app for lastvoyages

[bothfoulandfair]

there's beauty and there's danger here, split the ice apart
BEWARE THE FROZEN HEART.

User Name/Nick: Hi, I'm Gwen! and I like warm hugs!
User DW: betterdeadthanred
AIM/IM: girlwonder004 @ AIM
E-mail: isthereair@gmail.com
Other Characters: Charles Xavier, David 8, Vesper Lynd, Peter Parker

Character Name: Queen Elsa of Arendelle
Series: Frozen
Age: 21
From When?: During the confrontation with the Duke of Weselton's two goons in her ice palace, but before Hans' intervention.

Inmate/Warden: Inmate. While this is certainly a tough call for Elsa, she is definitely not in a good place to guide anyone to a better path because her own is still very uncertain. While Elsa isn't the intentional antagonist of the film, her actions do end up endangering the whole kingdom and more specifically, her lack of control almost kills her sister. She knows hitting Anna with her powers is potentially fatal/really serious thanks to what happened to Anna as a child and the warning she received from Grand Pappie the troll, but instead of focusing on getting her help or telling Kristoff to take her to the trolls immediately, she creates a monster to forcibly remove them from her palace, who promptly basically throws them off a 200 foot cliff, which easily could have killed them both. She's so wrapped up in her inability to control herself and her new self image as being alone and free from responsibility that she kind of ignores the fact that it's not true, even when someone's right there telling her I want to help and you're not alone. As an inmate, she'd need to learn to accept who she is and what she can do, and learn that that doesn't mean she has to run away from her obligations to other people. It's okay to "let it go", but you can't let everything go.
Item: N/A

Abilities/Powers: Elsa is an extremely powerful cyrokinetic. The movie never really explains how or why she has these powers or how common it is for other people to have them outside of the fact that she was born with them, but they've only gotten more and more powerful as she's gotten older. At this point, she's capable of literally cursing an entire kingdom in an eternal winter, complete with several feet thick ice covering bodies of water, constant snow fall and dropping temperatures. She can construct huge, sturdy structures out of ice and even create sentient creatures out of ice and snow that seem to exist entirely independently of her own consciousness, although "Marshmallow" does follow her orders loyally. Her powers are very strongly linked to her emotions, and she has ultimately very little control of them. Emotional turmoil creates anything from bad frosts to defensive walls and spikes of ice to, well. Eternal winter.

On the Barge, these will be extremely limited. Her ability to create sentient life forms and giant structures will be completely eliminated, and the Barge definitely won't be getting stuck in an eternal winter with her baseline dampened abilities. I'd prefer if their range was more cosmetic than anything else - frost on any surfaces she touches when panicked or scared, which might spread to the walls/floors if it gets bad enough, and a limited ability to make snow and ice. Maybe not snow banks, but at least some flurries, maybe even an Olaf sized pile of snow if need be, but that's all.

She also seems to be impervious to cold, comfortably living in an ice palace on a high mountain in nothing more than a dress she makes herself out of ice, and I'd like her to keep that part of her abilities too since it's not really something that has much offensive use or power.

Personality: When Elsa was small, she was a relatively normal, happy child who could create ice and snow out of thin air. Although there's some implication that her parents (particularly her father) might not be too enthusiastic about their daughter's gift, Elsa's younger sister Anna loves the magic, and the two sisters were nearly inseparable. Although Elsa was depicted as more mature and reserved than her sister, she still certainly enjoys playing along with her sister and coming up with creative new ways to use her powers to entertain her.

Everything changes when an accident with her powers almost kills Anna. Elsa is told that while her powers are beautiful, they are also extremely dangerous, and fear will be her enemy. Elsa's parents interpret the warning that others will be afraid of Elsa's abilities, decide to shut both their daughters away from the world outside, and support Grand Pappie's decision in removing Anna's memories of Elsa's abilities.

From that moment on, Elsa's entire life is ruled by fear, both of what she can do, and what people's response will be when they find out what she's capable of. Instead of trying to understand where her abilities come from or how they work, she has struggled to hide what she's capable of and dreaded the moment someone might find out about her secret. As such, Elsa as an adult - when met under the best circumstances - comes off as a very aloof and restrained. She and her father came up with a mantra to try and help her control her abilities and keep them hidden - conceal, don't feel, don't let it show, and as her powers are very strongly linked to her emotions, she has to be cool, calm and collected at all times. Obviously, this is much easier said than done, and often creates a vicious cycle when she is losing control. She's upset, and gets more upset when she can't get herself under control, which makes her powers more unpredictable, which makes her more upset and desperate to get them under control, and so on.

In the picture book A Sister More Like Me, it's revealed that being more restrained and quiet might also just be Elsa's personality in general, and would have been the case for her even if she hadn't been born with powers. While Anna likes doing things like running around and getting messy, Elsa genuinely likes to sit quietly and read, and enjoys things like drinking tea inside. She wishes Anna was more like her so that they still could enjoy things together, meanwhile Anna's wishing that her sister was more rambunctious and fun like she was. Obviously this is extended canon and how canon it actually is is up in the air, but I like to think of it as showing that she genuinely is more level headed and composed than Anna is, and that it's not entirely the effects of needing to hide her powers that make her this way. This is also shown in how she reacts to Anna's desire to marry Hans after just meeting him, because while she obviously doesn't want more people in the palace to potentially witness a slip up, she also knows that knowing someone for three hours doesn't mean you're meant to be together and doesn't want to see Anna get hurt by a stranger.

Beyond that, and the fact that the production team has established that Elsa is supposed to be more mature to balance Anna's more goofy nature, Elsa has been groomed since she was very little to someday inherit the throne of Arendelle. Even though this day comes much sooner than anyone probably thought it would, it's a position she clearly takes seriously, and in the few scenes we see of her acting as Arendelle's ruler, she appears very comfortable giving orders and interacting politely with dignitaries she might not like or particularly respect. Basically, Elsa has been a mature, composed, practical young woman since the accident with her sister, both because this is what she feels like she has to be (both because of her powers and her position as queen) and because she is generally more of a realist than her sister.

But again, all this composure is a giant facade: Elsa is constantly terrified of what she can do. She genuinely has come to think of herself as a monster - as admitted by the creative team on the film - and she lives in constant fear of hurting someone again. Because of this, even her movements are very restrictive, which can make her seem like a cold, detached person - compare Anna enthusiastically hugging her parents goodbye to Elsa's cautious curtsy - but it's really just another way to protect the people around her. She doesn't want to hurt her parents the same way she hurt her sister, especially because they're the only people who know her secret, and losing them without warning is devastating for her emotionally. She isn't ready to be queen, she still doesn't know how to control her powers and now she's lost the only people she had to confide in.

She has a huge tendency to run away from confrontation and her problems, and generally avoid finding a solution to them by really fighting for herself or what she thinks. Instead of really sitting down and calmly explaining to Anna why marrying Hans is a terrible idea, she shuts down the topic quickly and cancels the party because she doesn't want to get into a fight. Obviously she feels like she can't tell her about her powers being the reason why they're not close anymore, but if she was a more confident person who trusted her ability to have a calm discussion with her about the topic, things might not have escalated in the way they did. It's not that she isn't passionate, but she has a difficult time standing up for herself and doing what she really wants to do or feels is right, and this turns out to be a bad thing when she's basically willing to accept that everyone is right in thinking she's a monster and she should just live her life locked away from everyone else. It goes without saying that she's also conflict avoidant as much as she can be, but when she is asked for an opinion, she's very straightforward and does stand by it with a decent amount of stubbornness. She also generally isn't impulsive, but this becomes less so when she finds more self confidence.

Needless to say, she is also very independent and has been ever since she was very young. This is partially out of necessity, but again, the extended canon states that this is just more her personality type in the first place, and it makes sense that it would be. As the oldest and the heir to the throne, she would be expected to be more mature than her sister, powers or no powers, and her parents would have spent more time prepping her for the job than Anna, which left her sister time to goof off and do her own thing. She's clearly tolerant of other people being around, and at the end of the movie seems to be perfectly comfortable playing with a group of townspeople of varying ages, but she doesn't seem like someone who is ever going to have a huge social circle of incredibly close friends who do everything together, and she's likely comfortable with that.

That said, she evidently is slow to trust people, and is the sort of person who would rather get to know someone for a long time before doing something like, say, get engaged to them. Even after her powers are common knowledge, I would imagine this would be something that would linger with her, especially as she just doesn't have a lot of experience with forming meaningful relationships with people who aren't family members or maybe servants, so it's a lot of unknown territory for her to explore.

Beyond being self protective, Elsa is doing all this because she genuinely loves her sister and her parents, and never wants to be put in a situation where she hurts someone ever again. Even though Anna thinks Elsa has cut her out of her life because she hates her, or Anna did something to make her upset long ago, Elsa is doing it out of love and has never stopped loving her sister and wishes they could be close again just as much as Anna does. The only moment she appears resentful or bitter is when Anna directly confronts her and says she can't keep living like this, and even then, it's probably more directed at herself than anything else. She doesn't want to let Anna go, but keeping her locked up with her isn't the solution either.

Once she's finally alone and comfortable unleashing her gifts and letting down her hair, Elsa is a much more relaxed, in your face confident woman, rather than the reserved, composed queen she acts like at the party. She is apparently totally comfortable with abandoning her responsibilities, connections and past because she feels that now that she's alone, she's finally free. This cavalier attitude means she's completely unaware of how her actions and inability to control her powers is affecting everyone she left behind, and while it's great that she feels so happy and unconfined, this is another reason why she's not really warden material at all. There's a balance you need to strike between not caring what other people think and being comfortable with yourself and the responsibilities you owe to other people, and Elsa doesn't really know how to find that compromise right now. It's either be confined and miserable, or in your face confident ice goddess, which she likes a lot more, but ultimately isn't very good for her, the kingdom or her sister.

Interestingly, this persona is really only seen during "Let it Go" and briefly during the reprise of "For the First Time in Forever", and seems to be something she's only really capable of being when she's not being confronted with memories of her old life. Being alone and free is great until Anna shows up, and then Elsa is right back to being quiet and reserved and almost nervous of having her sister around her again, even though Anna completely accepts her for who and what she is and isn't afraid in the slightest. She does tell her sister that she's happy here, but she's still clearly pained and uncomfortable when Anna arrives, and wants her to leave as soon as possible even though she's in control and there's no real risk to her being there, for all Elsa knows. Get rid of the uncertainty and fear, and Elsa is still the playful, creative person with an amazing capacity to create that she was before the accident, but with Anna around, she goes right back to being worried and a little uncertain, even if she tries very hard to let on that she understands how this has to work and Anna doesn't.

While "Let it Go" is a great sequence and a moment of great empowerment for Elsa, it also shows her starting to really cross the line further into selfishness. It's great that she feels empowered and free to do what she wants for the first time ever, but shutting yourself away from the people who love and depend on you isn't fair to them or yourself, because at the root, she still doesn't love her powers even if for the moment she feels more comfortable with them. This gets worse when Anna tells her what's happened to Arendelle, and helps strengthen her idea that she's some kind of monster that needs to be kept away from people for their own protection. This isn't exactly helped by the fact that she's willing to defend herself with what could probably be considered excessive violence, as again, Marshmallow could easily have killed Anna and Kristoff in his attempt at expelling them from the ice palace, and Elsa never follows through to make sure they got out okay. That's a pretty extreme reaction to have to wanting to be alone, especially when one of the people involved is your beloved younger sister who has never stopped caring about you. This is even worse when you consider that again, Elsa knows that her striking Anna could potentially be fatal - it's extremely unlikely that she would have forgotten anything the troll said to her when he cured Anna the first time, and she knows Anna was physically hurt during her outburst, but instead of dropping everything to get her help or even just telling Kristoff where to go, she kicks them out and never follows up to make sure they're alright, too distracted by her own guilt and frustration over her inability to control her powers.

This continues in the confrontation with the henchmen of the Duke of Wesleton, as we also see that Elsa is - in the heat of the moment, but still - almost willing to murder the two men to stop them from hurting her. Admittedly, this is certainly a case of self defense as they were coming at her with crossbows and more than willing to kill her, but she's basically already resigned herself to being the monster they think she is. Instead of trying to reason with them or head into Arendelle herself to try and fix the problem, she assumes they're coming to hurt her and sends Marshmallow to attack them, which understandably makes them feel more threatened and scared than they already did and just makes an already bad situation worse. Although Hans' arrival (which is admittedly happening after her pull point) snaps her out of her defensive fury, it still shows that with some pushing and the right encouragement, Elsa could pretty easily cross that line from defending herself to really seriously hurting other people because she, too, is assuming the worst about herself and how other people see her.

And this, really, is why Elsa would be brought to the Barge as an inmate. She doesn't mean to be selfish, but she still ultimately is, and in a lot of ways it's more harmful to the people around her than her lack of control. Not only has her desire to keep Anna safe almost completely destroyed her relationship with the only family (and the only friend) she has left, and probably would have been had Anna been a more bitter person, but her panic does actually seriously threaten and then nearly cost Anna her life. Although she's certainly remorseful, she's more concerned with sending Anna and Kristoff away than dropping everything and trying to get her help. She's also so caught up in seeing herself as a monster that she's basically willing to just lie down and accept people seeing her as that without trying to stand up for herself or accept the help that Anna is desperately trying to offer her.

Overall, Elsa is a complicated young woman with a lot of issues to work through who has been struggling to cope basically on her own with really bad advice and guidance from people who were just trying to keep their daughter safe, and she is kind of drowning at this point. She needs to learn to find a balance between following through with responsibilities and being comfortable and happy in your own skin. She has potential to be a really amazing person, but also has potential to tip the complete opposite way, and could really use the intervention of a supernatural drunk driver and a patient quasi therapist to help her avoid spiraling farther than she already has.

Barge Reactions: After the initial shock of being in a place like the Barge, Elsa will accept her fate as an inmate because she genuinely thinks she deserves to be one at this point. She thinks she should be locked up to keep everyone else safe, or at least be kept very far away from everyone else, and will be incredibly relieved to discover that her abilities have been greatly reduced. She'll be in absolutely no rush to have them restored, and will probably fight a warden on it if they really push for her to have them restored. Floods and ports where the limits are removed will be terrifying experiences for her, especially if they catch her off guard and come with other dangerous caveats. Obviously I'll keep in communication with the mods/other players about how bad this could get for her - there won't be any spontaneous eternal winters, for example - but she will panic and things will get hairy.

For the most part, I anticipate her presenting herself very similarly to how she acts towards Hans and Anna later in the film - cautious, restrained, but more emotional and vulnerable than she appears at say, the party before things go badly. She won't be particularly interested in making friends at first (which is partially because she doesn't really know how and hasn't had a lot of opportunity to interact with people her own age), and might take some encouragement to leave her room, although her powers being muted will probably help encourage her to get out a little more than if they were at full power. She'll also really like the CES, and probably retreat there a lot if she's allowed when and if she gets her powers back.

Because Elsa is a lot more on the fence than some of our other inmates, her path on the Barge is a lot more up in the air. Obviously I'm apping her with the intention of having her find redemption, but there's a decent chance that pressure from other people on the Barge will actually make her issues worse, not better, and thus prolong her time as an inmate on board the ship.

I really don't anticipate her adapting to floods or dangerous situations super well, at least until she gets more actual self confidence about herself and her powers. She'll be really nervous and skittish whenever she gets her powers back without warning, and might spend a lot of time locked in her room if it's an option that's available to her. The goofier events she'll probably adapt better to, and might even let her guard down a little during them, and she'll be relatively interested in any non terrifying ports the Barge stops at during her time on board.

Another important factor of life on the Barge is she'll get to meet other people with powers and similar experiences with needing to hide. This will be potentially incredibly beneficial to her, because she's never had someone who really understands where she's coming from and as much as Anna and her parents want to be there for her, they don't really get it the way someone like a mutant or fellow magic user would use. This is potentially a way she could be manipulated by anyone with less than best intentions at heart, but it would likely take a lot more effort to break through to her and gain her trust than it was for Hans to get to Anna. She'll also probably wise up to it faster, but that's still available for a plot idea if anyone's interested.

Path to Redemption: The most important thing a warden needs to make clear to Elsa is that she is allowed to live her own life and should feel comfortable in her own skin, but not at the expense of the people and things that are important in her life. She really needs to come to realize that she and Anna are better off together than living apart, and that letting other people into her life and getting close to her is a good thing, because she's a good person with a lot to offer and shutting herself away isn't doing anyone any favors. This shouldn't really be a guilt trip either - she already feels awful about herself and all the problems she's caused people, and she really needs encouragement, not a reminder that things are terrible and she's somewhat to blame for it while also being the victim.

Elsa's issues are written very similarly to someone struggling to conceal and overcome serious depression and anxiety or another mental illness, and while Disney never explicitly comes out and says yep, she has an anxiety disorder and/or is struggling with clinical depression, a warden who knows how to help manage and treat that will make a lot of headway with her. She needs to learn techniques to help self soothe that go beyond trying to bully herself into getting under control as quickly as possible, because that obviously doesn't work and just makes her more upset in the long run.

The other major step towards graduation is obviously her powers, as she needs to learn that they aren't something to be afraid of, she's just basically had a huge mental block put up around them since she was eight that she can't really get over. She'll be dismissive, disinterested and outright terrified of having them fully restored, especially in a place like the Barge (enclosed, unpredictable space with a lot of other people around =/= fun times with her powers when she's out of control), and will really need to be coaxed into having them reintroduced. She might do better emotionally with getting it back slowly rather than having everything back at once with no warning, and will definitely benefit from working with other people who have learned to control emotionally based powers before.

She will be a stubborn inmate and dig her heels in a lot regardless of who she's paired up with, and it will take a long time for her to feel comfortable opening up to a warden at all unless it's someone who's already managed to worm their way past her defenses before they're paired. Someone she's friends with before hand might actually be a better overall choice for a speedier road to graduation, but I'm also totally fine with exploring complete strangers as options for her. She might be willing to meet a few times and maybe even just hang out, but interaction is likely to be surface level for some time and might get cut off if there's a lot of pushing too fast.

Basically, Elsa might seem like an easy enough graduate, but needs to be handled with a lot of care and patience to really get through to her. Once you get her trust, things should go a lot quicker, but until then it might be a little slow going. That said, she'll be fairly amenable to doing things like hanging out in port, so just because she won't necessarily be actively making progress doesn't mean there won't be things to do with them as a pair.

History: Frozen at Wikipedia

Sample Journal Entry:
[It's been a rough weekend for Elsa, for reasons that should really be obvious to anyone who knows her, or anyone who knows the bubbly, enthusiastic, slightly awkward redhead who used to be living in the cabin next door to Elsa's. Used to be, because the door's reverted to Barge normal and all traces of her sister have been swept from the ship, like she was never even there.

When she finally gets the courage to address the Barge at large, she's clearly trying to keep composed, but her expression doesn't quite do the job right. Her mouth's almost a little wobbly, like she really wants to frown like the world's ending but can't quite let herself show that kind of vulnerability.]

Anna's gone home. [And that time, her voice is the one that wobbles a little. She quickly steels herself, takes a breath, tries to continue on like this isn't a big deal at all, like it's a good thing. Conceal, don't feel...]

It wasn't her choice, [Because she knows her sister would never leave her here on her own, and she'd never just walk away from her inmate or the promises she'd made them here even if Elsa still thought she should.] But it's for the best.

[There's a moment when it seems like she's going to just shut the comm off at that, but she doesn't. She definitely considered it, but there's something else she wants to say here, and she can't just walk away from it.]

This place... it shouldn't be for people like her. I appreciate what the wardens are trying to do, and why you're all willing to stay even after... everything the Admiral puts us through, [There's some bitterness there; she can still remember what it was like in that last port, where they'd all been defenseless and terrified and so many people had been hurt, and her voice steels as she continues. There's still sadness in it, lingering with a sharpness that's settled in her chest as soon as she saw the blank cabin door next to hers.] But some of you should leave while you still can. You shouldn't have to be punished with the rest of us.

Sample RP:
There's a violent rumble that shakes the entire ship around breakfast time, rattling plates and silverware on the tables and knocking a few cups and saucers to the floor. One shatters on impact, and Elsa pitches forward to catch herself on the table, hanging on and waiting it out, closing her eyes as something that's probably dread settles uncomfortably in her stomach. She's been warned that this happens, been told that sometimes it's better than others, that she might get passed by, but she still doesn't know what to expect and what if, what if-

"Passengers, it appears we've taken on water..."

But the rest of his words fade out completely as she slowly cracks open her eyes, hoping against hope that she isn't going to see what she knows is waiting for her, but:

"No."

There's frost on the table. Frost, and it's quickly spreading, like it knows she's noticed and is trying to flee as quickly as possible, snaking its way down the center and branching off to the sides, quickly coating someone's half finished mug of coffee and creating a thin layer of ice over the liquid still inside. She yanks her hands off the table and gathers them to her chest as if she's been burned, hoping that maybe it's nothing, but she can already feel the floor under her feet turning to ice and it's spreading too, and this is so much stronger than her powers have been the entire time she's been here so far and she'd wanted, she'd hoped-

She has to get out. She has to get out of here before the whole ship's been covered, and so she gathers her skirt and races out of the dining hall, desperately stumbling through the halls and trying not to think too hard about how there's a thick trail of ice and snow following her as she runs. It's not like she can outrun it - she's the source - but she still moves with the sort of desperation that makes it seem like she thinks she can if she just pushes herself hard enough, and then maybe everything will be alright.

Until she crashes into someone anyway, and they're asking her if she's alright as she staggers back and there's snow in the air now, too, and she just wants to scream because it's not enough that she's dead, or that she's trapped her, or that she cursed the entire kingdom the last time she was this out of control, but she can't because someone's here and she just. Can't.

"Get away, please!" and she tries not to hate that there's a desperate edge to her voice as she backs away, trying not to look at them, holding her hands up defensively. A few people know what she can do - her warden, a few of the people who had been with her in the last port, another girl who had shown her that she could levitate any object and read people's minds - but not everyone, and she doesn't want to hurt this person, doesn't want to see the rejection and fear when he realizes what she's capable of, and it's that thought and the fact that he's reaching for her that makes something snap.

"I said get away!"

There's a burst of power, and it's like she's back outside the palace fleeing the party again, but she's on the Barge and she's just literally blasted someone with her powers - he's not hurt, not like what had happened to Anna, but he's still stunned and on the floor and oh God, she needs to get away.

She turns and runs, doesn't look back or stop to help, knowing she'll just make it worse, and doesn't stop running until she gets to her room. She forces the door open, slams it shut behind her and almost immediately lets out a breath that's more like a wounded sob than anything else.

She can't hurt anyone in here. She'd been told that powers don't extend beyond the limits of your door, and from what she can tell, that's true. There's no ice escaping out into the hallway, and her knees go weak with relief. She sinks to the floor and gathers her legs up to her chest, feeling very much like a scared child and being torn between embarrassment for it and just desperately, desperately wishing her parents were here, that she'd have someone who understood everything and could help her through this without letting everyone know.

Every time she thinks she's free of this, that she's found the solution, that maybe she can just be herself and not worry as much, it gets ripped out from under her. Why had she let herself think that this would be any different?

It's a long while later that her warden comes looking for her, and it's not until the knock on the door and the questions if she's alright, if there's anything they can do, if they can just come in for a second that she finally completely crumbles, biting her lip hard enough to bleed to try and control the sobs threatening to bubble out of her chest. She presses her face to her knees and doesn't say anything, until finally they give up and walk away down the hall.

Special Notes: I don't have a skull. Or bones.