Awakening As Elsa
Awakening As ElsaBy Scandiacus
“Fictionkin”. I had scoffed at the word and its very implications. The concept of fictionkin has always seemed more than far-fetched. How could anyone possibly be a fictional character? How is it even remotely credible to claim to be someone from a piece of media that wasn’t even in existence until you were well into your twenties? It seems downright delusional, or even more, “wishful thinking”. Perhaps fictionkin all simply relate to the canon they are from, or the character or species they identify as.
I used to believe all this. I was a staunch advocate for otherkin and therians, but laughed at fictionkin. My mind automatically repelled any remote questions regarding the subject. Nothing could convince me that I was fictionkin, and I would never have believed that in the future I would identify as such. Yet, times do change, and one day my very world and my deepest beliefs spiraled out of control. It was a twister comprised of ice and snow. It blew away any doubts I had previously maintained, replacing everything with a pure, white sheet of new ideas.
It was a night in late September of 2014 that my life changed. Almost a year before, the movie, “Frozen” had come out in theaters. The world was raving about it, but I stood my ground, completely unaware of what the film was about. I have, after all, never been one to follow trends. Friends and acquaintances had urged me to see “Frozen”, but I would always mindlessly wave the idea away. It was a Disney movie. At best, I would laugh along with Olaf the Snowman’s antics. At worst, I would roll my eyes, and turn the movie off. Neither of these things happened, however. In fact, the result was so completely unexpected that it left me literally shaking. That September night started out as impressively boring and uneventful, though. I fiddled with pens, sat at my desk, and did my best to pass the time. My roommate that I was living with then was asleep in the other bedroom, and no one was online. I had been having insomnia, and obviously needed something to do. I surely couldn’t sleep.
The idea struck me: I was going to give in. I was going to give “Frozen” a chance to (perhaps) impress me as well. For all I knew it would put me under the same spell it had everyone else. Maybe I would become a zombie, impulsively buying related merchandise at Hot Topic, or obsessively fangirling over Kristoff on Tumblr. I knew nothing of the characters at the time, however, and had little clue that “Frozen” would indeed become a large part of my life, albeit not in the way anyone would expect. So, I carefully loaded the DVD my parents had bought due to the recent acclaim into my computer’s disc tray, and began to watch.
The first thing that I noticed was that the film started out much like a stage musical. In theater-esque lighting, men paraded around, rhythmically cutting ice from a lake, and loading it on to a cart. “Beware the frozen heart”, they sang, which I should have taken as an omen. Then came the scene with Elsa and Anna as children. As Anna playfully coaxed Elsa out of bed, and the two ran downstairs to the ballroom, something struck me. At first I simply suspected that I just related to Elsa, but there was more to it than that. There was something eerily familiar about everything. When Elsa struck Anna by accident, and froze her head, I began to panic. Something wasn’t right. Something was far from normal about this movie. Like no other movie I had ever seen, “Frozen” was beginning to bring to light something hidden from me all my life in this body. Chills ran down my spine to my toes, causing an icy shiver. Everything began to seem like deja vu. I was drawn in, and all I could think was, ‘I remember this!” I was starting to become unable to watch. I had to pause the film to catch a breath. Was this really happening? Was lack of sleep to blame? Yet I knew, deep in my soul, that there was far more to all these emotions than that. I reluctantly pressed play again. The “Let It Go” sequence came on, and like a sad nostalgia, filled my ears and eyes with memories. The North Mountain was so familiar, the lighting was so right, and everything felt so real. I continued to watch, ultimately traumatized by the events to come. It was me. It was all my fault. I had frozen Anna’s heart. I was the one to blame for this mess. As the movie ended, I started to put everything together. Barely able to look at pictures of Elsa’s face…my face…I began to struggle with a panic attack. It felt so real. Chills went down to my toes, as my eyes filled with tears. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Could this be what an awakening feels like?
For a few days I tried to shrug everything off, but my mind was endlessly crowded with thoughts, questions, and for the first time in my life, answers. I remembered that when I was only eleven years old, phantom snow used to fill my room. A friend of mine, whose mother was a professional psychic healer, had commented without prior knowledge, holding up her hands as if catching snowflakes. “Snow!” she had exclaimed, surprised. Initially, I had said, “Maybe it’s a haunting. Maybe it’s due to a ghost who died in snow”, but this had never felt right. Was the answer here now? My nights became restless with dreams about flurries. The more I would deny that I was Elsa, the more it would snow in this dream world.
Eventually, I began to scour the internet for information on fictionkin. I pulled up sites describing almost exactly what I had been experiencing. Inside, there was an odd sigh of relief. I was not otherkin as I had originally thought. There was a reason I had never pinpointed a kintype. I was fictionkin. I had to admit it. I had to surrender to the truth. Once I did, my life began to change. I felt more in touch with my inner being, and the storm began to clear. I knew that somewhere in the Multiverse, I was Elsa. Or I had been Elsa. Or I would be Elsa. After all, according to the Multiverse Hypothesis, there are perhaps an infinite number of universes. If you ask most metaphysical communities, time isn’t linear, either. Someone had clearly either tapped into the “Frozen” canon, or had somehow made Arendelle a real place.
I was born in June of 1989. I was a little baby girl on a summer day. This summer day had given rise to my body in this life, but I was reborn to the public in November of 2013, and reborn to myself in September 2014. My whole world had been changed in such unexpected ways. Now I know where I come from. I know the past, I know the future. Yet, most importantly, I know myself.