#ftdwr

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I have been away from Tumblr and AO3 for quite a while (a few years now) and just a while back I was feeling very bad due to personal stuff, and I remembered your stories (especially the very first fanfic I ever read and that got me into fandoms, FDWR) so I read FDWR and ITDWF again, and oh my god, how I've loved them to bits even though I knew them. It was such a nice thing to come back to, I'm so glad they are still there. I do have a question about Pitch, but I vaguely remember you not being very comfortable with daddy kinks, so if you don't like this please feel free to delete or just not reply! If it's okay, however, I'd like to know: how would Pitch even react to being called "daddy"? I feel like it would definitely be an issue because of Seraphina, but I couldn't help but wonder, and I just wanted to hear your opinion (especially after finishing What If). Anyway, I hope you're alright. I miss reading you, so I'll definitely use this sudden burst of good mood to read more of your recent stories. I know I'm gonna love them. I hope you have a wonderful day/night, whenever you read this.

Hi anon!

Re: how would Pitch even react to being called "daddy"?

I definitely think you answered the question when you said 'I feel like it would definitely be an issue.' Like I think it would absolutely be an issue and a hard limit for him. I think it could be different for the version of Pitch in The Golden Age that Never Was because his daughter is still alive, and so the word isn't as loaded with grief and also him wanting to sort of keep it as a memorial word? It has the potential to mean more things.

But yeah in the SALverse, I think Pitch would be pretty disgusted with the idea. Just...instant turnoff.

If you ever do get to any of the other stories (there's also a whole bunch over at my other account, thespectaclesofthor), I hope you enjoy them! But 'm really glad you enjoyed FtDWR and ISWF :D

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Hi there! I’m sure you’ve already answered a question like this, but tumblr sucks. So I was wondering if I could ask you what would have changed if Augus had wanted Jack like he wanted Pitch in From Darkness We Rise? If they’d been lovers instead of Auggie and Pitch and Augus had had that near adoration directed at Jack instead? Sorry if this is a silly question it just occurred to me, and well. It doesn’t hurt to ask. Hope you have a great day!

Well, Augus never really adored Pitch. He had Stockholm Syndrome because the Nightmare King raped him repeatedly and Augus was sure he was going to die, so he became completely dependent on the Nightmare King for his life and promised him anything in order to get free. The adoration was never real. It was complete dependence.

And I can’t imagine Jack as a repeated, sadistic rapist. And Augus would never be interested in someone like Jack otherwise.

So I have no idea how to answer this question, sorry!

But Augus definitely didn’t adore the Nightmare King (Pitch), he just...wanted people (and the Nightmare King) to think that he did. Like, Jack would either have to somehow be appealing to Augus (he’s not) which would require a fundamental change of his personality, OR Augus would have to be a completely different character. So it’s like, trying to imagine just subbing in randos off the street to make this work, and then my brain breaks because they’d no longer be those characters, and then that’s no longer something I can think about properly, lmao.

[not-poignant]

honestly I’ve accepted the SaL series as canon for so long that all the new jelsa stuff is so jarring to see, bc people be ignoring my man Pitch and I don’t understand- waaaaait

Oh god the Jelsa stuff, lol.

None of that stuff existed when the movie first came out, so the only like, ‘ship wars’ (which weren’t really very warring at all) was like, whether you shipped Jack with Bunnymund or Pitch (or rarely, Toothiana). That was it.

But then like, the Jack/Hiccup, Jack/Elsa, Jack/Merida, Jack/WHOMEVER started and it was like OH HE’S THE CHILDREN’S FILM ANIMATION BICYCLE. Everyone gets to take a ride, lmao.

I don’t begrudge them, but I did have to unfollow the ‘jack frost’ tag for a while because it just got a bit overwhelming. At least we’ll always have blackice and a whole bunch of Jack/Pitch fics to remember him by. :D

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Hello Pia! I just finished re-reading SaL the other day and I love it so much! I didn't read SaL first, I read Fae Tales, and later jumped into SaL and it was such a wild ride to see Augus and Gwyn, knowing what was to come? And then I got curious: when did you decide to make Game Theory? And when did you feel like it could become its own thing? Lots of love!

Hallo!

I decided to start writing Game Theory well before the end of Into Shadows We Fall. In fact some people will remember that I started talking up Game Theory before ISWF had even ended, and promised I had some random ‘hatesex’ chapters, and that I’d put them up after Augus was defeated to keep with the timeline of the story.

I officially put up the first chapter around the time Augus was defeated, since it was set after his defeat anyway. The actual ‘date commenced’ time on AO3 is incorrect, because I added a prologue years later, and this was a significant enough time that it changed the entire date of the fic.

According to Word, I started the first chapter of Game Theory in August 2013, and to give you an idea of how fast I used to write, and how inspired I was, I’d written fourteen chapters by September 2013. Into Shadows We Fall finished in early September 2013, so I was well and truly aware that Game Theory would have a future by that point, and would be a thing.

I think one of the reasons I was so obsessed with it, was because I really struggle with writing happy endings, and ISWF has like 5 chapters of happy ending. I don’t believe in short, unfulfilling happy endings, and I’d put Jack and Pitch through hell, they definitely deserve five chapters of happy ending! So I want the happy endings I write to feel full, meaningful and earned for the readers (and the characters), but this also makes the end of the story often the hardest part for me to write (unless the ending is really bittersweet, but ISWF really wasn’t, it’s probably one of the happiest endings I’ve ever penned). So I really needed something dark and angsty and crunchy to make up for all the healed happiness I was writing, and I didn’t feel like writing another Jack/Pitch story at the time.

Because so many people weren’t interested in Game Theory and only cared about the end of ISWF, this was also a really bittersweet period of time where I got a lot of asks that varied in tone from ‘very polite’ to ‘disappointed’ to ‘outright rude’ asking/telling me to stop writing original stories with ‘uninteresting characters’ and keep going with Rise of the Guardians content which one anon said very succinctly: ‘Is all we’re really interested in anyway.’

I’m sure it was true for that anon. I lost a lot of followers and readers immediately after ISWF. I never said I made smart writing decisions, I pretty much follow where my heart takes me, lol.

Anyway, so I knew before the end of SAL that Game Theory was a thing, because I’d already started it, and was already putting up chapters, and was even already going from ‘this is just a few chapters of hatesex to get it out of my mind’ to ‘this is a thing, I think I can get these two a relatively happy ending’ (when I was sure, initially, both would have tragic endings).

To put in perspective how quickly I wrote it, I finished the final chapter in March 2014. Which means from start to finish, all of Game Theory was written in 8 months. It’s nearly half a million words. In that time, I also wrote some AUs, and started conceptualising both The Ice Plague and The Court of Five Thrones. (People may also remember that I started talking about The Ice Plague as the direct sequel of Game Theory, before I realised that COFT needed to come next).

But yeah! I’ve decided to make this response public for posterity, because I often forget exactly when and how it happened, and decided to check the dates of everything properly today. It’s hard to believe I used to write stories that quickly! It wasn’t sustainable, and I’m a much happier person these days (I wasn’t doing so great back then). I’m so glad you enjoy SAL and Fae Tales! Not gonna lie, the people who enjoy both are my favourite kind of people (I’m incredibly selfish that way dskjfas lol), but thank you for asking as well! This has been a cool trip down memory lane.

[not-poignant]

I’ve been a SaL stan for literally a million years and I have /never/ read the bit where Jack tops. I remember reading it for the first time and literally doing that awkward scroll to get past it bc I just,,, couldn’t, no matter how much I love your writing lol

God bless solidarity, my friend :D

[not-poignant]

What is the SALverse, is it a ROTG-Fanfic?.

Yes! It’s the Shadows and Light series, which features two main fics, From the Darkness We Rise and Into Shadows We Fall.

It can be found here!

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Hiya, I just finished reading the first book of SAL verse and ohhhh boy, I now remember why I had to keep reading even though I had 8am classes the first time I finished book one at 3am. It’s just... wow. Anyways, my question is; if Jack had been the one to be possessed by the shadows, is there anything in the world that could have recovered him? Something to do with his sister, maybe? Also was he supposed to be possessed, like that’s what Ondine saw in his future, but pitch changed the course?

Hiya anon! Firstly, get some sleep! :D

If Jack had been the one to be possessed by the shadows, is there anything in the world that could have recovered him? 

I mean, possibly, yes, but I never thought he’d recover from it anyway. Like even if he was ‘rescued’ I think it would break the Jack Frost that I wrote in the SALverse (and it nearly kills him in TGATNW, the other long Rise of the Guardian fic I’ve written). Like, Jack in SAL has a super fragile psyche, even if he could have been saved (and no, I don’t think something with his sister would have done it necessarily, I think it would have needed to be light-exorcism related)...the whole story would have turned into ‘and Pitch was left with a non-functioning spirit and then the world was defeated by Augus and team the end.’ It wasn’t a story I had any interest in writing.

Also was he supposed to be possessed, like that’s what Ondine saw in his future, but pitch changed the course?             

Not exactly. I liked the dual meaning, that Ondine seeing shadows made everyone assume Jack was going to be possessed (you can see this, from memory, in some of the comments). But that it could also be that Jack’s life would be filled with the shadows of loss - which is exactly what happens. He loses Pitch, because of the Darkness, and he loses a great deal more in ISWF (which you will see as you keep reading). If anything, he is far more traumatised by events in ISWF than he ever is in FtDWR. It is the darker of the two stories. That’s why it has the title ‘Into Shadows We Fall.’ Even though Jack isn’t the one literally possessed, he is the one who mentally falls into darkness because of what he loses. 

As Ondine says, she can’t see past the day after with Jack. And she certainly doesn’t see that Jack will definitively get possessed or not get possessed by the Darkness. (I think if she had seen Jack getting actually possessed, she would have been like, UM HOW ABOUT YOU STAY RIGHT HERE).

But I always liked the ambiguity at the time. I knew readers would interpret it and expect Jack to get possessed, and I was always pretty vague about it in comments and asks at the time. I sort of wanted the misdirect - that people would expect Jack to get possessed, only for it to be - at the end - Pitch, so we see the return of the Nightmare King. It was a very satisfying thing to write. :)

[not-poignant]

Okay sO finding out you took out 10,000 words from SALverse makes me sad cos that’s 10,000 words I never got to read, I only got into your works like half a year ago ): sadness

I mean you’re doing a great job of literally proving my point, anon, that sometimes going back and editing serials isn’t always a fun process for the author, even though they’re literally doing it to serve the story and the readers of the future, lmao. In part, I did that editing for people like you, to make the story more enjoyable.

I’d suggest trusting me - the author - and my choices. If you liked the story at all, chances are the editing helped to shape that.

Most of the choices were to remove excessive sentences (i.e. Jack thinking the same thing in five different ways in five consecutive paragraphs on a regular basis, which bogged down pacing), to fix grammar errors (it’s still not free of those entirely but it’s better than it was), to fix some formatting errors, and to fix continuity errors in characterisation (i.e. the make the dialogue more realistic or appropriate for their character, and in the cases of Gwyn and Augus, to make their characterisation more Game Theory appropriate). Ultimately, 10,000 words represents only 4% of the story, and given it’s a solid 400,000 words. It was an extremely light edit, sensitive to preserving the scenes that people fell in love with.

To date, in over 5 years, not a single person who read the original has come back and asked for any of the edited content to be returned.