Feferi Peixes, also known by her Trollian handle “cuttlefishCuller”, is one of the trolls. Her associated zodiac sign is Pisces (♓), and her horns are shaped like the top half of her astrological sign. She is a sea dweller, and (ex)heir to the throne of the troll monarchy.
Her first name comes from Metasepia pfefferi, a poisonous species of cuttlefish. Her first name could also come from feri, which is a form of traditional witchcraft. Her last name is the Portuguese name for Pisces (as well as the Portuguese word for "fish" in plural), and can be pronounced PAY-shes. Her name could also come from "fairy" and "pixie", mythical figures associated with feminine attributes such as the natural element of water. Interestingly, on the subject of this latter theory, both creatures are in recent media portrayed as bright, cheerful, and helpful magical beings, but traditionally fairy folk were considered clever, beguiling, selfish, capricious creatures, a juxtaposition appropriate for Feferi and her ancestor, the Condesce.
She was on the Blue Team.
Biography
Hivebent
Feferi first appeared in a teaser
. She is shown 'culling' a cuttlefish by jabbing in its general direction with a trident. She, like Eridan Ampora, is a sea dweller. Feferi is female, making her the sixth troll girl to be unveiled. She is a part of the Nautical Aristocracy, being the heir apparent to the title of Empress.
Feferi dresses very colorfully for a troll, wearing golden jewelry, neon bracelets, purple goggles, a multicolored skirt, and a tiara displaying the Pisces sign in purple. The biological differences between aquatic and land-dwelling trolls are unclear as of now, but both Eridan and Feferi differ from the other trolls in that they have fin-like protrusions on the sides of their heads. She also has a "collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system," which seems to correspond to a heart. It is implied that her tendency to GLUB while IMing relates to her bladder based aquatic vascular system.
Feferi's Hero Mode
Feferi's blood is tyrian purple, a color which was heavily coveted for use in textile dye for nobility - hence its other name, imperial purple. This makes Feferi's unique blood the highest possible color on the hemospectrum. As such, she is the heir to the Alternian throne, or would be if the world wasn't coming to an end. She wants to redefine "culling" as "caring for the unfit and infirm," hence her Trollian handle. She implements this belief through capturing aquatic creatures, such as aquatic hoofbeasts and thousands of cuttlefish, and grooming and feeding them for "their own good." She realizes that the animals she cares for are probably not in need of her help, and that the whole exercise is really kind of pointless, but she still finds it fun.
Feferi's strife specibus is 2x3dentkind. She also appears to have some level of incredible strength, as seen when she pulled a large whale lusus carcass through the water propelled only by her strength and swimming ability. Her hive is a giant underwater palace, the bottom half of which is shaped similarly to a conch shell.
When Feferi enters The Medium, she takes her position on her planet, the Land of Dew and Glass. In a similar display of strength to Equius, she is able to breach straight into her first gate without any construction on her hive. Once she arrives in the Land of Brains and Fire, she resurrects Sollux by waking his Derse dream self with a kiss.
Post-Hivebent
Shortly before the destruction of Derse, Feferi opts to sleep in Gamzee's Horn Pile against Karkat's orders while in the Ectobiology Lab. When Jack Noir attacks, her dream self is gazing into the Furthest Ring. She is swiftly sliced in half by Jack Noir, who leaves her floating there while he destroys Derse. After her dream self dies, she sees Jade for the first time in a shared dream.
After Sollux and Eridan duel in the interactive Kanaya: Return to the Core, and Sollux is KO'd, she attacks Eridan, who kills her with his magic “science wwand”, blasting a hole through her chest. She later appears in a dream of Jade's upon the latter reaching the Land of Frost and Frogs, claiming to be dead. However, since she still has not fulfilled Gl'bgolyb's prophecy, it seems we haven't seen the last of her.
Upon Sollux waking up, he said he was aware of her death and that she was 'happy and 0k,' implying he and Feferi had talked while he was knocked out. Feferi has a similar postmortem dream conversation with Jade, but ends up scaring her out of it when she suddenly reveals to Jade that she's dead.
Fefetasprite
Feferi's body was preserved by Gamzee, and she was later revived as half of Fefetasprite, along with Nepeta. Fefetasprite was one of the happiest sprites, and ended up "fefetasploding" due to rapidly being addressed as her separate components by Erisolsprite and Arquiusprite. After the sprite's fefetasplosion, she returned to the afterlife with Nepeta, appearing on Vriska Serket's pirate ship and donned the appropriate pirate apparel.
Alternate Selves
As the Trolls' session had many Doomed timelines, Feferi had many alternate selves. However, only one of these alternate selves has been seen thus far. This alternate self had ascended to god tier before dying. She was seen in a dream bubble with an alternate Eridan, using her Life powers to heal the Wayward Vagabond.
Personality and Traits
Of all the trolls, Feferi is the highest on the Hemospectrum, and is a radical reformist in that she wishes to make Alternia a nicer place by redefining the word "culling" to mean "caring for the unfit". However, it has been shown that though Feferi is sympathetic towards lowbloods, she is classist; she has put her plans into practice by locking cuttlefish in cages in her hive supposedly for their own good, even though she admits that they do not actually need her help and she really just likes how colorful they are. Thereafter, she compares her treatment of cuttlefish to how she thinks lowbloods should be treated, confirming that she does actually believe in the hemospectrum.
Despite the heavy burden of keeping her lusus fed and once having to face the Empress, Feferi gets really “-EXCIT----------------ED!” easily and is very perky and energetic when talking to other trolls. Her aforementioned classism notwithstanding, she does not put on airs of superiority like the blue bloods, and is never shown to be purposely cruel to anyone because of their blood color. According to the whispers of her Lusus, Feferi will eventually unite the two races. She initially believed that this prophecy corresponded to the Land and Sea Dwelling trolls, but when warned of the upcoming apocalypse, she discarded this notion, claiming “not all prophecies can come true”. In retrospect, the two races could refer to the trolls and humans, since she was the first to contact the Kids through The Furthest Ring.
Feferi is almost entirely optimistic and fearless. Even when confronted by the horrorterrors that terrified both Karkat and Jade, Feferi remains gleeful and insists that they are not so bad once one gets to know them. Her tolerance towards them comes from the interactions with her monstrous lusus.
Feferi is however condescending and seems to be masking a slightly rude and insulting side, which becomes a lot more apparent after her death, when she jokingly called Jade “retarded” for not knowing what a lusus was as well. She also called Jade “stupid” before pointing out she was dead. She also teases Vriska by playing a prank on her for fun, and has been known to openly mock Eridan.
Relationships
Eridan and Sollux
Feferi refers to Eridan Ampora as her moirail and worries about his getting out of line. After entering The Medium, she abdicates this responsibility due to the high level of maintenance required, leaving Eridan distraught. After being saved by Sollux, and later saving him herself, the two seem to develop some sort of relationship, leaving Eridan angry at Sollux. In Kanaya: Return to the core, it is shown that she and Sollux have started up a matespritship, as evidenced by the “<3” emoticon used by her after administering a playful jab at Sollux's mannerisms.
Feferi refuses to be pulled out of the current quadrant with Sollux to Auspistice between Sollux and Eridan, calling Eridan's possible attempt “the oldest trick in the book”.
When Eridan wins his second nonfatal duel with Sollux, Feferi angrily runs at Eridan, apparently to impale him with her culling fork. Agitated, and enraged, he defends himself using his wand, killing her in a single blast through the chest.
Much later on, Sollux and Feferi's matespritship is confirmed through dialogue between Fefetasprite and Erisolsprite. Erisolsprite, while solely addressing the Feferi portion of her, tells her that “part of me ii2 2orry for kiilliing part of you. ii mean that not a2 the part a me that u2ed twwo be your mate2priit cau2e OBVVIIOU2LY that part wwa2nt re2pon2iible for that 2curriilou2 2hiit. but the part of me that u2ed twwo be moraiil2 wwiith part a you.” Since Eridan was previously moirails with Feferi, this confirms that Sollux and Feferi were matesprits at one point in time.
Kanaya Maryam
She seems to consider Kanaya a close friend, evidenced by her admitting to Kanaya that she did bear a lot of burdens, her lusus being one of them. She even confides to her in one of their conversations that “it will be a relief not to )(ave to worry about keeping )(er voice down anymore! ”
Jade Harley
She interacts with Jade multiple times, and despite their teasing seems to genuinely think of her as a friend. She even drops her quirk willingly for Jade in Jade: Answer
Vriska Serket
Feferi seems to get along well with Vriska, which is shown in Past Karkat: Wake Up, where she pranks Vriska, who is openly amused by her joke and even admits to Feferi that she is impressed by her antics.
This could possibly be foreshadowing Vriska's close relationship with Meenah much later on.
Nepeta Leijon
She gets along well with Nepeta when they are fused together as Fefetasprite, and sticks with her even after they separate.
Meenah Peixes
Meenah is Feferi'sDancestor, serving as her alternate on Beforus where Feferi was the empress and Meenah was the heiress. Not many interactions are shown between these two because of Meenah's urge to kill Feferi due to her tyrian blood. The first time Meenah mentions Feferi is during Meenahquest 1 where she talks to Dave saying that her ancestor “was fuckin lame”. Their next interaction takes place in the [A6I3] MINISTRIFE!!! when Feferi is summoned by Vriska.
She claims that she's nervous and can't let Meenah see her because she's so “unbubblievably cool”. Meenah, wishing she never noticed her dancestor, suppresses her urge to kill.
Even later, Meenah has seemed to dramatically change her attitude toward Feferi, by saying that she found it a shame that they were to have the same color blood. Even alluding to wishing for a closer "sisterly" relationship with her. Feferi seemed to never have had any urge to kill Meenah even though they share the same color blood. The reason for this is unclear, but may possibly be due to her lack of occupancy of the throne. She seems to look up to Meenah and is very impressed with her.
Lusus/Kernelsprite
Feferi's lusus is a gargantuan squid-like mass of writhing tentacles named "Gl'bgolyb" (probably pronounced "glub glub"). It is the largest lusus of all the trolls by far - its size can be measured in miles (assuming the whale killed by Eridan is roughly 200m (656 ft) in length, then, from beak to beak, Gl'bgolyb measures roughly 600-700km, or 350-450 miles). Gl'bgolyb is an "emissary to the Horrorterrors" and whispers prophecies to Feferi. She feeds it other lusii that Eridan hunts and kills, presumably for Feferi's sake, to keep her lusus quiet. If Gl'bgolyb's voice ever rose above a whisper, trolls would start dying - the psychically susceptible lower castes first - and if raised to a shout, every troll on the planet - minus Feferi (and the troll empress, as implied by Andrew), who is apparently immune - would perish. But if Gl'bgolyb were to ever get “really upset”, she might release "the Vast Glub", a psychic shockwave that would exterminate every single troll in the galaxy. Though she is saddened by the forthcoming death of her lusus, Feferi expresses relief at not having to keep her lusus' voice down as a result.
The Vast Glub does go off and kills the original self of Sollux, although he has extra dream selves to use as spare lives. From an outside view, it would seem it was extremely foolish for her to prototype her Kernelsprite with such a powerful lusus, given that prototypings augment the powers of the Incipisphere royalty and underlings; however, Feferi explains to Jade that the prototyping happened because Gl'bgolyb died, and simply 'fell in' to the kernel, resulting in the foolish prototyping.
Gl'bgolyb, in return for Feferi's help in feeding it, has protected her for sweeps. Her lusus is the only thing standing in the way of the Condesce, who would otherwise have killed her due to Feferi's blood color making her a threat to the throne, just like countless slain potential heiresses before her.
During a conversation with Kanaya, she admits to seeing her lusus as a burden, but because of the protection she's recieved sees it as a good thing anyway.
Trivia
- Feferi is one of the few trolls whose ancestor, the Condesce, is not dead by the start of Hivebent. She shares this trait with Aradia Megido and Sollux Captor.
- In this memo
, the number 380 is shown when Feferi answered it. This number is in fact an emoticon representing astonishment, the 3 representing the tiara, the 8 representing the eyes, and the 0 representing the mouth. Hussie later points it on his old formspring. - "Feferi" was suggested by [X-Rok] and "Peixes" was suggested by Zuki.
- The planet of Beforus is entirely themed around Feferi's style of ruling. Culling, as she wished, means to care for the less fortunate. The entire planet is a kinder, happier, more unified place. This is because pre-scratch Feferi is the empress, the same way post-scratch Meenah is the Condesce.
- Interestingly, Feferi's skirt colors are bright green and cyan, the signature colors of Jade and Jane, who are the Witch of Space and Maid of Life. Feferi is a combination of both, as the Witch of Life.
- Feferi is depicted on the "III: The Empress" card in the Homestuck tarot card deck. She can also be seen with most of the pre-act six cast on the "Five of Wands" card.
- Feferi wasn't actually against killing/eating sea creatures if it was done humanely. For example, while talking to Jade after their first encounter in the dream bubbles, Feferi relates Karkat's rambling to blubber coming out of a poached whale. When Jade finds this disgusting, Feferi complains, "“Gluuuuuub, I just made myself hungry. 380~”"
- Feferi doesn't make fish puns to as much of an extent as Meenah, but still fairly often.
- Feferi, unlike many fuchsiabloods, doesn't feel an urge to kill when she finds a "threat to the throne" like Meenah and the Condesce. Instead, when she sees Meenah for the first time, she seems surprisingly nervous, calling her "“unbubblievably cool! *swoonami”". Whether this instinct would only be present after actually being assigned to the throne is unclear, but a possible explanation if true.
- Meenah actually wants to have a good relationship with Feferi, even after telling Dave in Openbound that the Empress of Beforus, pre-scratch Feferi, was "“fuckin lame”". She's jealous of Aranea and Vriska's relationship and wishes that she and her descendant could be friends and finds the whole situation "“a shame cuz she so cute 38(”". She continues on to say that she could possibly find a new heiress whom her genes wouldn't instinctively make her want to murder, possibly referencing the relationship between Jane Crocker and the Condesce.
- Meenah actually wants to have a good relationship with Feferi, even after telling Dave in Openbound that the Empress of Beforus, pre-scratch Feferi, was "“fuckin lame”". She's jealous of Aranea and Vriska's relationship
- After Feferi's death, Sollux wears Feferi's goggles until his death in Cascade. This serves as both a hint towards their matespritship as well as a visual parallel to the Helmsman.
- During Reterniabound, when Feferi begins bickering with Eridan, she revokes his fish punning license which is paralleled when Meenah curses at Cronus for using them as he flirted with her in the second part of Openbound.
- Feferi is the only troll to not only drop her quirk once, but twice during the entire comic. First where Eridan, dumbfounded at Feferi's change in feelings, stops using his in efforts to come across completely serious. Soon, Feferi follows suit. Next when talking to Jade, where Feferi drops her quirk for "in the interest of INT-ERSP-ECI-ES DIPLOMACY."
- Feferi is the only female troll to die with her eyes open.
