Something Quite Peculiar

This is my Rise of the Guardians Blog! Here I'll post my story, drawings of my original characters, and anything else relevant to my story and my love for RotG.

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Heads up, deviantart is on its last leg at the moment. The app has been disabled and they’re limiting downloading images to 10 per week. So if there’s any old artwork or writing you want to save that isn’t on a hard drive, I would look into it.

Oh, I downloaded all of that ages ago, but thank you for the heads-up.

I want to say it's a shame to see it go, but it basically chose to drink poison this whole time by "embracing AI" so now I'm sitting here like "awwwww was pissing off your entire user base a bad business move? was investing money in an expensive product that makes images based on stolen data sets, so that people could clog up your servers with 70+ slight variations on the same image (cause none of them were quite right), that no one wants to engage with (because what is there to engage with?) a poor financial choice??? were... were the AI bros not the lucrative user base you thought they would be??? shucks!!!"

Deviantart was never cool but until the AI thing it was at least one place artists had to go to post and enjoy art and every second post wasn't some random influencer trying to get you to buy something you don't need. I do miss the "good ol' days" and even got a daily deviation back when that mattered. But honestly, I don't know what an art-based social media site would even look like in today's internet that would work.

This is a very good post I read a few months back about art communities online: https://torrent-empress.leaflet.pub/3m37b3rvq4c22

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Are there any other fairy tales or mythology tales you might want to explore within the rotg universe?

Not in the sense of "bring that world into this world canonically" but more "make reference to the work existing." Since I last updated, I read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings and have knocked out some Star Trek (Aka I watched TOS and I'm working through TNG at the moment). I had already decided Rowan's dad was a trekkie and now I have more context for this, and I feel like he had to have also been into LotR.

In fact, after reading that and deciding her dad was definitely into it, I think Rowan may have been named after Quickbeam's song.

O Orofarnë, Lassemista, Carnimírië! O rowan fair, upon your hair how white the blossom lay! O rowan mine, I saw you shine upon a summer's day, Your rind so bright, your leaves so light, your voice so cool and soft: Upon your head how golden-red the crown you bore aloft! O rowan dead, upon your head your hair is dry and grey; Your crown is spilled, your voice is stilled for ever and a day. O Orofarnë, Lassemista, Carnimírië!

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If anyone needs a 3d concept of the North Pole, look up “Rise of The Guardians - North’s Globe Room Environment Model.” On art station by the artist/user Charles Ellison. I would post a link but I don’t think tumblr likes having links in anon ask. But it has the 3d model concept of the globe room in the movie, it’s fun to look at.

Here's the link!

I think I've found this before, it is very fun to look at.

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First, Happy new years!!! ✨I hope 2025 has been well to you! And that 2026 will be a good year too!

Secondly, how do you Rowan and Jack would celebrate new years together? In the current story or art school AU. I remember some of the muses mentioned briefly about how they celebrated new years. But do they celebrate it together? Or do they usually go off on their own, doing their own thing/new years traditions?

2025 was... 2025! lol. We'll see how 2026 goes.

As far as the current story goes: New Years Eve Ball.

As far as art school AU goes, I imagine they would go to a friend's place before they're old enough to go to bars, go to bars a few times post-turning 21, and then go back to just hanging out alone/with friends after that.

Gotta get the New Year's Kiss!

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I know the books are separate from the movie, as William Joyce clarifies. However, now, I’m confused on when the movie takes place and when Jack Frost was technically “born”, since in the movie it says 300 years later. And if I remember, Burgess was formed in 1795/1798. So I know is that movie Jack Frost was born/revived in the 18th century.

To be completely fair about your confusion, we do not actually have consistent information on this, lol. It's like Jack's age at death, he's "officially" been stated to be 17, 18, and like 14??? I went and grabbed my concept art book from my shelf and it says this:

Also, 100% I always assumed the 1798 thing on the plaque of Thaddeus Burgess was a typo, lol. I assumed maybe they maybe meant 1698, or even 1668.

18th century = 1700s (because 1-100 was the first century), I think you mean 19th century/1800s for Jack's birth/death if you're going with the 1798 founding, and I don't personally buy that for a few reasons, the first of which being that I don't think they intended RotG to take place in the 2100s.

Second, Jack Overland's attire is not quite the 1800s, it's absolutely more colonial, which tracks with the artists working on the film saying they were going for colonial/1600s. Third, by the 1800s I would personally think the area would be a bit more developed than it's shown to be in the film, especially since Europeans had settled in Pennsylvania since around the mid 1600s.

That being said, I do not think that early 1600s as the art book says makes sense either, because that would put the modern day scenes in RotG in the early 1900s. This does not track with their 70s/80s references and hybrid electric cars.

I personally think the earliest the modern-day RotG scenes can reasonably take place is the 80s (since they were good at not showing any smart phones or anything), and the latest is the early 2010s. Production on the film really got going proper in about 2009, and I'm thinking that the folks working on it probably figured it was taking place roughly "now," aka the late oughts/early 2010s. This puts Jack's death in the early 1700s and his birth in the late 1600s.

Taking that into account, 2010-120 = 1890, which I think does track for the books, a lot of the inventions and such feel kinda steampunky to me so Victorian era makes sense. There is a time skip in the last one to the 1920s, which is stated explicitly.

The way I sorted stuff out for my story was setting the film in 2012. That means we meet up with Jack in modern times the Friday before Easter which would put us at April 6, 2012.

If we take the "300 years later" to be literally exactly 300 years later, that puts Jack's accident at April 5th, 1712 (since "300 years later" we meet with the other Guardians and then we see Jack the next day, see: "Last night, Jack, he chose you.").

I like Jack being 18 when he dies, so if he died in April and his birthday is in November, we have to subtract 19 from 1712, putting Jack's date of birth on November 20, 1693.

And the book stuff in regards to my fic takes place "idk, a long-ass time ago."

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You know what, if nothing else, you guys can rest assured that none of my fics are AI-generated or I'd have updated ages ago.

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Are there any fun facts or moments that didn’t make into SQP, LWG, or FMA (currently)? About the muses, Rowan, ocs, etc.

Hmmmmm lemme check my notes docs. A lot of stuff I end up cutting just because a scene went off in one direction and I decided it needed to go a different direction instead, or it's stuff that didn't end up fitting in one spot but I was able to fit in somewhere else. Sometimes I just take out some lines here and there like "nah we don't need that."

A bit of the concert that I wound up just taking out:

Nicolette was fiddling with her in-ear monitors, one of which had come loose and was left dangling at her side for the last chorus.  The blue-haired guitarist spoke to the crowd as she made her adjustments, the typical hyping up of the headliner, thanking the larger band for bringing them along on tour. “We really need to bite the bullet and get custom-fit monitors,” Nicolette said, having fixed her monitors and returned to her microphone. “Buy a t-shirt so Nicolette can stop losing her monitors,” said the guitarist into his microphone.

A bit of a conversation with Teddy and Shirley that I cut out:

“She has gay uncles for crying out loud,” said Shirley. “I hope to one day be someone’s cool gay uncle,” Teddy mused. “You’re bisexual.  And nonbinary,” said Shirley. “Alas,” said Teddy.

A lot of stuff about the band hasn't come in to the story just because I didn't expect them to be showing up as much as they have. I've mentioned before I wanted Rowan and Jack to have a cheeseburger date I didn't end up including.

There's some ~mature~ scenes that also didn't make it in because I am not super secure about how I write those lol.

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Happy bisexual visibility day to Rowan and everyone else who sees this ! : D 🩷💙💜

I was the anon was few years ago who said that Rowan thought process about feelings/attraction was relatable to me. And after a few years of reflection and researching, I understand that I’m definitely on the ace spectrum and bisexual. So thank you for answering my question/ramble all those years ago and leaving resources. < 3

Aw, yay! Happy Bisexual Visibility Day to you, too!

I'm glad that Rowan and the resources were helpful to you! It can definitely be really overwhelming trying to figure out what's going on with that, but I hope you feel like you understand yourself better, I know I do.

In case anyone else stumbles upon this and might be interested in learning more about asexuality, here is the link to AVEN.

If I'm remembering right, there is a history of Bisexual/Asexual solidarity, because asexuals have similar feelings of attraction (aka none or very little) to more than one gender, so they fit in well among bisexuals. Apparently many asexuals initially consider themselves bisexual for this reason (and of course you can be both!).

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I love all of your ocs and how they’ve grown over the years! Which oc has been the most difficult to develop? Character growth, designs, etc. And when writing, is one oc more challenging to write compared to the others? Or is it more of a case by case scenario?

I’m also a bit curious about your writing process, do you know each chapter immediately? A gardener or architect writing style?

Aw thank you. I always say that the characters talk to me, some more than others, and let me know who they are. If I'm having a hard time with them, it's probably because they aren't talking to me and I'm not doing it right. I'll have an idea of what a character is, and sometimes they'll let me know, actually I'm this whole other thing.

Initially, Nicolette was supposed to be very quiet and more into drawing, and then the first time I wrote her she wouldn't shut the hell up. The drawing thing was dropped pretty quick once Quinn's band thing came into it, and the shift to "Nicolette is a musician" felt very correct. She just was not supposed to be the original plan I had for her.

I initially thought Euterpe would be more of a classic opera type and I had such a hard time. I would try to come up with concept sketches or dialogue and it was like I was walking through waist-deep water. Then she let me know she was really more of a rocker and suddenly it was so much easier.

I thought Urania was gonna be straight, she said no thank you I am aro/ace. I thought Thalia was also going to be straight and she said HARD PASS. Now it's like, Idk why I ever considered that for either of you.

Calliope talked to me a lot, I was channelling a lot of bitterness through her. Erato also talked to me a lot, and I think part of that is that she shares some qualities with my character, Captain Phantom. Phantom was also very influenced by burlesque, design-wise and she's a meddler when it comes to the love lives of her friends and her brother. But Erato really comes into her own with the motherhood and immortality aspects, she has perspective Phantom never will.

(In a reverse of the earlier-mentioned sexuality misunderstandings, I initially thought Captain Phantom was gonna be a lesbian, and actually she is a very self-destructive straight woman.)

Melpomene was very easy because she and Nicolette have overlap in their themes: the black and red color scheme, Ophelia imagery, singers. They both have moments of being very self-involved, but Melpomene in general gets to be more exaggerated. Melpomene is like, what if Nicolette didn't have her support systems, what if she lost music, what if she had no reason to develop past her teen angst?

I am definitely more of a gardener than an architect. I will have stuff that is planned out ahead of time, but I don't always have a clear route to get there. I feel like I usually know how things start and end, or sometimes a start and a middle (the less ideal scenario and honestly how I've gone into both Fly Me Away and Living With Ghosts, oops).

With SQP I had a good grasp of the ending, and I did a lot of prep work for Rowan and the Muses, but even then some of the Muses were more developed than others, and some would talk to me more in different parts of the story. There's more Thalia and Urania in Something Quite Peculiar and more Terpsichore and Euterpe in Fly Me Away because they were the ones talking to me and kinda volunteering for bigger roles in those parts.

Also, I sometimes have an okay grasp on a chapter and other times that's why there's a big break in uploading between chapters, because I'm trying to figure out wtf is going on five chapters out.

Then we have stuff like, I didn't initially have the Ouija board scene in the Halloween chapter of Fly Me Away, but I thought it would be fun to include, so I included it. And then it turned into the whole Ghost Story arc that wound up being a big thing in the story. All because I thought it would be fun for the Halloween chapter. So, sometimes shit like that happens.

It feels weird and fine-artsy to say, but so much of the story stuff and the character stuff is about how it makes me feel. Does this feel right, does it feel like it's going on the page with ease? Or am I walking through that waist-deep water again? Because if it's the latter, something isn't working, the story isn't supposed to go this way, the character isn't being who they are.

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Oh! I also recommend watching “Psychology of a hero: Jack Frost in Rise of The Guardians” by cinema therapy! It was a fun little video analyzing Jack and his hero journey from a film maker and licensed psychologist!

Good to know! Interesting premise for sure. I always hesitate to watch analysis on RotG because I love it so much and am very attached to my interpretations but I do think Jack is very interesting from a psych perspective.

(If all the therapy I've tried to give him in the fic doesn't give that away.)

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So I’m going into book series territory right now in terms of Pitch and his powers. But, recently I was flipping through the books, and saw that pitch could transform himself into any creature/animal. Potentially find a way into your body to posses you, which is extremely creepy to think about. But anyways, let’s say he has the same or similar powers in the movie/film. Could he possibly possess the muses? Or do you think the cast members would struggle more?

Honestly book pitch is extremely op compared to the film version. If my memory of his powers serves me right.

Omg that's right he can do that, huh. There is so much going on in the books, lol. If I remember right he did that with the robot that North made? So I don't know how it would work with a real person.

I don't think we need to add possession to anyone in the cast's problems, lol. Their own brains are fucking with them enough.

Honestly, I kinda think everyone in the books is a bit OP. There's something kinda fun about it in that like, it's fantasy, so why not? But especially when I started bringing Nightlight stuff in, I was like, "I really, really gotta nerf this for my purposes."

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Hmmmmm additional band rambles:

-Nicolette and Quinn, like my friend and I, started talking because they both love My Chemical Romance.

-Quinn was sick for a big part of his childhood and was homeschooled. This is part of why he's so good at guitar, he had a lot of time to practice. He is still thrilled about the concept of having friends and "being normal." Teddy is sure to remind him frequently that he is not normal at all, actually.

-Nicolette had a very rough sophomore year of high school and was in a mental hospital briefly. She also wound up being home schooled for the second semester of that year.

-Nicolette's parents signed her up for piano because she would not sit still for two minutes and maybe that would give her something to focus her energy on. Her grandparents did the same thing with her aunt. Everyone in this family actually just has ADHD.

-Teddy was a tech theater kid. Nicolette was in choir. Quinn is really, really good at math. Rose and Oliver had been in like 5 bands already by the time they met the others.

-Rose and Oliver have been friends the longest, they grew up in the same neighborhood and are like bonded cats that should not be separated.

-Undecided if in this universe they all went to the same school or not, we have a lot of AUs and either option could work, honestly.

-Teddy is the oldest in the band, he's two years (more like a year and a half) older than Quinn and Oliver, who are a year older than Nicolette and Rose. Rose is the youngest. (I think for purposes of the fic I had made Nic and Rose the same age as Rowan.)

-Teddy has two half brothers, one older and one younger. They did not learn about each other until they were all adults because their father is a disaster. Teddy's father only knew about the younger one. Teddy is the only one of the children that grew up with their dad and they all agree he's the one that got the bad deal.

-Teddy does not talk to his parents anymore but that's okay, Quinn's parents have basically adopted him now.

-Teddy's little brother, Elliott, and Oliver have a flirtationship~ We haven't sorted out yet how they get together. Elliott is Nicolette and Rose's age.

-Quinn has a twin brother who plays drums and did a lot of partying when they were teenagers and kind of got the whole "I want to be a rock star" thing out of his system. He's pursuing a law degree like their mom. They also have a little sister who is one of Nicolette's best friends.

-Nicolette has an older brother who was valedictorian/class president/etc and now everyone is vaguely disappointed because he's trying to be a mystery writer instead of an engineer or politician or something. I think it'll go well for him, though.

-Rose is the youngest of three children, and is adopted. "Rose" is short for "Rosalie."

-Oliver is an only child.

-Rose, Oliver, and Nicolette have a side project called The Lilith Project.

-Teddy, Quinn, and a drum tech I don't think they've met yet in this universe, have a side project called Just Sex Appeal. Their debut album is called No Talent. Teddy sings in this one.

-They're really bad at being in side projects because they keep asking the other side project for input.

-Rose has made friendship bracelets for everyone in the band.

-Their manager, Amirah, has never managed a band before, but is a master of "fuck it, I'll figure it out," and the band trusts her with their lives. They met because she worked at a magazine they interviewed for.

-Quinn and Nicolette had very obvious crushes on each other for entirely too long before they managed to do anything about it.

-Teddy and Quinn met when they were waiting in line for a local show for a band neither of them had heard of and started talking about music. Quinn had just wanted to bum a cigarette from Teddy.

-Nicolette is Quinn's sappy, romantic soulmate and Teddy is his chaotic, ride-or-die, platonic soulmate. People frequently assume Quinn and Teddy are dating but they never actually will because Quinn is a hopeless romantic and Teddy will make blood oaths for his friends but gets very uncomfortable at the idea of romantic commitment.

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Are you at all interested in more band rambles?

Yeah, tell me about those freaks!

Not really, but thank you.

I don't care but I am nosy and want to see the results.

Voting ended onSep 15, 2025

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So this is kinda related to your story and rotg. But I’m curious to learn more about Teddy and Nicolette! How long have you had the two as ocs? Did you always plan for them to appear in the story/plot? What would their reaction be if Rowan told them everything? That magic, supernatural, etc, exist?

I was also rereading SQP and I really liked the lyrics you created for the song that Nicolette band was playing! When Rowan and Jack were trying to escape from the shadow people/creatures the first time. Evanescence popped in my head when I was imagining what the music for it sounded like.

Anon, are you spying on me???? I have been working on Teddy and Nicolette specifically lately, lol. I was about to post a poll like "would anyone care if I just rambled about the band for a bit," and here this ask is.

Nicolette is my oldest OC that I still actively work on, I created her when I was 14, the summer before I started high school.

Teddy was created a few years later when I was just shy of 19, winter break, freshman year of college.

I started developing Rowan/the Muses/SQP when I was 21, junior year of college.

The band's lineup is Nicolette (Lead Vocals/Piano), Quinn (Lead Guitar), Teddy (Rhythm Guitar/Some Backing Vocals), Rose (Bass/Most Backing Vocals), and Oliver (Drums). Quinn, Rose, and Oliver are my friend's characters which is why I tend to focus a bit more on Nicolette and Teddy in the fic, because they are technically the ones that are mine. I don't think my friend would mind if I brought the others in more, but part of me is like "no, but, she writes them better!!" lol.

Originally, Nicolette and Quinn were supposed to cameo in the art show chapter in SQP and that was gonna be a one-and-done thing. It was supposed to just be a cute little cameo for me and my friend because they are our original two, they are very special to us, they will always be very special to us. All these years later, my friend is married now, we both pay taxes, we have grown up jobs, we still sometimes go "hey, what if we put Quinn and Nicolette in THIS weird situation?"

Then my friend wrote this one-off coffee shop AU where Quinn and Teddy worked at one, and I thought it would be fun to have Teddy cameo at the coffee shop that Rowan went to. This was also supposed to be a one-off thing. I had figured that Rowan was friendly with the band but they weren't like, her main friend group, so it would be fine if they never showed up again.

But the thing is that from the start, Teddy has been into stuff like cryptids, aliens, the supernatural in general, so it actually made sense for him to come back. And Teddy can't come back without the others because they're all codependent weirdos.

Additionally, Rowan's friend Shirley was sorta based (personality-wise) on my college best friend who I had a huge falling out/platonic breakup with a week before graduation. This is not Shirley's fault at all, and I'm trying not to just ditch her entirely, but it does make me feel weird when I have to write her. So, it feels better in general to have Teddy step up a bit more in the narrative because he doesn't have that baggage for me and because he's already into weird shit that justifies him being there and kind of seeking out the plot on his own. If I ever get around to rewriting SQP, and I would like to I think it would be a fun project, I would revamp Shirley (maybe even rename her?) so she's easier for me to write, and probably also bring Teddy/the band in sooner.

And thank you, re: the lyrics, lol. My friend and I have both written lyrics for the band. Neither of us are musically inclined enough to do much more than that, but I wrote the ones in the shadow people chase scene back in high school. The ones in the concert scene in Fly Me Away were written in... college, I think.

I do think Evanescence is a big musical influence on Nicolette specifically. As far as that song goes, I imagine it being a bit more aggressive than Evanescence usually is, a little more punk-leaning, something to jump around to.

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Sorta spoilery AU ask.

She might still have a chance if there was still enough of a spectacle around her but if most people had kinda moved on to something else then it wouldn't be as strong a case, I don't think. Basically, "Maybe???"

If in that situation she did come back, I think there would be a lot more resentment and angst, as though there's not a lot of angst now. There would have just been so much more suffering and depression. She may have still tried/succeeded in breaking things off with Jack but if she comes back immortal that does change things and they end up back in a will they/won't they get back together sort of thing (and obv they do, come on).

Some of the plot elements of FMA and LWG would still happen, I'm sure. The Muses are still unhappy with Apollo, etc. I don't know that Jack would have wound up a ghost story in that scenario.

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For the art school au, would Cupid possibly be a figure drawing model? If so, it makes me smile a little if it’s a moment where he models (clothed or otherwise) for Rowan figure drawing classes. Picturing Jack getting sightly jealous, and Rowan playfully teasing him. Or some type of fashion model, if the school has fashion (or fabric/textile) as a major? Maybe, having some connection with Arachne? If she’s a fashion designer in that au.

Lol so fun story, Teddy is a figure drawing model part time. I had decided that he did that ages ago when I created him because I named him in part after my eccentric figure drawing professor. She was great, I had her for two classes and would have taken more with her if she taught the higher levels. I think that's actually how Teddy and Rowan met.

But, I pictured Cupid more of a fashion model, yeah. I assume Rowan's school would also have fashion design but I don't know much about that major tbh. My school added it to what they offer a year after I graduated. I do like the idea of Arachne being a weird reclusive fashion designer in the AU.

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Conan Gray's new album, Hayley Williams' new album, Halsey re-releasing Badlands with orchestral versions, the K-Pop Demon Hunters Soundtrack, we are being fed so well rn.