Rose; An Introduction

Rose; An Introduction

A long time ago, I had an idea. It wasn’t a very good idea, but it was one of my first so I’m quite fond of it. The idea revolved around a princess whose family and planet were caught up in a terrible war they didn’t know how to fight. So the princess ran away to Earth to find her soul twin (it was a really tenuous concept, guys, so don’t ask me what that even means), a human girl living on Earth. Together, somehow, they were supposed to end the war and then… I don’t know, I guess the human one would come back to boring old Earth because I had no idea how to come up with decent plots back then.

It’s a story I’ll never write. Or rather, I will write it, but it will bear no resemblance to its original form, aside from the princess, who alone has survived the total re-working of her universe (on several occasions).

Meet Rose.

Before we do this, I’ve got to warn you guys that I don’t have any really nice pictures for this character. They’re all super old stuff that I drew before I gave up on art (but that’s a whole other blog post.) So just brace yourselves for this reveal.

rosewind

There we go. That’s what she looks like.

You know what, though? I’ve made much better pictures of her with online doll makers. And you deserve better so here we go.

anime Rose

Meet Rose, my oldest character. I created her in middle school. Fifth grade, to be exact. She featured heavily in the first stories I ever wrote (many of them fanfiction, many of them lost to the sands of time). As you can probably guess from the age I created her, Rose started as a sort of self-insertion device, a way to put myself into my favorite stories and, eventually, a world of my own making. She was supposed to be an ideal version of myself. (Every little girl wants to be a princess, right?) She was beautiful, graceful and poised at a time in my life when I felt ugly and clumsy. She was intelligent and out-spoken at a time when I was shy. And, of course, she was important at a time when I felt insignificant. Oh, and she was a cat. Because I also kind of wanted to be a cat when I was young. (They spend all day sunbathing, who doesn’t want to be a cat?)

If we assume that I created Rose at age fourteen (I don’t remember exactly when I actually started writing about her anymore), then she has been with me for sixteen years (a little more than half of my life). As I have grown as a writer, she has grown as a character. I’m certain she was once the Mary-est Sue that ever pranced across blank pages, but she has grown refined. She’s still a princess, but she has her flaws.

It’s interesting; Rose is the character that people most often compliment. And it’s so special when they do because she has been with me so long. I have sculpted her like an artist finding a figure inside rock. I suppose it makes sense, then, that she is among the richest and most well-defined characters I write.

Rose has not propagated to as many worlds as Domerin has (thank goodness, or I might have lost my mind by now). She is usually a shape-shifting cat-woman (who can be either a cat, a woman or a blend of the two). She is often royalty or someone of governmental importance. She is always strong of will, though sometimes her body is weak. Rose is drawn to strength (not just the physical kind), and tends to surround herself with equally strong-willed individuals, forging her own path even when there is an easy path readily available. She despises being told what to do and always puts her duty to her people above all else.

Once, in the long ago, I toyed with the idea of connecting all my stories. The way I would accomplish that, or so I thought , was to have Rose appear in some form in each of them, even if her presence wasn’t obvious. I have long-since abandoned this idea, but Rose has no lack of stories to tell. Incidentally, a few of her stories intersect with Domerin’s, though not as many as you might think.

The thing I love most about Rose, aside from her charm, is that weaving a successful story with her illustrates how far I’ve come as a writer. She was with me at the beginning, and I have no doubt she’ll stick around to the end. I once thought her story would be my opus, though Domerin has now threatened to outdo her. Being able to take a childhood scribble and turn her into a character people enjoy reading about makes my heart soar. She hasn’t appeared on the site quite as often as I’d like, but I imagine that will change in the future. You can read what I’ve done with Rose here.

Who was your first character? And do you still keep them around?

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