Return to Calliope's Update Girl.
The main focus of the stories, and the namesake of the second one. Originally, John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider and Jade Harley were in a four-way Long-Distance Relationship, with none of them having seen any other one in person despite being in touch for at least a third of their lives, but that changed when their families all moved together to Easthampton in the timespan of three days. In Easthampton, they met Calliope and Caliborn, and quickly befriended Calliope. Therefore, they are relatively close, and the Homestuck Character Support Group forms around this rather firm base.
This group has a precursor: in Calliope and the Final Update, the kids and Calliope were all winners of Sburb discs in Homestuck merchandise, and had never talked to each other prior to appearing in Easthampton to meet up with Hussie.
Rose Lalonde
Ostensibly the main character of the series. Rose is a Sociology student, and has been having trouble writing creatively. However, once she discovers that she is a character of Homestuck, she takes a much more distinct role, planning to gather herself and her three close friends, as well as the neighborhood alien Calliope (as for her "brother" Caliborn, eh, not so much) into a "Homestuck Character Support Group". She also showed interest in gathering more than just her closest friends in, at different points talking to Karkat and MeAndMyReflection about her plans.
- Accidental Misnaming - Is the target of this, fairly consistently.So, so far I have been called Annoying Blabbermouth, Flighty Broad
, Annoying Flightymouth, Rose Human and now Rose Quartz. Amazing how no one can ever get my name right. - Ascended Extra - Before The Homestuck Character Support Group (Volume 2), Calliope was the most likely candidate for the main character.
- Character Blog - Appropriately, titled The Homestuck Character Support Group. However, she doesn't interact with other roleplay blogs like they do with each other, due to placing a "no impersonators" stipulation.
- Cunning Linguist - She's been learning languages on Duolingo. She shares this trait with ASBusinessMagnet.
- Idiot Ball - She recognizes ASBusinessMagnet, because they share a streak on Duolingo, and even knows that he's Lithuanian. This didn't stop her from being convinced that "aperturescienceBusinessmagnet" is actually AnnaSophia Robb.
Calliope
She, together with Caliborn, arrived to Earth on a meteor that landed on April 13, 1996. For two years, they were cradled by scientists, before "L. E." shot their lead researcher (and Rose's mother), causing the authorities to take a different strategy to raise them. Therefore, they were pretty much spoiled, up until Calliope began doing commissions. Lately, though, she and Caliborn began to be identified as "cosplayers" of Homestuck. She is by far the most heartbroken after the revelation, and seeks support in Rose's group. She eventually becomes the group's figurehead, as the blog where the support group is hosted was named after her, being "calliopes-update-girl".
- Guilty Pleasures - If her dream sequence is anything to go by, she is a fan of ITS MY LIFE!.
Dave Strider
While he is another friend of Rose's, he is significantly more distant from everyone else, preferring to be a coolkid and write Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. Therefore, he is marked as another question mark in the support group. Nevertheless, he shows interest in the group; though, he has a superiority complex, believing that non-Homestuck characters shouldn't be part of the group. He is also an avid Minecraft player, and soon after moving, sets up a server so he can play with Jade.
- Guilty Pleasures - He is a fan of trollfics, including at least My Immortal and Learning and Sburbing. Though, given what he writes, this shouldn't come off as surprising.
Andrew Hussie / Randall Munroe / Roald Dahl / Mark Twain / ...
"Originally, Andrew Hussie seems to be a fairly innocent webcomic creator. Within a few chapters, though, it is obvious that something else is going on: only his characters exist in real life, and he appears to have spacebending powers whose origin isn't entirely clear. Eventually, Word of God confirmed its true origins: it is actually a Lord English-like demon and (part of) the cancer that Karkat gave to the universe, essentially replacing Bec Noir, but during the modern times, it claimed the identities of various "offbeat authors". Though, it particularly likes being Hussie, to the point of claiming his name as its own.
- Time Abyss - Apparently, he is at least 413 million years old.
A group of twelve trolls which played Sgrub. However, during the process something went wrong, and instead of the familiar Homestuck universe in which the game was meant to be played again and again, something more closely resembling our own universe came out. The twelve were placed in different locations in the United States, and therefore have been coping with living human lives themselves.
Karkat Vantas
The self-proclaimed "leader" of the team, despite them having never met in person for eight "human sweeps". Before learning about Homestuck, his plans oscillated between Take Over the World and fleeing the Earth and going to space, with no significant progress made on either. Once he learns about Homestuck, he makes it on foot to where Andrew Hussie lives to harass him. Later, it appears he has returned to his ways prior to arriving on Earth, beginning to enter memos from the future.
- Bland-Name Product - Copies Rose's Homestuck Character Support Group, naming his own version "Hivebent Character Support Group". It is significantly less successful.
- Insistent Terminology - He calls Homestuck "Hivebent". He passes this on to the other trolls.
- Shout-Out - Just before he leaves the Homestuck Character Support Group memo, his last message is "SAYONARA, SUCKERS.". This also happens to be the last message left behind by Broadway Karkat, a popular Homestuck fan musician. This, however, has little to do with use of the phrase in 1941 (1979). It later becomes a Catchphrase of his.
ASBusinessMagnet
The estranged author of Calliope on the Update Gravestone and leader of the memo which unfortunately happened to be named "Homestuck Character Support Group", much to the real support group's dismay. Quickly, though, he is spotted by the Condesce and made Crockertier.
- Eldritch Abomination - Just as Andrew Hussie, he is a manifestation of the cancer given to the universe. Powers related to that are yet to be exhibited by him, though.
- Get Back in the Closet - In Real Life, she came out as trans in January 2015. In Calliope's Update Girl, that never happened.
- Jack of All Trades - His list of interests pretty much goes on and on and on.Those include learning languages (in particular on Duolingo), writing fanfics (sometimes even trollfics), translation (in particular of Homestuck), note making Hitler parodies (in the past, and it will usually not come up in conversation), and very occasionally visual arts and music. As such, he is quite busy on the Internet, and jokes about having "no less than 5 current projects at all times".
They all are based on the real fans of Calliope's Update Girl who submitted themselves as characters. Most of them, however, are not in the United States, and therefore only get to interact with others via the memo they hang out in.
Tropes pertaining to all of them:
- Self-Insert - Each of them has expressed interest in being a character, except for scatteredPhilosopher, who was merely asked to give an okay.
MeAndMyReflection / unstopableSmiley / crawavesse
While presumed to be one of the closest followers of ASBusinessMagnet (especially with messages between her leading up both to The Homestuck Character Support Group (Volume 2) and the out-of-universe blog), when she learns about Rose's Support Group, she writes a message there (though, it might just have been not to insult Rose). She is a fan of Let's Plays, RPG Maker games and The Slender Man Mythos.
She has a distinct manner of speech, characterized by mixing up singular/plural forms and various verb forms.
- Viewer Gender Confusion - According to her profile, she is easily mistaken for a man, and doesn't bother correcting those that mistake her.
