Does anyone remember Ao Guang? Or the other three Dragon Kings? Or did anyone watch Ne Zha 2025?
You may then know of the Four Dragon Kings of Ancient China (四海龙王).
Historically all four of them are male- some recent adaptations will show one (or more) of them as female just for fun. China, even in ancient times, did not have four seas around it- the four dragon kings each correspond to a body of water in the cardinal directions.
Ao Guang
The big guy, Ao Guang, the Dragon King of the East, does have a “sea”: the East China Sea.
A carving of Ne Zha fighting Ao Guang (we all remember how that went, right?)
We know and love Ao Guang since he’s the one who got Ne Zha killed (after both he and his son got their asses beat) and is also the guy who gave Sun Wukong his mythical weapon, the Ruyi Jingu Staff (maybe will make a post on mythological weapons at some point).
His third son, Ao Bing, is famous for getting his tendons plucked out by Ne Zha.
Subtitles: I'll pull your tendons out, see if you can still hurt anyone after this! (sorry for Ne Zha being kind of naked, he's a kid who was just taking a bath)
Ao Guang is the biggest, most powerful Dragon King.
In the Fengshen Yanyi (Investiture of the Gods post here), he’s a big dickhead who forces people to give him offerings or he’ll bring them drought and disaster. He’s very powerful, and is the leader of the Four Dragon Kings.
He’s also the sexy dragon dilf dad in Ne Zha 2.
I just cannot get over this character design, oh my goodness.
Ao Run
Ao Run, pronounced Ow Rwen (also sometimes called Ao Ji) is the Dragon King of the West.
He does not have a “sea”: in fact, he rules over the biggest lake in China, Qinghai Lake. It’s big enough that we consider it a sea, I guess. It used to be considered an actual sea (like, connected out to the open ocean) probably because it’s huge, but it was probably never actually a sea.
Lake Qinghai has shrunk a lot. You can tell in this picture: right now it’s about the size of Trinidad.
See all that dry land? Used to be lake.
It’s very blue, which is why it’s called Qinghai 青海 (blue sea). Qing generally refers to a bright blue-teal shade.
Ao Run’s son, Ao Lie, is the dragon that is sentenced to death by the Jade Emperor for setting fire to Ao Run’s palace accidentally and destroying a whole bunch of stuff. In the end, Guanyin Pusa spares Ao Lie’s life and sends him on the Journey to the West with Wukong, Tangsen, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing. You may recall that Tangsen had a big fancy white horse- that’s Ao Lie!
You may notice in this picture everyone else's names are labeled except for the horse. It's kind of sad- he's a little irrelevant.
A huge downgrade, from being a fancy dragon prince to a horse, but you can’t say he didn’t deserve it.
He's also featured in Fei Ren Zai (a very funny comic/animation series about mythical figures in modern-day also featuring Ne Zha, Wukong and Erlang Shen).
You may remember Ao Run from Ne Zha 2, 2025 as the sexy dragon lady with the killer sky-splitting manicure.
Sorry, she did things to me when I first saw her appear in her human form.
Ao Shun
Ao Shun, pronounced Ow Shwen, is the Dragon King of the North.
He also does not have a “sea”, like Ao Run. His patron body of water is what’s now known as Lake Baikal (Wikipedia better not fail me, I actually had no idea where the North China Sea was supposed to be).
Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world, it’s right up there in the south part of Siberia. North enough for you?
Back when the Han dynasty was fighting the Xiongnu (the Huns in Disney’s Mulan, basically), they beat the Xiongnu in a battle here. They saw this huge-ass lake, and decided they’d refer to it as the North China Sea. Lake Baikal is larger than Belgium. A little scary, no?
In Ne Zha 2, he was the freaky purple-green guy with blades all over his body. You may remember him fighting Ao Bing in a very exciting battle sequence. I’m not aware of any myths where he’s of any significance.
A hard pass. Sorry, second uncle. Your big brother and younger sister are much hotter.
Ao Qin
Ao Qin, pronounced Ow Chin (敖钦) is the Dragon King of the South.
The South China Sea of recent geopolitical tension fame is in fact a sea. Other than Ao Guang, he’s the only one with an actual sea. There’s not much to say about Ao Qin, he’s not that relevant.
If you remember him from Ne Zha 2, he’s the big red one who’s dumb as bricks..
The Four Dragon Kings are really not that important aside from Ao Guang and Ao Run. Ao Guang is a key mythological figure- he appears in many myths, and is a semi-major character in Journey to the West.
Ao Run contributes mainly by giving Tangsen a horse in the form of his son. Poor Ao Lie.
In the 1979 Ne Zha Conquers the Sea, they are all seen briefly scheming with Ao Guang to go Karen-style and ask for the manager (Jade Emperor).
They're all siblings (since they have the same last name, Ao), with Ao Guang being the oldest brother. The order of ages past that is a little harder to figure out- from what I know, their ages are
Ao Guang
Ao Shun
Ao Qin
Ao Run
I actually don't know where Ao Run is in the ranking, I just know Ao Qin is younger than Ao Shun. As such, Ao Run could be either the youngest, the second youngest or the third youngest.
I thought I’d just combine part 2 and 3 and just do one final post.
Above is a drawing from the same versions as last post’s iterations. At one point the Snow Queen had a full fur coat made out of live white ermines!
Kristoff was also a different character back then from the final version of the film. Following are some pose-tests for the earlier character:
Also at one point, Elsa had a whole army of snowmen guards!
Now we are getting closer to the mountain man Kristoff from the final film.
Figuring out the character relationships is not only done in story, but also in visual development as well, as they are tasked with figuring out what that dynamic looks like visually:
And that concludes my little handful of selections from the work I have done on Frozen.
It’s always fun for me to revisit the work I had done while I was at Disney, as it is like looking at a yearbook from a long time ago. You looked different, you acted differently, and were altogether a different person. How cool that art also has, in a unique way, that finger print of who you were as a person in the past. Hope you enjoyed my little trip down memory lane. Now on to the future!
The King Come Over and his bride Ygritte Firekissed
art by : @shripscapi
Look at my King dawg we’re definitely getting through the Wall!!!
For the last month and a half, I have been working closely with Liesl to design concepts for Jon as King Beyond the Wall and Ygritte as his Queen. Personally, I’m not invested at all in Jon becoming King of the Seven Kingdoms despite him being my favorite character. He’s not very connected with the South and I don’t feel that it’s his birth right or anything, even being the son of Rhaegar. I am significantly more interested in him becoming King in the North, but my interest in Freefolk culture has led me to be far more invested in the idea of him rejecting Southron society as a whole and becoming King Beyond the Wall (this isn’t necessarily mutually exclusive to being King in the North later on).
The motivation for Jon becoming King as opposed to Mance stems from a theory that has been around since AGOT has come out: that the Others will only treat with/negotiate with a Stark. In the prologue of AGOT, when the Others are speaking among themselves before killing the Watchmen, what if they were confirming with each other that Waymar Royce was not a Stark and that they could go ahead and kill him? All in all, it doesn’t really matter if this is true, but rather that this is a plausible rumor that could easily have been passed down among the Freefolk which could lead Mance to conclude that Jon as a leader would give the Freefolk the best chance of survival. It’s not very hard, at least in my opinion, to imagine an AU like this, since survival is the most important thing to the Freefolk during the events of ASOIAF. But is it plausible that under these circumstances that Jon would abandon his Night’s Watch vows? I think so if he can be led to believe that only Stark blood could defeat the Others, but that is not the only factor. Jon Snow is insecure about his bastard status, plain and simple. He’s always lived in the shadow of his Robb, though he loved him. He’s wanted Winterfell, though he didn’t want to nor had any intention to take it from Robb. But he’s known since he was a small boy that he could never Winterfell and that would never inherit anything because he was a bastard. Jon also has thoughts, at least in passing, that Ned loved Robb more than him. He perceives Ned as having been more proud of Robb, of looking at him differently than himself. He’s seemingly always believed this, but there is a sort of confirmation of Jon’s feelings when Ned allows him to join the Night’s Watch without much preparation on what the Watch is actually like. Fully me making assumptions here, not something Jon has explicitly thought, but it’s unlikely that Ned would have sent Bran off at 14 to the Watch without much warning of what it was like, had Bran not become paralyzed. While we never get this exact thought process from Jon, in my opinion it fits into his psychology and insecurity. All this to say, if Jon is offered to be a figurehead, King, a title equal to his brother, but without taking anything away from the Starks or from Robb, that would almost certainly scratch that itch in him. It would be of his own merit, and there would be people behind him that don’t care that he’s a bastard, don’t see him as less than, and are willing to accept him for who he is. Not to mention that it also lets him feel like a hero and as if he is saving something far more precious than himself. And it probably doesn’t hurt that he would be able to remain with Ygritte as well.
We know from the descriptions of Mance and Dalla, as well as from being told directly by the former, that the King and his wife dress like all the other Freefolk, in thick furs. While the Jon and Ygritte arts from above are not particularly ostentatious by Southron standards, they are in obvious contrast to how Mance and Dalla are dressed. My idea was that Jon, having lived South of the Wall in a Lord’s keep all of his life, brought his own ideas to the Freefolk and added a distinction between a King and all other men. Nothing like in King’s Landing, all changes are inspired by his experience at Winterfell. I tried to think of what was achievable by the Freefolk, that would be difficult enough that it can’t be easily replicated for everyone else, but also keeping in mind of what could be done relatively quickly seeing as the Freefolk are focused on migrating South and saving themselves from the Others. The cultures I took inspiration for the clothing from are the Byzantines, Russians, Incans, Aztecs, and Mongolians. I wanted more “open” and flowy clothing, as opposed to more closed off and excessively modest clothing of 1300-1500s Europe that most of Westeros is based off of. Ygritte is still wearing furs, but they are dyed and there is weirwood embroidery in symbolism of the Old Gods and flame embroidery to symbolize her being kissed by fire. Her jewelry are simply clay beads that have been powdered blue. I didn’t want to give her any jewels as I felt it would be too difficult for the Freefolk to cut them directly and just overall would be against the spirit of the Freefolk. However, getting the blue on the clay like that still would be expensive and take a lot of time. I tried to keep the main color scheme surrounding gray as obviously that’s House Stark’s color. Jon’s clothes are similarly nice, with my main concern being him looking intimidating. I want the furs around his shoulders to be black because I wanted to call back to his time in the Night’s Watch without him keeping his psychical cloak, because I’m sure the Freefolk would not want him to do that. The furs are massive and make his shoulders look far larger, in an effort to make him look more intimidating, especially on a battlefield or in negotiations. He also has weirwood embroidery and his sigil is on the front of his outfit (my original idea was for him to have a flag with his heraldry on it, in which case the sigil would have looked far different, with a full length direwolf). There’s a white wolf on one side and either a crow or eagle on the other side (up for interpretation, both are relevant to Jon and one is one of the animals that can be used a symbol of the Freefolk) and the flame in the middle to represent Ygritte, but also defeating the Others as fire is the way Jon originally tried combating them as a steward at the Wall. The sigil is more than about Jon, after all, as it’s for the entirety of House Whitewolf, the House he founds. I thought the name fit far more in to Freefolk culture than something like Whitestark or something along those lines. Ygritte was supposed to have sewn on the sigil herself, and was very adamant about it, and that is meant to be why the thread is uneven and more visible than it ought to be. She’s not very good at the craft!
As I indicated before, crowns are not something common to Freefolk. That would be something else Jon would implement. Ygritte’s crown is very much like a hat, very casual. The beads are nice but obtaining them wouldn’t be unheard of, and holly most likely would not be particularly hard to come by. The reason I gave her a crown with holly is that during Christmas in the Tudor period and even before during pagan celebrations, people would go out into the woods and find holly and ivy to decorate their houses with. Holly was a symbol of masculine energy and ivy feminine energy. If you found more holly, it was meant to indicate that the man would rule the household for the year, and if you found more ivy then the woman would rule the household in the coming year (this was a way to “tell the future” not a rule lol). I liked the holly better for Ygritte so I’m just saying the Freefolk had the opposite belief. Jon’s crown is made of weirwood, which was important to me as I feel like his connection the Old Gods is also important as it is something that him and Freefolk both use to guide them. It ties them together. That being said, a weirwood crown is often used for Bran so I did not want to use a design that was too similar to the one used for him. Bran’s weirwood crown usually is made of weirwood branches, however, and not weirwood bark or logs, so I feel like it’s different enough. The frozen weirwood sap, as far as I know, is also unique to this design. There’s also some ivy to parallel with Ygritte’s holly.
The remaining bits and bobs I wanted to explain are the blue rose and then the face paint. The blue rose is obviously something associated with Lyanna Stark, who is widely accepted to be the mother of Jon Snow. I originally wanted to give him a rose somewhere, whether he was holding it or it was in his embroidery, but I forgot to ask during sketching, and then it was too late. But Ygritte holding the blue rose isn’t just about Lyanna. It’s also about Bael the Bard, a most likely fictitious person (or at least, the tale is fictitious, though I personally choose to believe it’s real) that went South of the Wall posing as a bard. He impressed the Lord of Winterfell so much that he granted Bael anything he wished; all Bael asked for was the most beautiful flower in Winterfell. This was granted for him, but the next morning he had stolen the Lord of Winterfell’s only child, a girl, and had left the flower in her bed in her place. He hid in the crypt with her for a year and they had a son together. Bael eventually went back North of the Wall and eventually Winterfell, having no other heir, passed to Bael’s child. Under this story, Jon is descended from Ygritte’s idol (maybe idol is stretching it, but she really likes him), Bael the Bard. Not only him, but all the Freefolk including Ygritte, according to her story. Following the story’s premise, Jon also poses as Bael and Ygritte as Winterfell’s daughter, with Jon joining her home under false pretenses and “stealing her”, as she calls it. So the blue rose has significance regarding both the Starks and the Freefolk. The face paint is inspired by tattooing done by cultures indigenous to North America. Indigenous Americans are not the only groups to use facial tattooing, the Vikings were famous for it as well, but Viking facial tattooing had more patterns based on shapes rather than lines and dots. I didn’t like the shapes so much, but the chin tattoo was one was that observed in all sorts of different cultures. Usually the chin tattoos with the line were on women in indigenous America, but I found some on men in other outside cultures. The dots I didn’t see outside of Native American culture and the claw marks on Jon’s cheeks I found mainly among Vikings. Because these all are an amalgamation of different cultures, we did them as face paint instead of tattoos because it seemed disrespectful otherwise. Not enough research went into it to be a proper representation of any one culture so paint was a better bet than a permanent body modification that is sacred to a number of cultures. The only thing that was meant to be a tattoo was the chin tattoo, which like I said, actually is from an amalgamation of cultures. Among the Freefolk (in this AU), dots on the cheeks are widespread, one of cultural mainstays of their people, and are generally a sign of peace, whereas the claws are meant to look intimidating and is applied to look like blood (Ygritte applies it for Jon) and is specifically used for military leaders. I really wanted to drive home the point that the goal with Jon’s whole look is to look fearsome.
I have so much more to say about Jon as King Beyond the Wall, how he negotiates with the Wall, the different rules he sets in place, how he sets up being King as a hereditary title once his daughter Bael is born, etc etc, but then I’d be here all day and approximately one person total read through all this. Oops! Ask in my inbox if you have any questions because I would love love love to answer them. All in all, shripscapi (Liesl) is so talented and she worked incredibly hard for me. She was extremely accommodating and changed as much stuff as I wanted. She never complained about the million times I decided something was not quite right and she sent me so many updates. I would recommend working with her to just about anybody. It was very cool what she was able to achieve and I got it in time for the holidays so I can enjoy my winter themed pfp on twt. So thank you from the bottom of my heart Liesl, and I hope everyone showers her with compliments because she deserves it. I also hope that people that don’t enjoy Ygritte very much can still appreciate the art and the concept of Jon as King Beyond the Wall. Hopefully I’ve gotten across how much I love and care for these characters to a chronically online degree and nobody accuses me of mischaracterizing them because that would make me!!!! very sad!!!
Some people came in my inbox and asked, so I feel there’s enough interest for a follow up.
House Whitewolf Headcanons
- Touched briefly on this before, but my main points of reference for the culture of the House longterm are the Inuit/Yup'ik, Lowland Scots, Byzantine, and Russian cultures. Especially the Inuit/Yup'ik. Other cultures i took into consideration on a few things are Polish, Scandinavian, Armenian, Incan, Aztec, and Mongolian cultures, but my inspirations there were few and far between.
- Jon and Ygritte have 7 children: Bael, Robb, Arya, Tormund, Eddard, Longspear, and Brandon. Guess which parent named which kid. Bael was born as the Freefolk were marching on the Wall to come South, and she’s three years older than Robb as Jon didn’t feel he could prioritize more kids during the struggled with the Others, and the rest came one after the other basically within the year of each other.
- The main changes Jon sets up from traditional Freefolk culture are 1. the King and his wife wear a crown and slightly nicer fashion, though nothing is imported from the South and the materials for the crowns come from wood and plants, clay, and occasionally metal, never jewels. He maintains the King title instead of just being called “Jon”, which is different than the way Mance did things. 2. After Bael was born, monarchy among the Freefolk became hereditary and Jon acknowledged her, at the time, as being his heir (male or female, the title is King). This would have before been wildly unpopular among the Freefolk before, but because the Others had not been defeated yet and they would only negotiate with someone with Stark blood, the Freefolk were scared enough not to give much opposition to this. 3. Generally, huts stayed the same among all the Freefolk, not much innovation with architecture, except that forts that sprung up used the same techniques and materials as Winterfell. No castle was built for Jon and Ygritte, but when they settled after being nomadic with the battles going on, their hut was built more impressively, similar to the homes with the thatched roofs in England during the Norman Invasion (except bigger). These changes were mostly made due to Jon’s ego being influenced by his time growing up in the South and his ideals of what a Lord should be like, though it was nothing excessive and for the most part, the Freefolk remained unchanged. Their traditions, for example “stealing women” as well as their refusal to marry cousins together, remained unchanged.
- Ygritte no longer fights in battles which agitates her greatly, but as Bael is born and the title of King is hereditary, Jon finds it important that Ygritte stays alive to be regent to the infant, to keep from people with self serving interests taking advantage of the child. Ygritte is fiercely protective, so she settles in to this, although she still rides to battle on a horse to keep people in order and is physically there, although she does not fight. The inspiration for her behavior her is Isabella of Castile. She still uses her bow to hunt and to protect her children as need be, and relishes in the use of it.
- When Jon marches on the Wall with the Freefolk, he is met with Alliser Thorne, the new Lord Commander, to make negotiations. Alliser is unhappy to make negotiations at all, but he is pragmatic, knowing about the threat of the Others. His offer is for Jon to call of his men and they will let the wildling men end their marriages and fight for the Wall, and that the women can settle in territory owned by the Night’s Watch until the Others are defeated in order to prevent more enemies for the Night’s Watch. Ygritte would be allowed South, her and Jon’s marriage dissolved as unlawful as Jon broke his vows, their child declared a bastard; all this in exchange for Jon’s head on charges of treason. Jon and Alliser argue on the lawfulness of the marriage for a while, but ultimately it doesn’t matter because the Freefolk would not agree to Alliser’s terms regardless and there’s too many of them under Jon’s command to fight. Eventually they get South of the Wall and march to Winterfell, Bolton control has slipped as Theon has murdered Ramsay (still not sure on *how* they are allowed South of the Wall or the details of how Theon kills Ramsay). They stay in the area for a while and the titles of King Beyond the Wall and King in the North are combined until Rickon is eventually found.
- Ygritte and Jon both have two baby carriers, one for the front of their chest and one for their back. Jon enjoys using them, especially during hiking, but due to his duties, it’s usually Ygritte that has two kids on her at once. In accordance with Freefolk tradition, the children are always held up in this way (or tied to a tree while their parents work which was an actual tradition irl which was found all across the world), giving them very little time to walk. This tradition was because Freefolk toddlers wandered and got in trouble with animals too much.
- All of the kids went on their first hunting trip (as the hunter) for their fourth nameday to celebrate their safe transition into childhood. Mothers bring their daughters and fathers bring their sons. A feast is held for the royal children when they bring down their first animal.
- Face painting is a tradition to the Freefolk, and the children learn how to do it as a hobby. It’s mostly dots, but during special occasions they do other shapes as well. Only the King does the handprint on his face. The chin tattoo is done on the boy’s thirteenth birthday, the girls don’t get tattooed.
- Ygritte terrorizes everyone during her short stint at Winterfell
- The Freefolk eventually settle in the Gift, although there is too many of them and they infringe on Umber territory. The Umbers insist that they are the liege Lords of the Freefolk, but the Freefolk, already having leaders they look to, do not acknowledge them as such. The Umbers, already distrustful of the Freefolk and angry, as so many Freefolk have abducted their women in the past, do engage in many skirmishes with them. Mors Crowfood’s daughter is returned to him, but it does next to nothing to ease tensions. What eventually does calm things down is Bolton lands being awarded to the Umbers, which they are happy with, but this is only after significant losses.
- Over the generations, the Umbers integrate more into Freefolk culture than the other way around
- The main hobbies of the children include: hunting with a bow and arrow, sparring, ice fishing, falconing/hawking, feeding and playing with the large group of reindeer Ygritte and Jon keep and breed, horseback riding, ice skating, keeping with their small herb garden (they mostly still hunt and gather but they like playing apothecary with the herbs), sitting in dad’s council meeting, traditional Freefolk dance, making masks, learning to face paint, hiking, playing handball, and playing “War of the Ninepenny Kings”
- All of Jon’s kids, and subsequent generations, can read but it takes around three generations for there to be a member of House Whitewolf who would willingly pick up a book or write more than their name without throwing a tantrum, and they are the bane of the maesters’ existence. Many of them are fascinated by stamps, though.
- The kids dress mainly in furs like every other child, the fathers taking pride in wrapping the babes in animals furs they slayed themselves, and as they get older, they begin to dress with beads and colored fabrics.
- A female direwolf was found beyond the Wall and so all of Jon’s kids have direwolves fathered by Ghost. Am unsure if I want to have them as wargs because I don’t want to take away from the Stark children being a special plot point, but ofc a lot of Freefolk can warg as well. But they basically treat them like their puppies and ride them into battle.
- Ygritte really doesn’t have a favorite child and Jon says he doesn’t either, but his daughter Arya is the only one who cares for dresses or porcelain dolls (all of the kids like playing parents with the corn husk dolls they have, but Arya is the only one that will actually lug a doll around and sleep with it and brush its hair etc etc) and it seems he derives more enjoyment than anything out of having clothes made from her and finding her treats
- Longspear, Jon and Ygritte’s son, refuses to keep his furs on as a child and runs around in the cold without it on. Jon and Ygritte aren’t very responsible parents and think he’s funny so aren’t firm enough, and he has to go to Winterfell multiple times to be treated for various illnesses. He also growls at people, which is irrelevant, but does not go without noting.
- Brandon, Jon and Ygritte’s son, *literally* believes he’s Brandon the Breaker reborn
- Once Jon dies and his son Robb becomes King, the unification of the Freefolk breaks down considerably, with many civil wars happening among them. This is when the rise of warrior women of House Whitewolf occurs, as Jon forbade it before, creating tensions between Jon and his eldest child Bael. Bael fights for Robb and she captures a leader of one of the rebellions, and this later becomes her husband.
-House Whitewolf becomes more isolated from the rest of the realm before they become integrated. It takes about five generations before any of them marry southroners.
The King Come Over and his bride Ygritte Firekissed
art by : @shripscapi
Look at my King dawg we’re definitely getting through the Wall!!!
For the last month and a half, I have been working closely with Liesl to design concepts for Jon as King Beyond the Wall and Ygritte as his Queen. Personally, I’m not invested at all in Jon becoming King of the Seven Kingdoms despite him being my favorite character. He’s not very connected with the South and I don’t feel that it’s his birth right or anything, even being the son of Rhaegar. I am significantly more interested in him becoming King in the North, but my interest in Freefolk culture has led me to be far more invested in the idea of him rejecting Southron society as a whole and becoming King Beyond the Wall (this isn’t necessarily mutually exclusive to being King in the North later on).
The motivation for Jon becoming King as opposed to Mance stems from a theory that has been around since AGOT has come out: that the Others will only treat with/negotiate with a Stark. In the prologue of AGOT, when the Others are speaking among themselves before killing the Watchmen, what if they were confirming with each other that Waymar Royce was not a Stark and that they could go ahead and kill him? All in all, it doesn’t really matter if this is true, but rather that this is a plausible rumor that could easily have been passed down among the Freefolk which could lead Mance to conclude that Jon as a leader would give the Freefolk the best chance of survival. It’s not very hard, at least in my opinion, to imagine an AU like this, since survival is the most important thing to the Freefolk during the events of ASOIAF. But is it plausible that under these circumstances that Jon would abandon his Night’s Watch vows? I think so if he can be led to believe that only Stark blood could defeat the Others, but that is not the only factor. Jon Snow is insecure about his bastard status, plain and simple. He’s always lived in the shadow of his Robb, though he loved him. He’s wanted Winterfell, though he didn’t want to nor had any intention to take it from Robb. But he’s known since he was a small boy that he could never Winterfell and that would never inherit anything because he was a bastard. Jon also has thoughts, at least in passing, that Ned loved Robb more than him. He perceives Ned as having been more proud of Robb, of looking at him differently than himself. He’s seemingly always believed this, but there is a sort of confirmation of Jon’s feelings when Ned allows him to join the Night’s Watch without much preparation on what the Watch is actually like. Fully me making assumptions here, not something Jon has explicitly thought, but it’s unlikely that Ned would have sent Bran off at 14 to the Watch without much warning of what it was like, had Bran not become paralyzed. While we never get this exact thought process from Jon, in my opinion it fits into his psychology and insecurity. All this to say, if Jon is offered to be a figurehead, King, a title equal to his brother, but without taking anything away from the Starks or from Robb, that would almost certainly scratch that itch in him. It would be of his own merit, and there would be people behind him that don’t care that he’s a bastard, don’t see him as less than, and are willing to accept him for who he is. Not to mention that it also lets him feel like a hero and as if he is saving something far more precious than himself. And it probably doesn’t hurt that he would be able to remain with Ygritte as well.
We know from the descriptions of Mance and Dalla, as well as from being told directly by the former, that the King and his wife dress like all the other Freefolk, in thick furs. While the Jon and Ygritte arts from above are not particularly ostentatious by Southron standards, they are in obvious contrast to how Mance and Dalla are dressed. My idea was that Jon, having lived South of the Wall in a Lord’s keep all of his life, brought his own ideas to the Freefolk and added a distinction between a King and all other men. Nothing like in King’s Landing, all changes are inspired by his experience at Winterfell. I tried to think of what was achievable by the Freefolk, that would be difficult enough that it can’t be easily replicated for everyone else, but also keeping in mind of what could be done relatively quickly seeing as the Freefolk are focused on migrating South and saving themselves from the Others. The cultures I took inspiration for the clothing from are the Byzantines, Russians, Incans, Aztecs, and Mongolians. I wanted more “open” and flowy clothing, as opposed to more closed off and excessively modest clothing of 1300-1500s Europe that most of Westeros is based off of. Ygritte is still wearing furs, but they are dyed and there is weirwood embroidery in symbolism of the Old Gods and flame embroidery to symbolize her being kissed by fire. Her jewelry are simply clay beads that have been powdered blue. I didn’t want to give her any jewels as I felt it would be too difficult for the Freefolk to cut them directly and just overall would be against the spirit of the Freefolk. However, getting the blue on the clay like that still would be expensive and take a lot of time. I tried to keep the main color scheme surrounding gray as obviously that’s House Stark’s color. Jon’s clothes are similarly nice, with my main concern being him looking intimidating. I want the furs around his shoulders to be black because I wanted to call back to his time in the Night’s Watch without him keeping his psychical cloak, because I’m sure the Freefolk would not want him to do that. The furs are massive and make his shoulders look far larger, in an effort to make him look more intimidating, especially on a battlefield or in negotiations. He also has weirwood embroidery and his sigil is on the front of his outfit (my original idea was for him to have a flag with his heraldry on it, in which case the sigil would have looked far different, with a full length direwolf). There’s a white wolf on one side and either a crow or eagle on the other side (up for interpretation, both are relevant to Jon and one is one of the animals that can be used a symbol of the Freefolk) and the flame in the middle to represent Ygritte, but also defeating the Others as fire is the way Jon originally tried combating them as a steward at the Wall. The sigil is more than about Jon, after all, as it’s for the entirety of House Whitewolf, the House he founds. I thought the name fit far more in to Freefolk culture than something like Whitestark or something along those lines. Ygritte was supposed to have sewn on the sigil herself, and was very adamant about it, and that is meant to be why the thread is uneven and more visible than it ought to be. She’s not very good at the craft!
As I indicated before, crowns are not something common to Freefolk. That would be something else Jon would implement. Ygritte’s crown is very much like a hat, very casual. The beads are nice but obtaining them wouldn’t be unheard of, and holly most likely would not be particularly hard to come by. The reason I gave her a crown with holly is that during Christmas in the Tudor period and even before during pagan celebrations, people would go out into the woods and find holly and ivy to decorate their houses with. Holly was a symbol of masculine energy and ivy feminine energy. If you found more holly, it was meant to indicate that the man would rule the household for the year, and if you found more ivy then the woman would rule the household in the coming year (this was a way to “tell the future” not a rule lol). I liked the holly better for Ygritte so I’m just saying the Freefolk had the opposite belief. Jon’s crown is made of weirwood, which was important to me as I feel like his connection the Old Gods is also important as it is something that him and Freefolk both use to guide them. It ties them together. That being said, a weirwood crown is often used for Bran so I did not want to use a design that was too similar to the one used for him. Bran’s weirwood crown usually is made of weirwood branches, however, and not weirwood bark or logs, so I feel like it’s different enough. The frozen weirwood sap, as far as I know, is also unique to this design. There’s also some ivy to parallel with Ygritte’s holly.
The remaining bits and bobs I wanted to explain are the blue rose and then the face paint. The blue rose is obviously something associated with Lyanna Stark, who is widely accepted to be the mother of Jon Snow. I originally wanted to give him a rose somewhere, whether he was holding it or it was in his embroidery, but I forgot to ask during sketching, and then it was too late. But Ygritte holding the blue rose isn’t just about Lyanna. It’s also about Bael the Bard, a most likely fictitious person (or at least, the tale is fictitious, though I personally choose to believe it’s real) that went South of the Wall posing as a bard. He impressed the Lord of Winterfell so much that he granted Bael anything he wished; all Bael asked for was the most beautiful flower in Winterfell. This was granted for him, but the next morning he had stolen the Lord of Winterfell’s only child, a girl, and had left the flower in her bed in her place. He hid in the crypt with her for a year and they had a son together. Bael eventually went back North of the Wall and eventually Winterfell, having no other heir, passed to Bael’s child. Under this story, Jon is descended from Ygritte’s idol (maybe idol is stretching it, but she really likes him), Bael the Bard. Not only him, but all the Freefolk including Ygritte, according to her story. Following the story’s premise, Jon also poses as Bael and Ygritte as Winterfell’s daughter, with Jon joining her home under false pretenses and “stealing her”, as she calls it. So the blue rose has significance regarding both the Starks and the Freefolk. The face paint is inspired by tattooing done by cultures indigenous to North America. Indigenous Americans are not the only groups to use facial tattooing, the Vikings were famous for it as well, but Viking facial tattooing had more patterns based on shapes rather than lines and dots. I didn’t like the shapes so much, but the chin tattoo was one was that observed in all sorts of different cultures. Usually the chin tattoos with the line were on women in indigenous America, but I found some on men in other outside cultures. The dots I didn’t see outside of Native American culture and the claw marks on Jon’s cheeks I found mainly among Vikings. Because these all are an amalgamation of different cultures, we did them as face paint instead of tattoos because it seemed disrespectful otherwise. Not enough research went into it to be a proper representation of any one culture so paint was a better bet than a permanent body modification that is sacred to a number of cultures. The only thing that was meant to be a tattoo was the chin tattoo, which like I said, actually is from an amalgamation of cultures. Among the Freefolk (in this AU), dots on the cheeks are widespread, one of cultural mainstays of their people, and are generally a sign of peace, whereas the claws are meant to look intimidating and is applied to look like blood (Ygritte applies it for Jon) and is specifically used for military leaders. I really wanted to drive home the point that the goal with Jon’s whole look is to look fearsome.
I have so much more to say about Jon as King Beyond the Wall, how he negotiates with the Wall, the different rules he sets in place, how he sets up being King as a hereditary title once his daughter Bael is born, etc etc, but then I’d be here all day and approximately one person total read through all this. Oops! Ask in my inbox if you have any questions because I would love love love to answer them. All in all, shripscapi (Liesl) is so talented and she worked incredibly hard for me. She was extremely accommodating and changed as much stuff as I wanted. She never complained about the million times I decided something was not quite right and she sent me so many updates. I would recommend working with her to just about anybody. It was very cool what she was able to achieve and I got it in time for the holidays so I can enjoy my winter themed pfp on twt. So thank you from the bottom of my heart Liesl, and I hope everyone showers her with compliments because she deserves it. I also hope that people that don’t enjoy Ygritte very much can still appreciate the art and the concept of Jon as King Beyond the Wall. Hopefully I’ve gotten across how much I love and care for these characters to a chronically online degree and nobody accuses me of mischaracterizing them because that would make me!!!! very sad!!!
I am so grateful that my oomfie worked on this commission for me. This is literally my fifth Ygritte commission 😭😭😭 at this point I’m her biggest fan. I think that it turned out so beautifully. It’s also the first art I’ve paid for that includes Ygritte’s daughter beyond the fashion sheet Nata made me for the entire House in December. I love Ygritte and I love Bael, I’m so happy to see them together and see Ygritte as a mom. Obviously she has many faults and is a violent person, but at least with small children she canonically does have a soft spot and I think she would have loved being a mother so long as she didn’t have to compromise who she was a person.
This is from my AU where Jon becomes King Beyond The Wall before he abandons the Freefolk. The AU predicates on the theory that the Others will only negotiate with a Stark and that all other attempts to get rid of them will fail (obviously I don’t think this is true canonically but the AU is if it’s true), based on the very first chapter of AGOT where the Others were communicating over Royce, perhaps they were wondering whether he was a Stark, which would mean they should capture him instead of killing him. It actually isn’t all that relevant if it’s true, only if the Freefolk believe it is. Mance wants the best for his people and he wants them to survive, so he passes his metaphorical crown to Jon. That’s when Jon forms House Whitewolf and he marries Ygritte since he decides he will try to negotiate with the Wall instead of going back to them entirely (his need to feel important and needed of his own volition, especially since his brother was also King, is also a factor as to why he stays). Please please please, I am begging you, don’t complain that he’s married to Ygritte instead of Val. This all occurs without the Battle of Castle Black and with who Jon is as a person, the responsibility he feels he owes, and the fact that he believes he is in love with Ygritte, is the reason that in an attempt to maintain as close of a character as he was in the books, he marries her. If you want an AU where he marries Val, I encourage you to make it because it is quite fun to do. Back to the timeline, Bael is born on the march down to the Wall, where Jon is hoping he can get the Freefolk through. They don’t stop for long for her birth, only during Ygritte’s labor, then they continue, as time is of the essence. Bael is Jon’s heir until her brother is born three years later, which is a foreign concept to the Freefolk as they previously did not pass Kingship on that way. But she shares Jon’s blood and should Jon come to pass, she would be their only hope of ever communicating with the Others. She’s also important in the negotiation with the Wall as Alliser tries to coax Jon into giving up all his demands and surrender himself for execution as long as they let Bael and Ygritte through the Wall.
Ygritte is a very good mother and protective of her daughter. She loves her with all her heart, as does Jon, but as Jon is incredibly busy, she does have a special connection with her oldest child. She raises her up like a Freefolk woman and she’s as soft with her as a quencher of the Freefolk could be expected to be. She’s so proud of the human she’s created and that she has fulfilled her ultimate person from the Old Gods. When Jon is off in battle, she serves as a regent in her daughter’s best interest.
I have a whole headcanon post for this AU and House Whitewolf, if anyone is interested. I posted it on either November or December. I cover everything from Bael to the rest of the children, the children’s hobbies that are influenced by indigenous cultures. I talk about where the Freefolk eventually settle as well as what changes Jon makes to their culture and how him being King is different than Kings of the past.
I cannot think @nautieval enough, they honestly got this out really fast for me and didn’t need a lot of references. The art is super pretty, their commissions are open as of now so I of course encourage anyone and everyone to reach out and purchase a commission from them.
On the hundredth day after the new year the heralds come to the doors of the city, announcing the arrival of the Golden Caravan at the farthest stop of its route ; like every year, citizens and travellers will surely gather at the western door to see it come to pass.
Right behind the banners as customary are the sculptor priests, foremost of the stonemason orders, bringing in this year's votive masterwork for the festivities.
The black and white steppe oxen precede the arrival of the head guild architect, charged with the safekeeping of the citizens' sacred geometry. The graduating apprentices and newly welcomed novices walk besides the draftsroom carriage, bearing the icons of the Citizen Architects Guild : ardor and patience.
Out of the kilns of the imperial workshops come delicate masterwork sought after the world over ; the sister-ceramists are selected from various key regions of the trade system and bring their local styles to the imperial production. Those workshops are the northernmost stop on the caravan's route.
Behind the masons, the torchbearers announce the arrival of the metalworkers' guilds, chief of which the head goldsmith on a palanquin of her own design. The braseros and forges are continuously tended by guild kindlers as to remain lit throughout the entire voyage of the caravan.
Second to last comes the host of the manticore, behind the braseros of the master kindlers. It is believed that the creature requires her caretakers to be pure of heart and most diligent ; the honour is bestowed only on the highest performing apprentices of the smithing guilds.
On the last day finally, behind the last of the apprentices, the crones of the chain count the days left to craft, keeping misfortune at work away, and, some even say, Death itself.
Fungus has done so much for humanity. Penicillin. Radiation cleanup. Delicious mushrooms. Deadly mushrooms. Psychadelic mushrooms. And now my boy RA has chosen the humble mold spores as his vessel through which to cure cancer.
The thing is while the whole "get your butt in the chair and write the dang thing." is tragically the end all be all of writing advice, "if you want to write, you have to write" has another layer to it.
You have to get comfortable with the process of externalizing your thoughts. Worse, you need to externalize them in a way that's recorded. Writing total nonsense now and then will help with it. The more you write, the more you write.
Absolutely an important element, and one that isn't brought up enough.
It made me think of Stephen McCranie's "make it fun" advice (which is related though not quite the same thing), of trying to make creative work into a game. Instead of just "butt in chair, force yourself to work", find a way to make it fun and you'll want to work. Your point shows one reason why that can be necessary.
Brainstorming is fun, but when you try to turn that nice hazy daydream into black-and-white words, it doesn't feel like the daydream. It looks like stupid words on a page. So it becomes work, and comes with bad feelings because you're failing to create what came into your imagination. It's impossible for writing to feel like the same kind of fun as daydreaming, because those are two different things.
So one way to get over this is to make the act of writing itself fun. Make a game specifically about the production of words. McCranie's suggestions didn't go much beyond "set a timer for 20 minutes and see how much you can get done in that time", but any kind of self-imposed rule can turn it into a game. Maybe you have a time limit. Maybe you have to get under a certain word count. Maybe you have fun by writing the thing from a side character's point of view, or trying to imitate a certain style. All that matters is that you set up a "win" circumstance that isn't "this is a brilliant piece of literature that perfectly matches the story I have in my head." Because "good literature" has too many variables to focus on, and is impossible in a first draft anyway. "I told the story in under 3,000 words" or "I tried out a story in first-person POV" is a much more concrete and achievable goal to aim for. And that makes it much easier to motivate yourself to write.
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