HIII Ok so first of all I just want to say that I am. so very sorry for the lack of projects omg. The last few weeks have been NOT the best for me buuut I should hopefully be able to resume projects so yay!!! Also my birthday is in like 10 days that’s a little scary what happened for that time to pass I don’t like it Anyways, Kestrelhound time!!! YAY!!!!! This is also the first song-based project on this account so yippee even happier about that ^_^ I’ve had this piece idea in mind for a little bit now, and decided to finally execute it since this cat has unfortunately been on the mind quite a bit as of late. Also the audio isn’t in the project yet UMMM IGNORE THAT I have the audio on my main somewhere but I already went on there once today and I don’t feel like going on my pc rn so I’ll get it sometime soon (same goes for image quality but that’s a given for this account atp) (EDIT: Audio and image quality is fixed now YAY) Before I get into the loredump, I’ll talk about the art itself as per usual! It’s not the most elaborate piece ever, but I still think it looks very good for what it is. I tried to base the colors around the deluxe version of AFYCSO’s cover (which is coming out next month IM SO EXCITED), which also worked out well I think!!! Same goes for the flowers, also rlly proud of those and how I managed to incorporate them. If there’s one thing I would change though it’s how the incorporation of the lyrics ‘Can’t take the kid from the fight, take the fight from the kid’. They apply to Kestrelhound SUPER well so I absolutely wanted to use them, but trying to actually put them into the piece was tricky. I think they look good enough, but I added a version without them too just in case OKK With that out of the way, time for the lore yay!!! Also disclaimer some of this is gonna be pretty watered down I fear. It’s still very true to his lore + character, but just omitted some stuff for the sake of scratch GRKFHDKSJS So, Kestrelhound. He is um. quite the character I’ll say that!!!! He originally started out as pretty much just a normal ShadowClan apprentice, and one with potential to be possibly a deputy or even leader one day due to his caring and charismatic nature. Everything went downhill EXTREMELY quickly though the moment he met a cat known as Sprucehound, a former Summit’s Pack cat that was kicked out for her actions in arc 2 of afc / the previous arc. After she had murked the friend he was outside of camp with, she decided to essentially capture him and force him to work for her. Sprucehound and her whole deal is a VERY long story, so all you need to know is that she wants to become the Pack’s leader / Head of the Summit and will do whatever necessary to get to that point. She makes Kestrel ‘infiltrate’ the Pack as apart of her plan to gain control over it, telling him to rise the ranks, which he does, even if it does cost more than one life. By the time he declares himself Head though, he’s become disillusioned by Sprucehound and her plans, and instead of going along with what she ordered him to do (letting her back into the Pack and making her the new Head), he has her killed instead. Also remember how I mentioned that Kestrelpaw/hound was a ‘caring and charismatic cat’??? Yeah well all of that’s gone he’s sort of a shell of himself now Fast forward to some years later, and a mysterious, scraggly cat enters the Pack, claiming herself to be a rogue without shelter nor a home. If you’ve read my last loredump then you know exactly who this is, as that’s right chat it is Mirehound time!!!! Also for clarification she wasn’t going by Mirehound at this point since she wasn’t apart of the Council yet but I haven’t figured out her suffix so ummm yeah GRJFHDKSJSK I won’t rehash everything that happens between Mirehound and Kestrel, so if you’d like to know I’d highly recommend checking out her loredump project ( )! Tldr though is that they both try manipulating eachother for personal gain but Mirehound is better at it and she convinces Kestrelhound into helping her with a coup to become Supreme over the 4 clans Before I continued though, there’s two things I need to mention, starting with Kestrelhound’s partner, Quartzhound. The two were originally somewhat-rivals that begrudgingly worked together, but as time went on and Quartz made attempts to befriend him, they became a couple, albeit not publicly (that isn’t to say cats didn’t know because it was a. VERY open secret in the Pack). Quartzhound became the only cat that Kestrel felt he could trust and be vulnerable with, which was a HUGE thing for him considering his colorful (/lh) array of issues surrounding trust and being genuine in his emotions. In short he is an extremely important cat to Kestrelhound and he WILL be coming up again [ CONTINUED IN N&C BECAUSE IT GOT TOO LONG. AGAIN. ]
[ CONTINUED FROM INSTRUCTIONS, READ THAT FIRST ] Now for the second thing. Ever since Sprucehound, Kestrel was sent down a spiraling path of murder, something that in time, became less of something he was forced to do by her and more of something he did out of his own volition. Now there is a LOT I could say about this but again needing to water down stuff so I’ll leave it at that. Just know that this is a VERY big secret, he has an extreme amount of guilt about it which he almost never tries to address nor think about, and Mirehound found out about it before becoming Supreme and uses the topic to blackmail him. Not much happens for him after arc 4 aside from getting together with Quartzhound at some point in arc 5 or the sort, so skipping straight to arc 6! Towards the end of the arc, Quartz finds out about his killings and breaks up with him + momentarily leaves the Pack (until post-arc 6 when he joins back), an event that absolutely WRECKSSS Kestrel and leaves the Pack borderline out of commission for a solid 4-ish weeks, up until his (Kestrel’s) death in the arc’s finale. The description limit scares me so iii am gonna speed through these next parts a bit!!! Kestrelhound ends up in the Below, which is fairly uneventful for him at first untilll at some point when he begins to be around Cricketcry more. I have SO much to say about these two and I’ll probably make an entire project about them at some point, but for the sake of this one, what you need to know is that they were originally solely enemies but eventually became frenemies. Also Kestrel lowk views Cricketcry as a replacement for Quartzhound due to them both having minor similarities + him just generally wanting the same connection he had to Quartz even if it’s extremely surface level. Ummmm yeah that isn’t his proudest moment ever by a long shot!!!! Cricketcry can NOT catch a break with being objectified can they (not to say they weren’t the best either in the frenemyship BUT AGAIN STORY FOR ANOTHER LOREDUMP) At some point Cricketcry discovers how to possess living cats, in which they convince Kestrelhound into doing so himself, promising him that by doing it, he’d also be able to get vengeance on others, namely Quartzhound as he’s still alive. He does this via possessing his granddaughter Harvestbush, which continues on for a good few moons until, while possessing her, he’s killed by Pigeontangle, ending Harvestbush’s life in the process too. Also it should be noted that possession in afc isn’t like canon warriors!!! The basics of it is that it only lasts for a few hours at a time and the body of the possessed cat looks like whoever’s possessing them After his death in the arc 10 finale he has a falling out with Cricketcry, the two going back to being bitter enemies. Once this passes he doesn’t do much in all honesty, aside from being an informant to Mirehound when it comes to telling her secrets and weaknesses about Cricketcry (again, for context, check out her loredump if you haven’t already! Expect me to say that a lot more often btw from here on out loredumps are likely to be interconnected to some degree). Oh also he may or may not deliver a killing blow to her in the afc finale BUT IM STILL IRONING THAT OUT the enemy trio involvement in the finale is a giant wip ok And that is Kestrelhound!!! He is such an extremely interesting character to me and I want to put him under a microscope so bad and analyze his psyche (said affectionately and derogatorily (/silly /hj)). Expect more art of him possibly btw I have LOTS of art ideas for this man
