Fanfic / Lighting Candles

Lighting Candles is a Big Hero 6 / Rise of the Guardians crossover Fan Fic by PitViperOfDoom, found here. Has a sequel called A Friend In The Dark.

Tadashi Hamada died in the fire, but he comes back as a fire spirit. And, like all spirits in the Rise of the Guardians 'verse, he's invisible to everyone who doesn't believe in him.

Spoilers for Big Hero 6 and Rise of the Guardians are unmarked.

Includes examples of:

• Achilles' Heel:
  • The Microbots don't hold together well when heated, something Tadashi takes advantage of when helping the gang against Yokai.
  • Tadashi's ability to produce light and heat seems to be particularly effective on Nightmares.
• Adaptation Personality Change:
  • Tadashi in Big Hero 6 is an All-Loving Hero who seems effortlessly confident, but his characterization in this fic shows him having major doubts in his self-worth, and he is fairly certain he would have killed Callahan if his and Hiro's roles had been reversed.
  • The Man in the Moon aka Chang'e is shown to not have been right for keeping Jack on the sidelines for centuries, since the Guardians make a much bigger effort to reach out to Tadashi this time. She also admits she was wrong to reject Pitch all those years ago, starting the conflict between him and the other Guardians.
• Adopting the Abused: A variant; Tadashi is still loved (and is now dearly missed) by his friends and family, but is now dealing with the trauma of watching them grieve him without being able to let them know that (in a way) he's still there. So it's reassuring to the reader (and Tadashi himself, despite his initial shock) when the Guardians immediately take Tadashi in as one of them.
• Adorable Fluffy Tail: When Tadashi Hamada becomes a kitsune guardian spirit upon his death in Big Hero 6, he has a fluffy fox tail both in animal and (sometimes) in human form. This shows Tadashi's gentleness, signaling that he's trustworthy even when he looks like a wild animal, as while Jack Frost makes fun of him for it, young Nozomi most remembers Tadashi's fluffy tail and how he let her pet it when she was scared. His friends also call him adorable in fox form and pet him (though they didn't know it was him at the time).
• Afterlife Angst: Tadashi has this in spades, as he remembers his loved ones and feels guilty for the pain his death has caused them.
• A Little Bit Beastly: In his human form, Tadashi has yellow fox eyes instead of the brown he was born with, his teeth become sharper when he gets angry, and his fox tail disappears and reappears depending on his mood.
• Always Someone Better: Tadashi has a tendency to gauge his own self-worth against the accomplishments of others (especially Hiro), neglecting to consider his own strengths in the process. When considering how he would have reacted if Hiro had died in the fire and he had lived, he doesn't think he could stop himself from killing Callaghan. This is particularly ironic given how much stock Hiro puts into Tadashi's accomplishments in canon.
• Asian Fox Spirit: Tadashi has become a kitsune. He currently has only one tail though, representing his low power level.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Tadashi notes that looking for weaknesses and structuring his attack plan accordingly is one of Hiro's strengths.
• Big Brother Instinct: Not even being unable to touch Hiro when he's awake will keep Tadashi from protecting his brother.
• Bilingual Bonus: When he's surprised or frustrated, Tadashi occasionally slips into Japanese. Most of it is...vulgar.
• Blessed with Suck: As is pointed out, Tadashi retaining most of his memories from the get-go means that he can see his loved ones and know it's them, but they can't see or interact with him at all. Also, he initially has trouble controlling his fire powers and is afraid of hurting someone by accident.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: As a Guardian, Tadashi gains strength when he starts getting believers.
• The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: Fred, despite being a young adult, still believes in things like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Hence why he's the first of his friends to believe that Tadashi has come back as a kitsune and that he's a Guardian of Childhood.
• Comes Great Responsibility: Tadashi sometimes worries about the damage he could do with his Playing with Fire powers if he lost control.
• Combo Platter Powers: In addition to his Playing with Fire powers, Tadashi develops other abilities, like Flight, Shapeshifting and being a Dream Walker. Justified since Kitsune do have powers like that.
• Commonality Connection: While they clash at first, Tadashi and Jack have a lot in common: they're both the youngest members of the Guardians, they're both older brothers (though Tadashi has a little brother while Jack has a little sister), they both have element-based powers (fire for Tadashi, ice for Jack), they can both fly (although Tadashi takes a while to get there), they both struggle at first with feeling that they're not worthy of being a Guardian, they both learn what their center is after seeing tooth-box memories, and they both have Jamie as their first believer.
• Completed Fic: The fic is completed and has a sequel that is also completed.
• Dark Is Not Evil: As Tadashi points out to Pitch, anything can become a negative in excess, and in the same way, fear is only a problem if there's too much of it.
• Darker and Grittier: Both films used for this story deal with mature themes and have high stakes, but both are ultimately light-hearted family films. This fic not only contains a lot of swearing and violence (especially whenever Go-Go is featured), but the fic points out that burning to death is not a good way to go.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Tadashi, despite being a generally Nice Guy, has his moments.
  Hiro: Okay. I think we're ready.
  Tadashi: For what, Comic-Con?
  • Go Go, like in canon, can snark with the best of them.
  • Jack Frost and Bunny are tied for best snarker in the Guardians (although is Silent Snarkers are counted, then Sandy's certainly up there, too).
• Death-Activated Superpower: Tadashi becomes a fire spirit after his death.
• Death by Irony: Like Jack Frost, Tadashi gets powers associated with how he died, in this case, fire. He lampshades the irony in the sequel.
• Demonic Possession: The sequel has the Nightmares possess Callaghan, and use him to put little Nightmare slivers in kids to feed on their fear.
• Determinator: In the sequel, Tadashi confronts a particularly resilient Nightmare feeding on Fred. Each time he enters the dream, he's forced to walk down a burning corridor, each time only managing to take a little step further to reach his terrified friend. Each time, he's forced to relive the horror and pain of the fire that killed him, but he refuses to give up until he reaches his friend and liberates him from the Nightmare.
• Don't Think, Feel: Tadashi has some problems getting into this mindset with his powers due to his scientist past, which slows down his power development a bit.
• Dream Walker: In the sequel, Tadashi gains the ability to enter dreams and fight the Nightmares latching onto kids.
• Establishing Character Moment: The Sandman is the first Guardian Tadashi meets. Sandy saves Tadashi after he falls out a window, patiently explains to him what his dream sand does (and reveals that he's the Sandman), helps Tadashi stop Hiro's nightmare, reveals to Tadashi that he's dead (and comforts him immediately after), then begins spreading the word about Tadashi so that he can meet others who'll likely be able to better answer his questions.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The Nightmares. They can comprehend the parental instinct to make sure that their children survive, but that's it.
• Family of Choice: While not all of them get along too well and they sometimes spend months apart doing their respective duties to the children of the world, the Guardians have formed this with each other. This makes sense as, seeing as how they are former people reincarnated as immortal, magical spirits, they'd be alone in the world if not for each other.
• Fate Worse than Death: Before he learns about the Guardians and being a spirit, this is how Tadashi views his situation. To be fair, he's invisible to everyone he knows and loves, and can't help his brother with his trauma.
• A Father to His Men: While North isn't the leader of the Guardians, he's the oldest/arguably wisest member of the group and the North Pole (his home) acts as an unofficial base of operations. Thus, it makes sense why he'd be willing to act like a parental/authority figure to the younger members of the team (namely Bunny (despite their somewhat close in age), Jack, and Tadashi). Tadashi even admits to himself that he's started coming to North for advice the same way he used to go to Callaghan. Of course, it's easy to believe that Santa Claus would be this trope.
• Fear Is Normal: Tadashi points out to Pitch that fear is important for kids to learn, and is only a problem if there is too much of it. The "Man in the Moon"/Chang'e also tells Tadashi she was mistaken for believing fear no longer served its purpose when she rejected Pitch centuries before, leading to Pitch's Start of Darkness.
• The Fettered: Considering how his family and friends all believe that he's dead and he's been chosen to become one of the Guardians of Childhood, no one would blame Tadashi for leaving his family behind and embracing his new existence as a spirit. But, being Tadashi, he can't bring himself to leave them as long as they're alive (especially when they're all still grieving him). This earns him the respect of several Guardians (and is ultimately what wins Jack over), and it's when he's protecting Hiro that Tadashi is able to unlock more of his powers (namely flight).
• Foil: Tadashi and Jack have similar origins, but opposite powers, vastly different personalities, and while Jack lost his memories, Tadashi kept them (mostly). Also, they're both older brothers who did all they could to protect their siblings (although a guilt-ridden Tadashi states that Jack died saving his sister, while Tadashi died after running into a burning building and leaving Hiro alone).
• Gender Flip: In the sequel, Man in the Moon is revealed to be female.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: Tadashi is invisible and weak at the start of the story because he has no believers. Once he starts getting some, starting with Jamie in the first story, and some San Fransokyo children in "A Friend In The Dark", he grows in power and starts furthering his abilities.
• Happy Ending Override: For Rise of the Guardians, somewhat. Defeating Pitch turns out to be a short-term victory with disastrous consequences; without him, the Nightmares are just as hostile and have a much greater degree of freedom to act without any regard for their intended purpose.
• Heel–Face Turn: By the end of the sequel, both Callaghan and Pitch turn good, thanks to Tadashi.
• Innocently Insensitive: Jack Frost spends most of his time around Tadashi (at least for the first half) snarking at him and messing with him, as well as complaining about how Tadashi is whining about his powers and new role as a Guardian. He realizes later that Tadashi's not only just died, but because he has his memories he can remember everyone he left behind (which included watching his little brother grieve him). Jack noticeably becomes nicer after this realization.
• Invisible to Normals: Tadashi's invisible to everyone who doesn't believe in him - in other words, everyone but other spirits (and Baymax) to begin with. In the sequel, some people can see him in fox form since (especially because foxes had been flooding into the area after he became a Guardian and chose San Fransokyo as his home base); he notes that it's easier to believe that a fox may be there then a spiritual kitsune.
• It's All My Fault:
  • Tadashi frequently blames himself for abandoning Hiro by trying to save Callahan and dying in the fire, and feels this makes him unsuited to be a Guardian. It takes Toothiana and Jack pointing out how much he still protects Hiro, especially since his hoshi no tama was in Baymax the whole time, for him to realize he didn't truly abandon Hiro.
  • The Man in the Moon (Chang'e) admits she accidentally triggered Pitch's Start of Darkness when she felt fear no longer served its purpose, sidelining him in favor of younger Guardians, and asks Tadashi to mend the rift she opened and convey her regret to Pitch.
  • When Pitch is released, and the furious Sandman has him at swordpoint, Pitch tells him that while the Sandman has never wronged him, Pitch has, indeed, hurt him and killed him, and for whatever it's worth, he's sorry.
• Locked into Strangeness: Even when in a human form, Tadashi has bright yellow eyes, and his teeth grow sharp whenever he's mad, scared, or stressed. His tail (when he's human) also disappears and reappears depending on his mood.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Tadashi gets around his inability to affect Yokai directly by using his heat to disrupt the microbots, since robots don't need to believe to see/be affected by spirits.
  • In the sequel, the Nightmares manage to possess Callaghan after his Despair Event Horizon, using the fact that humans don't need to believed in to cause harm, as well as his past use of microbots to attack, to allow themselves to attack anyone by masquerading as microbots.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Jack starts disliking Tadashi because he finds him too prim and proper, until he sees him caring for a sleeping Hiro. It prompts Jack to confess he also was a caring older sibling while alive, and he starts to be more friendly to Tadashi.
• Odd Friendship: Jack and Tadashi are literally ice and fire, and the two don't get along very well at first (partially due to Tadashi trying to adjust to his new status as a spirit and partially due to Jack being...unhelpful). Later, however, they become good friends, and arguably have one of the strongest friendships among the Guardians.
• Personality Powers: Like Taranee from W.I.T.C.H., Tadashi is careful with his fire powers, but if you hurt his brother, friends, or innocents (especially kids), you will burn.
• Playing with Fire: Tadashi has fire powers as a spirit.
• Psychoactive Powers: Early on, Tadashi's fire powers are affected by his emotions, and flare up particularly strongly whenever he thinks about how he died.
• The Power of Trust: Tadashi's Center as a Guardian turns out to be Trust.
• A Rare Sentence: Tadashi meets the Guardians. This conversation follows.
  Tadashi: Look, I'm a ghost and I'm talking to the Tooth Fairy. None of my prior knowledge applies, so all I can do at this point is just sort of... go with it.
  Toothiana: Oh, I think you'll do just fine with that attitude.
  Tadashi: Really? That's not what the Easter Bunny said... God, I can't believe I just said that.
• Repressed Memories: For most of the story, Tadashi can't remember exactly how he died (though he knows from his powers and where he woke up that he died in a fire). It's later revealed that the shock of seeing Callaghan starting the fire and leaving him for dead led to him repressing the memory.
• Required Secondary Powers: Tadashi is immune to his own flames, which he takes advantage of to instantly dry himself off when wet.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Tadashi absolutely did not do this trope when he first met the Easter Bunny.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: When Tadashi overuses his powers, he gets trapped in fox form until his strength returns.
• Shout-Out:
  • Pitch inverts Death's speech about "little lies" in Hogfather, explaining his role is generating little fears, like things that go bump in the night and monsters in the closet, to prepare children for the inevitable eventuality of the realities of realistic fears such as loneliness, failure, and death.
  • At first, Tadashi notices several of the Guardians keep looking behind his back. He asks whether he has a time-altering beetle there.
  • The chapter where Tadashi gains control over his fire powers is titled "Flickum Bicus." It is Harry Dresden's spell for, er, lighting candles.
• Soul Jar: Being a Kitsune, Tadashi has one (called a hoshi no tama), though it takes him a while to figure out what it is. It's Baymax's green chip.
• Spared by the Adaptation: A variant. Tadashi dies in the fire, just like in the movie, but is resurrected as a spirit.
• Still Believes in Santa:
  • Jamie Bennett, now an old man, still believes in all of the Guardians, and it only takes a little prompting for him to believe in Tadashi as well. This gives Tadashi hope that belief is not dependent on age, and that he can one day get Hiro and his friends to see him again.
  • Fred still believes in supernatural things that most of his friends dismiss, and was just on the fence about the Guardians until the events of the sequel.
  “Dude, I don't know if you've noticed, but I believe in a lot of things.” Fred paused. “Okay, so I was kind of on the fence. But after hearing all that, I am officially off the fence.”
• Superpower Lottery: Jack lampshades this when he hears about Tadashi's potential as a Kitsune.
• Super-Power Meltdown: Tadashi does NOT take Callaghan's unmasking well.
• Team Mom: Toothiana acts as a voice of both reason and comfort for most team members. She's easily the most patient and supportive Guardian while Tadashi is figuring out his new powers, is the spirit most willing to answer Tadashi's questions (as Bunny didn't tell him anything), and she's willing to not only give him a shoulder to cry on but assigns Baby Tooth to stick with Tadashi until it's time for him to meet the Guardians.
• Time Skip: Takes place decades after the events of Rise of the Guardians. Jamie Bennett, when Jack visits him, is now a few years younger than Callaghan.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Tadashi remembers very little after running into the fire that killed him. He doesn't remember that he found Callaghan there, and Callaghan left him to die. Memories come back to him when the team unmasks Callaghan.
• Trust Password: When Fred complains of being tired a stuck-in-fox-form Tadashi gets him a banana, which was a running gag between them.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • Bunny and Jack have shades of this, often insulting or laughing at one another. North even lampshades this when he mentions Jack messing with Bunny's tunnels, claiming that it's how they bond.
  • Jack seems to have this with a lot of other Guardians, especially Tadashi once he joins the Guardians.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Tadashi eventually gains the power to shift into a fox and back.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Tadashi gives the Man in the Moon some much-deserved criticism of her leadership style.
  • Jack calls Tadashi out for not using Baymax's chip to charge himself up sooner, when they were in the middle of a battle.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Even after getting a better handle on his powers, Tadashi doesn't feel worthy of joining the Guardians. It takes a visit to the tooth palace and a peek into Hiro's memories to convince him.

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