#gwyn wasn't meant to augus wasn't meant to

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Have you been surprised by the popularity of any of your characters? Characters you weren’t sure would catch on but became loved?

Anon, I've been surprised by the popularity of nearly all of my characters.

Augus and Gwyn started out as side "throwaway" OCs in a fanfic because I needed an Unseelie and Seelie representative.

And like, *gestures to all of Fae Tales* - That wasn't a plan! That wasn't meant to be a thing!!

And then, Ash was meant to be a throwaway foil to his brother and *gestures wildly at Ash*

And then like, Efnisien literally gets killed before we even meet him in Game Theory and *gestures to all of everything re: Falling Falling Stars and Underline the Rainbow*

And then also Dr Gary wasn't even supposed to have proper chapters in Falling Falling Stars and *gestures so wildly at that story and Underline and then screeches like a dinosaur*

Seriously none of my original writing on AO3 would exist if it wasn't for two throwaway OCs in a fanfic gaining popularity and getting so many questions about them from the most wonderful anons and readers that eventually I had to take them more seriously to the point that I finally had enough to write a story.

And even THEN it was only supposed to be 3 chapters of hatefucking.

My original writing career can be defined by just saying 'OH OOPS' in more extreme ways each time.

It's gotten to the point where I'm truly tempted to introduce characters from new worlds upcoming as side characters in current worlds lmao, because I feel this is a bizarre skill I have and didn't know I had until one day I was like 'wait.'

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Hi Pia.OC ask meme. Please tell me about Temsen Questions 1, 2, 7

Since you didn't pick a story, anon, it's going to be dealer's choice and I'm going with The Nascent Diplomat!

What memory would your OC rather just forget?

The period of time where Temsen had to save the vench offspring / youth from a deadly fungal infection, and so many vench ended up scarred from that generation. I think that period of time was extremely stressful for him, and I think it was the first time he realised something as simple as a vicious fungi could literally wipe the vench out. I think after that, he definitely worked to understand viruses, infections etc. and how best to deal with it if it happened again.

2. What's something about your OC that people wouldn't expect just from looking at them?

That Temsen enjoys sex a lot and really wanted to have it with Gwyn (and Augus) and was just great at not pushing for it lmao.

7. What's one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them?

Temsen wasn't initially meant to be much of a character at all. He was a powerful healer which I really needed for Gwyn in that scene, and he didn't even exist in my original worldbuilding notes. The vench that Gwyn was supposed to get closer to was Kimerrin, but it just wasn't working.

In a weird way, Temsen nominated himself. He was like 'well I'm his healer and he needs to trust me and I need to be worthy of that trust so I'm going to be Around' and he just kind of looked at me and I was like 'okay man we'll see what people think of you' and folks enjoyed him!

Just going from like, 'throwaway side character' to a more main character in the ensemble (really, the third or fourth main character depending on where you put the Raven Prince) was a huge change! He really rose up, I think, to the challenge of being able to carry Gwyn's suspicion and reward it with gentle firmness, which I really think Gwyn needed at that time in his life!

~

From the edgy OC meme!

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I'm the one who asked for 9 for the Ice Plague and I guess I wildly misinterpreted the prompt :)

I took it to mean 'what did you intend to have there as canon, but decided not to put in'

I kinda focused on originals and didn't realize it's more of a fic prompt. Just wanted to clarify!

Anon I literally got an ask for this meme and started answering for a completely different fic even though they literally wrote the fic title in the ask so like...

Solidarity on misinterpreting and misreading stuff *shakes hands*

(Tbh the vast majority of the meme questions apply easily to my canon stuff too! Just that one's a bit trickier).

Okay, so... stuff I intended to have as canon but decided not to put in was actually a lot of things, and I won't remember them all, but here's a start:

Chaley - Mosk's sister - was meant to be alive at first. Also there was a unicorn character that she would fall in love with. Moeil. Both scrapped.

All the fae were meant to go to the human realm for a while, and Chaley would have been hit by a bus or train because she didn't understand traffic. When I realised that was fridging I was like 'nooOOOO we're not doing that let's just kill the ENTIRE family' x.x

Gwyn and Augus were meant to have POV chapters

Davix was never meant to come back

The Raven Prince actually wasn't really meant to come back e.e

Mosk's name was meant to be Amshel!

That's a good start :D

~

From this meme!

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Hi Pia! I hope you're doing well! I have a question about Patreon membership. I currently support you in the Augus and Gwyn tier, paid twice per month. I'm very interested in the Gary and Efnisien tier, but I wouldn't be able to afford doing that twice per month. If I capped it at one payment per month it would be the same as what I currently pay, though. Are you okay with people choosing a higher tier and only paying the minimum amount for that tier?

Hi anon!

This is a great question, and I'm totally okay with people limiting their pledge, in fact I encourage this. So if you go to the Patreon About section and scroll down, you'll find this if you ever need to double check again! ->

If you want all the rewards but have a limited budget, cap your pledge and join a higher tier! You can also change your pledge amount – higher or lower – as your life dictates. This is meant to work for you, so do whatever feels comfortable. I'm happy to have you here for as long as you're happy to be here, I hope I can make your stay far warmer and cozier than what I put most of my characters through!

So yeah, I fully understand that not everyone can afford the double charge, but if you can on the Augus&Gwyn tier, then absolutely please upgrade to the Gary&Efnisien tier to get access to Constellations and the Game Theory edits! And limit your pledge so you're still paying the same amount.

Who knows anon, one day you might be able to afford more, but until then, I want people to enjoy their time on the Patreon as much as they can. I 100% wouldn't suggest it on the Patreon (or here when I remember to mention tiers on Patreon) if I wasn't completely okay with it, so you don't have to worry anon, it's really okay :)

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Hi Pia

After reading your response to the Vane anon, I'm curious to know...

What would have happened if Gwyn had been defeated and captured by Augus instead of the other way round?

What would've Augus done to him? And would Augus still have fallen in love with him eventually?

And how would Ash have reacted to the situation of having a poor 'Seelie' king imprisoned by his unhinged brother?

I know you don't tend to know what happens in your stories until you write them but I'd appreciate some of your hypothetical thoughts :)

Hi anon!

I think I've actually answered this question around 20 times actually, years ago, since it got asked all the time back when I was writing Game Theory! But I can't find any of those responses because Tumblr's search is so incredibly broken, so now that I've spent 30 minutes looking for the old responses, so I'll rewrite them here and hopefully be able to find this one day in the future! (not likely, please fix your search, Tumblr):

If Gwyn had been defeated and captured by Augus, Augus would likely have killed him.

Unlike Gwyn, Augus didn't have any lingering feelings of affection towards Gwyn and he never developed an infatuation after the events of Deeper Into the Woods, he didn't feel like he owed him anything in that regard. He was also like...insane. At most he might have raped him and tried to break his spirit, through mocking and humiliation and degradation and torture (after all, Augus wasn't sane at the time when he was destroying kingdoms and defeating people, he sort of needed 6 months in a dark room to sort himself out, and he would never have gotten it if he defeated Gwyn).

They wouldn't have fallen in love. Gwyn would have died or killed himself or killed Augus. (Gwyn is nearly impossible to defeat, but in the rare instance it happened, Gwyn would still likely kill Augus. He's been captured and tortured before, and his light can kill anyone, I'd say he'd last as long as his lingering feelings of affection remained and then once they they were fully broken, he'd murder Augus and destroy the Unseelie Court and then probably himself, because the only person who ever saw him for who he was loathed and tortured him, lol.)

I love Ash, but he can be a coward. He couldn't directly stop his brother, so he sought to betray him in an underhanded manner (a betrayal that Augus and Ash have only just started to recover from in the canon, around 20 years later). So I don't think Ash would do anything at all if Gwyn was captured, I don't think he'd visit Gwyn (they were never affectionate and Ash doesn't like him for a long time even in the canon), I don't think he'd do anything more than 'Augus, this doesn't seem like a good idea' and then he'd go to the human world and get drunk and use drugs, which is how he mostly coped with Augus' descent into madness in Game Theory as well (Gwyn does, after all, find him extremely drunk in the human world, deeply in denial about his circumstances).

Tbh, even Game Theory was supposed to have a tragic ending. When I first started writing it, I was literally only writing it for the hatefucking in the beginning. I fully expected that Gwyn would in his sentimental way come to love Augus and release him, and Augus would die, and Gwyn would be killed for it, and Augus would never fully return his feelings and manipulate his way out. It was meant to end in about 7-8 chapters. Like, I literally set up so many things to stop them from liking each other and succeeding that the story took an awfully long time to w rite and 'solve' what I'd put in place.

But as a result of that, it means there's almost no other options in this particular universe where they can have a happy future.

If Augus defeated Gwyn, they'd all be dead by now. Or alternatively, we'd have a new incarnation of the Each Uisge and the Glashtyn, and Gwyn would be back in his Kingdom, spirit dead, and Crielle puppeting him for the convenience of everyone.

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What a beautiful and perfect heartsong for Ash, desperately trying not to cry reading the update <3

It really was the best heartsong for him.

It always meant he just had so much of everything he decided to share with the world. At its best, it meant he had a tremendous amount of love, and he'd just never, ever run out. His love for Augus? Infinite. His love for humanity? Infinite.

But when it was corrupted, it also meant he had too much spite, too much anger, too much bitterness. He wasn't just angry at Gwyn, he was abusive and hateful towards him. He didn't just get minor revenge, he encouraged a Court-wide mutiny.

I liked it as a heartsong because a) it did suit him so well and b) its potential to run unchecked when corrupted is huge. I sometimes thought of him as 'too much of everything.' And I think that was actually pretty overwhelming for him sometimes! His heartsong is the 'everything all the time' heartsong.

But you know what, he handled it beautifully for such a long time. And I'm sure whatever comes next (though he won't have a heartsong by the end of The Ice Plague) he'll also handle beautifully, because he'll have the echo of abundance within him forever. :)

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Oh noo, I think my ask wasn't delivered to you. 😰 Did you get an ask where I was asking about how do you imagine Gwyn & Augus (like how they look in detail, because I want to draw them sometimes. ♥) If you haven't received it I can resend it. :3

I didn’t. I will say that if you ever send an ask with this in it -> ... because it has a chance of being randomly eaten - some come through, some don’t! Obviously Tumblr can block and eat asks for whatever reason (like whimsy), but that’s the biggest reason asks don’t come through. Ellipses break their ask system and they just don’t get sent.

Generally speaking, most asks everyone has sent that I haven’t replied to, I’ve never seen or got eaten. The only exceptions are: ‘You are the third or fourth people to have sent me the same question in an hour, I just answered this salkfjas I’m sorry’ and ‘I can’t read or understand your post at all’ and ‘this is trolling and/or misusing the ask function which is largely meant to be used for the writing and asking about the stories‘ (I’ll let personal asks through sometimes of course, but if I get too many in a row I’ll delete the rest that night, because sometimes just because someone has just discovered I’ll answer their asks and then sends me 5 more in a night, doesn’t mean I have to answer those asks. As my oncologist once said to me: ‘don’t abuse the privilege of having a way to contact me’ lmao).

But anyway, the upshot is I respond to 98% of what I get sent. Sadly I just don’t see some of what I get sent because the beast that is Tumblr eats asks. :(

This is probably going to be an annoying response, but... I have spent like over a million words describing Augus and Gwyn in detail and I don’t actually have a convenient character file on either them - so we both have the same options to look them up - which is read the stories. The best story to look for Augus and Gwyn descriptions specifically is Deeper into the Woods, where I made a point of describing both of them in a lot of detail. Though The Court of Five Thrones goes pretty detailed as well, and The Wildness Within. Anything where I was aware that I was describing the characters for new audiences will have more detail than average.

But I also like artist interpretations, and I never describe my characters in that much detail in character files! So going from what exists (you can also look in the fae tales fanart tag) and looking at the writing itself will be plenty, all of my favourite illustrations of Gwyn and Augus are based of just...people’s impressions after reading the stories. But everything is there, from Augus’ freckles and mostly straight black hair (though most people illustrate him with curly or wavy hair, which frankly is awesome too) to Gwyn’s white-pale curls and ice-blue eyes. 

One day I should really get around to doing character files of them, but as it’s been 8 years and now I just search the stories as well for details, I... probably won’t. x.x Sorry anon!

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Hello! I JUST read 'Deeper into the Woods' yesterday, and I cannot contain my joy at seeing how many more stories and such there are for Gwyn and Augus! I couldn't believe it at first! I was so engrossed in the story and characters that I was wishing the entire time that this wasn't just one story and that I could have more time with these characters and their complicated way of going about the world. And I do!! I'm soo excited to read more!!

I hope you enjoy the rest! And I apologise for the absolutely weird rollercoaster of writing tones and moods in Game Theory because it was never meant to be any longer than three chapters and sometimes I feel like that’s kind of like - in a house of really cool adopted dogs (things I’ve written) Game Theory is like the most loveable weird looking dog ever and some people just see it and are like ‘WHAT. WHAT IS THAT.’

I have such weird feelings about Game Theory, it’s my most Frankenstein’s monster story dsklafdsafsda LMAO

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! And everything after! And the AUs! There are like complete multi-novel length AUs as well! Augus and Gwyn have been around and have done many (often deeply stupid and ill-considered) things in many different worlds.