rose-wine-selfships

[rose-wine-selfships]

More chiikawa madness

[rose-wine-selfships]

Birthday boy!!!!

[rose-wine-selfships]

[rose-wine-selfships]

Happy freedom weekend to all who celebrate!

[rose-wine-selfships]

Suffering clung to Atsushi like clothing, shaping him. Pain made Atsushi feel like himself.

- 55 Minutes, Kafka Asagiri

[rose-wine-selfships]

atsushi nakajima... byakko as a metaphor for bpd.... learned behaviors to save him from his childhood...... behaviors that now do more harm than good........ chat am i cooking..........

[rose-wine-selfships]

Sounbchbob

He’s so cool

[rose-wine-selfships]

a cosplay photo so old it was taken on actual film (which explains the streaks from my scanner) and the con we were at doesn’t even exist anymore. it was around 13 years ago actually now that I think about it.

[rose-wine-selfships]

Happy Trans Day of Visibility

i love you more than words can say ♥︎ 🏳️‍⚧️⚧🏳️‍⚧️

[rose-wine-selfships]

Reblog this to support the selfship(s) of the person you reblogged it from!

Since some days, an indirect showing of support is just a lil easier. ♥

[rose-wine-selfships]

*sees a beloved mutual in the notes* hi honey

[rose-wine-selfships]

The Importance of Mary Sue

When I was in Ninth Grade, I won a thing.  

That thing, in particular, was a thirty dollar Barnes & Noble gift certificate.  I was still too young for a part-time job, so I didn’t have this kind of spending cash on me, ever.  I felt like a god.

Drunk with power, I fancy-stepped my way to my local B&N.  I was ready to choose new books based solely on the most important of qualities…BADASS COVER ART.  I walked away with a handful of paperbacks, most of which were horrible (I’m looking at you, Man-Kzin Wars III) or simply forgettable.  

One book did not disappoint.  I fell down the rabbit hole into a series that proved to be as badass as the cover art promised (Again, Man-Kzin Wars III, way to drop the ball on that one).  With more than a dozen books in the series, I devoured them.  I bought cassette tapes of ballads sung by bards in the stories.  And the characters.  Oh, the characters.  I loved them.  Gryphons, mages, but most importantly, lots of women.  Different kinds of women.  So many amazing women.  I looked up to them, wrote bad fiction that lifted entire portions of dialogue and character descriptions, dreamed of writing something that the author would include in an anthology.

This year I decided in a fit of nostalgia to revisit the books I loved so damn much.  I wanted to reconnect with my old friends…

…and I found myself facing Mary Sues.  Lots of them.  Perfect, perfect, perfect.  A fantasy world full of Anakin Skywalkers and Nancy Drews and Wesley Crushers.  I felt crushed.  I had remembered such complex, deep characters and didn’t see those women in front of me at all anymore.  Where were those strong women who kept me safe through the worst four years of my life?

Which led me to an important realization as I soldiered on through book after book.  That’s why I needed them.  Because they were Mary Sues.  These books were not written to draw my attention to all the ugly bumps and whiskers of the real world.  They were somewhere to hide.  I was painfully aware that I was being judged by my peers and adults and found lacking.  I was a fuckup.  And sometimes a fuckup needs to feel like a Mary Sue.  As an adult, these characters felt a little thin because they lacked the real world knowledge I, as an adult, had learned and earned.  But that’s the thing…these books weren’t FOR this current version of myself.   Who I am now doesn’t need a flawless hero because I’m comfortable with the idea that valuable people are also flawed.

There is a reason that most fanfiction authors, specifically girls, start with a Mary Sue.  It’s because girls are taught that they are never enough.  You can’t be too loud, too quiet, too smart, too stupid.  You can’t ask too many questions or know too many answers.  No one is flocking to you for advice.  Then something wonderful happens.  The girl who was told she’s stupid finds out that she can be a better wizard than Albus Dumbledore.  And that is something very important.  Terrible at sports?  You’re a warrior who does backflips and Legolas thinks you’re THE BEST.   No friends?  You get a standing ovation from Han Solo and the entire Rebel Alliance when you crash-land safely on Hoth after blowing up the Super Double Death Star.  It’s all about you.  Everyone in your favorite universe is TOTALLY ALL ABOUT YOU.

I started writing fanfiction the way most girls did, by re-inventing themselves.  

Mary Sues exist because children who are told they’re nothing want to be everything.  

As a girl, being “selfish” was the worst thing you could be.  Now you live in Narnia and Prince Caspian just proposed marriage to you.  Why?  Your SELF is what saved everyone from that sea serpent.  Plus your hair looks totally great braided like that.

In time, hopefully, these hardworking fanfiction authors realize that it’s okay to be somewhere in the middle and their characters adjust to respond to that.  As people grow and learn, characters grow and learn.  Turns out your Elven Mage is more interesting if he isn’t also the best swordsman in the kingdom.  Not everyone needs to be hopelessly in love with your Queen for her to be a great ruler.  There are all kinds of ways for people to start owning who they are, and embracing the things that make them so beautifully weird and complicated.

Personally, though, I think it’s a lot more fun learning how to trust yourself and others if you all happen to be riding dragons.

[rose-wine-selfships]

Ikari Shinji & Nagisa Kaworu & Asuka Langley & Makinami Mari Illustrious & Ayanami Rei & PenPen ; Neon Genesis Evangelion ☆ SEGA

[rose-wine-selfships]

[rose-wine-selfships]

I loved making the EVA 01, maybe I'll do more with Evangelion for next projects, but for know, here's Shinji and Rei uwu

[rose-wine-selfships]

Do you think Yui, too, wept over her hands killing the only other person that ever loved her son as much as she did? The only other person who ever wanted him to be happy for nothing in return but the knowledge that he is? The only other person who would give their life so that he may live?

Do you think they both felt such intense sorrow as to spike their sync rate such that Shinji could vividly feel his bones give way? Such that the sensation burned into their minds like an image burns onto film?

Do you think, in End of Evangelion, she too was wallowing in despair, having for a time lost hope? That she too, thought there was nothing she could do to defeat the Eva Series from enacting the Human Instrumentality Project and absolving all humanity of existence as individuals?

That she had failed in her goal to protect Shinji’s life, that she’d given her own and ruined that of her husband for nothing?

[rose-wine-selfships]

sex is fine but have you ever thought about all the ways you’d rewrite a flawed piece of media that shaped your life and holds a special place in your heart despite its unfulfilled potential