Terezi Pyrope

Terezi Pyrope, also known by her Trollian handle, gallowsCalibrator, is one of the Trolls. Her associated zodiac sign is Libra (♎). Introduced in 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 on the Red Team.

Terezi is the Azerbaijani word for Libra, while her last name, Pyrope, is the name of a red mineral. This is possibly a reference to her red spectacles, especially given that "Pyrope" also means "Fire Eyes".

Biography
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 the ones who are going to bring back civilization to Earth. Terezi also knows about Agents but refuses to tell Rose about them, saying it would be more constructive to talk in the future. In Terezi's reality, she speaks with Rose again in a mere few seconds time.

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.

Hivebent
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. 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. Her blindness is indeed real, and appears to have been caused by Vriska in retaliation for Terezi causing to blow up a Magic Cue Ball in Vriska's face. After going blind, 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.

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.

When using her computer, it is revealed that she has a fondness for licking her screen, and presumably like every other troll, a graphic symbol of her corresponding zodiac sign appears at the back.

During a flash forward of her in the Medium, she was seen fighting imps that were a dark shade of red. The imps with wings and tails in the background are due to the prototyping of her and Karkat's Lusus.

Roleplaying
Terezi played Flarp as a member of Team Scourge alongside Vriska Serket. Terezi viewed their team as a vigilante duo devoting to taking down bad guys. When Vriska harmed Tavros and Aradia, Terezi disbanded Team Scourge, cutting ties with her former friend. With Sollux's help, she then told Doc Scratch that Vriska had taken his magic cue ball. Scratch blew up the cue ball in Vriska's hand, destroying her arm and removing her vision eightfold.

A later incident caused Terezi to lose her sense of sight. Terezi holds Vriska responsible for her blindness; likewise, Vriska blames Terezi for the loss of her seven arachnid-like eyes. However, it would seem that Terezi is grateful to Vriska for this, most likely 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."

Though she is blind, Terezi can apparently "smell" and "taste" colors. She makes references to being able to "smell" the text of others while chatting online, clearly confusing the Homestuck Kids. It is later revealed that she was taught how to sense the world through scent and such by her future custodian.

Personality


Terezi is alternatingly civil, flirty, manipulatory, 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 differs depending on who she is talking to: she acts helpful towards Rose and dubs them 'hatefriends' and tells her about Sburb. (To be fair, 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. Whether this is yet another trolling attempt remains to be seen, although according to Rose this has caused a serious fuck up in the game which may cause them to fail unless they fix it somehow. 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) 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. During one 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.

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.

As predicted, she does take a particular interest in law and justice, and has studied Alternian law thoroughly and does indeed take a particular interest in ORCHESTRATING THE DEATHS 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 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 light hearted interests like dragons, or collecting plushies and scales to put on her walls. She also seems to have a habit of drawing on walls to use in her live-action roleplays. She has also commented that red is the 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.

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. 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's accident, 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.