Jack Frost

Life has been good since they beat Pitch. Not everything has changed -- most people still don't see Jack, and most of the time, it turns out, the Guardians go their separate ways and do their own things. His annual migration to the southern hemisphere has put a little bit of a damper on his fun (he can only stay so long in Burgess after Easter before spring turns to summer and chases him away), but there are enough places he can go down south that'll take a real snowstorm to keep him busy. He'll be back up north soon enough. He always comes home sooner or later, and now he has more reason than ever to look forward to his return to Burgess in the fall. In the meantime knowing that at any time he can just go talk to one of the other guardians -- to his friends -- staves off the loneliness. Not that he does, of course. He's not needy. Give it a few years, too, and it won't be just the kids in Burgess who know about him. That's still a little hard for him to believe, but maybe Bunny's whole hope thing is rubbing off on him.

Today he's in Queenstown, having decided that New Zealand is going to have a great year for skiing. It's early in the season yet, but the tourists are starting to trickle in and there are kids happy to be distracted from lessons for snowball fights, not to mention first time snowboarders ready to fall on their butts the moment Jack puts a snowy speedbump in their way. Sometimes, though, it's fun to just race someone down the mountain. That's what he's up to now, bare feet alternately sprinting and sliding through the loose powder of a black-rated slope in the wake of a young skier as Jack whoops with exhilaration. He catches air for a moment but doesn't let the wind pick him up, aiming instead to land right on the heels of the young woman, wanting to make it a fair race even if she has no idea she's got competition.

She carves sharply right and Jack sees the dropoff ahead too late. He shouts and digs in his heels, skidding through the snow, but there's no stopping and there's no making the turn. Jack is launched out into the open air with a startled yelp, but this time he lets the wind catch him, tumbling out of control for only a moment before righting himself. He turns to trace the progress of the skier, laughing and panting from exertion. "You win!" he calls after her, laughing again. To himself he adds jokingly, "Cheater."

Rapidly losing interest in resuming the race, he lets himself drop into a dive in parallel to the mountain's slope. It's time to go see what's happening on the bunny slope, maybe terrify some beginners spice up a few lessons. He zips past his oblivious playmate as she continues her run, his mind already elsewhere.

The only warning he gets is a brief gust of unseasonable warmth in his face. One moment he's skimming over snow and rocks; the next moment he's among trees decked in orange and gold, buffeted by the sudden change in air temperature and pressure. He yells again, this time in actual panic, and narrowly avoids slamming face-first into the leaf-strewn ground. Instead he goes tumbling through the undergrowth, crashing through brush and fallen autumn leaves until he fetches up against the base of a tree with a pained grunt.

He doesn't stay down long, but the spring is gone from his step as he clambers to his feet. "This is not okay," he informs the world in general as he trudges back to fetch his staff from where he dropped it along the way. Once it's in hand he jumps into the branches of a nearby tree, hopping from branch to branch until he breaks through the canopy and can see --

"New York? Alright, now this is just getting weird."

The Player
Name/Nickname: Kathryn
Age: born 1987
Pronouns: She/Her
Contact: PM here, thspoofmaster on AIM, etc
Experience: Allllll the XP
Currently Played Characters: Rashad Durant, Asmodia Antarion, Peter Vincent, and Yuri Kostoglodov

The Character
DW account: spiritofwinter
Name: Jack Frost
Alias: Morozko, Jokul Frosti....
Age/Birthdate: 317 years old; born 1695 (stuck at the age of 17)
Species: Formerly human, now the embodiment of winter
Gender: Male
Canon: Rise of the Guardians (film canon only)
Canon point: End of the film (assuming it takes place in 2012)
Played By: n/a, but his voice is Chris Pine, if that helps

Icon:


Abilities:
It's unclear exactly what Jack is in a truly physical (or metaphysical) sense. He's a corporeal being in the sense that he's able to interact with the world around him, but interacting with people is another story entirely. Only people who believe in Jack are able to see, touch, and otherwise perceive and interact with him; anyone who doesn't believe in him can literally walk right through him without ever knowing he's there. Jack can affect people who don't believe in him indirectly, such as by making them slip on ice that wasn't there a moment ago or hitting them with a snowball that seems to come from nowhere, but there will always be some plausible natural explanation for these occurrences. He's also able to cause a person to see the fun in their current situation by, say, lobbing a magic-infused snowball at the back of their head.

Being the embodiment of winter, Jack is able to stir up snow storms and create ice and frost (his signature being the fern-like frost patterns one finds on windows and the like). While he's technically not capable of flying under his own power, he possesses the ability to command the wind and to ride it, and has had enough practice to do so seemingly without effort. He's incredibly light on his feet even when he's on the ground, and habitually does things like walk on power lines and perch on top of his upright staff.

In order to use most of his powers, including flight, Jack requires the use of his staff. The staff (a branch longer than Jack is tall and shaped vaguely like a shepherd's crook) is part of Jack's being and does not work for anyone else, but without it physically in hand he will have only limited powers over the cold and will lose his powers of flight.

Appearance:
Jack appears as a twig-like teenage boy with white hair, blue eyes, and incredibly pale skin. He's cold to the touch, and whatever garment he wears develops traces of frost that never melt or evaporate away. Though he swapped out the top half of his garment for a modern hoodie somewhere along the way, Jack has never bothered to obtain a pair of shoes, and goes everywhere barefoot. He has a surprisingly deep voice for his apparent age (thank you, Chris Pine). As mentioned elsewhere, he's very light on his feet and does not constrain himself to simply walking along on the ground, preferring to walk along impossibly narrow surfaces, run along tops of buildings, and just plain fly. He carries his staff with him everywhere he goes.

Personality:
Fun is at the core of Jack's being. Within moments of his frightening awakening to a new existence, with no memory of who or what he was, Jack reacted to the initial discovery of his powers by playing with them. Despite three centuries of loneliness he never lost that impulse; while Jack is certainly prone to moments of angst, his go-to solution for life's problems is to make a game out of everything. Oftentimes that means drawing others in to play with him, even if unknowingly, but other times Jack's sense of fun can be selfish and even a little cruel (he thinks it's funny to freeze people's tongues to drinking fountains, for instance). Going unseen has long meant making his own fun; Jack was already a practical joker when he was a human child and playing tricks on people is one of the few ways he can get some kind of reaction out of them. He can be fiercely jealous when what little attention he's able to draw to himself is taken away again.

Jack's refusal to take anything seriously led the few other beings who could actually see him (such as the Easter Bunny and other holiday spirits) to believe there was little more to him than a selfish prankster. Jack more or less cultivated that image, preferring to respond to criticism with sarcasm rather than admit to his profound loneliness. Though Jack has a natural affinity for children (and seems to pick favorites to look after), long isolation has left him unused to actual social interaction of any kind. He's accustomed to talking out loud to the people around him without receiving any response, and does not have much of a filter as a result -- he shows his emotions readily. His time alone has also given him far too much time to dwell on the question (unanswerable until recently) of who he is and what purpose he could have for existing, which understandably became an obsession for him.

Since learning about his past life and the manner in which he died, and since officially becoming a Guardian, Jack has become less selfish, though he will likely always remain a prankster. He initially struggled to balance the occasional need to take things seriously against his natural tendency to not do that thing ever; he is becoming better at seeing how to use fun to improve the lives of others rather than merely for his own immediate gratification. Considering the fact that he is an eternal teenager, however, Jack's not likely to ever have an entirely mature mindset or to entirely gain control over his emotions.

History [SPOILERS BEGIN IN THE FIRST SENTENCE]:
( Here be spoilers )

Writing Sample:
Life has been good since they beat Pitch. Not everything has changed -- most people still don't see Jack, and most of the time, it turns out, the Guardians go their separate ways and do their own things. His annual migration to the southern hemisphere has put a little bit of a damper on his fun (he can only stay so long in Burgess after Easter before spring turns to summer and chases him away), but there are enough places he can go down south that'll take a real snowstorm to keep him busy. He'll be back up north soon enough. He always comes home sooner or later, and now he has more reason than ever to look forward to his return to Burgess in the fall. In the meantime knowing that at any time he can just go talk to one of the other guardians -- to his friends -- staves off the loneliness. Not that he does, of course. He's not needy. Give it a few years, too, and it won't be just the kids in Burgess who know about him. That's still a little hard for him to believe, but maybe Bunny's whole hope thing is rubbing off on him.

Today he's in Queenstown, having decided that New Zealand is going to have a great year for skiing. It's early in the season yet, but the tourists are starting to trickle in and there are kids happy to be distracted from lessons for snowball fights, not to mention first time snowboarders ready to fall on their butts the moment Jack puts a snowy speedbump in their way. Sometimes, though, it's fun to just race someone down the mountain. That's what he's up to now, bare feet alternately sprinting and sliding through the loose powder of a black-rated slope in the wake of a young skier as Jack whoops with exhilaration. He catches air for a moment but doesn't let the wind pick him up, aiming instead to land right on the heels of the young woman, wanting to make it a fair race even if she has no idea she's got competition.

She carves sharply right and Jack sees the dropoff ahead too late. He shouts and digs in his heels, skidding through the snow, but there's no stopping and there's no making the turn. Jack is launched out into the open air with a startled yelp, but this time he lets the wind catch him, tumbling out of control for only a moment before righting himself. He turns to trace the progress of the skier, laughing and panting from exertion. "You win!" he calls after her, laughing again. To himself he adds jokingly, "Cheater."

Rapidly losing interest in resuming the race, he lets himself drop into a dive in parallel to the mountain's slope. It's time to go see what's happening on the bunny slope, maybe terrify some beginners spice up a few lessons. He zips past his oblivious playmate as she continues her run, his mind already elsewhere.

The only warning he gets is a brief gust of unseasonable warmth in his face. One moment he's skimming over snow and rocks; the next moment he's among trees decked in orange and gold, buffeted by the sudden change in air temperature and pressure. He yells again, this time in actual panic, and narrowly avoids slamming face-first into the leaf-strewn ground. Instead he goes tumbling through the undergrowth, crashing through brush and fallen autumn leaves until he fetches up against the base of a tree with a pained grunt.

He doesn't stay down long, but the spring is gone from his step as he clambers to his feet. "This is not okay," he informs the world in general as he trudges back to fetch his staff from where he dropped it along the way. Once it's in hand he jumps into the branches of a nearby tree, hopping from branch to branch until he breaks through the canopy and can see --

"New York? Alright, now this is just getting weird."


The Game
How did you find out about Big Applesauce?
Game co-creator, yo.

What interests you about the game, and your character's place in it?
I'm changing up my character lineup since a couple of my characters are feeling a bit played-out, and Jack is the kind of active character with whom one can tag out like crazy. I'm interested to see which characters will be chosen by their players to be able to see Jack from the start, and I'm looking forward to slowly building his social connections as various characters tell one another about him. He'll have an awkward time adjusting to having an actual network of friends (though he's at least got a little experience with that following the events of the movie), and I look forward to him figuring out how that whole thing works.

Anything else?

Enjoy those feels, Carrie. Also, I'll be revamping his icon set soon.