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Playing With / Tarnishing Their Own Beauty

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Basic Trope: A beautiful character makes themselves uglier for plot-related reasons.

  • Straight: Alice makes herself as physically homely as possible to not attract the attention of stalkers or creeps.
  • Exaggerated:
  • Downplayed:
  • Justified:
    • So Beautiful, It's a Curse.
    • Alice is trying to ruin her Arranged Marriage with Charlie who is only marrying her for her looks.
    • Alice is one of the Royals Who Actually Do Something or a Rebellious Princess and needs to disguise herself or draw less attention to herself, so she can blend in with the average-looking citizens and not stand out.
    • Alice is grieving the loss of Bob, and in her culture, mourning is expressed by wearing rough, burlap-like, fabrics, not brushing hair, covering oneself with ashes, and even various types of Self-Harm.
    • Alice desperately wants to join a group of thugs who won't let her in unless she gets rid of her pretty, delicate appearance so she makes herself look like a scary thug to be taken seriously by them.
  • Inverted: She Cleans Up Nicely / TheMakeover.
  • Subverted: Even in plain clothes, she is considered very cute by some of her close friends.
    • Alice is wearing a turtleneck sweater and a maxi skirt. She still gets raped.
    • Alice attends the Church of Crystal Dragon Jesus. One of its tenets is for church members to dress in clothes and wear their hair in a simple style, so as not to create a Slobs vs. Snobs scenario, at least during worship.
    • Alice doesn't disfigure her body to avoid rape or other harm.
  • Double Subverted: Alice decides to cut her hair short and let it stay that way.
    • In order to prevent herself from being hurt again, Alice cuts her breasts off. And she blames herself for "not being modest enough."
    • Members are encouraged to dress this way in their day-to-day lives as well; Alice is always seen wearing a somewhat boxy cotton dress with no frills (literally and figuratively).
    • But she does become a Hikikomori; she doesn't go out (and thus let people see her), with the hope that no one will hurt her. Her curtains are always closed, her door is always locked, she orders groceries and other necessities online, doesn't have social media, has a doctor that actually makes housecalls, rarely has visitors, and works from home.
  • Parodied: Alice drinks a potion that turns her into an old hag just like the Evil Queen in Snow White.
  • Zig Zagged: ???
  • Averted: Alice doesn't change anything about her appearance.
  • Enforced:
  • Lampshaded: "I know Alice is trying to chase unwanted visitors away from her castle but isn't making herself as ugly as an Orlok... a bit too much?"
  • Invoked: Alice is trying to lose a Beauty Contest.
  • Exploited: Alice, knowing that unattractive and/or scarred women can't become queens in her country, gives herself (or at least threatens to do so) a big nasty scar on her face so she can't inherit the throne.
  • Defied: Being a Proud Beauty, Alice refuses to sabotage her looks for whatever reason.
  • Discussed: "If Alice was in a Sageuk drama, she could've just made herself look ugly or something so she can avoid marrying the tyrant king."
  • Conversed: "Well, in such a dramatic show like this, Alice would definitely choose to ruin her appearance rather than be chased by angry jealous girls."
  • Implied: Alice used to get heart eyes looks thrown at her and everyone's jaw would drop whenever she passed by but after coming out of surgery one day, their smitten and amazed looks toward her are quickly replaced with ones of extreme disgust and shock.
  • Deconstructed: Even though Alice uglified herself, she still receives unwanted attention for the wrong reasons - men now jeer and shame her for her ugly, which is now the thing that makes her stand out in public rather than being beautiful.
  • Reconstructed: Alice decides that it's not her physical looks that define her anyways, so she doesn't care about being called ugly.
  • Played for Drama: Alice's self-esteem takes a turn for the worst and deep down wishes she could be pretty.
  • Played for Laughs: ???

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