Fandom Overview: Rise of the Guardians
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crack_van, a fanfic recommendation comm, for a month, on RotG. Here's my fandom overview post! :)
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zandperl at Fandom Overview: Rise of the Guardians
crack_van, a fanfic recommendation comm, for a month, on RotG. Here's my fandom overview post! :) Originally posted by
zandperl at Fandom Overview: Rise of the GuardiansHi folks! This is my first time driving the van, and I’m going to be doing so for the “Small & Miscellaneous Fandom” or “Monthly Featured Fandom” for Rise of the Guardians. Before taking it out for a spin though, it’s always good to inspect your new vehicle, so here’s a fandom overview. Since this’s my first time behind the wheel and I'm pretty new to fandom in general (pretty much started this April!), any guidance you care to give me throughout my month would be appreciated. ☺
Summary
The Rise of the Guardians (or RotG) universe consists of both the 2012 Dreamworks film of the same name, and the Guardians of Childhood books by William Joyce (who wrote the original story for the movie). The basic premise is that many of the fairy tales that children in the Western world grow up with, such as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, are true, and these individuals are essentially superheroes tasked with protecting children from the depredations of the Boogieman, Pitch Black. Most of these characters have a “real” name in addition to their titles known to children. In the film, the Guardians consist of North, Bunny, Tooth, and Sandy, with Jack as the newest addition.
If you are just getting into this fandom, but don’t have a lot of time to read the source material, more of the fanfics are based around the film than the books, but as the books are children’s books and picture books, they are a fast read. I personally started with the film and loved it, then got into fanfic, and am now in the process of reading the children’s books to fill in holes of some of the characters’ canon backstories - I’ve read the books on North, Bunny, and am in the middle of Tooth, so my apologies if I mess up anything I haven’t yet read.
Characters
Below are the major characters from the film, plus one not in the film who often shows up in fanfic. Voice actors for the film characters are listed parenthetically. If you’re thinking about watching the film soon, I’d recommend doing so before reading who the voice actors are (included below), because they do an amazing job and IMO aren’t easily recognizable in the film and knowing who they are could pull you out of the story.
1. Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine)
Jack is the main character of the film, though he does not appear in any of the books. Most fanfic revolves around Jack, though there are some few which relegate him to a bit character or even omit him entirely. The main plot of the film is Jack’s quest to determine his origins. He is the spirit of winter and fun, bringing children around the world snow days, snowball fights, sledding, and everything else you’ve ever enjoyed about a blizzard. By the end of the film, Jack does discover his origin story, finds his center (purpose for existence), becomes a Guardian, and of course defeats the bad guy (Pitch).
In fanon, Jack’s original (human) name was Jackson Overland, though I’m not sure if this is canon as well. Jack had a younger sister while human; in fanon her name is sometimes Mary or Emma, though her name is not given in the film. In many fan works, Jack’s 300 years spent without human or spirit contact or communication have significantly affected his personality, and many fanfics play off of this idea. Jack is at times described as a classic trickster spirit, comparable to Loki or Raven. When looking at how Jack relates to other spirit characters, whether romantically, sexually, or just as friends, Jack is always the youngest and least experienced at a mere 300-odd years of age. As he is a frost spirit, Jack is usually portrayed as being perpetually physically cold to the touch, though of course the cold does not bother him, and slash pairings often play off the temperature difference between him and the other character.
2. Pitch Black (voiced by Jude Law)
Despite Law getting last billing in the film, I’m putting Pitch second here as he’s the main antagonist of both the films and books. He’s known as the Boogeyman to children, the Nightmare King to the survivors of the Golden Age, or Pitch Black or Pitch to the Guardians. Throughout the books and film, Pitch’s goal is to destroy the good dreams of children and turn them into nightmares, and somehow use that to conquer the world.
Pitch’s backstory is revealed in the books: ages ago there was a Golden Age throughout the universe, but then nightmares and fearlings began to rise up and cause trouble. The Golden General, Kosmotis Pitchiner, and his army defeated them, and the General was set to guard their prison after the war. Unfortunately these shadows were tricky and seductive, and they convinced the general that his daughter (whose picture he wore in a locket about his neck) was trapped inside with them, and he opened their prison to get her out. Of course this was a trick and the shadows possessed Pitchiner and turned him into Pitch Black, the Nightmare King. Pitch then chased the surviving Golden Age prince to Earth, where Pitch became trapped (and the prince became the Man in the Moon, leader-in-absentia to the Guardians on Earth).
Slash pairings often use Pitch’s ability to manipulate shadows and nightmare sand to explore bondage. Some fics deal with a redemption storyline, mostly as part of a Pitch/Jack pairing (see Blackice, below).
3. Nicholas St. North (voiced by Alec Baldwin)
Called North by his friends or Santa Claus by children, he was originally a Russian bandit who (in the books) got drawn into protecting the town of Santoff Claussen and was trained in magic. In the film, he is a jolly old man with a Russian accent and a loud voice, “Naughty” and “Nice” are tattooed on his large forearms, and he loves nothing more than a good fight where he can put his sabers to use. North is the longest standing of the Guardians appearing in the film. In fanfics he is often a father figure to Jack.
4. E. Aster Bunnymund (voiced by Hugh Jackman)
The Easter Bunny is the last of a race of anthropomorphic rabbits called Pooka, and according to the books the rest of the Pooka were killed by Pitch at the end of the Golden Age. In the books Bunny is depicted as being wise and knowledgeable, thoughtful and slow to action, and absolutely obsessed with chocolate (which he himself only eats in dire circumstances). In the film he is depicted as being hot-headed, quick to jump to conclusions, and convinced of the superiority of Easter over all other holidays, but at the same time he is focused on helping children to look forward to the future and have hope, and he shows his tender side when he finally interacts with children face-to-face. This film personality is the one that fanon has adopted. As voiced by Jackman he has an Australian accent and uses Australian slang, which is adopted by fanon to varying extent.
5. Toothiana (voiced by Isla Fisher)
Also known as the Tooth Fairy or Queen Toothiana, she commands a horde of smaller tooth fairies (and Ratoncito Pérez – tooth mice – in Spanish-speaking countries) who seek out children’s teeth and leave them money in exchange. Tooth is continually working as it is always night somewhere, so in the film she is continually directing her fairies, even during other conversations. The fairies do not use a language you and I can understand, but the Guardians do. In the books Tooth is revealed to be the daughter of one of the Sisters of Flight (fairy-type women) and the manservant of a maharajah or sheik or some other very stereotyped Indian / Middle Eastern royalty. Also in the books, the little tooth fairies are actually parts of herself split off from her original self, as opposed to individual entities.
In the film one of her fairies, Baby Tooth, is saved from Pitch by Jack and sticks around him for most of the movie as his sidekick. Baby Tooth has a differently-colored crest from the other tooth fairies (yellow instead of green), and one eye is violet (like Toothiana's eyes) while the other is blue (like Jack's). Fan works featuring Baby Tooth either emphasize her relationship with Jack (such as saying that he named her Baby Tooth and this somehow changed her from her original interchangeability with the other fairies), or else they say she was always a higher ranked fairy and that is why her different coloring and more individual personality.
6. Sanderson Mansnoozie (unvoiced)
The Sandman or Sandy gives children good dreams every night using his golden dream sand. In the film he can make anything out of his sand, and uses whips as his weapons of choice. Sandy does not talk, but instead communicates by making pictures out of sand over his head. In the books he is a wishing star that fell to Earth (I think during the Nightmare King’s ending of the Golden Age, but I haven’t read that far in the series yet to know for sure). In fanfic he is often depicted as being wise due to his age and origins, and sometimes the difficulty of his communication method is played up for entertainment value.
7. Jamie Bennett (voiced by Dakota Goyo)
A child whom Jack Frost takes particular interest in. He not only still believes in the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman, he also believes in yeti, Big Foot, aliens, and so on. He’s a little Mulder in the making. Jamie is the first child to believe in Jack, and is called the “Last Light” as he is the last child to continue believing in the Guardians after Pitch makes everyone else stop believing. In fanon he’s referred to as Jack’s First Believer, though in my own headcannon Sophie Bennett (Jamie’s little sister) came first.
Most fanfics with Jamie have him older than in the film, at least a teen and sometimes a college student. Nearly all fanfics with Jamie focus on his evolving relationship with Jack as he grows up, such as whether he continues to believe in Jack, whether they develop a romantic/sexual relationship, or whether he even falls under Pitch’s sway.
8. Seraphina / Mother Nature (not in the film)
Even though not mentioned at all in the film, this character often turns up in fanfic so I thought her worth mentioning. When Pitch was a general, he had a daughter, and even once he becomes the Nightmare King her visage (in the form of her picture in a locket) still holds power over him. It’s my understanding that in the later books there is a character of Mother Nature, but that these two characters are not explicitly linked in the books, only in fanon. In fanon, when Kosmotis Pitchiner becomes the Nightmare King, his daughter Seraphina somehow escapes to Earth, where she takes on the role of Mother Nature.
Popular Ships
Listed roughly in order of how frequently I see them, here are some of the more popular ships. For purposes of full disclosure, my OTP is Blackice with Jackrabbit a close second, and any explicit slash involving either North or Sandy usually involves me laughing a lot because I really can’t picture either of them having anything other than a fluffy non-smutty relationship.
1. Blackice (Jack Frost / Pitch Black)
The two major branches of this ship depend upon whether Pitch is still the evil Nightmare King as depicted in canon, or if he has been restored to some post-evil version of his original Kosmotis Pitchiner personality. In Good!Pitch/Jack stories, usually Bunny takes issue with the budding relationship between Jack and Pitch due to y’know, Pitch killing all of Bunny’s people, and even for the other Guardians there’s a period of adjustment.
Bad!Pitch/Jack stories can go multiple ways: the non-consensual route, Bad!Pitch seducing Jack post-movie (in the movie scene pictured above, Pitch asks Jack to join his cause, and this is always referenced in this scenario), or pre-movie Pitch gets to Jack before the other Guardians do. In this last case sometimes Jack is turned to the dark side, sometimes it turns out that Pitch isn’t evil after all (fear can be a protective influence for children, after all), and sometimes Jack ends up as a tempering influence on Pitch's evil.
In any version of Blackice (except non-consent), there’s often an element of “us against the world”.
2. Jackrabbit (Jack Frost / E. Aster Bunnymund)
Nearly every author who writes this ship focuses on poor communication (despite identical intentions) between these two individuals. They’re star-crossed lovers who keep getting in each others’ way, with lots of banter, sexual tension, and rivalry filling the pages of reading, but this always makes the final resolution all the more sweet. Bunny is the last of his species, and the “I never thought I’d find love again” trope is usually pulled out in these stories. Also, as Bunny is the last of his species, mpreg sometimes comes up in this ship – and even though Bunny is actually a shapeshifter somehow it’s always Jack that ends up as the pregnant one.
Some Jackrabbit stories draw upon mating habits of actual rabbits, such as chinning (marking the other by rubbing scent glands under the chin on the top of the other’s head) and circling. There are a few Dark!Bunny/Jack stories, and these are pretty consistent about emphasizing Bunny’s more animalistic side, including a possessive streak.
3. Bennefrost (Jack Frost / Jamie Bennett)
Since Jamie is a child in the film, these ships either are set a number of years after the film (so Jamie is either a teen or a college student), or are in a human AU where Jamie and Jack are both teens or college students together.
4. Pitchmas or Black Christmas (Pitch Black / Nicholas St. North)
This one recently came up as a Tumblr prompt. I hadn’t seen too much of this ship yet (and it’s as opposite from my own OTP as I can get in this fandom), but so far it seems there are two common scenarios: Pitch is still evil and North is still a bandit, or North’s goodness and light wins over Pitch and he tones things down into using fear to protect children.
5. Blacksand or Quicksand (Pitch Black / Sandersan Mansnoozie)
Also haven't seen much of this pairing (included it b/c it has a name I knew of), but it may be because I'm not looking. It definitely seems a logical pair though, what with Sandy being the Guardian of Dreams and Pitch being the Nightmare King and corrupting Sandy's dream sand in the movie. The couple of fics I've read with this pair were AUs.
Useful Links
Not that many of them, but...
Rise of the Guardians on Wikipedia
Rise of the Guardians on Wikia
RotG kinkmeme comm on DW
And that's what you need to know about RotG canon and fanon to get started with this month's Featured Small Fandom! :)
The Rise of the Guardians (or RotG) universe consists of both the 2012 Dreamworks film of the same name, and the Guardians of Childhood books by William Joyce (who wrote the original story for the movie). The basic premise is that many of the fairy tales that children in the Western world grow up with, such as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, are true, and these individuals are essentially superheroes tasked with protecting children from the depredations of the Boogieman, Pitch Black. Most of these characters have a “real” name in addition to their titles known to children. In the film, the Guardians consist of North, Bunny, Tooth, and Sandy, with Jack as the newest addition.
If you are just getting into this fandom, but don’t have a lot of time to read the source material, more of the fanfics are based around the film than the books, but as the books are children’s books and picture books, they are a fast read. I personally started with the film and loved it, then got into fanfic, and am now in the process of reading the children’s books to fill in holes of some of the characters’ canon backstories - I’ve read the books on North, Bunny, and am in the middle of Tooth, so my apologies if I mess up anything I haven’t yet read.
Below are the major characters from the film, plus one not in the film who often shows up in fanfic. Voice actors for the film characters are listed parenthetically. If you’re thinking about watching the film soon, I’d recommend doing so before reading who the voice actors are (included below), because they do an amazing job and IMO aren’t easily recognizable in the film and knowing who they are could pull you out of the story.
1. Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine)
Jack is the main character of the film, though he does not appear in any of the books. Most fanfic revolves around Jack, though there are some few which relegate him to a bit character or even omit him entirely. The main plot of the film is Jack’s quest to determine his origins. He is the spirit of winter and fun, bringing children around the world snow days, snowball fights, sledding, and everything else you’ve ever enjoyed about a blizzard. By the end of the film, Jack does discover his origin story, finds his center (purpose for existence), becomes a Guardian, and of course defeats the bad guy (Pitch).
In fanon, Jack’s original (human) name was Jackson Overland, though I’m not sure if this is canon as well. Jack had a younger sister while human; in fanon her name is sometimes Mary or Emma, though her name is not given in the film. In many fan works, Jack’s 300 years spent without human or spirit contact or communication have significantly affected his personality, and many fanfics play off of this idea. Jack is at times described as a classic trickster spirit, comparable to Loki or Raven. When looking at how Jack relates to other spirit characters, whether romantically, sexually, or just as friends, Jack is always the youngest and least experienced at a mere 300-odd years of age. As he is a frost spirit, Jack is usually portrayed as being perpetually physically cold to the touch, though of course the cold does not bother him, and slash pairings often play off the temperature difference between him and the other character.
2. Pitch Black (voiced by Jude Law)
Despite Law getting last billing in the film, I’m putting Pitch second here as he’s the main antagonist of both the films and books. He’s known as the Boogeyman to children, the Nightmare King to the survivors of the Golden Age, or Pitch Black or Pitch to the Guardians. Throughout the books and film, Pitch’s goal is to destroy the good dreams of children and turn them into nightmares, and somehow use that to conquer the world.
Pitch’s backstory is revealed in the books: ages ago there was a Golden Age throughout the universe, but then nightmares and fearlings began to rise up and cause trouble. The Golden General, Kosmotis Pitchiner, and his army defeated them, and the General was set to guard their prison after the war. Unfortunately these shadows were tricky and seductive, and they convinced the general that his daughter (whose picture he wore in a locket about his neck) was trapped inside with them, and he opened their prison to get her out. Of course this was a trick and the shadows possessed Pitchiner and turned him into Pitch Black, the Nightmare King. Pitch then chased the surviving Golden Age prince to Earth, where Pitch became trapped (and the prince became the Man in the Moon, leader-in-absentia to the Guardians on Earth).
Slash pairings often use Pitch’s ability to manipulate shadows and nightmare sand to explore bondage. Some fics deal with a redemption storyline, mostly as part of a Pitch/Jack pairing (see Blackice, below).
3. Nicholas St. North (voiced by Alec Baldwin)
Called North by his friends or Santa Claus by children, he was originally a Russian bandit who (in the books) got drawn into protecting the town of Santoff Claussen and was trained in magic. In the film, he is a jolly old man with a Russian accent and a loud voice, “Naughty” and “Nice” are tattooed on his large forearms, and he loves nothing more than a good fight where he can put his sabers to use. North is the longest standing of the Guardians appearing in the film. In fanfics he is often a father figure to Jack.
4. E. Aster Bunnymund (voiced by Hugh Jackman)
The Easter Bunny is the last of a race of anthropomorphic rabbits called Pooka, and according to the books the rest of the Pooka were killed by Pitch at the end of the Golden Age. In the books Bunny is depicted as being wise and knowledgeable, thoughtful and slow to action, and absolutely obsessed with chocolate (which he himself only eats in dire circumstances). In the film he is depicted as being hot-headed, quick to jump to conclusions, and convinced of the superiority of Easter over all other holidays, but at the same time he is focused on helping children to look forward to the future and have hope, and he shows his tender side when he finally interacts with children face-to-face. This film personality is the one that fanon has adopted. As voiced by Jackman he has an Australian accent and uses Australian slang, which is adopted by fanon to varying extent.
5. Toothiana (voiced by Isla Fisher)
Also known as the Tooth Fairy or Queen Toothiana, she commands a horde of smaller tooth fairies (and Ratoncito Pérez – tooth mice – in Spanish-speaking countries) who seek out children’s teeth and leave them money in exchange. Tooth is continually working as it is always night somewhere, so in the film she is continually directing her fairies, even during other conversations. The fairies do not use a language you and I can understand, but the Guardians do. In the books Tooth is revealed to be the daughter of one of the Sisters of Flight (fairy-type women) and the manservant of a maharajah or sheik or some other very stereotyped Indian / Middle Eastern royalty. Also in the books, the little tooth fairies are actually parts of herself split off from her original self, as opposed to individual entities.
In the film one of her fairies, Baby Tooth, is saved from Pitch by Jack and sticks around him for most of the movie as his sidekick. Baby Tooth has a differently-colored crest from the other tooth fairies (yellow instead of green), and one eye is violet (like Toothiana's eyes) while the other is blue (like Jack's). Fan works featuring Baby Tooth either emphasize her relationship with Jack (such as saying that he named her Baby Tooth and this somehow changed her from her original interchangeability with the other fairies), or else they say she was always a higher ranked fairy and that is why her different coloring and more individual personality.
6. Sanderson Mansnoozie (unvoiced)
The Sandman or Sandy gives children good dreams every night using his golden dream sand. In the film he can make anything out of his sand, and uses whips as his weapons of choice. Sandy does not talk, but instead communicates by making pictures out of sand over his head. In the books he is a wishing star that fell to Earth (I think during the Nightmare King’s ending of the Golden Age, but I haven’t read that far in the series yet to know for sure). In fanfic he is often depicted as being wise due to his age and origins, and sometimes the difficulty of his communication method is played up for entertainment value.
7. Jamie Bennett (voiced by Dakota Goyo)
A child whom Jack Frost takes particular interest in. He not only still believes in the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman, he also believes in yeti, Big Foot, aliens, and so on. He’s a little Mulder in the making. Jamie is the first child to believe in Jack, and is called the “Last Light” as he is the last child to continue believing in the Guardians after Pitch makes everyone else stop believing. In fanon he’s referred to as Jack’s First Believer, though in my own headcannon Sophie Bennett (Jamie’s little sister) came first.
Most fanfics with Jamie have him older than in the film, at least a teen and sometimes a college student. Nearly all fanfics with Jamie focus on his evolving relationship with Jack as he grows up, such as whether he continues to believe in Jack, whether they develop a romantic/sexual relationship, or whether he even falls under Pitch’s sway.
8. Seraphina / Mother Nature (not in the film)
Even though not mentioned at all in the film, this character often turns up in fanfic so I thought her worth mentioning. When Pitch was a general, he had a daughter, and even once he becomes the Nightmare King her visage (in the form of her picture in a locket) still holds power over him. It’s my understanding that in the later books there is a character of Mother Nature, but that these two characters are not explicitly linked in the books, only in fanon. In fanon, when Kosmotis Pitchiner becomes the Nightmare King, his daughter Seraphina somehow escapes to Earth, where she takes on the role of Mother Nature.
Listed roughly in order of how frequently I see them, here are some of the more popular ships. For purposes of full disclosure, my OTP is Blackice with Jackrabbit a close second, and any explicit slash involving either North or Sandy usually involves me laughing a lot because I really can’t picture either of them having anything other than a fluffy non-smutty relationship.
1. Blackice (Jack Frost / Pitch Black)
The two major branches of this ship depend upon whether Pitch is still the evil Nightmare King as depicted in canon, or if he has been restored to some post-evil version of his original Kosmotis Pitchiner personality. In Good!Pitch/Jack stories, usually Bunny takes issue with the budding relationship between Jack and Pitch due to y’know, Pitch killing all of Bunny’s people, and even for the other Guardians there’s a period of adjustment.
Bad!Pitch/Jack stories can go multiple ways: the non-consensual route, Bad!Pitch seducing Jack post-movie (in the movie scene pictured above, Pitch asks Jack to join his cause, and this is always referenced in this scenario), or pre-movie Pitch gets to Jack before the other Guardians do. In this last case sometimes Jack is turned to the dark side, sometimes it turns out that Pitch isn’t evil after all (fear can be a protective influence for children, after all), and sometimes Jack ends up as a tempering influence on Pitch's evil.
In any version of Blackice (except non-consent), there’s often an element of “us against the world”.
2. Jackrabbit (Jack Frost / E. Aster Bunnymund)
Nearly every author who writes this ship focuses on poor communication (despite identical intentions) between these two individuals. They’re star-crossed lovers who keep getting in each others’ way, with lots of banter, sexual tension, and rivalry filling the pages of reading, but this always makes the final resolution all the more sweet. Bunny is the last of his species, and the “I never thought I’d find love again” trope is usually pulled out in these stories. Also, as Bunny is the last of his species, mpreg sometimes comes up in this ship – and even though Bunny is actually a shapeshifter somehow it’s always Jack that ends up as the pregnant one.
Some Jackrabbit stories draw upon mating habits of actual rabbits, such as chinning (marking the other by rubbing scent glands under the chin on the top of the other’s head) and circling. There are a few Dark!Bunny/Jack stories, and these are pretty consistent about emphasizing Bunny’s more animalistic side, including a possessive streak.
3. Bennefrost (Jack Frost / Jamie Bennett)
Since Jamie is a child in the film, these ships either are set a number of years after the film (so Jamie is either a teen or a college student), or are in a human AU where Jamie and Jack are both teens or college students together.
4. Pitchmas or Black Christmas (Pitch Black / Nicholas St. North)
This one recently came up as a Tumblr prompt. I hadn’t seen too much of this ship yet (and it’s as opposite from my own OTP as I can get in this fandom), but so far it seems there are two common scenarios: Pitch is still evil and North is still a bandit, or North’s goodness and light wins over Pitch and he tones things down into using fear to protect children.
5. Blacksand or Quicksand (Pitch Black / Sandersan Mansnoozie)
Also haven't seen much of this pairing (included it b/c it has a name I knew of), but it may be because I'm not looking. It definitely seems a logical pair though, what with Sandy being the Guardian of Dreams and Pitch being the Nightmare King and corrupting Sandy's dream sand in the movie. The couple of fics I've read with this pair were AUs.
Not that many of them, but...
Rise of the Guardians on Wikipedia
Rise of the Guardians on Wikia
RotG kinkmeme comm on DW
And that's what you need to know about RotG canon and fanon to get started with this month's Featured Small Fandom! :)
