliborn

-lord english is an indestructible demon who has no love for anything

-caliborn is an easily defeatable small boy who loves some things

in a pedantically literal sense, lord english is someone who exists as the combination of several characters. before being combined, none of those individual characters are lord english.

it’s possible to imagine that until he becomes locked into lil cal, caliborn is capable of not becoming lord english.

i’ve organized my yapping into a conveniently numbered list. number four may shock you!

1. Parallel to Meenah (Jake's Mistake)

jake english beats up meenah because he thinks she is going to grow up to become the condesce. the audience understands jake is being stupid, but to be fair it is pretty complicated 

john egbert beats up caliborn under the impression that he will become lord english later. nobody understands that john is being stupid, except maybe for lil seb, but nobody is listening to lil seb

2. Parallel to Vriska (Getting Fisted by Egbert)

john egbert saves vriska’s life by retcon zapping into the middle of her story and punching her in the face. could his fist have done the same for caliborn? there must theoretically exist a version of events where john egbert didn’t retcon zap into that moment. a timeline where caliborn didn’t get beat up in the proximity of some horses. how ironic…

3. Parallel to Hussie (Jacks Attack)

andrew hussie draws pictures of dead kids in his webcomic homestuck. caliborn draws pictures of dead kids in his webcomic homosuck. drawing pictures of people dying is not the same as killing people. it is a healthy outlet for an imaginative freak like us i mean like them

hussie doesn’t even kill their characters directly. she tried to kill lord english that one time and failed. he gets other people, often jack, to do it for him.

caliborn kills his sister by paying jack candy to do it for him. i personally think it’s fucked up that such a system is in place that allows children to buy murder with candy. you can hardly even hold this one against him

in [S] Game Over hussie demonstrates that a skilled artist can actually make you care about the characters they conjure, and feel something when they draw them dying. caliborn is early into his art journey but i believe he could make us feel something too, someday

(MY POINT IS THAT WE ARE WATCHING THE BACKSTORY OF SOMEONE WHO COULD GROW UP TO BECOME LIKE LORD ENGLISH AS WELL AS THE BACKSTORY OF SOMEONE WHO COULD GROW UP TO BECOME LIKE ANDREW HUSSIE. MAKING FUNNY MURDERS HAPPEN IS JUST A HOBBY. REALLY, IT DOESN'T DEFINE THEM)

4. Caliborn's Masterpiece

in A6A6A5, Caliborn describes the series of events that lead to Caliborn getting sucked into the juju Lil Cal along with Arquiusprite and half a Gamzee. he knows these events are going to happen later and refers to them as a spoiler he has seen on one of his screens

what gets me is how insistent he is that when the kids ambush him, he looks genuinely surprised to see them. the Caliborn we are currently following is so intimately familiar with what is going to take place that he has crafted an entire stopmotion feature depicting the events. the caliborn we are following in this moment cannot be surprised by this turn of events

i understand Caliborn to be an unreliable narrator, but i think what’s going on here is more nuanced. i think he is successfully relaying the details of the event but he is drawing the wrong conclusions from those details. he is ignoring critical evidence that goes contrary to what he wants to believe

5. lil seb agrees with me which makes me right

here, john egbert accuses caliborn of a lot of things. lil seb expertly refutes each of john's points but john is too angry to hear seb out because he just saw fanart of davekat

6. You are a hero

consider the concept of a character in a story as a set a traits to which the readers might relate. homestuck casts a wide net in this sense. for this section, imagine there exists a reader who relates most to caliborn out of anyone else. i will refer to this hypothetical reader as “you”. 

you are extremely socially isolated. you have made it to act 6 of homestuck, and much like the rest of your life, it has not been a socially active experience. you don’t go outside, you don’t have friends. you are not going to conventions or participating in “fandom”. no, you are reading it by yourself. you are alone with a screen and on that screen are words written by andrew hussie

i think what hussie does for you intentionally parallels what hussie does for caliborn in the story. it’s extremely meta meta nonsense. you are a sexist piece shit with one of the worst upbringings imaginable on your way to becoming an awful adult with power over others. you come across homestuck. what’s the point or your "solo session"? what’s the message?

i think the point is that you are not lord english yet. i think that in your great lack of social experiences, engaging this piece of art - a form of communication - is one of the closest things you’re getting to a “social experience”. i don’t think hussie takes that opportunity to say “you are a real shitbag who will never change, have fun being lord english later”. i think hussie, both in story and out of story, is trying to be real with you, to form any kind of social connection. it’s one of the few things that could save you from continuing down the path you’re on

7. Psyche!!!! I Don't Believe Any Of That Stuff I Typed

all of the components of lord english are lord english. LE's a social force for which no one individual is solely responsible. responsibility is shared for the parts of us that, when combined, cause harm on a greater scale

-lord english is a brute, an unchanging monster who cannot be reasoned with

-caliborn is an easily defeatable small boy who loves some things

you can’t kill the concept of toxic masculinity, and you can’t reason with it. you can kill the people who perpetuate it. you can also reason with them. me? i’m faebot thanks for reading