2) She’s blind. Terezi wasn’t born blind (we can all thank Vriska’s crazybitchiness for blinding her), but it’s had a massive impact on her life. When she went blind, she also woke on Prospit—the moon of Skaia where her dreamself lives. That means, before SGRUB even started, she was awake on Prospit. There, her lusus (the one that never hatched) spoke to her in her dreams and taught her to see like a dragon. Through taste and smell, she could get a blurry picture of the world (taste is stronger than her smell). But she also found that she could smell/taste other things, too. For example, if you lie enough to her, those lies "build up," and she can smell them. Her first conversation with Dave involved 3 lies: Dave was a girl, he was a "north american hollering phallus baboon," and his name was "shaggy 2 dope." Let's all just take a moment to love Dave.
Okay, we're good? Good.
After the third lie, she could tell that Dave was a "big joker" and that couldn't possibly be his name. He instantly replaces "shaggy 2 dope" with "Ben Stiller." It takes Terezi a little bit longer to realize that one was a lie also, but when Dave finally says his name, she can instantly smell the truth. She still calls him a holler baboon, though. 8|
She also claims to smell other emotions, like Karkat’s rage.
Terezi is, surprisingly, ridiculously glad to be blind. Dreamselves are typically whole versions of the character, undamaged by life experiences. Vriska is missing an eye and an arm, but her dreamself is whole. However, Terezi’s dreamself is still blind, which she explains to Karkat, is because she likes being blind. When talking to Vriska, she further emphasizes this point:
AG: I lost seven eyes 8ut you only lost two! I would say you came out ahead in the 8argain. GC: 1 KNOW GC: 4ND 4CTU4LLY GC: 1 N3V3R R34LLY GOT TH3 CH4NC3 TO TH4NK YOU >:D AG: Ugh! Your sarcasm really stings when here I am just trying to 8e nice. Ok, I guess I deserve it. GC: 1M S3R1OUS THOUGH GC: BUT 1 DONT 3XP3CT YOU TO G3T TH4T
Eventually, after a year on their meteor hurtling through space-time bullshit (oh, am I using the word “meteor” wrong? DEAL WITH IT, NERDS), she meets Araena, who is Vriska’s ancestor from a universe that was scratched in order to create Terezi’s, which means in Araena’s reality, Vriska was her ancestor. .....Shut up this is Homestuck.
Araena offers to heal Terezi:
AG: This is what I did as a Sylph of Light. Helped people see things. AG: I could even perform the feat literally, if you wanted. GC: WHO4 WH4T? AG: It's up to you of course.
Terezi declines, though:
GC: HMM GC: TH4NKS FOR 4SK1NG GC: BUT 1D R4TH3R JUST ST4Y TH1S W4Y GC: L34RN1NG TO S3NS3 TH1NGS TH1S W4Y W4S TH3 ONLY CONN3CT1ON 1 3V3R H4D W1TH MY LUSUS B3FOR3 SH3 D13D GC: 1T R3M1NDS M3 OF H3R GC: TH4T PROB4BLY SOUNDS DUMB THOUGH
4) She cares about her friends. You might have noticed the surprising amount of cobalt blue throughout this app. There's a reason for this. Terezi and Vriska are two sides of the same coin, ridiculously similar but so fucking different that they clash. While they both care for their friends, they do it in different ways. Vriska attacks them and helps create Jack, trying to make them strong. Terezi helps them. She guides them through the game as the Seer, but is also pretty friendly. She RPs with Nepeta, encourages Tavros to believe harder in his imaginary friend because that will make him less fake (trollingly), trolls Karkat endlessly-- she gets along with most of the other characters. She teases, but doesn't put it too far, and knows when to back down most of the time (like with Feferi in Alterniabound).
However, her story in Homestuck is about someone who is very self assured losing that confidence. The first strike against it is when she manipulates Dave into creating a split timeline-- where one Dave should kill the other in order to make him into a god. Dave, understandably, can't do it. Jack does it for him, and while she was confident in her plan before the murder took place, afterwards, she's incredibly distraught (absconding from the main troll room in tears).
She also starts out very confident in her abilities of understanding people and getting into their minds, but when she kills Vriska in order to save herself and Karkat (she saw a doomed timeline where Vriska flies off to fight Jack, but in doing so, leads Jack straight to them. Even if Vriska could have won against Jack, it meant that everyone else was going to die), she starts to question herself. The guilt of killing her ex-best friend manifests itself into the thoughts of "why were those the only two options-- kill her and live, or don't kill her and everyone minus her dies," "why didnt I keep a better eye on Vriska and stop this from happening in the first place," etc etc. By the time she meets Araena a year later in a dream bubble, it's clear this guilt has been eating at her for a very long time.
TEREZI PYROPE | HOMESTUCK - reserved
Okay, we're good? Good.
After the third lie, she could tell that Dave was a "big joker" and that couldn't possibly be his name. He instantly replaces "shaggy 2 dope" with "Ben Stiller." It takes Terezi a little bit longer to realize that one was a lie also, but when Dave finally says his name, she can instantly smell the truth. She still calls him a holler baboon, though. 8|
She also claims to smell other emotions, like Karkat’s rage.
Terezi is, surprisingly, ridiculously glad to be blind. Dreamselves are typically whole versions of the character, undamaged by life experiences. Vriska is missing an eye and an arm, but her dreamself is whole. However, Terezi’s dreamself is still blind, which she explains to Karkat, is because she likes being blind. When talking to Vriska, she further emphasizes this point:
AG: I lost seven eyes 8ut you only lost two! I would say you came out ahead in the 8argain.
GC: 1 KNOW
GC: 4ND 4CTU4LLY
GC: 1 N3V3R R34LLY GOT TH3 CH4NC3 TO TH4NK YOU >:D
AG: Ugh! Your sarcasm really stings when here I am just trying to 8e nice. Ok, I guess I deserve it.
GC: 1M S3R1OUS THOUGH
GC: BUT 1 DONT 3XP3CT YOU TO G3T TH4T
Eventually, after a year on their meteor hurtling through space-time bullshit (oh, am I using the word “meteor” wrong? DEAL WITH IT, NERDS), she meets Araena, who is Vriska’s ancestor from a universe that was scratched in order to create Terezi’s, which means in Araena’s reality, Vriska was her ancestor. .....Shut up this is Homestuck.
Araena offers to heal Terezi:
AG: This is what I did as a Sylph of Light. Helped people see things.
AG: I could even perform the feat literally, if you wanted.
GC: WHO4 WH4T?
AG: It's up to you of course.
Terezi declines, though:
GC: HMM
GC: TH4NKS FOR 4SK1NG
GC: BUT 1D R4TH3R JUST ST4Y TH1S W4Y
GC: L34RN1NG TO S3NS3 TH1NGS TH1S W4Y W4S TH3 ONLY CONN3CT1ON 1 3V3R H4D W1TH MY LUSUS B3FOR3 SH3 D13D
GC: 1T R3M1NDS M3 OF H3R
GC: TH4T PROB4BLY SOUNDS DUMB THOUGH
4) She cares about her friends. You might have noticed the surprising amount of cobalt blue throughout this app. There's a reason for this. Terezi and Vriska are two sides of the same coin, ridiculously similar but so fucking different that they clash. While they both care for their friends, they do it in different ways. Vriska attacks them and helps create Jack, trying to make them strong. Terezi helps them. She guides them through the game as the Seer, but is also pretty friendly. She RPs with Nepeta, encourages Tavros to believe harder in his imaginary friend because that will make him less fake (trollingly), trolls Karkat endlessly-- she gets along with most of the other characters. She teases, but doesn't put it too far, and knows when to back down most of the time (like with Feferi in Alterniabound).
However, her story in Homestuck is about someone who is very self assured losing that confidence. The first strike against it is when she manipulates Dave into creating a split timeline-- where one Dave should kill the other in order to make him into a god. Dave, understandably, can't do it. Jack does it for him, and while she was confident in her plan before the murder took place, afterwards, she's incredibly distraught (absconding from the main troll room in tears).
She also starts out very confident in her abilities of understanding people and getting into their minds, but when she kills Vriska in order to save herself and Karkat (she saw a doomed timeline where Vriska flies off to fight Jack, but in doing so, leads Jack straight to them. Even if Vriska could have won against Jack, it meant that everyone else was going to die), she starts to question herself. The guilt of killing her ex-best friend manifests itself into the thoughts of "why were those the only two options-- kill her and live, or don't kill her and everyone minus her dies," "why didnt I keep a better eye on Vriska and stop this from happening in the first place," etc etc. By the time she meets Araena a year later in a dream bubble, it's clear this guilt has been eating at her for a very long time.