The Games Application

[pythianjudgment]

IN CHARACTER
Name: Terezi Pyrope
Fandom: Homestuck
Canon point: Where in their story you plan to take them from? Approximately a year out on the meteor trip to the new session that Sollux propelled them towards. She's up to shenanigans with Dave, but hasn't had her sight cured or started messing around with Gamzee yet.
Journal: pythianjudgment
PB: canon-art, fanon-art, etc. She's got plenty of stuff.
History: Here, I saved you a couple days of reading.

Presentation:
If you had to use one word to describe Terezi Pyrope, that word would be 'justice'. Being the troll associated with Libra, Terezi has a strong sense of right and wrong. She believes in protecting the innocent and in persecuting the guilty, which has led her to take up the future career of being a Legislacerator. There is very little grey area in her world view. In most cases, Terezi will either consider a person responsible for their crimes and therefore worthy of prosecution (meaning death), or they are an innocent bystander and allowed to live.

These views set her apart from most other blue-blooded trolls in that Terezi is not quite as keen on oppressing those lower than her in the caste system. In fact, when it comes to the hemospectrum, she pretty much throws the whole thing out the window. For her, actions merit a person status, rather than blood color; and her relationships with the other trolls vary widely across the range of the hemospectrum. She is good friends with both high and low bloods, and there are quite a few higher-blooded trolls for whom she shows distaste and even open scorn.

However, despite the strictness that she attempts to hold herself to, Terezi is a compassionate person when it comes to her friends. She honestly and deeply cares about them and wants them to be safe, despite her rampant teasing and occasional open mockery of them. Terezi prides herself on being a good friend and will put herself through daunting hardships in order to help out those she cares about.

This teasing and mockery isn't restricted to just friends, though. Terezi refers to herself as a joker and often engages in snarky banter with the other trolls. She can be both facetious and sarcastic at times, and employs a darker sense of humor with an air of flippancy, sometimes seemingly at a friend's expense. Terezi is the kind of person who would do something "just because it's funny", but never to the extent that it would severely injure another person. She doesn't really care if other people laugh along with her or not. If they can't laugh at themselves, it's their loss.

One of Terezi's favorite pastimes is playing games, especially roleplay ones. She spent quite a long time (I'd estimate at two years or so) playing FLARP with Vriska and becoming close friends with her before their falling out. She also made lasting friendships with Aradia and Tavros through their FLARP escapades. The enjoyment that Terezi got out of these FLARP sessions was also a means to practice her Legislacerator duties, and she liked to envision herself as a vigilante of justice while she was "orchestrating the demise of the wicked", as she puts it. After the accident that left her blind, Terezi would engage in rounds of courtroom roleplay with her dragon plushies to the same effect--usually ending in the toy's execution.

One last notable thing about Terezi's personality is that she is very manipulative, and everyone knows it. She is an expert at discerning key motivations from someone's words and actions, and she uses this to guide their actions towards her own ends. Usually this involves subtle wordplay, reverse psychology, bluffing, or any other methods of subterfuge in her power. She can tailor her manipulations to fit her target, whichever she feels would work best.

Motivations: And what's going on on the inside?
Terezi on the inside is much like Terezi on the outside. There's very little that she considers too shameful or too personal to put out in the open. However, for those things that do qualify as private, she can be very secretive.

In Alternian society, trolls engage in a very survival-of-the-fittest lifestyle. They are expect to kill or be killed, to be ruthless in nature, and to show no compassion. Those who don't conform to these standards often find themselves clashing with dangerous trolls. Meek trolls or rebellious trolls are not the kind of trolls who live very long.

However, Terezi does not possess the disposition to be as ruthless as she would like to be. In a conversation with Dave, she admits that part of this could be attributed to adolescence and simply being "not ready yet"; but she also confesses her uncertainty that she ever will be ready to take lives into her own hands. She explains that there is a difference between tricking someone into their death (as she's often done) and physically ending someone's life with her own hands. That difference is the responsibility of the action, and it is something that she puts a great deal of weight on.

Despite all this, Terezi has a strength of will that very few of her peers can match. She is keenly aware that there are difficult things in life that must be done, and there are times that she is the only one who can do them. Even knowing her own disposition towards direct murder, Terezi does eventually kill Vriska in order to save the lives of her other friends. She knows the guilty weight of her actions will stick with her, but she also knows that she is the only one who can do this; and she accepts that responsibility.

As a result of forcing these responsibilities upon herself, Terezi will often attempt to project a more confidant facade. The last thing that she would ever want is others to know her own inner turmoil. Because trolls do not show weakness--especially not Legislacerators, which is the most important part to her.

Internally, Terezi desires to be the best of this best in regards to her choice of career. This might be in part due to her ancestor: Neophyte Redglare. This older troll was a prodigy among Legislacerators and somewhat of a legend. However, she was cut down in the middle of a trial by one of her criminal targets and hung with her own noose. Terezi still idolizes her deeply, but it might be this untimely death that compels her to figuratively pick up her ancestor's torch, in the hopes of carrying it further than she did.


SAMPLES
Thread: I have two here to sort of emphasize the different aspects of her personality:
Fight with Vriska.
Taking care of Karkat.

Prose: 200 word minimum. To mimic the spirit of capriciousness within this game, please write your third person sample based on the following prompt:

You have been set in a room in front of the Gamemakers to be judged on a score of one to twelve, with one being the lowest and twelve being the highest. The Gamemakers sit safely behind a force field and watch, and you are provided with an array of weapons and targets, though no gun to be seen.

If you are a new tribute, you have been plucked from home and rushed in here with only a brief explanation of what is going on: You are about to enter an arena death match that only one person will make it out of, and impressing these people will help you live.


When she was young, Terezi had often imagined what her first case as an official Legislacerator would be like. On display for the whole courtblock to see, she would viciously cut into the lies of the accused. She would showcase her intellect, her charm, her cunning, her mercilessness. She would bear her colors boldly and with pride. She would be the spitting image of her ancestral predecessor, like an unholy terror back from the dead. She would strike fear into the hearts of the unjust.

As the door sweeps closed behind her and leaves her trapped in this exhibition chamber, Terezi is only certain of one thing: This is not how she imagined things. This is not even close.

She has nothing prepared, but someone must have made preparations for her. There are weapons here of many shapes and sizes, and other things besides. She snatches up a length of rope as she walks past it to survey the other weapons. Her fingers work at the hemp with all the practiced ease of someone tying their shoelaces. It calms her nerves to give her hands something to do while she thinks.

Only a matter of seconds pass before she makes her decision. She walks briskly by one of the targets and tosses the knotted rope over its head. The hangman's noose dangles around its neck like a solemn marker for her prey, all thirteen loops fitted together tight and even.

Several paces away, Terezi grabs a three-section staff and pivots back to face her target.

It's time to show them just how deadly a blind girl can be.


What is your character scored: 8.

Abilities, for clarification:
It's important to note first and foremost that Terezi is blind. She's not capable of seeing anything. Instead, she was taught by her lusus to develop her own "sight" through a kind of synesthesia. Instead of directly seeing the colors around her, Terezi can smell, hear, and taste them. Thus, she "sees" the world in scent, sound, and flavor. Granted, this ability is nowhere near perfect. The image presented to her is blurry at best, like someone trying to paint a detailed picture with a sponge. However, her sense of taste paints a stronger picture than her sense of smell, so she is able to "see" better when she's capable of licking the object she's trying to observe--which she frequently does without reservation. Otherwise, details are sometimes difficult for her to pick out.

As far as fighting ability goes, Terezi is very high level. In video game terms, she is just about as maxed out as she can get without achieving 'god-like' status in her canon. From her point in time, the trolls have completed their session and defeated their denizens. Together they also defeated the Black King and almost won their game. Suffice to say, she's no pushover in combat.

For the record, Terezi uses canes as her weapons of choice. She's also incredibly handy with a rope and with knots--considering nooses are her life-long trademark. In addition to canes, she has also wielded cane-like objects, such as: twin swords concealed within a cane, a three-section staff with a grappling hook on the end, etc. As long as it is relatively straight and long, whether it's sharp or blunt, she's fairly deadly with it.

The only special ability that Terezi exhibits in canon is the ability to see future outcomes. This isn't the same as just seeing the future, which implies that the future is linear and set in stone. Terezi is capable of seeing the results of choices to be made by both other people and herself, like seeing different diverging paths through a forest. She doesn't see whole scenes, but rather flashes and snippets of these future outcomes which can help her decide which choice to make. It can be assumed that these paths get harder to see, the further away from the present moment they are.