just out of curiosity, what's your opinion on Feferi? as in considering she's the literal Witch of Life i think killing her off was one of HS biggest wasted opportunities. how'd you have handled her character? (as in not post-retcon but as a whole)
Unfortunately, a large number of the trolls were mostly there to be cannon fodder. I came into the comic mid act 6, which means the first 5 acts passed relatively quickly and I didn't have that much time to get attached to the trolls who got killed off. That being said, I remember seeing a post many years ago suggesting that Act 6 could've been streamlined considerably if the pre-scratch trolls weren't introduced and Feferi took Aranea's place. Feferi's idea of culling is kinder than murder but still not great - iirc it's confining creatures and taking care of them "for their own good". On Beforus with her as empress, this played out in a very paternalistic, controlling way. So you could take that in the direction of Feferi, Witch of Life, heiress to the empress, taking the ring as a birthright and deciding she was going to heal the timeline, for everyone's good, whether they like it or not.
Of course, where do you go from there? She doesn't have mind control, so she'd have to try to talk everyone into her plan (honestly not sure why Aranea didn't give that a shot, beyond that the whole thing was a set piece to wreck the timeline and start over) and it could be really interesting to have her interacting with her friends who are torn between 'hey! dead friend is back!' and 'hm not sure if this plan is a good idea though'. Perhaps the empress would send Jane after her and the two heiresses could fight but then realize what they have in common, including Life's tendency to overtake people and grasp for too much control. (Maybe they're arguing over who can harness Jake's power and he's like hello??? human person here?? I am not a piece of meat etc etc.) Then they could beat up the empress together. <3 And maybe Feferi could close that chapter with giving the ring to someone who dies in that confrontation (Jane herself? idk) and accepting that part of life is dying, and it's better to make your peace with that than struggle to become relevant again and linger beyond your time like the empress did. (And then she can come back briefly within proper bounds as part of the afterlife roadtrip for the final battle because that was fun and I liked doing it.)
Anyway that's the first thing that comes to mind, particularly as I have no qualms about sacrificing Openbound. Beyond that most of my interactions with Feferi's character were getting into fights with people who said it was her fault for her ex murdering her because she shouldn't have dumped him.
