#wow sollux how come the writers let you have 2 big cameos??

[snowtimeisbesttime]

Thoughts and questions on Volume 10, routes 1 and 2! ...finally.

-Back in Homestuck both Feferi and Eridan got the short end of the stick screentime-wise, but here, they both got a nice bunch of much-needed Interesting Stuff! It's a shame we're (almost surely) heading back to Earth now, to befriend the heck out of the alpha kids.

~ROUTE 2~

-MC expected the Heiress to be super awful, and then Feferi has literally 2 good endings (whose achievements seem to be reversed route-wise?) and her bad ending you get by actively choosing not to further interact with her. And of course, she's already very much against the Empire, even if she doesn't quite seem to interact with it...

-Maybe I read too many fanfics where all of the beta trolls rebel, but I'm kinda surprised that The Rebellion's still a Vriska & Terezi only thing. Let's hope we get to see if Fef does join up...

-Looks like the whole “Witches living in the middle of nowhere with their extremely powerful guardians” thing is starting to become a trend, huh? In Feferi's specific case her meteor probably fell right in front of Gl'bgolyb (a pretty damn large area, actually), who would’ve then immediately gone “holy shit a sky baby” and adopted her.

-Considering that the Condesce can just come down to Alternia and personally get rid of the Heiress (singular, explicitly), living so far from everything was probably a blessing in disguise. And maybe also NOT being involved with how the planet's run- though we'd have to ask a certain Trizza Hiveswap about that...

-She was planning on waiting thousands of sweeps before challenging the Condesce, though iirc the whole thing with Heiresses challenging HIC was something demanded by their shared lusus... She didn't really bother with future ruling plans in Homestuck because they were going to play SGRUB; though Glubglub also bonded more strongly with Feferi because HIC was too far from Alternia... enough to actively favor her over the Empress?

-We also get even more confirmation that seadwellers are OP: Feferi blows up a huge air bubble (that stays on the ocean floor) for MC not to drown like it's nothing, and she's very likely even stronger than Equius*. Meanwhile, Eridan gets thrown through a party cannon (that was just there on the airship for reasons i guess??) AND has Daraya's mall thrown at him by Sollux, and practically walks it off, though he does say later that it was close. You know who'd be a Great Additional Data Point??? Cridea Jeevik.......

-*However, they would not fight, as they both stan Nepeta. On a more serious note, having Feferi interact on-screen with the other trolls would've been very nice... she's hanging out with Sollux in Eridan's route but We Don't See It... We know she's friends with Kanaya, and she also had a pretty nice interaction with Vriska back on one of the walkaround flashes too,

-On seadwellers in general- neck gills are canon (though if i remember correctly a Very Old Tumblr Post, that'd actually not be the best place to have gills? Idk tho), as we can see in Feferi's route; and then we have Eridan, who we know has spent very little time underwater in his entire life, with his scarf *and* a high neck shirt. (this might just be me but. wouldn't it be super uncomfortable to have clothing touching one's gills??? i guess it would kinda depend on the specific take on gills, biology wise)

-Feferi owns a ~fancy air-producing conch shell~, so that's that for any fan seadwellers that Need to have landdwelling friends over.

-MC theorizes that there might be something that makes adult empresses evil... something external, such as a powerful curse of some sort... which would have to transfer from dead empress to freshly crowned empress somehow... really makes you think...

-Feferi can use one of Glubglub's eyes (?) as a crystal ball from which she can access the Actual Dark Motherfucking Carnival, and get metaphysical advice from there. And the one giving her said advice is our precious clown son Karako, who may or may not have gotten like 10 degrees on weird meta shit since we last saw him- assuming he's the same bapy as last time...

-According to Karako or whomstever is speaking through him, there's a creator above this world's creator, as well as another creator above him, and another one above her, and so on and so forth maybe? Wonder what's this setting up for........

-Feferi can either meditate her way up through layers and layers of meta, so she might access them and interact with them, or choose to change stuff in the Alternia she knows and lives in, small as it may be; both these endings have a lot of potential for cool stuff that I hope we'll get to see. Depending on the choice, MC is either a cheese or a marshmallow.

-In Fef's bad end, MC wonders about the workings and limits of their plot armor; they do give it a good whirl in this entire volume.

-I am incredibly pleased to announce that the ally/eely pun also works in Spanish (aliado/anguilado)

~ROUTE 1~

-We find out that both Vriska and Feferi have dumped Eridan- the first's likely busy being gay and doing revolutions with Terezi, but what happened (besides charming quirks such as charging for listening to him brooding) to make Fef break it off? In Homestuck she broke things off with him as soon as they were in the game and Glubglub didn't have to be fed 413 lusii a minute, but there's no SGRUB in Pesterquest; we see Fef's mom in her route, yet we don't hear anything about Eridan's whole Orphaner Jr thing...

-Regarding his additional lack of friends: it's perfectly understandable that Kanaya would drop him, considering she had to deal with a lot of his bullshit back in the comic, but I thought Karkat was actually friends with Eridan? Before Murderstuck of course, but that's obviously not happened in Pesterquest...

-Eridan's 13 years old (and also in charge of feeding glubglub, let's not forget that), where the hell has he found the time to make a nuisance of himself (to the point where employees in some places are legally allowed to stab him if he bothers them) on like half the actual planet????

-MC's reaction when confronted with a room full of fancy clothing is, of course, Big Hype... And wanting something new for their wardrobe.

-so, are Eridan and Roxy nb wizard solidarity?

-Chances are everybody’s already seen this by now orz but I need it to establish a base: Hussie's made an statement where he explained -amongst other things- Eridan's deal with Shrek, originally from [S] Collide. That post could be summarized as:

1) highblood lusii tend to suck ass because of high expectations and low emotional availability, & seahorsedad wasn't an exception; so when the trolls were looking up human stuff back in the meteor and Eridan found Shrek, he saw him as a Good Lusus Figure.

2) Sollux, however, has a good dad that loves and supports his trans son (as sollux trans confirmed) and is also Kinda Ogre Shaped, and Eridan resents him for that → rivalry

3) (it's also confirmed that the eridan from [s] collide was legitimately so happy to be spending time with his dad shrek that he never realized he was dead)

-So: where did Eridan (more like whoever’s in charge of the cinema actually?) get Shrek 2 from if he's never had any contact with humans in this timeline / reality / canon chunk??? It might be one of the Funky Timeline Changes we made in Aradia's route.

-Also: if Eridan knows Sollux is trans (implied in the post but not confirmed), then the conversation the two have later in the route (and specifically Why Eridan begins that conversation) kiiinda takes a dump on his talk about gender (which otherwise is a very good sign that he's got the potential to be a decent person IF he gets his shit together and also thinks about other things -most obviously the hemospectrum- with the same level of depth and all that).

-MC's had their first taste of their Homestuck memories. Let's see how they get them back this time.

-not to self plug (too much) but one of Eridan's fancy articles of clothing looks a Lot like an outfit that's appeared in Mirrorbent?? (← warning for a bit of blood) The one with the purple and yellow gradient in the rack furthest to the right... the one in mirrorbent is basically Gramma Loreto Rights: The Jacket

-After the rollercoaster of hapenings that is his route, Eridan finally understands that he's got to change himself and unlearn all of Alternia's bullshit if he wants his situation to change for the better. Can't believe it took getting An Actual Mall thrown at him to make him realize that...........

-(That mall is of course the one from Daraya's Friendsim- and she sure felt like a Destruction class back then... 2x hopeprince combo mayhaps?)

-Kanaya said in Sollux's route that it was less than advisable for him to overexert his powers, and the only thing he *doesn't* use here is his psionic blasts- hope he's fine! (then again this is probably our last volume on alternia and blah blah blah)