A/N: Shout out to Irish Lover Girl for helping me out with this. She came up with Bunnymund's.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Phobia: a persistent fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that comes with a compelling desire to avoid it at all costs, derived from the Greek word "phobos", meaning fear. Everyone is afraid of something. What are the Guardians afraid of? Even the mightiest heroes are afraid of something…
SANDERSON MANSNOOZIE:
Nickname: Sandy
Alter Ego: the Sandman
Phobia: Chronophobia- Fear of time.
Sanderson has never liked the fact that he could sleep for centuries and never notice the passing time until he woke. He's always hated how he missed all of his friends' lives and deaths and possibly their children, and grandchildren and even great-grandchildren's more than once.
That's how his identity as a "myth" began- a story spread from parents to children, to friends, to more and more people, and bam. He's a fictional tale of a man who brings dreams.
The only thing that bothered him, only just a little, was that he couldn't even use his own myth to tell the passing of time, for it used to be on-off, switching about once every year.
It never bothered him too much before (always more dreams to give, more to make, and so on), so he pondered, why was he thinking about it now?
Jack, he realized. It boiled down to Jack Frost.
Sandy had seen and known about Jack before he was a spirit- he was playful, often getting on the Naughty list for his pranks, but after his sister was born, he was practically a saint… well, Sandy thought so, because all of his pranks were towards the people that made his sister miserable. He got on the Naughty list for a lot of them.
But then Jack's name disappeared from the Lists and his light went out. They assumed he stopped believing. The reality was very far from their ideas.
And then three hundred years of solitude… Sandy felt he had abandoned a child, an immortal child, but a child none the less. He had failed in his duty as a Guardian.
Sandy is afraid it might happen again.
Sanderson Mansnoozie is afraid of time because he never knows when it's going to run out.
E. ASTER BUNNYMUND
Nickname: Bunny
Alter Ego: the Easter Bunny
Phobia: Bogyphobia- Fear of the Boogeyman
Was Aster afraid of the Boogeyman? Perhaps way deep down inside. He was more pissed off at him than anything, though.
Pitch Black was responsible for Aster becoming the last Pooka. He was off his planet at the time, he forgets why, it was so long ago, but Pitch destroyed the planet while he was gone.
Pitch was called Destroyer for a reason. The planet seared and then was gone in a second, all the Pookas dying with it.
There was no warning. There wasn't even any dust left over.
Was Aster afraid of Pitch Black?
To some degree. A man who could destroy entire planets, races, cultures, and not even bat an eye? Dangerous.
But Aster wasn't afraid of Kozomotis Pitchiner- the man who became the Boogeyman because he wanted to save his daughter. He knew it was the Fearling's corruption that brought the destruction upon his planet and people.
Aster is afraid of the Boogeyman because he's not sure what to expect from him, the murderous psychopath or the loving father.
NICHOLAS SAINT NORTH
Nickname: North
Alter Ego: Santa Claus
Phobia: Autophobia, Isolophobia, Monophobia, Eremophobia- Fear of being alone or loneliness.
There's a reason that North has all those elves and yetis. He doesn't like to be alone.
The last time he was alone was a very long time ago, back before he was Santa Claus. He was alone and scared and clueless. He was stranded in the tundra with no one to tell him what to do to survive.
If an old bandit hadn't found him, we wouldn't have Santa Claus today.
It's hard to describe that emotion of knowing you're alone, that endless silence except for your own voice and thoughts. North thinks of it as a slow and steady crushing of yourself, unnoticed until it's too late and then bang. You're gone, just like that.
So he has thousands of yetis and elves all working to make toys, making sure that there is no silence and that North never has to stand alone ever again. And the toys they make are sent to every good child to make sure they never feel lonely, and in hopes that they will spread kindness to their peers.
Nicholas is afraid of being alone because the last time he was, he almost died.
QUEEN TOOTHIANA
Nickname: Tooth
Alter Ego: the Tooth Fairy
Phobia: Catoptrophobia, Eisoptrophobia- Fear of mirrors or of seeing oneself in a mirror.
Tooth has always hated her reflection ever since she lost her last baby tooth.
She was called crude names until she became the Tooth Fairy. Then, she was just "Tooth" to her friends, "Toothiana" to acquaintances, and "Queen Toothiana" to strangers.
But the thing about being the Guardian of Memories: you don't forget very easily. She still remembers the horrid names they called her. She still remembers how they forced her to hide in the jungle nearby her village.
But most of all, she remembers how heartbroken the children were when she left.
Mirrors often reveal the deepest secrets one has, ones that the individual would rather keep hidden. Tooth looks into a mirror and sees all the things she had to go through to get where she is now.
Toothiana is afraid of mirrors because they remind her of the awful times of the past.
JACKSON OVERLAND
Nickname: Jack
Alter Ego: Jack Frost
Phobia: Hemophobia or Hemaphobia or Hematophobia- Fear of blood.
Was Jack afraid of blood? Well, not of the liquid itself, really. They didn't exactly have top medical care in the 1700s, you know. A person dying from blood loss was a larger danger than it is today. So, no, Jack really wasn't afraid of blood. He was, however, afraid of what it meant.
Living for three hundred years means you see a lot of war. Being the Bringer of Winter, you see all the bloody wars held over on snowy continents.
Jack saw the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror that it was, Napoleon's conquests, Russia's civil war and communist reign, World War I and II. He was there when order 227 or 277 or something like that was given- "Not a step backwards!"- and if it was disobeyed, they were shot. He buried thousands of bodies underneath his snow and ice after the Battle of Stalingrad. He saw the entirety of the Cold War from start to finish.
Winter was a time for play, but not a single child wished to go outside with a war and the constant threat of a bomb above their heads.
Jack was afraid of blood because he knew that it meant death was not too far behind or was already there.
POPPY OVERLAND
Nickname: Poppy or Pippa to Jack
Alter Ego: Poppy Rei
Phobia: Dextrophobia- Fear of objects to the right.
A peculiar fear, yes, but within good reason. Nothing good has ever come from Poppy's right. The projectile that almost killed her came from the right. The first crack like a bow creaking from too much pressure came from the right. For some reason, the Boogeyman, when he attempted to attack her (she kicked his ass, by the way), his sand came from the right. The medicine her father needed to stay alive was stolen by a man on the right.
Jackson slipped her by on his right on the day the ice cracked.
So, Poppy hated things that came from her right side. That's why she always had an empty chair to her right, and Jack was always on her left.
Jack was the only one who knew about this, and he respected it, often having Neve or a penguin sitting in that chair for a few minutes before everyone sat and leaving as soon as everyone was comfortable.
Even Poppy's place setting was set to the left, and she always slept on her right side. She even switched from her right handedness to being left handed. (She had enough time to.)
Even in her fight with the Boogeyman, she used her left hand.
Poppy is afraid of objects to her right because not one of them has ever been good.
Poppy is afraid of things coming from her right because none of them have ever been good.
PITCH BLACK
Nickname: Pitch
Alter Ego: the Boogeyman
Phobia: Achluophobia, Lygophobia, Myctophobia, Nyctophobia, Scotophobia - Fear of the dark or night.
It's a cruel type of irony for the Boogeyman to be afraid of his own element. But, perhaps, fitting, as Pitch Black was not always the Nightmare King.
No, for the first part of his life, he was Kozomotis Pitchiner, the greatest general of the Golden Age… but more importantly, loving father.
That's how he became the Boogeyman- he guarded the Fearling his men had captured, but after awhile without home leave, they found out Pitch had a daughter and imitated her voice to make it sound like she was trapped within them. Pitch raced to go get her, but the second the door was open, the Fearlings took him over and we have Pitch Black, destroyer of the Golden Age and many other planets, eventually trapped on Earth with the Guardians being his jailers.
So, was Pitch Black afraid of the dark? No. Kozomotis Pitchiner, buried deep into Pitch's heart is.
Kozomotis is afraid of the dark because it is what he became, and he hates it.
(The universe has the cruelest sense of irony.)
A/N: I have no idea where this came from.
Originally, Pitch's fear was going to be himself, Sandy was going to be afraid of mirrors, Jack afraid of being alone, and everyone else was a wildcard. Poppy was an idea that just came to me.
I know, I know, enough of the oneshots! FiLiAL will be my main project, and then AKA. I'm working on them, I swear!