homestuckfanfictionhelp:

I hope you’re doing well today! Seems like you want to know a bit about writing dear, sweet Calliope, yeah? Well, let’s see what I can do to help you out! This little cherub’s quite the interesting character, so let’s take this one step at a time:

• Calliope’s Personality
• How Calliope Speaks
• Three “How to Write a British Accent” Resources

She’s still a major player in recent canon events, but I’ll try to make this as relevant as possible! Happy reading!

Calliope’s Personality

In the comic, our first impressions of Calliope are of a friendly, chipper young troll. Even after we learn that she is not, in fact, from Alternia, she remains the absolute antithesis of her brother, Caliborn—in a sense, she is the embodiment of naivety, innocence, and wishful thinking. 

In Aranea’s long-winded description of the cherub race, she mentions that, oftentimes, one of the two cherub personalities lives out most of his or her life without realizing that he or she will, inevitably, die. We can safely say that this was Calliope between she and her brother—she honestly believed, right up until very close to the end of her life, that she and Caliborn would be able to live together in harmony. In this way, she has one key thing that most of the other Homestuck characters lack: hope.

Jake and the Amporas aside (I’m lumping them in the same lacking-hope category, as well, despite their aspects), Calliope is one of the only characters who remains pretty consistently optimistic throughout most of her appearances in the comic, with the exception of a few recent events. This is an important thing to note, because this adds another, deeper layer to her character—she’s not just “cheery”, she’s genuinely hopeful about pretty much everything. 

Now, before you shake your head at me and say “well, duh,” I want to point out that her hope is largely due in part to the fact that she is fundamentally naive. Like I said, one personality—oftentimes the weaker of the two—does not realize that both will survive maturation until much later on in life. Because Caliborn essentially cheated by killing Calliope’s dream self in order to prematurely predominate of their body, Calliope wasn’t able to come to realize that particular fact until it was too late and she had no chance of winning against her brother. So, though she is genuinely hopeful, Calliope is just as genuinely naive. 

This naivety carries across the board to many aspects of her personality, actually. I would say it is, in a sense, one of her most defining features. While she is very knowledgeable about the mechanics of the Alpha kids’ session, she does not understand human culture as a whole. 

By watching their adventure from a detached, third-person perspective, Calliope sees the Alpha kids more as characters than people. 

Which brings me to another very important, often-overlooked aspect of Calliope’s personality: she is unintentionally arrogant. 

Though she does admit that she doesn’t know as much about human culture as she would like (or humans in general, really, because she gave her juju to Jane in an effort to cheer her up, not realizing that “Trickster Mode” would hurt the Alphas rather than help them), she’s quick to talk in riddles (per cherub habit) and explains only enough to be mildly frustrating to the kids with the information she does withhold. 

She’s also quick to point out the differences in the two cultures, not really bothering to explain much about herself (I reference here also the fact that no one knew her species or name until much later on, as we’re given the impression she and Caliborn have been talking to the Alphas just as long as the trolls were in contact with the Betas), but she expects the humans to tell her all about their own lives, etc. at the drop of a hat. 

When she interacts with the kids, there is a slight disconnect—like they are never really on the same page about much of anything. She hero-worships the humans just as much as she is fascinated with them, and, in her efforts to learn more about the species she often comes off as a bit aggressive.

It’s a bit hard to explain, but, when thinking about how Calliope interacts with the kids, keep in mind that she read stories about them long before she ever tried to contact them—and she’s never met any of them (with the notable exception of both Roxy and Jade, much, much later on after her death) in person. I would consider Calliope’s approach to the kids comparable to fans waiting in line to meet a celebrity. She’s perpetually on her best behavior, but she can’t keep that little bit of “rabid fangirl” from peeking through. She wants to impress her heroes, and she wants to help them as much as possible—but she doesn’t always know how, exactly, to go about doing so. 

And, like any good fangirl, she’s got a particular interest in romance. 

Although this is due largely in part to the fact that cherubs are only capable of harboring black romantic affections, it’s stated more than once that Callope writes some rather… steamy fanfiction involving her trollsona and the characters of her stories—that is, the Betas (troll and human) and Alphas—focused largely on red and pale romances. Let’s pause for a moment and consider the implications of that.

(I’ve often wondered, myself, who sweet, innocent Callie was paired up with in those fics, but that’s another topic for some other essay.)

Where was I? Oh, yes—Calliope and her awkward, unintentional arrogance. 

Now, I want to reiterate that it’s unintentional. The doesn’t try to be haughty or frustrating—she just sort of comes off that way because of the big culture difference. She tries hard to do things properly by the basic direction of human etiquette, and is even pretty humble about her knowledge of the Alphas’ session. You wouldn’t want to give your hero the impression you think you’re better than them, would you? No—and that’s pretty much how Calliope feels in relationship to the humans (and, I’m assuming, the trolls, too—though she ever got the chance to interact with any of them other than Gamzee).

That being said, while Calliope is generally very sweet, she does get flustered pretty easily—and, when she does, she can lash out. It’s not particularly violent or rude (Jane even mentions that she can’t tell Calliope is upset at one point), but the difference is there.

Because she’s still interacting with her heroes, though, she keeps her temper relatively in check. But when Caliborn comes into the mix, she’s even feistier. Because she and Caliborn are each other’s antithesis, this is to be expected—but it’s a nice reminder that Calliope isn’t super bubbly-happy-cheery all of the time! In fact, I might even go so far as to crown our little cherub Queen of Sass, or maybe the Duchess of Sarcasm. It’s brilliant. 

And my personal favorite:

She’s also pretty sassy to the reader, as well. This girl knows she’s classy as shit with her snazzy weapon of choice, and she makes sure we’re aware of that.

Despite her fangirly assertiveness and tendency to be a bit passive aggressive, though, Calliope is, as I mentioned before, just a naive little girl. And naive little girls get scared and insecure. It’s no secret that she’s embarrassed about her appearance—and that she wishes she had been born a troll—so I’m going to skip over that, but in some of the more recent updates we’re also shown that she’s also a bit of a coward. And that’s not a bad thing! I repeat: cowardice isn’t a bad quality. For some reason, it has a negative connotation, but, in general, there are reckless people and those with self-preservation. Brave people and cowardly people. That’s just how the world works—one couldn’t exist without the other.

And Calliope has every right to be scared, because Lord Motherfuckin’ English, AKA her brother is out to wipe every trace of her very existence from the essence of time and space itself. Holy shit—I would be terrified, too. But keep in mind that this—her cowardice—also extends to other things, as well. She avoids confrontation, she’s generally afraid to offend people (although, like I said, this could also be due in part to her hero-worship of the Alphas), and she’s terrified of rejection. 

When she realizes she is going to die, Calliope is rather calm about the whole thing, because she knows that she’ll still have a life in the dream bubbles. Disappointed that she couldn’t play the game and meet her friends? Yeah, of course! But the level of emotion she shows when talking with Roxy about it is nowhere near the level of distress she exhibits when Rose creeps into her super-secret dream bubble hideout:

She’s not afraid of death, but she’s afraid of not existing. So don’t to twisting her insecurities into some kind of internalized, under-wraps depression. I’ve seen it done. Calliope has more dimension than just the insecurities she has about her appearance—because she doesn’t hate herself. She hates her situation and the cards she’s been dealt in life, but she generally accepts the fact that she is the way she is, and it’s just something she has to work around. 

By the time Jade comes around five billion panels later, though, Calliope is nearly ready to give up. Without the company and reassurance of Rozy and the others, her insecurity has been eating at her in the darkness for however long (we’re told that time flows differently in the dream bubbles, so we really don’t know how long Calliope was by herself between Roxy and Jade’s visits), and she’s even more scared than before. She knows she can only avoid her brother for so long, but, as always, she’s also lonely. 

Although cherubs are naturally solitary creatures, it’s mentioned that Calliope is something of an anomaly because of her desire for companionship. This could also be another reason she is a bit socially inept—she has pretty much never interacted with anyone ever, and only has her stories as reference points for how two creatures are supposed to communicate acceptably. 

I want to end this overview of her personality on a positive note, though, so let’s do some bulleted recap just in case you just skimmed this wordy ramble:

TL;DR:

• Calliope is a sweetie, but she’s extremely naive.
• She can come off as a bit arrogant.
• She can also be pretty aggressive (especially when it comes to learning about her heroes). 
• She’s super sassy when she wants to be, and gets flustered easily.
• All in all, though, Calliope has a big heart and tries to do her best to keep her friends happy; she just wants to be accepted.

How Calliope Speaks

We’ll start with the most obvious thing about this cutie’s speech: her quirk. Yes, her quirk! Grammatically, Calliope speaks with perfect punctuation and syntax, but no capitalization with only two notable exceptions: the letter “u”, and whole words when she’s frustrated. Every so often, she’ll multiply her punctuation by eleven (when she’s particularly flustered), and will occasionally use asterisks for *emphasis*. She uses pet names like “lovely”, “dear”, and “darling” without regard for gender. 

Also, here’s a complete list (I think) of all the smiley faces Calliope uses:

• u3u
• :u / :U / :u~
• ~_u
• ^u^ / ^U^
• u~u 
• upu
• u_u / u_u;

As for word usage, she generally types with a British “accent”, but will only use the UK spellings of words when it involves the addition of an extra “u”. (ex. she uses “colour” and “armour”, British spellings, but also “practice” and “maneuver”, which are American spellings.)

Her speech tends to be very wordy, lengthy, lofty (another reason she comes off as a bit arrogant, according to Jake at one point), and somewhat confusing. As I mentioned before, cherubs are naturally inclined to speak in riddles, but Calliope is an anomaly on more than one account! She tries her best to keep things simple for the humans, but that doesn’t stop her from talking like a university literature professor. Don’t be afraid to break out some SAT vocabulary when writing Calliope! 

(Even I had to go look up “progenitoriety”. Fun fact: it’s not a real word in the English language. But dang, it sure sounds smart!)

Other than that, though, translating Calliope’s Pesterlogs into prose dialogue shouldn’t be much of a problem. I’ll spare you my usual “only use typing quirks for chatlogs, and use correct grammar in prose dialogue” rant, because I’m sure you’re sick of it by now. Huzzah!

Three “How to Write a British Accent” Resources:

• Here’s a pretty handy list of British slang words!
• This is another cool list of British idioms and sayings!
• Here is an essay that picks apart the finer points of British speech patterns!

So… that’s about it! I hope this helps, friends! That’s enough rambling from me, then…

Happy writing!