Another Owl House thang I started right after Clouds on the Horizon and then promptly never finished, this time bullying Hunter with that one SU line lol
my thing with the rat grinders is like yeah sure jace and porter have been manipulating them to some extent and yeah sure they deserve to be saved or whatever but also! they should get their asses beat a little bit first. like come on. they got into this whole mess in the first place because they were so bitter and entitled that they jumped on the opportunity to get special treatment and have some of their teachers handfeed them exp with no effort. they then pressured their cleric to change gods and ignored all sorts of red flags all so they could be better than some kids they've never fucking talked to who are literally just out here trying to save the world. like okay yeah uncorrupt them or whatever, but also the bad kids deserve to fuck em up a little bit. play stupid games win stupid prizes baby
Warning for graphic description of gore + injury below
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[Image Description:
With his throat slit, blood bubbling up into his mouth and soaking into his white collared shirt, Buddy Dawn struggles in the arms of Kristen Applebee's. His eyes are wide, unseeing, and hands come up to try and grasp onto Kristen as some kind of anchor, mutedly pleading for help.
Kristen's hand hovers above his throat, unable to help him with his death all but promised by his own party leader, Kipperlilly, and her god too far out of reach. She is panicked and resigned to only hold the kid she had hated moments ago. There is no miracle, no burst of light from the crystals in her pocket, when Buddy Dawn dies.
There is a visual parallel, with both Kristen and Buddy being dotted with freckles and something familiar in their eyes. If there had never been 'The Bad Kids', if she'd never asked to be put in detention with the intent to convert people to Helio, would she have ended up the same way?
Buddy had once said "I don't hold on tight, 'cause I'm in someones hand [...] You know Helio is holding onto us tight." but there is no Helio in sight, only Kristen. All that is left is for Buddy to go and meet his so-called-god and ask why he let him die, unaware he will not get an answer.]
it really does drive me crazy trying to interact with any of the popular fantasy high posts on here. because people will say with their whole chest they hate and have got no sympathy for the rat grinders and that a) jawbone should've punched kipperlilly for coming to him with her Undiagnosed Mental Health Issues (you know, like the ones adaine used to have in freshman year?) b) the bad kids should take them all someplace to 6v1 them one by one and cold blooded murder them (??????) c) whole heartedly hate and make fun of them for being scared and alone and dead when they went on an adventure with a teacher and adult who was supposed to PROTECT them in a place they weren't prepared for.
the rat grinders were just. normal students. they are more like you than you could ever be like the bad kids. they were mid & they didn't want to be so they pushed themselves too fast too far and now all of them have got the worst survivor's guilt on earth on top of actively having to serve the rage incarnation of a dead god.
if you have the cognitive dissonance where one of the bad kids was in the plot line and you'd be drawing fanart making angsty meta crying about your poor baby forced into a bad situation and turn around and go 'lol nah shoot THESE guys in the head though' when it's an NPC I can only assume you've not understood narrative parallels or learned empathy past, like, a kindergarten level
So I´ve been doing the Creatuanary 2023 art challenge and today the prompt was “Rat King” and well...I could not do the god damn rat from the Nutcracker and then this happened.