invisible scars (referenced previous talk here)
[ID: A colourless, digital Trigun comic of Vash and Wolfwood talking about Wolfwood's scars. They're both laying in bed and topless. Vash lays on top of Wolfwood, playing with the rosary around his neck. Then, Vash kisses a spot on Wolfwood's chest. Wolfwood asks, "What are you doing?" Vash smiles sadly, "You got shot here. In the last town we visited. You didn't even bother moving."
Vash props himself up over Wolfwood, who frowns slightly. Wolfwood is quiet for a moment before he says, "You remember that, huh?" Vash grabs Wolfwood's left wrist and brings it to his face. "And here." He kisses another spot there. "When you helped free the hostages from that robber..." Wolfwood dismissively says, looking away, "Was a lucky shot." Vash huffs, “Don’t brag. Jeez.”
Half of Wolfwood's expression is shown, eyes returning to Vash who is now sitting up, continuing to say, "And..." Vash goes on and kiss Wolfwood's right palm. "You got cut here, even though that girl was aiming at me." A moment from the past flashes, of Wolfwood grabbing a knife aimed at Vash, his hand bleeding.
At present, Vash moves down and puts another kiss on Wolfwood's right shoulder. "And here, from watching my back." Another memory flashes of Wolfwood and Vash back to back. Vash looks back as Wolfwood grins while holding Punisher, bleeding from multiple gunshots in his shoulder.
"And," Vash combs up Wolfwood's hair to reveal his forehead, "Here." A final memory shows Wolfwood with a regeneration vial in his mouth while getting shot on his temple. The next panel is framed in blood with Vash at the center, eyes wide and stunned in horror. The next panel is a closed up shot of Wolfwood's eye, locked on Vash's face.
Back to present, Vash’s head is bowed down as Wolfwood raises a hand to his nape and says, “Spikey.”
Wolfwood looks serious and frowns as he says, "We talked about this. Those were my decisions. They're not there anymore. Forget about them." Vash looks very sad before he smiles ruefully and says, "I still see them. All the time." He leans down so they touch foreheads. Wolfwood’s sorrowful expression can be seen as Vash says, "You protect so much. I could never forget what you've done to me. And many others..."
In the last image, they're drawn more cartoonishly. Wolfwood sweats and asks, "You don't actually remember every wound, right?" Vash points at a spot on his chest. "Kuroneko left a scratch here 7 times." Wolfwood, startled, says, "Why the hell are you keeping count—" End ID]
Credits for ID here and here
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who do you think fucked up worse…gehrman or maria?
This is an interesting question, and I kind of didn't think of it before! Time to take a closer look at their crimes I guess. Some of these will be held on the possibilities and 'safe assumptions' though and addressed for the full picture!
1) Both were involved in Fishing Hamlet massacre!
With Maria, we can conclude as much because she discarded her weapons in the well at the place specifically. Her version in the Nightmare realm, a Hunter again, is supposed to be what punishes her, and she is focused on keeping Kos/OoK away from rummaging through. Considering the nature of the Nightmare, as well as the Doll who has spiritual connection with her, it should come from her guilt and regrets rather than.. I dunno, discarding the hunt over natural 'character development' and just picking a cool place to forsaken her past!
Gehrman sleeps better according to the dialogue Doll has after you kill OoK and free it's soul, so if it tortured him so, I think it is safe to say he had to be personally involved too rather than stay back while his students did the job:
They both were involved with Byrgenwerth, following their quest for obtaining the eyes of the dwellers from their skulls, and I suppose cord of OoK?
The thing about this point is that the description is written as though it was Gehrman's curiosity which ruined Maria's "idealisation" of him, or WOULD ruin it had she learned of it! This makes me wonder whether she was really involved in Byrgenwerth all that much, or whether she was aware of the real purpose of Fishing Hamlet massacre beforehand? Her goal, within the Nightmare, is stated to mercy-kill us so we don't allow that curiousity corrupt us to the point of "rummaging through corpse" and similar things, further supported by her visceral attack being an embrace if it is lethal!
I am just saying that here the balance might slightly shift towards making Gehrman 'worse' than her. Maybe she was not aware that it all was not just killing "monsters" but also a pregnant mother with her divine baby, but "well you didn't ask :/". Maybe Gehrman deceived her to use her aid. Maybe he didn't think it would be a big deal for her seeing that Maria was also interested in evolution through talking with Great Ones, and assumed she'd be just as callous about which means to accomplish the goals with?
2) Both were grave-robbing, or at least okay with that!
This one is a little less obvious, but Tomb Prospectors were not the first to go to the Chalice Dungeons! ...It were actually Willem, Dores and Gatekeeper lol:
BUT ALSO it were Old Hunters! We can see the remnants of it by Old Hunter Vitus being one the summons in Chalice Dungeons, hear Gehrman encourage us to go into the Chalice Dungeons to become stronger as via "tradition" of the Old Hunters,
and the fact that one of the things that torture Maria (again, remember that Nightmare Realm is Hell that punishes) is a Chalice:
(A video ( x ) for a better look at the Chalice from a figure)
I'd say that it is not very nice to disturb the undead Pthumerians just struggling in remains of their civilisation! Interesting thing: we can conclude they are even staying there to protect the Great Ones or their remains!
There has been some sort of civil war between ancient great-ones-respecting Pthumerians and who late became Cainhurst nobles! Maria, ironically, fell onto the side of "entitled guys" descendants! But yes, I could see why bullying zombie guys to get more history and archeology relics from them might not seem like much for her at start. Experience in the Fishing Hamlet likely retroactively ruined this period of her life for her: delving into Chalice Dungeons was likewise 'not leaving the corpse alone'. The remaining Pthumerians were right having some honour and dignity. So, that came to haunt her in the form of Pthumeru Chalice. Gehrman is.. well he's here too I guess dfshfdhs
3) Both knew a little too much about Laurence's shady business and did nothing?
Old Hunters used to be friends with Healing Church's Hunters and even had their workshops located close to one another! Gehrman was friends with Laurence and Ludwig, who are both quite strongly involved with Moon Presence (Ludwig's sword and guidance, Laurence's affiliation being known since Byrgenwerth times), as well as the key figure in creation of Hunter's Dream:
This was most likely a bait-and-switch, seeing how the cord itself is still in the real Workshop, and not in the grasp of Moon Presence (unlike, say, Wet Nurse taking Mergo's cord)! I think the purpose of creation of the Hunter's Dream was to "buy time" for the research conceived by the scientists! Remember: Gehrman was known to have "madness of curiosity" that Maria resented, or at least would resent had she known! He might have been fully aware of what Laurence wanted to do and support it! My point here, that with such proximity, he must have known of all Laurence's crimes and agreed with them!
Maria was at least overseer of the Clocktower's Research Hall, which, again, was just beta!Choir.
This last line IS a bit confusing, because it makes it sound as though the nerds looking for the Eyes Inside and the Blood Ministers got split. Laurence and Ludwig make it weird, as Moon Presence is also an Eldrich creature and Ludwig is for sure full of eyes! What also makes it strange is that Choir, and then School of Mensis, are both upper echelons of the Healing Church, but Laurence is supposed to be above both of them.
I think this can be worked with! Let's say what if Choir formed after Laurence's death, which also happened after Maria's death, and Vicars after him were somewhat "powerless" and walked over by Choir and Mensis, only leaders in the name! But that still leaves the bit that the mentioned "division" happened after Choir was formed! Maria and Adeline, however, are locked to the existence of the Research Hall, so, the timeframe when doctors and blood ministers were 100% working together! We find the Eye Pendant that opens the access to the Research Hall in Laurence's hand, and human Skull of Laurence on the platform that hides the secret elevator to that Research Hall. Again, by the Nightmare Logic, they must be connected with Laurence's sins: he started this research, or sponsored it, or was overseeing it, and so on.
This point is not an absolute thing though, because one or both of them might be freed from guilt here. Maybe Gehrman was not as informed and agreeable as we could assume and Laurence did lead him around? Maybe Maria wanted but could not do anything being caught in the web of complicated connections, blackmail and risks for the people she cared about?
4) Both are willingly involved in questionable practices (Maria with research, Gehrman with the cycle of Dream and Hunt)
This point I feel like transcends the morality a little bit, as it touches the matter of 'it is bad if you do it, but it is also bad if you DON'T do it'. I really love Soulsborne universes for having guts to say "you can't win, just pick your poison", but I think it is still worth addressing!
It is up to interpretation in which quantity Maria is involved with the Research Hall! Nothing states whether she founded it, joined in the research later, stepped in and turned the tides (ba dum tss) of the research, or simply was a caretaker/nurse/etc of the broken mess while Research Hall was getting ready for a bit of rebranding. She can be very guilty, or she can be barely guilty but in either case if that was her "redemption arc" that was a pretty bad way to go about it. ...or was it?
Fauxsefka turns people into Celestial Emissaries so they physically can't become beasts instead, and is even stated to be a hero / heroic researcher by Miyazaki:
First, I don't do Death of the Author (in terms of interpreting media I mean, not in terms of a style of writing)! Like, nope. Never. It is just not for me. Creator's word is the final for me; Fauxsefka is the good guy in the story, apparently, and it makes sense considering the fundamentally broken place characters are in! Maria has similarities with Fauxsefka: not only both of them have Cainhurst roots, but also both of them seem to favour 'Stars' line of evolution for humans!
Whereas other patients are afraid of the horrors of the Deep Sea, a concept Miyazaki could not get over well into DS3, Adeline desires them! Other patients seems to have gotten it right, and you can see one of them also clings to Maria mentally to "not drown"; Adeline "didn't understand"! The balcony that Maria wants Adeline to go to so she can forsaken the Deep Sea and seek something "happier" holds unique kind of patients who can shoot cosmic arcane spells:
Herself, Maria is associated with these lumenflowers: their petals are all over her boss arena, and the way to her lays through a much bigger batch of flowers, where Living Failures, other 'Stars' Kin are, whose song lyrics also feature lines 'ave stellar' and 'ave Maria'!
So, how this is different from what Fauxsefka is doing, who is stated to be as much of a good person as possible within this context and with the burden of her knowledge? Fauxsefka was doing more or less rinse-and-repeat practice, with maybe a few patients not surviving the procedure but we don't know what happened: maybe that person was already at the brink of death and she tried to make them live like this.
^ This guy I mean. Maria, on the other hand, is in the time period where the doctors and scientists were only testing the waters (BA DUM TSSS) (ok I will stop) and it was not SO certain what was at the stake, what were the alternatives, what was awaiting the humanity. It is even possible that the beasts problem was not yet bad to the point of "you'll either become a beast, be eaten by a beast or become a Kin, humanity is DONE for!" ! This was an unethical research at the cost of real people! The weight of Maria's sin here really depends on the interpretation, though
As for the cycle of Dream and Hunt, this is complicated and lingers on one's interpretation of what the purpose of the Dream even IS! Its existence provides two things: 1) a hunter who is immortal for the night, thus can sustain the beasts with efficiency like no other, but also effect the continuity of the night ( x ) and 2) supposed sustenance to the Great One Flora of the Moon, who holds the hunt as a concept!
I used to be a bit more set on the idea that if beasts are not sustained and hunted, they will simply overpower those who are yet humans and eat them! It is a self-feeding cycle of people needing to self-defend from beasts, thus having to consume the blood as urgent means of healing and power-up since beasts are too strong, thus risking to become beasts themselves because the blood they consumed during that hunt corrupts them. So, the Hunter's Dream would be a good thing, as it'd help to 'buy time' during nights of the hunt in which not only beasts are more active but Great Ones too! While the Dreaming Hunter holds everything together, the greatest minds of the Healing Church can efficiently study the ways to end beasthood, or ANY problem of humanity, once and for all! It is just better to throw the hunting resources on the Dream, so the scientists don't worry about the beasts and can focus on research. However, I almost forgot that:
This implies that had there not been Mensis Ritual ongoing, people WOULD have the chance to simply 'wait away' the beasthood problem. That, since Rom is not stopping Mensis Ritual but just conceals it, what really makes the inner beast within everyone who consumed the blood inevitably come out is Mergo's cry that draws the Bloodmoon close!
So yeah, the point about Hunter's Dream being helpful for the research of evolution still stands, especially under assumption that the deal with Moon Presence helped to bring more Eldrich Arcane close for "feeding" her. The point about how if the beasts are not hunted they'll simply eat everyone, though, is vague. It is safer to assume that the Hunter's Dream and Research Hall both are both example of hubris of man even if approached differently. Attempts to draw in something dangerous and horrifying, but it is "justified risk" because if you manage to 'tame' arcane/blood, sure, humanity will prosper!
Like... yeah, sure, there IS dangerous and undesireable nature of man that ruins everything and might or might not still linger in humanoids' genes after Loran. But did humanity ASK any of you guys to keep trying to fix it with so many victims and sacrifices? Like, was it WORTH it?
This point is closely tied to 'knowing Laurence's bad antics and doing nothing', yeah. Maria didn't seem to like blood ministration very much, as she disapproved of Adeline becoming a Blood Saint, but she also didn't even approve of blood antics of her own clan! I am not sure what would be her opinion on the Hunter's Dream had she lived to the point when it was created, just that she herself is not willing to ever hunt, so I am leaving this point aside. Is this just blood ministration that she opposes but proximity with a Great One Moon Presence would be something she can see the potential of? Or would she and Gehrman have a pointless cat fight about whose methods are better when they are both hubris of man? In both versions they are 'guilty'! Besides:
In the end none of THIS matters either and everyone was fooled ( x ). The blood offering is a blood offering in any way; whether it is through spilling blood violently during the hunt, or offering the blood's 'red' with how celestial Kin all bleed red. Moon doesn't care what paints it red, in the end.
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My conclusion is: both of these characters fucked up almost equally! I think the balance shifts just a little bit and Maria is slightly better than Gehrman since she had some limitations set on how far she was willing to go. Her motivation was not in "curiosity" but strictly in helping humanity, even if in unfair ways, which is apparently not the case for Gehrman?
I'll say this though, NOW I am hooked on the idea of Maria and Gehrman being petty "rivals" ideologically (for as long as they could before Maria's own demons caught up with her). Especially since neither approach is better than the other and they are both cringe loosers! Again, lost comedy gold over Fromsoft making Gehrman's tender and warm feelings for her before and after her death plain. What is not lost, however, is the fact that the two should just kick Laurence and go home :pensive:
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Hi! So I tried not to say anything about some anti makeup posts I saw on your blog but I need to say this. I think you're very wise and I agree it's very important for us to love ourselves as we are. But some people like myself doesn't care about 'empowering' of makeup or whatever but we just have fun with it and we just love it. I say we because I know there is a lot of people like me. Yeah, we are feeding capitalism or whatever, but world is beautiful and it's also terrible so people trying make themselves feel good, have fun, ect. I see a lot of people who don't wear makeup and i'm happy for them! I didn't wear makeup until i turned 20 i think and felt good.
One thing I wanted to add is in response of post about feminine girls. I think everything needs balance and sometimes people tend to overreact in their opinion and divide everything in black and white. Personally I never cared how women around me looked and what they were wearing. But I would like to have same treatment, and not to feel silly for wearing pink or feminine clothes.
Sorry, I don't know English very well so maybe I can't translate my idea entirely. What I'm trying to say i think everyone should do what they like and leave each other in peace.
Sorry for this essay, just wanted to share my point of view.
Hi, anon! I'm sorry for the delay in getting to this, but I appreciate you writing this (and your English was fine, don't worry)
I think the main argument of those posts (and my own feelings about this) is not about makeup on its own, or even judgement about who does and doesn't choose to wear it--what they are criticizing is a particular part of the society we live in which puts a huge emphasis on women's beauty and appearance in order to fulfill an idea of what a woman "should" be, and the role that makeup plays in that as a result. Because whether we like it or not, whether we believe in them or not, whether we feel pressured by them or not, these expectations do exist. How we personally respond to them does not change that.
I personally don't have an issue with makeup or the concept of it (in almost every culture on earth, humans have been using makeup of some kind for literally thousands of years)--but what I do have a problem with is when we treat makeup, or other traditionally "feminine" forms of expression as neutral things when they are not. A comb or a hair tie is neutral--it's just a thing. Lipstick and eyeliner are also just things, but only when they exist by themselves--and in reality they don't exist by themselves: they exist in a world where we value women on their physical appearance before we value them for anything else--lipstick and eyeliner exist to emphasise parts of your appearance, to make you look a certain way--and in a society where we put so much importance on women looking a certain way, they aren't just ordinary things you toy around with for fun. You can have fun with them, but it doesn't change their role. They can't be treated as exceptions from the world they are used in.
I think sometimes people assume that being anti-makeup is the same as being anti-women-who-wear-makeup, which misses the point (and also suggests a very dangerous idea which I think, sometimes, is why people respond so angrily to these criticisms: because if we believe that being anti-makeup = being anti-women, then therefore makeup = womanhood, and this is simply not true). Whether you wear these things just for fun and to enjoy yourself isn't what is being talked about because these criticisms are not about you on a personal level: they are about looking at a society that is as image-obsessed as ours, and asking why makeup has the role that it has when 1) it is almost exclusively aimed at women--women who, as a group, have been historically marginalised, and whose value, historically, has almost always been measured in terms of their beauty before anything else and 2) the makeup that is emphasized, the trends and styles that come and go, are often not so much about self-expression (if they were, people would be freely wearing all sorts of wild colours and styles: when we talk about "makeup culture" it's not the same kind of makeup used in the goth, punk, or alt scenes for example where makeup plays a very different role) but almost always about achieving or aspiring towards a type of beauty that is valued or expected: to make you look younger, to make your eyes brighter or larger, to make your lips bigger or sexier, your cheekbones more prominent etc--again, on their own, these things may not be a big deal, but they exist in a world where having these looks means you are valued in a certain way as a woman. And when this exists in our kind of world, where the power dynamics we have automatically mean women's perceived power is through beauty, and where we insist so much on women being a particular kind of beautiful (and this starts in childhood) we have to ask and investigate WHY that is--why this type of beauty and not another? why (almost only) women? who benefits from this? who suffers as a result?
The argument of "not all women" wear makeup for empowerment misses the point of these criticism, because it is focusing on a person's individual choices in a way that suggests our choices can define the world we live in, and they can't. We are deeply social animals. Therefore, how we appear to each other and to ourselves is a socially influenced phenomenon. This applies for race, for sexuality, and for gender. How women are perceived at large, in different social structures, is a social phenomenon influenced by the societies we exist in and the values of those societies. These criticisms are about the society we make those choices in and how that can affect us. For you, makeup may be something fun and enjoyable and that's fine. I'm not saying that's untrue or that people don't feel this way or that you are wrong for feeling this way. It's also not saying that you are brain-washed or oppressing yourself for it. But it doesn't change the world we live in. Someone feeling perfectly happy to go out with makeup or without makeup, and feeling no pressure to do either, is great--but it doesn't mean there aren't a lot of women who do feel pressured into wearing it, and that pressure is a social one. It doesn't change the inequality that exists between how women's physical appearances are judged compared to men's. It doesn't change the fact that almost every childhood story most kids hear (that aren't about animals) have a "beautiful princess" (and very little else is said about her except that she is beautiful) and a "brave" knight/prince/king/whichever: the princess (or maiden or whatever young woman) is defined by how she looks; the male in the story by how he acts.
It also doesn't change the fact that so many young girls grow up hearing the women around them criticize various parts of their bodies and that they carry this into their lives. It doesn't change the fact that we expect (in Western countries at least) for women to have criticisms about their appearance and they are "stuck-up" or "full of themselves" if they don't. It doesn't change the fact that magazines photos, red carpet photos, films, tv shows etc., feature actresses who are beautiful in a way that is absolutely above and beyond exceptional (and who either have had work done cosmetically, or are wealthy enough to be able to afford to look the way they do through top-class makeup artists, personal trainers etc) but who we think are within the "normal" range of beauty because faces like theirs are all that we see--how many famous actors / entertainers can you name who look like they could be someone's random uncle, or "just some guy" (writing this, I can think of 5). Now how many actresses, equally famous, can you think of that are the same? Very, very, very few.
The point of those posts, and why I feel so strongly about this, is that we have a deeply skewed view of beauty when it comes to women, because, as a society, we place so much on how they look in such a way that it is not, and was never meant to be, achievable: therefore anything that contributes to how women look, that markets itself in the way that the makeup industry does in this day and age, needs to be questioned and looked at in relation to that. No one is saying don't wear eyeliner or blush--what they are trying to say is that we need to be aware of the kind of world eyeliner and blush exists in, what their particular functions as eyeliner and blush do in the world that they exist in, that we exist in, and how this does impact the view we have on makeup as a result. Your personal enjoyment may be true to you and others, but this doesn't change the role of female beauty in the world because, again, our personal choices don't define the world in this way. Often, it's the other way around. And we cannot deny this fact because, while it may not affect you negatively, it does affect others.
I absolutely agree with you because I don't care how other women around me choose to dress or express themselves, either--that's their freedom to wear what they want and enjoy themselves and I want them to have that freedom. But my view is not the world's view, and it's certainly not the view of a lot of other people, either. I don't care if another woman loves pink and wearing skirts and dresses--but, like makeup, pink, skirts, and dresses, are not neutral things either. They're tied to a particular image of 'femininity' which means they are tied to a particular way of "being a woman" in this world. I'm not saying, at all, that it's wrong to wear these things. But I'm saying we can't treat them as though these are choices as simple as choosing what kind of socks to wear, because they aren't. They are choices that have baggage. If a woman is seen as being silly, childish, or treated unequally because she enjoys cute tops and ribbons and sundresses, that's not because we are demonizing her choices, or because being anti-makeup is being anti-woman (again, it is absolutely not): it's because we as a society demonize women for any choice. That isn't because of anti-makeup stances--that's because of sexism.
You mentioned that you want to be treated the same as anyone else for wearing feminine clothes--but the fear that you wouldn't be isn't because of the discussions critiquing makeup and other traditionally "feminine" things--it's because we live in a society where women are constantly defined by how they appear on the outside, and no amount of our personal choices will make this untrue. Whether you are a girly-girl or a tomboy, you'll always be judged. And, in reality, when women follow certain beauty standards they do get treated better--but this doesn't mean much in a society where the standards are so high you can never reach them, and where the basic regard for women is so low to begin with (not to mention the hypocrisy that exists within those standards). This is what all those criticisms towards makeup and "empowerment" are about: it's about interrogating a society that is built on this kind of logic and asking why we should insist on leaving it as it is when it does so much damage. It's saying that that if we want everyone to truly feel free in how they choose to present themselves we have to go deeper than just defining freedom by these choices on their own, and look at the environment those choices are made in. And that involves some deeply uncomfortable but necessary conversations.
Also, and I think this important to remember, views on makeup and the social place of makeup will also depend on culture and where you are, and the beauty expectations you grew up with. And when it comes to the internet, and given American dominance online, a lot of these posts criticizing makeup and the way makeup is being used to sell an idea that wearing it is "empowering" to the woman (which is basically saying: you are MORE of a woman when you wear it; you are stronger and more powerful because, in our society, beauty is portrayed as a form of power: it tells you, you can battle the inequality women face by embracing the role beauty plays in our lives but it doesn't tell you this emphasis on beauty is part of that inequality), are based on the way makeup is portrayed in mostly English-speaking Western countries. My views are shaped by what I grew up seeing, and while a full face of makeup (concealer, primer, foundation, mascara, highlighter, contour, blush, brow tint, brow gel etc) may not be daily practice or even embraced in a place like France or maybe other places in mainland Europe (but that doesn't mean they don't have their own expectations of feminine beauty), they are daily practice in places like the US and Britain, and this is what most of those posts and criticisms are responding to.
We can argue as much as we want about makeup, but when you grow up in a society where women feel the need to put on makeup before going to the gym there is something seriously wrong. Embracing makeup and enjoying makeup is one thing, but it cannot be a neutral thing when so much of it is about looking like you're not wearing makeup at all, or when we assume a woman is better qualified for a job or more professional when she wears it. It cannot be a neutral thing when a singer like Alicia Keys goes makeup-free for a red carpet event and it causes a stir online because people think she looks sick (what she looks like is normal--I would argue above normal--but wearing makeup to cover up "flaws" is so normal now that we genuinely don't know what normal skin is supposed to look like because the beauty of these celebrities is part of their appeal: they are something to aspire to). It is absolutely very normal for me, where I am, to see young girls with fake lashes and filled in brows: it's not every girl I pass, but it is enough. I'm not saying they are miserable, or brain-washed, or should be judged. I can believe that for them it's something enjoyable--but how am I supposed to see something like that and not be aware of the kind of celebrities and makeup tutorials that are everywhere on TikTok and YouTube, and that they are seeing everyday? How am I not supposed to have doubts when people tell me "it's their choice!" when the choices being offered are so limited and focused on one thing?
I never wore makeup as a teenager and I still don't, but a lot of that is because I grew up surrounded by people who just didn't. Makeup was never portrayed as anything bad or forbidden (and I don't see it like that either)--it was just this thing that, for me growing up, was never made to be a necessity not even for special occasions. I saw airbrushed photos and magazines all around me, for sure, and I definitely felt the beauty pressure and the body pressure (for example, I definitely felt my confidence would be better if I wore concealer to deal with my uneven skintone, and I felt this for years). But I also know that, growing up, I saw both sides. No makeup was the default I saw at home, while makeup was the default I saw outside. And that does play a part, not just in the choices you make, but in the choices that you feel you are allowed to make. No makeup was an option for me because it was what I saw everyday, even with my own insecurities; but if you do not see that as an option around you (and I know for most girls my age, where I grew up, it probably wasn't) then how can we fully argue that the decision you make is a real choice?
If I wanted to wear a cute skirt outside, for example, and decided to shave my legs--that isn't a real choice. And it cannot ever be a real choice, no matter how much I say "this is for me" or "I prefer it like this" because going out in public with hairy legs and going out in public with shaved legs will cause two completely different reactions. How can I separate what I think is "my choice" from a choice I make because I want to avoid the negative looks and comments? And how can I argue that choosing to shave is a freely made choice when the alternative has such negativity? If you feel pressured into choosing one thing over another, that's not a choice. Does this make sense?
This is how I feel about makeup most of the time, and what I want more than anything else is for us to be able to have a conversation about why we make the choices we do beyond saying "it makes me feel good" and ending the conversation there. Again, I'm not saying people need to stop wearing makeup or stop finding enjoyment in wearing it, but I think we tend to get so focused on our own feelings about this and forget that there is a bigger picture and this picture is a deeply unequal one. That is what this conversation is about. I hope this explains some things, anon, and if I misinterpreted anything please feel free to message me again. x
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