Terezi Pyrope

Terezi Pyrope, also known by her Trollian handle, gallowsCalibrator, is one of the trolls. 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 Azerbaijani word for Libra (or Balance), while 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". It is also possible that the name Terezi was based on the blind prophet Tiresias of Homer's Odyssey and Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Additionally, the second part of her Trollian name, Calibrator, has the word libra contained within it.

Terezi was supposed to be the leader of the Red Team 'til Karkat threw a nasty tantrum.

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.)

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 carries a pair of scales.

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, so 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 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 then 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. She then leaves to confront Vriska with a coin flip deciding whether or not spidertroll would go to challenge Jack, which inevitably ends in the latter's favor. Terezi, knowing this would happen, prepares to stab Vriska as she's turning to leave. Her abilities as the Seer of Mind allow her to predict the consequences should she allow Vriska to fight Jack Noir: she 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. Because of this knowledge, Terezi does stab Vriska, averting that whole timeline. Karkat arrives and the two embrace.

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 removing 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. 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.

Personality


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 (To be fair, according to Karkat the word for 'friend' in the troll language is the same as that for 'enemy'). 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 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 are 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 uses them to communicate with the exiled Black Queen. Her favorite color appears to be red and she notes that it is the HS 4446 (most delicious color).

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 Sgrubbenings.

Relationships


She appears to have a Matespritship relation with Karkat as indicated by HS 4475 (this) conversation. She later tells Dave that her relationship with Karkat is sort of complicated. An alternate version of her is also seen dead in Karkat's hive, along with Karkat himself, implying they were doing something together (the nature of the meeting being unknown, however). She is later seen embracing Karkat on the roof of the lab after he sees her murder Vriska.

Terezi tells 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, "3XP3R13NC3 TH3 S3NSORY BOUQU3T TH4T 1 3NJOY 3V3RY D4Y.". 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. She later kills Vriska to prevent her from leading Bec Noir to the lab.

Nepeta and Terezi are good friends because of their constant online role-playing together.

Terezi's interactions with John haven't been as 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, Terezi and the other Trolls were unable to see it or know that it had occurred until Davesprite informed her of it. Afterward she helps Dave make money in the LOHAC stock exchange so he'll send it to her past self. It's implied HS 4690 (EXPLICITLY STATED) by Karkat that he's flirting with her.

After the Doomed Dave is killed by Bec Noir HS 5091 (here), she runs from the room in tears, seemingly very upset. This may suggest that she felt very close to Dave, as friends.

Lusus/Kernelsprite


Terezi was not raised by her Lusus, as it hadn't 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 at night, 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 (&.

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 who she has never heard of, however unlike Two-Face's coin, the scratched side of Terezi's coin is only defaced by a single scratch through the eye (perhaps referencing her blindness). 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 Earth Marvel character Daredevil who she's 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.