What to do with my face?

[sistawendy]

There's something I keep thinking about occasionally since my appointment with Dr. Faceknife on Monday. When he was doing the live Photoshopping of my jaw and asking me what I wanted my jaw to look like, it was surprisingly hard for me to say. At my first appointment I told him in jest that if I end up looking more like my mother than I do already, that's a win, but seriously, even if I had a picture of my mom from thirty years ago to give him, I wouldn't. I want to look like how I think I look.

The trouble is, what I usually see in the mirror and what every one else sees aren't the same. What I see in the mirror and what I see even in professional photographs (*waves at leenerella*) aren't the same. I see a woman; that's why I live as one now. Part of this is that I'm seeing myself from two thirds of the way up my face, which definitely helps me feel better day to day, but it doesn't explain everything. This disconnect between my usual perception and most of the goddamn planet's is the very heart of being trans.

You can tell me that most of the goddamn planet's perception doesn't matter at all, or that "usual" is good enough. I'm here to tell you that isn't true, not if I can do anything about it.

Dr. Faceknife's first suggestions - to his credit, I thought - were subtle. What I thought looked right was... less so. He says we're going to go through the same exercise again (!) on surgery day. How my mind is going to work after six hours of no food or fluids I'm not sure, but I'm grateful for the second chance.

Comments

[ironymaiden]

does Dr. Faceknife give you a copy of the image? I'd want to have time to look at it in between appointments.

and congratulations on getting the surgery, I'm glad that you have the opportunity to feel more you.

[staxxy]

there area bunch of photo manipulation apps out there. I recommend taking a very starkly lit, completely naked (no makeup, hair pulled back) face shot and using an app that lets you push the bits around until the you in the photo looks like the you in your head. Then you can take that to the doctor.

I get that making the you on the outside look like the you on the inside is the real goal.

As I recall from when we did the shoot, you want a more Heart-Shaped face, with a more narrow chin, and more round angled jawline.

What the rest of the world sees when we look at you isnt the most important thing, but that doesn't make it UNIMPORTANT in your own math on the stakes at hand. And that's okay. BUT!!! It is important for getting that math right to remember that even post-surgery, what people see when we look at you is COMPLETELY subjective and unique to our own brains and short of each of us taking a picture of you and mushing it around in photoshop so it matches our head-canon of what you look like, you can't ever really know.

You will probably look nearly the same to me, but in my brain the part of your face that makes you you is between the center of your eyes. Like, literally what I key on for identifying you is the couple of inches that span the space between widest point of you eyes when they are normally open, with the same height of that space. Like a rectangle that is used to obscure your identity in reverse.

[basefinder]

I hope he gives you exactly what you want to see.

[m_cobweb]

FWIW, I don't think I ever told you this--the first time I saw you after your transition was at Wayward, and it had been a while. My first thought was "cute geek girl is waving at me oh heck where do I know her from?" (What you think of being seen as a geek girl, well, that I don't know.)


That said, having a fair bit of disconnect between what I see in the mirror and what photos show me, I can sympathize. I'd love to have a better match there myself (although given that what I see in the mirror varies so much from day to day, maybe it's better that I don't).