Terezi Pyrope

Terezi Pyrope, also known by her Trollian handle,, is one of the trolls. Her handle refers to two things associated with her. The "gallows" part refers to the noose where people are hanged, alluding to her interest of hanging her stuffed animals, as well as her interest in law. Her ancestor, Redglare, had been killed by the gallows, which could also be an allusion made by the Trollian Handle. The second part, "calibrator", refers to her being the troll which "calibrates" all of the other trolls, and keeps them focused on the tasks at hand (it also has her zodiac sign, "libra," in it). Another theory is that she is the one who, literally or figuratively, calibrates the gallows where wrongdoers are hanged, referencing her desire for justice, order, and law; as well as her fervent beliefs that breakers of those laws must be punished with due severity. Her associated zodiac sign is Libra (♎). Introduced in Homestuck: Act 4, she has pointy teeth like Karkat, but her horns are perfectly conical as opposed to being curved at all like most other trolls.

Terezi is the Albanian word (coming from Persian ترازو) for Libra (or Balance), but may also be a reference to Tiresias, a blind prophet from Sophocles' Oedipus cycle, and Homer's Odyssey. It may also be a reference to Denny Teresi, who is blind. Her last name, Pyrope, is the name of a red mineral, specifically a type of pyralspite garnet. This is most likely a reference to her red spectacles as well as her burnt red eyes, especially given that "Pyrope" also means "Fire Eyes", and Pyrope is the name of the genus the Fire-eyed Diucon belongs to. Additionally, the second part of her Trollian handle, Calibrator, has the word libra contained within it.

Terezi is shown to have a fondness for dragons (especially their colorful scales), and owns several scalemates. Scales are a pun on Libra, and her fondness for justice is also related to Libra. They may also be a pun on 'Draconian Law'. The fact that she is blind, is fond of justice, and has the zodiac Libra makes her a reference to Lady Justice, who is depicted as blind, and carrying a pair of scales.

Terezi was supposed to be the leader of the Red Team until Karkat convinced her to revoke the position to him.

Roleplaying
Terezi played Flarp as a member of Team Scourge alongside Vriska Serket. Terezi viewed their team as a vigilante duo devoted to taking down bad guys. When Vriska harmed Tavros Nitram and Aradia Megido, Terezi disbanded Team Scourge, cutting ties with her former friend. With Sollux Captor's help, she then told that Vriska had taken his Magic Cue Ball. Scratch promptly and uncharacteristically HS 4163 (flipped the fuck out) and blew the cue ball up in Vriska's hand, destroying her left arm and ruining her vision eightfold.

Terezi's blindness is indeed real, and was caused by Vriska in retaliation for the aforementioned incident. Vriska did this via a HS 4478 (Psychic Double Reacharound) through Tavros and Terezi's Lusus. She used Tavros's ability to commune with animals to control Terezi's Lusus who would then speak to Terezi (as she was unable to control Terezi directly), forcing her to sleepwalk away from her tree and stare into the blinding Alternian sun, effectively burning her eyes and blinding her. At the same time, dream Terezi walked out on Prospit and stared into the heart of Skaia. Terezi's dream self awoke on Prospit, and her Lusus, still in its egg, used telepathy to teach her the skills to function without vision, by smelling and tasting her surroundings.This all happens in HS 4478 ([S] Make her pay.) In a HS 4476 (conversation) with Karkat, she says that her dream self's blindness is because deep down, she wants to be blind.

She stopped flarping after Tavros was crippled, and the only type of role-playing she does is chat-based with Nepeta. She plays a dragon whose only thought is to devour anything in its sight. She seems to enjoy these sessions. Her Flarping name was Redglare.

Hivebent
Though she is blind, Terezi can "smell" and "taste" colors. She makes references to being able to "smell" the text of others while chatting online, clearly confusing the Homestuck Kids. When using her computer, she has a fondness for licking her monitor (and chalk), and like all of the other trolls, a graphic symbol of her corresponding zodiac sign appears at the back. She was taught how to sense the world through scent and such by her HS 4027 (future custodian.)

She was to be the original leader of the Red Team; however, she surrendered the position to Karkat, probably out of understanding that the position was essentially meaningless.

Her Land has been revealed to be the Land of Thought and Flow. Her exile is. Snowman switched from Vriska to Terezi due to difficulties controlling Vriska as she was stubborn and refused to listen or acknowledge the orders. Instead, Snowman chose someone less stubborn and more creative. Terezi would then be tasked with the mission of exiling the Archagent Jack Noir, during a brief "conversation" between Terezi and Snowman, thanks to some chalk she keeps in her Sylladex. In time she and Vriska would carry out this mission.

Post-Hivebent
Terezi contacts Rose Lalonde after she enters The Medium and, rather than trolling her (though she claims to be 'hatefriends' with Rose), offers constructive information about the titles of each Sburb player and the voice of the Exile that Rose hears. She mentions the fact that Earth is doomed no matter what, and that the Exiles are responsible for restoring life. Terezi also knows about Agents but refuses to tell Rose about them, saying that it would be more constructive to talk in the future.

It was Terezi who first discovered the Humans. She received a money transfer from Dave, which her future self had set up. Her interest was taken due to the large sum of money and the use of the numbers of the blind prophets, with Sollux's help she was able to backtrack the transfer. She takes an interest in the cool kid she discovers and decides to support him once he enters the Medium.

After the Doomed Dave is killed by Bec Noir HS 5091 (here), she runs from the room in tears, seemingly very upset. During her broodings, the dead body of Tavros falls from the ceiling; he had been run through the chest with his own lance. A forensic analysis of the corpse with the help of three of her Scalemates leads to two of them being cast into the void, likely attracting the attention of a murderous Gamzee in the process. She concludes that the culprit was Vriska within seconds, but pretends that the results were inconclusive, because otherwise she would have no fun with the process. In an attempt to revive him, she removes her glasses and HS 5284 (smooches his corpse). Her glasses are soon after found by Gamzee, who uses them to contact Karkat, leaving the sole message of "honk."

She is later found investigating the computer room, where she laments the loss of her forensics team, and states how hard it is to investigate a murder with no body (referring to the bloody mess made by Kanaya's body). She then walks over to the horn pile, where she encounters Feferi's corpse. She declares it a "textbook impaling", showing that she is still oblivious to the fact that Eridan also went on a murderous rampage. She also notices two puncture wounds on the corpse's neck, which match up with Kanaya's fangs, but she formulates a completely and totally absurd theory that it was Vriska, who had developed a taste for blood. She acknowledges that this really doesn't make much sense.

While talking to Sollux after he goes blind, Terezi smells undead Kanaya approaching. She wakes up on the floor some time later with a bandaged bite mark on her face. Realizing she has to stop Vriska, she leaves and discovers the bodies of Nepeta and assumedly Equius along the way. She leaves down a narrow corridor, captchaloguing the Homestuck Disc 1 along the way. Here, she discovers a torn page of Mindfang's diary stuck into the floor with Nepeta's claws. She goes to pick it up, but a trapdoor gives way underneath and she falls into the secret room found in Trickster Mode, which immediately becomes canon. Her fall is broken by a number of somewhat damaged scalemates. Someone's silhouette is darting ninja-style around the room, and a familiar face is also present. Terezi proceeds to investigate, starting the process by playing a selection of appropriate music on a gramophone. However, after realising there is some inappropriately vaudevillian cornball nonsense at the end of the selection, she moves to put the Midnight Crew record back in its wallet, and discovers the Homestuck Disc 2 CD in there. Wondering what sort of music it plays, she puts it in the gramophone, which immediately scratches the disc in an uncannily foreboding way. She then reads the note, which aside from a familiar message written in Gamzee's purple blood, also sheds further light on the Ancestors of Terezi and Vriska. This little taunt reminds her to get back on track.



She then leaves to confront Vriska with a coin flip deciding whether or not Spidertroll would go to challenge Jack, Vriska naturally uses her Thief of Light powers to rig the outcome so that she can. Terezi, fully aware that she would do this, prepares to stab Vriska as she turns to leave, since her abilities as the Seer of Mind allowed her to predict the consequences of Vriska going to fight Jack Noir. Vriska would have a chance of winning, but Jack would first follow her trail back to the trolls' hideout in the Veil and slaughter Karkat and Terezi personally, and presumably kill every other living troll on the meteor by blowing it up completely. Because of this knowledge, Terezi does stab Vriska, averting that whole timeline. Karkat arrives and the two embrace.

Later, in Act 6, she is contacted by Aranea through the dream bubbles, and helps her round up some of her friends. For a large part of Aranea's exposition, she is fixated on Dirk, probably for his resemblance to Dave.

Further down the road, it is revealed that she and Dave are, or have been for some time, dating. Upon the arrival of the trolls' dancestors, she becomes jealous of how accepted and rad her dancestor, Latula, is. She then goes into an area reminiscent of her old forest to sulk, her dragon cosplay pulled over her head. Karkat finds her and tells her to be herself, that trying to cover up who she really is prevents people from seeing someone beautiful. He leaves, and Terezi goes to follow him, possibly to thank him for his support. She finds only Meenah, who talks about her interpretation of Karkat going to help her fight as a proposition for the two to go on a date. She seems possibly surprised but appears to be ok with Meenah replying with a ">:]" after she says she likes her dragon costume. In Act 6 Intermission 5, Terezi is shown to have crashed from a Faygo binge, wearing only a scalemate hoodie, her underwear, and her shirt, holding her Pyralspite scalemate.

Upon being woken by Karkat, Terezi reveals that she had her vision restored by Aranea at some point, a decision influenced both by her admiration of the trolls' dancestors at the time and by her kismesissitude with Gamzee. She came to regret the decision, however, as her blindness comprised a large part of her sense of self. Furthermore, it appears that her kismesissitude with Gamzee is not going well, and that she feels trapped, however she does not want Gamzee to end it, because she will feel as if she failed. She also reveals that she still feels bad about killing Vriska, even though she is aware it had to be done.

After the trolls arrive in the new session, and are teleported by Grimdark Jade to separate planets, Terezi ends up with Rose on LOLAR. There, after complaining about her regained sight, after seeing John and at least sensing Gamzee, she alchemizes a red cloth using her sunglasses and Rose's scarf, which she uses to blindfold herself before going 'Clown hunting.'



She is not seen again until after Aranea kills Jade. As Jane tries to revive her, Gamzee ambushes her, only to be attacked by Terezi, who then engages Gamzee in a one sided duel, slashing and stabbing him and crying because he won't attack her and is just standing there with a blank smile on his face. When Aranea's mind control wears off of Gamzee, he tells Terezi to stop because she is hurting him. She drops her weapons, shakily apologizing for what she has done. Gamzee is then shown smiling, grows angry, and proceeds to punch the still crying Terezi in the face, managing to knock a tooth out. After a couple more attacks Terezi gets seemingly knocked into the lava.

Personality and Traits
Terezi is alternatingly civil, flirty, manipulative, derisive and outright sociopathic in her interactions. She is almost always grinning and in many panels it appears as though she is cackling madly. From her conversations with the kids, Terezi's attitude differs depending on who she is talking to: she acts helpful towards Rose, dubs them 'hatefriends' and tells her about Sburb. This approach may be a part of her trolling of John by pretending to be helpful towards him (through insulting him a lot in the process and using a kind of angry politeness) and giving him advice that leads to his death in the alternate timeline. After John avoids his death, Terezi seems to have since shown remorse for her actions and claimed she felt awful for 'killing' him; even helping him through the second gate into the Land of Light and Rain to earn his trust. Her trolling of Dave has been bizarre but effective, causing him to completely lose his cool. She often takes images of Earth pop-culture characters she thinks are similar to Dave and (crudely but awesomely) draws over the picture, claiming to make it look even more like him. It is worthy to note she may have had an interest in Karkat Vantas. During one HS 3504 (conversation) with Terezi, John jokingly said that Karkat was "basically in love with you," and she reacted with surprise, asking him if Karkat told him that in confidence and even asking him to copy/paste the exact words, a road which John refused to go down. It has since been shown that they were most likely Matesprits.

Like the other trolls, Terezi is able to access the kids' adventures using Trollian, but Terezi stays linear rather than skipping around, because weird time stuff gives her a headache, which may mean she is a more efficient troll than the others. Her overall tone of speech is reminiscent of Jade's speaking patterns.

She takes interest in law and justice, has studied Alternian law thoroughly, and holds a particular fascination for HS 3931 (orchestrating the demise of the wicked), although that might not be why she caused John's death. The incident might have simply been a vain effort from her point of view, because in a HS 3557 (conversation) with Davesprite, she states that she knew John wouldn't die, as she could see him alive in the future from her timeline application in Trollian, and given that she felt guilty about the way John trusted her trolling, this is most likely the case. She also has more lighthearted interests like dragons, or collecting plushies and scales to put on her walls. She has a habit of using chalks to draw on walls for use in her live-action roleplays, and later also HS 4444 (uses them to communicate) with the exiled Black Queen. Her favorite color appears to be red, saying that it is HS 4993 (so decadent) and the HS 3950 (most delicious color), probably contributing to her attraction to Karkat and to Dave.

Terezi is very interested in other people's blood color, but that may be more out of psychotic curiosity than hierarchy. Terezi's own blood is in the tail teal end of blue, keeping her out of the aristocracy's conspiracy games until she's over her head in Sgrub beings.

Karkat and Dave
She appears to have had a Matespritship relation with Karkat, as possibly indicated by HS 4475 (this) conversation, although it could also be read as her catching a mere embarrassing moment such as tears. She later tells Dave that her relationship with Karkat is sort of complicated. She is later seen embracing Karkat on the roof of the lab after he sees her murder Vriska. 1 year into the trip to the new session on the meteor, Karkat implies in a conversation with his future self that he and Terezi are no longer getting along, which his future self blames on Karkat's attempts to create a Kismessitude with Terezi as well as a Matespritship. It is possible, however, that Karkat was simply overestimating his own importance to Terezi in the first place. He does overreact fairly often, after all. In A6I3, a conversation between Karkat and Terezi (in which Karkat is trying to comfort her, and ends up calling her "already beautiful") suggests that they may have had a Matespritship, which Karkat "fucked up".

After that, she was in some sort of relationship with Dave Strider who she previously HS 4690 (flirted with) and had become close to. She was in tears over losing Dave's trust for producing a doomed Dave that was then killed by Jack Noir, something he apparently no longer hold against her. It is revealed in the second part of the Act 6 Intermission 3 game that Terezi and Dave were in some sort of relationship stopped later due to her black feelings for Gamzee. Dave's statement clearly implies that his and Terezi's relationship was flushed and that he was not okay with her "dating" Gamzee on the side, partly due to human relationship standards such as monogamy and partly due to general opposition to the concept of kismesistude.

In the third part of the Act 6 Intermission 3 game, when the notoriously sexually aggressive Damara attempts to approach Karkat as he sleeps, Terezi threatens her, wanting to protect Karkat. Interestingly, both the people she has flushed relationships with are people who have strong connections to red, more specifically bright red. Karkat is the only troll to have red blood, and in addition, his God Tier is one of the two that has a partially red outfit. Dave also possesses candy red blood and a red God Tier outfit, and additionally types in red and has red eyes. They are also both Knights.

Vriska
Terezi once told Vriska she is grateful for being blind, because it allowed her to bond with her Lusus as well as allowing her to, as she puts it, "" According to a HS 4476 (conversation) with Karkat, deep down she actually does not want to be able to see, and it is the reason why her dream self is blind as well, spiting Vriska being just a bonus. After Sgrub, Vriska tries to become Terezi's kismesis. It seems to work, and even Dave, a human, thought they were kismeses. However, instead of pursuing this relationship, she had to kill Vriska to prevent her from leading Bec Noir to the lab. This guilt later contributes to her crippling depression.

Other Trolls
Nepeta and Terezi are good friends because of their constant online role-playing together. Terezi was friends with Aradia while they were Flarping, but they seem to be more distant after she died. She was also on good terms with Tavros.

Terezi was friends with Sollux, who originally chose her to lead the red team. Terezi often relies on Sollux's help for computer related matters such as when she asked him to help her contact and when she asked him trace the money transfer from Dave. Terezi has stated that she thinks Sollux is cool (sometimes) and that he reminds her of Dave. After Sollux went blind he asked Terezi if she had any tips for him.

John
Terezi's interactions with John haven't been very constructive, as all she does is laugh, insult him, and threaten to kill him if they should ever meet, prompting John to consider changing his chumhandle. After his arrival in the Land of Wind and Shade, John was tricked by Terezi into taking a shortcut directly to the seventh gate causing his death (in one timeline) at the hands of the Slumbering One - this in turn caused the death of Jade Harley in this timeline, as John was unable to transport her into the Medium in time to save her home from the meteor bearing down on it. As this timeline branched off from the main one, the trolls were unable to see it or know that it had occurred until Davesprite informed Terezi of it.

Gamzee
While hunting Vriska after finding Tavros's corpse, Terezi comes across some of Gamzee's blood and adds "poor sweet Gamzee" to Vriska's list of murder charges. She also seems amused by Gamzee's honking and authentically wants to help him. However, after learning that Gamzee had murdered several other trolls she develops hatred for him. Some fans have suggested that the 5x Combo Showdown flash with the murderous Gamzee shows Terezi having feelings of kismessitude towards the purple blood. The third part of the A6I3 game confirms that since then, Terezi and Gamzee have become kismeses. The relationship has become extremely unhealthy at the end of their 3 year trip on the meteor, contributing to her depression and Faygo addiction.

Lusus/Kernelsprite
Terezi was not raised by her Lusus, as it had not yet hatched. When it hatched, the Doomsday Scale would tip and bring on the end of their world (it later turned out to be a countdown to the end rather than the cause).

The doomsday button bears a spirograph, as featured in Sburb.

Her custodian is a dragon—fitting since dragons have scales. After the start of the game, Terezi hatched the egg as the world was ending anyway. Unfortunately, the lusus was killed by a meteor immediately after hatching. Terezi eventually prototyped her sprite with the corpse.

After Terezi lost her sight, it was her Lusus, through communication during her sleep during the daytime, that helped teach her the skills to function without vision, by smelling and tasting her surroundings, much like the dragon. The species apparently is born without sight and must learn to function that way themselves.

Her Lusus also appears to have the ability to control Terezi in her sleep, as shown in HS 4478 ([S] Make her pay).

Upon being prototyped, her Lusus does little more than greet or bade her farewell, and giggle inanely

Trivia

 * Terezi's coin is a HS 3942 (double-headed troll caegar). Her use of a two-headed coin with one side scratched is similar to the habit of Batman villain Two-Face, whom she has never heard of. Specifically, she seems reminiscent of Two-Face as he was portrayed in The Dark Knight, especially in that she will not be entirely dependent on the coin to determine an outcome. However, unlike Two-Face's coin, the scratched side of Terezi's coin is only defaced by a single scratch through the eye. The bust on the coin resembles the busts of Venus on some Roman denarius coins issued during the reign of Julius Caesar.
 * Terezi also shares several characteristics with the Marvel character Daredevil, whom she's also never heard of. Both of them are blind and use their enhanced other senses to get by. They also both use canes as weapons. Daredevil’s civilian identity is an attorney, which is paralleled by Terezi's ambition to become a legislacerator.
 * She also shares characteristics with the character Godot from Ace Attorney, a prosecutor and former defense attorney. Godot has impaired vision like Terezi (which coincidentally was caused by a vindictive girl like Terezi's blindness) and wears a red visor which is similar to her red glasses- however, Godot's visor allows him to see again (save for the color red against a white backdrop, which caused him to miss some important evidence in a case), unlike Terezi's glasses which serve no real function. He also happens to wear a teal-coloured shirt as a prosecutor and wears red as a defense attorney, relating to her blood colour and a colour which Terezi adores respectively. In the story, Godot murders someone with a sword hidden inside a cane which is similar to the way Terezi uses her cane as a weapon.
 * Terezi also has the ability to be unfazed by human "Bluhs." (According to herself)
 * In ancient times, the constellation Libra was originally considered part of Scorpius (the claws, specifically). Terezi's relationship with Vriska may be an allusion to this fact.
 * Terezi, along with Karkat, are one of the few post scratch trolls that inherited their class and aspect from the same two pre-scratch trolls. The only other examples are Eridan and Gamzee. As the Seer of Mind, she inherited the Seer class from Kankri and the Mind aspect from Latula, while Karkat inherited the opposite.  This reflects both Kankri and Latula's unresolved feelings for each other, as well as Redglare being a secret follower of the Signless. This also reflects their own romantic tension towards each other.
 * Like Rose, she is commanded by a carapacian queen.
 * They are both Seers.
 * Terezi and Gamzee are the only players who have not died at least once in the Alpha timeline.

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