Rapunzel is my favorite superhero.

A few weeks ago, my little brother grappled with that provocative question only October could pose: what to be for Halloween. Being an intrusive older sister, I couldn't watch him make such a critical decision without giving him my advice.

"Be a ninja," I suggested.

"I was a ninja last year."

"Then be Darth Vader."

"Maybe."

"A superhero?"

"I don't want to be a superhero."

"But you've never been one before! You have to be a superhero at least once."

"Then you be one."

"Maybe I will. I'll be...um. Uhhh..."

In that moment, searching for a kick-ass heroine to throw in my brother's face, I saw just how limited my options were. The only choices that came to mind were Superwoman, Black Widow, or some over-sexualized knockoff of another hero. I may not be well-versed enough in superhero culture to know other female protagonists, but the very fact that no other heroines were mainstream enough to have triggered my memory is a red flag.

Truth be told, before I had this conversation with my brother, the male monopoly on heroes didn't bother me. My mental image of a superhero was a muscled, caped man. I realized, though, that in the constant tug-of-war between hero and villain, female characters are nowhere to be found on either end of the rope. Instead, they're ushered off to the sidelines, given sparkly pom-poms, and told to cheer. Even when females are given starring roles, most heroines have no powers but for the ability to seduce, slink around mysteriously, or do martial arts. The women who do have powers are reduced to busty versions of their male counterparts. What does this imply about the genders? That females aren't capable of being extraordinary, of being in a position of power? That men can capitalize on their inherently phenomenal traits but women can't?

After I hit upon this gold mine of revelations, I began to focus my attention on Disney princesses--because if superheroes are the male's archetypal models, then Disney princesses are the female's. I was ready to destroy my childhood memories, determined to hate everything those princesses stood for, but I found myself unable to do so. Although it may be hard to see under the frills, sporadic singing, and apparent naivete, most princesses are superheroes, too.

Mulan saves all of China from the Huns while dodging social barbs. Elsa is a snow queen with such potent powers, she freezes and thaws an entire country, gives life to snow beings, and constructs a multi-storied castle in as much time as it took her to sing about letting it go. Rapunzel can magically heal wounds and reverse aging. Cinderella and Snow White can talk to animals and convince creatures to do their bidding (imagine what they could do with that power if they stopped wasting it on domestic chores).

The problem, then, wasn't that female superheroes don't exist. The problem was that I didn't recognize them. True, princesses are not the ideal role models. However, it's not fair that femininity automatically negates any of their heroic or superhero-esque actions. Just because princesses aren't as macho as male superheroes doesn't mean they should be dismissed entirely. Why can't heroines conquer villains and fight crime, but also wear dresses and sing? A man who uses superpowers to save the day is a superhero. Following that line of logic, a woman who uses powers to save the day can be a superhero regardless of her other feminine traits.

This post may have been a jumbled soup of questions and arguments and thoughts, and I apologize for that. Whenever the issue of people enters the equation, things are bound to get messy. In the end, though, that's the one thing I know for certain: we're all people. Superheroes are people, princesses are people, and people are complicated.

The next time I try to categorize the individuals around me into neat little boxes, I need to step back and remember that each person is an ocean of existence. All I ever see is the rippling surface, not the wealth of life teeming just beneath.

Satiating my inner Godzilla.

The night before my first day at Uni, it struck me that I hadn't planned a way to distinguish myself. If I wanted to make friends, I had to be astounding, mysterious, awe-inspiring, magnificent. I couldn't settle for anything less than impressive. I couldn't resign myself to a grayscale high school career of anonymity—and the obvious next step, the key to making a dazzling first impression, was to decorate my binders.

I couldn't walk on water. I couldn't fly. I couldn't shoot lasers from my eyes or webs from my wrists. I couldn't even kickbox in heels like Scarlett Johansson. Pawing through my mental sheaf of skills, though, personalizing stationary hit me as the ultimate way to impress. It was subtle, creative, poised, like chocolate lace perched on a bed of perfectly whipped frosting.

Armed with a fervent belief in the genius of my plan, I made my embellishments from three sheets of loose leaf paper. I penciled the names of my classes in bubbled cursive letters, cut the letters out with an X-acto knife, and slipped each sheet into the corresponding plastic binder sleeve.

Suffice it to say that stationary had no impact on my first year at Uni. The friendliness of my peers and the coziness of the atmosphere quickly assuaged my fears, and I forgot about my misled attempt at individuality. The only silver lining of that panicked evening was the X-acto knife. I didn't realize it at the time, but carving paper would soon become an irreplaceable element of my life.

I absentmindedly devastate every shreddable object within reach. Any flimsy item in my possession—worksheets, styrofoam cups, movie tickets, plastic baggies—is in danger of becoming a mangled mess. Carving paper into art channels these unbridled destructive habits into a rewarding act of self-expression, and the craft forces me to see in terms of space and shadow. I no longer restrict myself to surface level thinking; I search for that which is not but could be.

It has been two years now, and I still make time for carving. In between homework assignments, over the weekend, watching TV, my fingers itch for an X-acto knife. I don't know how long this hobby will last, and I don't know if I will ever pursue this art in the future. I am saddened by the thought that I might have to stop.

For now, this craft is a comforting reminder that I am capable of doing more than rolling out of bed each morning. I can't walk on water. I can't fly. I can't shoot lasers from my eyes or webs from my wrists. I can't even kickbox in heels like Scarlett Johansson, but I can carve, and that's good enough for me.

Left: my very first carving, right: my latest carving.

That 2 AM magic.

It’s confession time. My skin is as pale and cold as refrigerated milk. The bags under my eyes are the color of blueberries. My sense of smell is superhuman when it comes to detecting chocolate. I can outpace a cheetah when I’m late for class. Occasionally, I even glitter in the sun.

No, I’m not a lame variation on Edward Cullen, but I am nocturnal. I live off of the lifeblood of our information driven society: the internet. I would argue that I’m a non-traditional vampire, an anomaly in the realm of supernatural beings. As a member of that unearthly community, I urge you to join me. In other words, you should try staying up well into the night—I’m talking witching hour and beyond. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not encouraging a habit of late bedtimes. Usually, being awake at 2 AM doesn't bode well on school nights. I can hardly function in class when I have fewer than seven hours of sleep in my system. In the absence of late night panic attacks over coursework and school, though, that bleary post-midnight haze creates a unique pocket of calm. Time stops. I can convince myself that I’m the only waking person in my world. I can relax.

Initially, the urge to crawl into bed is overwhelming, but this exhaustion is soon replaced with meditative, laser like focus. Barriers break down and my mind is free to map the unexplored terrain of my consciousness. Ideas that had been stewing in the deep waters of my brain float to the surface. The first draft of my common app essay, poems, and this blog post have all emerged from those depths. Burrowing deep into the night, I am no longer boxed in by the constraints I feel in the harsh light of day. I am free to think, free to breathe, free to act without fear of failure, expectation, responsibility.

Passing this time with friends can be similarly rewarding. After midnight, we exist in a cocoon of mutual understanding. Mental filters disintegrate, social obligations are null and void. In the dark, we are no longer people. We are voices, hushed, confiding, pleading to be heard. We no longer don our masks, and whether or not we may come to regret it, we reveal layers of ourselves that we usually keep under wraps.

Humans are wired to awaken at dawn and go to sleep at dusk. I should probably avoid manipulating my biological clock by staying up late, and I always kick myself for doing so in the morning. But in the dead of night, swaddled in my 2 AM cocoon, I know I would atrophy without those late hours to myself. No time of day could ever replicate the boundless hush of night.