#no lucy this was while they were all shatterstarred

[aphoticfirefly]

here's my piece for the "Even Rats Have Lives" zine!

the rat grinders going on little ice cream runs post ratgrind have always been canon to me!! ALSO i highly encourage you to check out the bundle itch.io!!

[lucyfrostblade]

TRG yellowjackets au? please go on i love yellowjackets

it isn't the most thought out AU out there, and i generally don't like AU that are just a one-to-one with another piece of media but i do see some character parallels that i'd use as the jumping off point if i were to actually write it (no promises). also i have talked abt this a little in the fh fic writer support group discord so some ideas are gonna sound familiar if you're in there too

spoilers for yellowjackets and for fantasy high junior year (obviously):

buddy dawn & laura lee, both are characters that defined by their faith. worship of helio is so clearly based on evangelical christianity that it feels like an obvious answer. but another thing is that their faith cannot save either of them. the christian god cannot save laura lee from the wilderness, and helio cannot save buddy from being murdered in the name of ankarna. laura is definetly stronger in her faith, and i think given the entire bakarath thing, buddy would be on of the first ones to join the wilderness cannibalism cult but still. i imagine either dying in a situation similar to laura lee or being one of the sacrifices in the hunt.

kipperlilly copperkettle & misty quiggley, my absolute favorite serial killers. misty is much more clearly a loser than kipperlilly is in the team timeline but that's because misty quiggley thrives when she can hide bodies and abuse the elderly, two hobbies i think kipperlilly would be great at. but, to be serious, both of them capture different ends of the unlikeable unhinged teen girl spectrum. kipperlilly is much more controlled and calculated in her actions, while misty is more emotional and reactive. look at the differences in how they murdered their best friends. but they share the same loneliness and status as the outsider in the group. kipperlilly survives in this au, where none of the other rat grinders really like her but she's still the person they call when they need to hide a body.

ivy embra & natalie scatorccio, a parallel i am less confident in but can still see. mean girls who use it to hide how they really feel, who seem cool on the surface but underneath it all they are messes. they share a similar bravado, i feel, and i think there's something about ivy being a ranger and nat being the hunter of the group in a way that i am a little bit obsessed with but don't have any solid thoughts on yet.

lucy frostblade & lottie matthews. i understand that on a certain level that kipperlilly's narrative slot is much more similar to lottie's than lucy's is but lottie's the prophet, the one that understands the wilderness and the winter, and i cannot help but see lucy in that. lucy who was so strong in her faith that she died, lucy who was just a goliath before she became a frost genasi. she would accidentally start a cult doing her weird girl shit, would absolutely be the person who the rest of the rat grinders turn to when things start getting weird or scary in the absence of shatterstars mindcontrolling them. and yeah, i think, ultimately that lucy's understanding of the world as a harsh place where people are meant to be "the fire that warms" aligns with lottie's view of the wilderness.

that's the extent of the thought i have put into it so far but i come back to the idea a lot, it has it's own corner of my brain