wintershepherd | ❄ Writings & Headcanon ❄

On whatever happens to cross my mind at a given time.

Please do not comment on these, as I will often be editing them for updates / expanded ideas / new canon / etc. Thank you!

Edited 2013-01-16 15:46 (UTC)

Jack has only a handful of his memories corresponding with the teeth that were in the memory box -- he has not recovered all of them. As Tooth says, the teeth are collected to store the "most important memories" of childhood so that if the children need to remember, they can be relived, which means that a large portion of Jack's memory is still blank.

Some notable things are:

• Although he remembers saving his sister, he doesn't know her name.
OOC: Waiting on Book 4 to see if this is expanded on for a canon name.

• He can only vaguely remember his parents, but not their names or faces.
OOC: A la those TV shows where you only see the parents from the chest down, never their features.

• As of his canon point (approx one month after the movie) Jack has not told the other Guardians what he saw in the tooth memories re: drowning after saving his sister.

• Jack is still harbouring resentment against the Man in the Moon for withholding his memories even now that he's a Guardian, and has been considering pursuing a way to try and get them back on his own.

Edited 2013-01-17 14:39 (UTC)

The Spirit of Winter prior to Jack was the one who was known as Old Man Winter and the Frost King in Norse, which is how Jokul Frosti (Jack Frost) being the "son" of the Frost King got started.

OMW was a cranky, mean old bastard because he'd been doing this job for a really long fucking time. He finally decided to say "FUCK YOU ALL" and force people to respect winter properly so he whipped up the Great Frost of 1709 where some 600,000 people died. And the Man in the Moon went "LOLNOPE" and canned his spirit ass before he could hurt anyone else, leaving there to be no Spirit of Winter for three years until he resurrected Jack in 1712 to fulfill the role.

Additionally, memories from one Seasonal Spirit are typically passed onto the next Spirit but MiM was afraid that OMW's bitterness and hate would dictate Jack's actions as well so he blocked those from taking hold. The unfortunate side effect of this being that all of Jack's memories including those of his human life were removed as well. Hence why Jack is memory-less about not only his past, but had to learn Winter's powers from scratch.

Jack is currently the youngest of the Seasonal Spirits and thus was referred to (often rather disdainfully) by the other spirits as the "New Winter" at first. They also made it a point to stay away from him because of the negative associations (that he knew nothing about) and partially out of fear as well because MiM had never stepped in on a spirit like that. By the time someone finally DID tell Jack about the figurative albatross around his neck, he had already adopted the attitude that he didn't care what the other spirits thought of him which only reinforced their perception that he was more of a nuisance than anything.

Some key points regarding Jack's physical state:

• The entirety of his physical being is powered by the winter magic that has literally reanimated him. If that were removed or nullified in any way, Jack would turn back into a ~~pumpkin~~ corpse. On any kind of medical scan, aside from the oddities listed in the next bullet points, Jack will register basically as a drowned body. To people/things capable of detecting it, his magic will register as an unidentifiable energy signature.

• His body's core temperature is well below freezing and this makes his skin temperature very cold as well, capable of causing frostbite if a regular person remains in contact with it for an extended period of time. His blood has a slushy consistency and because it doesn't properly circulate (and thus aerate) it is quite a bit darker than usual blood. This is why when Jack blushes, it tends to have a purplish tint to it and when he's cut, it bleeds very little and very slowly.

• He has no heartbeat or pulse, though he can will them into function if he chooses, though they remain very slow, much slower than should be capable of sustaining him, a byproduct of the winter magic animating him. As he doesn't technically NEED any of them to keep functioning, he usually only remembers their presence if he's excited or feels fatigue and then his body will mimic those physical reactions subconsciously. He does breathe (as evidenced by the gasping as he was pulled from the pond) but like the heartbeat, it is a reflection of something that's ingrained in him rather than an actual need for it; his breaths don't fill his lungs. Yet if someone tried to choke him, he'd react exactly as though he couldn't breath, up to and including passing out from it. (Whether it would continue once he was unconscious, debatable but probably not.)

• There is ice inside of his lungs, frozen lake water from when he drowned. If he gets too warm, it starts to melt back into water and all the gloriously fun side effects of having your lungs full of water start happening. Coughing will start first as his body tries to purge the water, but will develop into full-on choking as he's unable to catch any breath.

• On the topic of getting too warm, Jack starts feeling adverse effects once the temperature starts getting around 50°F/10°C. Because his core temperature is subzero, he has to start expending energy to maintain that which causes increased fatigue, lethargy, nausea and dizziness. The warmer it gets, the less able he is to keep himself cool which in turn, his body starts being unable to use the winter magic to preserve itself and Jack starts having to deal with a body that isn't actually functioning any longer. The first physical signs are evident in his complexion: mottled bruising will start developing around his face and on his limbs (particularly his extremities, hands and feet), his eyes will become sunken with black hollows beneath them. In short, he's going to look (literally) like a walking corpse.

• Once the symptoms reach a certain point, Jack won't be able to bring himself back down to temperature on his own and will need an artificial source of cooling. This will also put him into a coma-like state until everything inside of him can refreeze back to where it's supposed to be.

• He can feel cold, it just doesn't feel unpleasant. Likewise he can distinguish different levels of temperature (hot or cold) just like a regular person, however his scale of temperature is obviously heavily geared towards, meaning that what humans perceive as merely "warm" may feel hot to Jack, and hot things are scalding and potentially dangerous.

• He doesn't need to eat or sleep, but is capable of doing both. The use of his magic does factor into his level of fatigue so he'll nap to "recharge" after large expenditures of it.

• Jack, like all spirits, has physical attributes (strength, agility, constitution) above what his physical form would suggest-- because really, he looks like 100lbs and twig-like. He's not super strengthed or anything, but he can carry someone approximately his own height without much trouble.

Edited 2014-01-15 04:09 (UTC)

WINTER

• Jack possesses the "core" of Winter, making him its official spirit, generally referred to as a Seasonal. There are other spirits in the world who deal with winter-aligned things (Yuki-Onna, Baba Dochia, etc) and Jack does his best to not overtake their chosen duties. In his own words, he just "helps winter where it needs to be" meaning that he doesn't actually cause the season where he goes and that it would happen regardless of his presence or not.

• Although it was the Man in the Moon who revived him as a spirit, it was actually Mother Nature who designated him as the Spirit of Winter and thus infused both he and his staff with Winter's power.

• His power goes a lot deeper than he knows or frankly cares to think about. Winter is generally considered the "oldest" season and the actual core of Winter doesn't deplete in power even when it was transferred from Old Man Winter to Jack (though MN held it in keeping for the few intervening years between them). Part of him doesn't consciously know how to tap into it but subconsciously (and under duress, as during the battle where Sandy was killed) it will surface.

• "Snowballs and funtimes" is actually a very, very limited interpretation and has a lot more to do with his Center than being the Spirit of Winter. Basically if Jack were to actually go all out with full conscious control of Winter's power, he would probably ice age a continent. Like, utterly destroy it. It does scare him and he definitely keeps it pushed far, far down.

STAFF

• His staff is a conduit for his magic, working essentially as both a tool and a feedback loop. There IS part of Winter's power embedded in the staff itself, though not the entirety of it as seen when Jack repaired it from being broken. He is instrinctically connected to it and its breakage will always cause him pain. When in his hold, the staff displays a layer of frost over its surface and its core is also strengthened with ice, making it nearly unbreakable as long as he's hanging onto it. As soon as he releases it though, the wood becomes significantly weaker.

• The staff really does act as an additional limb for him and he moves in tandem with it by unparalled grace and confidence.

( W I P )

Each spirit has a series of titles that identify them and are used something like a ranking system. They're collected, created and inherited and spirits are very possessive over them, with the more titles theoretically meaning the more power a spirit has.

JACK FROST / SPIRIT OF WINTER
The Winter Prince, Shepherd of the Frost, Snow Caller, The Hiemal King

NICKLY THIZE / SPIRIT OF AUTUMN
Harvest Child, Lord of the Ripened Fields, Bringer of the Horn A'Plenty, Chief of Autumn

It was dark, cold, and he was underwater.

Jack thrashed, reaching out blindly but finding nothing but water at the end of his fingers. He couldn't tell which way was up or down and he tried to freeze ice, anything to give him a purchase to hang onto -- but nothing happened. Panic hit him hard, as much subconscious as consciously and he tried to call for the Wind to lift him up, but only got a mouthful of water for the attempt. He was drowning, he was drowning again and he was going to die a second time--

Strong arms grabbed him from above and he broke the surface, gasping and choking. Dazed, he could only flail weakly as another pair of hands grabbed him and hauled him out of the water. Jack lay on the ground, coughing up water and waiting for the fear to ebb, thinking distantly, If Pitch were still around his Nightmares would be on their way.

He realized his hands felt empty and pushed himself halfway upright. "My... staff," he wheezed, casting around desperately for it, a new alarm tightening in his chest. Yet thankfully one of his rescuers pushed it into his arms and his fingers tightened around the ancient gnarled wood like a lifeline, though far less frost than usual danced across its surface as his touch.

"Here," one of the people said, helping him up into a wooden cart and draping a blanket over his shoulders. "You're cold. We've got a few hours ride ahead."

Jack almost laughed but he couldn't dredge it up. A light breeze brushed past them and he immediately closed his eyes, relieved that the Wind had found him already. The winter child shifted the blanket so it came up over his head like a second hood and then wrapped it close around his body, though it was nothing to do with the want for warmth. He curled up on the floor of the cart, arms wrapped tightly around the hooked staff, and slept.

---

By the time they shook him awake (accompanied by a brief exclamation on his chilled body temperature) Jack felt a lot better and when he gripped his staff again before jumping down out of the cart, he was glad that it frosted over from hook to tip like it always had. He sat on the edge of a water fountain while they explained things to him, his expression alternating between stunned, suspicious and plain disbelief -- which for a Spirit who'd recently gone through what he had, that was really saying something.

"Wait, wait, just stop for a moment," Jack finally interrupted them, hopping to his feet and walking along the edge of the fountain's stone basin. "Look, it sounds like you've got a great thing going on here, but I'm not interested. I've really got to get back, you know... seasons to change, blizzards to conjure? Best of luck with the whole Emperor thing though. Wind!" he called, feeling it buffet around him in anticipation to carry him off.

Then the kedan told Jack that he couldn't go home.

wips, etc

The spirit community was not an optimal place to keep secrets, even if the event in question had not been rife with repercussions felt around the globe. Most of them were old, many felt under appreciated for their work and almost all of them liked to gossip. It wasn't really a fault of the people they were, or had been... being a spirit was often a lonely calling, and talking (occasionally jibing) at others was a way to pass the time that didn't require any of the usual rules of engagement that were sometimes necessary when they clashed.

The northern weather spirit Asiaq, who brought the winter rains before Spring really took hold, patiently listened to the Harvest spirit Marzyana as the latter complained at length about the newly appointed Guardian, Jack Frost. "Honestly," she scoffed, tossing the autumn-painted vines woven into her hair. "He's such a child! He cheated during our bet back in '31."

Asiaq merely smiled serenely and pretended to brush the soft hide and fur-lined dress she wore, because it was common knowledge that Marzyana had been the one making the wager under false pretenses and even two hundred years later, she still thought that announcing her innocence in the matter was taken at face value. The pair of them sat on a stone outcropping overlooking the highlands, where the fields behind them were pregnant with squash and gourds, guided under the autumn mistress' hand. Asiaq's patience was rewarded when Marzyana huffed out a Slavic swear and crossed her arms before muttering, "I suppose he'll still want credit though, for playing such a part in defeating Pitch."

"I'm certain it was more of a collective effort than you're giving the Guardians credit for," Asiaq smiled, knowing that the tale would need to be teased out of her fellow spirit like a piece of stubborn thread into a needle. "But has anyone heard from Pitch Black since then?"

Marzyana sniffed haughtily, waving one dismissive hand towards the horizon as though to encompass the rest of the world. "Gone in the daylight like the bad dreams he brought," she pronounced. "Can you believe that some spirits actually had the nerve to say they wished he'd won!"

"That would have been unfortunate for everyone," the rain mother said sagely. "Who said...?"

"Kalfou, that little czart," Marzyana frowned. The sharp-eyed Vodoun master of bad luck and ill fortunes would have had the temerity to say such things without fear of retribution, for the spirits were no less susceptible to his tricks than humans were. Dealing with him was to play with a lit fuse on a powder keg. "You know, they say that he's interested in courting that lan--"

"Marzyana," Asiaq interrupted gently with another kindly smile to try and keep the conversation on track while inside, she was sighing. "The Boogeyman. If any trace of him remained, who would know about it?"

"Discounting the Moon and the Sandman?" Both of Marzyana's eyebrows raised, for those two animosities were as much legend as the tales themselves, though their origins were muddled. "Mother Goose, perhaps. They're the most invested in keeping him from ever returning. And it's only been six months, my face would still be burning in shame after a trouncing like that!" Then her eyes grew shrewd, sharply so on her youthful face. "But if I had to bet my last buttercup seeds? If Pitch Black hasn't crawled into a hole somewhere to expire, he'll be trading stories with that old warhorse in some bayou."

Asiaq nodded to herself, then rose to her feet and have her hide dress a perfunctory straighten before bending to press a traditional kiss to the younger spirit's head. "Thank you for indulging me," she said. "Plentiful bounties to you, Marzyana."

If the Harvest spirit thought the departure was abrupt, the offered blessing smoothed it over immediately and though she tossed a prideful, "I always make them so!" it was clear by the pleased flush of her cheeks that she had appreciated it. Asiaq summoned up a raincloud and settled onto it, waving goodbye as she headed back north.

Edited 2013-02-08 04:14 (UTC)

Since I keep referencing them.

to be added

The May Queen - Spirit of Summer

Nickly Thize - Spirit of Autumn

Baba Marta - Spirit of Spring

Edited 2013-09-25 03:38 (UTC)

to be added

From here:

"Yeah, that's Pesce's thing. Little Italian guy, he wears the... you know, those hats? The ones like the gondoliers wear."

wiki info + name origin

Edited 2014-02-15 17:02 (UTC)

❄ Writings & Headcanon ❄

HEADCANON SNIPPETS

→ memories

Spirit of Winter + Memories

Jack's Physiology

→ Winter / Staff

→ Titles

Arrival in Tu Vishan

FIC STUFF

Re: FIC STUFF

OTHER SPIRITS

Samuel E. Haine / "Samhain"

Jacqueline / The Lantern Girl / Jack-o'-Lantern

Marzyana / Spirit of the Harvest

Kalfou / Bad Luck

Hanasaka Jiisan / "Jiijii"

The Seasonal Spirits

Johnny Appleseed

Pesce / April Fool