Hi, I'm Bethany. I'm 28 and just trying figure out who I am and where I'm meant to be in this life. What I do know is that I love hot coffee, good books, and creating things.
might be my prudish catholic upbringing jumping out but imho makeup companies shouldn’t name their products after explicit sexual terms
just my opinion but if the makeup industry is going to market towards young girls who haven’t even hit puberty yet and insist that they have hundreds of dollars worth of high end makeup then they cannot name their products things like ‘climax’ and ‘super orgasm’ or even make puns like ‘glow job’ or claim in bold letters that the mascara is ‘sex proof’ when these young girls have no idea what any of these terms mean and frankly they shouldn’t understand the meaning behind an eyeshadow called ‘daddy’s girl’ or a blush called deep throat it’s all part of the hyper-sexualization of young girls and it’s just getting worse and worse in this new age of instagram/youtube mua’s where girls as young as 8 years old are being pressured into having a beat face that makes them look my age
“Maybe there’s still time. If we could get that witch to give you back your voice, you could go home with all the normal fish and just be… just be… just be miserable for the rest of your life.”
What if supernatural creatures don’t exist anymore? What if they did once, but through the years, they slowly mixed in with humans?
You can see the blood of fairies in the way a ballet dancer hovers in mid air before he or she hits the ground. You can see it in the way that middle school girl never forgets when someone makes her a promise. You can see it in how that one little boy in the kindergarten class seems more comfortable in the forest on that field trip than the others.
You can see the blood of dryads in hikers who never trip over roots. You can see it in that suburban grandmother never lets any of her garden die. You can see it in that one kid who climbs a tree faster than his friends, barely looking at the branches as he goes.
You can see the blood of naiads in the way a professional swimmer seems to command the water to help them. You can see it in how a cross country runner needs a water break more often than his teammates. You can see it in the way that one girl in your class always has a water bottle on her desk.
You can see the blood of mermaids in a surfer who can be tossed around underwater for a long time without drowning. You can see it in a teenage boy who doesn’t have to pretend to be unbothered by the pressure when he races his friends to the bottom of a swimming pool. You can see it in the little girl who wades into every stream she sees on a hike without quite knowing why.
You can see the blood of sirens in people who never have a problem with getting people to date them. You can see it in that soprano who can hit notes most of her fellows can only dream of. You can see it in the camp counselor who all the straight girls have a crush on, who can play guitar and sing better than any of the others.
You can see the blood of shapeshifters in the way an actor adjusts their personality to become their character with scary accuracy. You can see it in the subconscious, barely noticeable changes a tween girl’s eyes make to match her outfit better. You can see it in the way you always lose that one friend in a crowd if you’re not careful, because he’s just too good at blending in.
People who carry the blood of werewolves don’t change with the full moon anymore, but you can still see it in the way your best friend always knows something is wrong, though even they don’t know they’re smelling the changes in your body chemistry. You can see it in the way that one guy always seems to eat more than the reasonable amount of red meat at an all-you-can-eat buffet. You can see it in the way that one werido never has a problem when the teacher turns off the lights before a PowerPoint presentation because her eyes adjust quicker and better than yours.
The blood of supernatural creatures may have mostly faded away. But if you look closely, you can still see it.
Still Life II / Study after “Stilleven met bloemen op een marmeren tafelblad” by Rachel Ruysch, details Digital art 2017 (Full v.) (Lic.: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
Daughters really do share deep rooted emotional trauma with/inherit deep rooted emotional trauma from their mothers and I know it’s true bc whenever I try to approach a sensitive topic with my mom, no matter how calm and civil and patient I intend to be no matter how much I’ve practiced what I want to say no matter how OK I was even a moment before, I always involuntarily burst into desperate, angry hysterics the moment I open my mouth. As though it’s coming from a place buried so far within me I cannot even register its existence until it has overtaken me. And I know I’m not alone on this either. There is so much we internalize from our mothers that we never learn to contend with. That we never even learn to recognize
“At the macro level, the mother wound is a matrilineal wound—a burden that manifests in mothers, and is passed on from generation to generation. It’s the pain and grief that grow in a woman as she tries to explore and understand her power and potential in a society that doesn’t make room for either, forcing her to internalize the dysfunctional coping mechanisms learned by previous generations of women. The mother wound reflects the challenges a woman faces as she goes through transformations in her life in a society where the patriarchy has denied us ongoing matrilineal knowledge and structures.”
