Calliope | uranianUmbra

Player Name: Casey
Player DW: fenrisulfr
Contact: hootlord
Character Number: 2

Character: Calliope
Fandom: Homestuck
Personality: Calliope is a bright, optimistic, and cheery girl--helpful and generous as can be, more than a little nerdy and dedicated with her interests, and willing to do her best to get along with everyone.

Did I mention she's a skull face alien? She's a skull face alien.

She hails from a race called "cherubs"--a solitary, ancient people with an unspeakable violent streak that especially demonstrates itself during mating, with ancestors separated from their progeny by millennia. But Calliope wishes she was not a cherub at all, but a troll. Thanks to the fact that she is chained in a single room with her brother, equipped with little more than a computer (with Trollian: a chat program that blatantly disregards time, space, and privacy), a drawing tablet, miscellaneous supplies, and all their survival needs met through alchemy, she has had all the time in the world to indulge her rich imaginary life.

Calliope is, in short, the ultimate fangirl--which honestly makes sense, given how much time she has on her hands, and limited resources to have much else in the way of a hobby. The twist here is that she fangirls people whom she has befriended, and those heroes they will come to meet in the future. She has studied their tale, researched and theorized and scrutinized every single detail in order to understand their quest. Of course, some celebrity swooning over her heroes wouldn't be bad... but she has gone to the extreme of making fanworks about them, including of the romantic sort. She does have the good sense to be deeply embarrassed about it, and only admits to it when Dirk asks her a series of straightforward questions. She's aware of how indulgent this activity is, and that it is especially pronounced in her celebrations of her fantroll, Callie Ohpeee. But art and fic are the only outlets she has, and despite their nature, she continues to find solace in making them.

It's clear that she isn't satisfied with her life. Who can blame her? Being locked alone in a room, only able to walk a five-foot radius outside. Escapism is her best tool, and one she indulges in regularly. Despite her cheery and optimistic nature, she possesses a not insubstantial amount of self-loathing. Calliope thinks of herself as terribly ugly, and wants nothing at all to do with her kind, and even moreso just wants to be someone special and cool. The fact that she does not already believe this about herself demonstrates just how much she invested in playing Sburb, and how little she actually thinks of herself.

She does enjoy solitude, which makes sense for her kind, and thinks it's peaceful--but at the same time, she can feel awfully lonely. Despite her race's tendencies, she greatly values friendship and affection. And she's a very earnest girl about it. Her desire to help people she cares about, even if she can't ever "love" them as humans or trolls do, is absolutely evident. Unfortunately, she can't actually talk about herself to her friends, given the "rules" she and her brother have laid out. This ultimately contributes to her bad self-esteem, given that she's never had anyone who actually, fully knows her... other than her brother. And he's all too happy to call her an "ugly bitch," and likely a thousand other insults as well. She's very much used to not going into personal detail about her life, and very adept at coming up with ways of explaining things that aren't lies. Despite considering the alpha kids her friends, this still keeps them at arm's length. It's been hard for her, and she vocalizes frequently how much she wishes she could just share details about herself like a proper friend would.

Despite everything, and despite her brother terrorizing her and her friends with his awful behavior, she held a hope that they could cooperate and become actual friends by playing Sburb together. When it's clear that won't happen, her cheeriness melts away to a sad, frustrated, dour demeanor. Though being cheerful is a completely natural state for her, and smiling is something that seems to come naturally, it's clear that she does feel fear and anxiety over her situation. Optimism only goes so far, after all.

Calliope very much enjoys games, and will almost always indulge in playing one. However, she enjoys being legitimately good and legitimately winning at games--just as she never lies, she never cheats. She believes that breaking the rules is inviting bad juju, so she feels bound not just by good manners or honor, but by a desire not to screw herself and others over. She has never intentionally broken the rules, and times when she accidentally did, she learned her lessons well. Calliope feels it's more important to be careful than to take risks. However, even she understands that there is a time and a place to take risks, especially if it means winning on the long term rather in the short.

History: On the MSPA wiki
Timeline: Before she goes to sleep for the final time
Abilities: Calliope is the Muse of Space--"muse" being a rare Master Class exclusive to girls. Though we have yet to understand what it means, and because she is not god tier, it pretty much won't ever come up.

Her strife specibi is set to Wandkind and Pistolkind, which will be kind of useless without either of them handy. She also has a 'sylladex' inventory system which will only work with her brother present--and even then, they can only retrieve items that the other has stored.

Other than that, she shares a body with her brother in canon. The whys and hows are not yet known, and understandably this is a barrier for most games and will still have to be delicately talked around in Demeleier. After some conversation with Rosh, she has decided that the Faerie Queen has split them in two and performed shenanigans all the necessary fae magic to make that happen. Largely so that that the Cals can reenact a Celtic story for her, ultimately culminating in a game-wide event. QUEEN, PLEASE...

Inventory: She'll arrive wearing her dapper green suit, though with none of her cosplay gear, or her weapon.

Again, she has a sylladex, but right now, it's mostly just full of hateful notes and bits of garbage that Caliborn captchalogued.

Link to an image of the character: Calliope's sprite, Canon art of Calliope with her wand/gun, fanart/wearing troll horns

Prose Sample: Calliope really preferred the sunlight. But it's hard to avoid being seen during the absolutely gorgeous days that abound in Demeleier, and she desperately needed to restock her supplies. She found herself at the inn, peeking around to be sure that no one was present at the late hour. Shoes removed, she carefully stepped around all the creaking boards--which she took great care to memorize--and headed toward the cellar on her almost reptilian feet.

Calliope had already turned this into a game, especially since it did have stakes and someone to enforce the rules. She'd learned to do this within the window between people going to bed and midnight, when Rawhead and Bloodybones would come out to terrorize her for not being in bed.

As she passed the stairwell, she cast a green glance down upon it. Wide eyes set in a hideous face stared back.

"You should be in bed very soon, naughty little Calliope."

Her smile grew a little wider. There was still time. She made her way toward the pantry, light on her toes and a spring in her step.

Journal Sample: [The mirror's image is filled with only the chest of the broadcaster--clad in a dapper dark green suit, a black shirt, and a cute red bowtie. A wingless, lime-green caduceus is pinned to the breast of the coat. It remains in place throughout the entire thing, so nothing of the owner's face or hands or anything else can be seen.]

[The voice that speaks is perfectly androgynous, and definitely gritty. Almost in defiance of the crunchiness of her voice, however, her tone is friendly, lilted, and more than a little British.]

Hello? Hello!

My goodness, I have to thank you, whomever you are, for bringing me here. And under such a strange, but lovely, circumstance! What a splendid surprise.

But you've got me at a loss! I know nothing about this whatsoever. Is this a new game?