Wolf in the Stars

Maggie Stiefvater (via maxkirin)

Presented without comment.

I’ve been tagged a few times for the 20 Beautiful Women challenge (thanks for thinking of me, fellow humans!) and instead of following the rules, I want instead take the opportunity to say three things about beauty. 

1. I think female beauty standards are impossible. Full stop. America’s women have a self esteem problem, and it’s because every one of us is asked to be something that we’re not. Screw you, beauty standards, you can’t make me wax anything or wear heels. 

2. I’ve written before that I mostly care for my body because it’s the thing that carries my brain. I love my brain. I also want my body to move well and not weep any pus or whatnot. That’s important to me; I’ll do what it takes to pull that off. Prettiness is not really a consideration. Which is not to say that I don’t care about my appearance. Because:

3. I don’t normally put my own thoughts directly in my characters’ mouths, but in The Raven King, Blue says what I think:

I’m posting these photos of my life-in-progress not so anyone in the world can scoff or admire or objectify or eye-roll or judge. I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I actually don’t care if you think I’m pretty or not. Some dude told me yesterday that I was so old. Whatever, man. 

What I hope you will see with these photos is an evolution, and also how my entire life’s appearance has basically been about figuring out how to make my outsides look like my insides. The better I know myself, the better I can try to convey me-ness to other people with just a glimpse. I want people to know me; what I look like is yet another opportunity to explain myself to them. My entire life’s “beauty goals” have been: what can I do to make my outsides look more like my insides? Can I give people visual cues for what they’re about to get in to? 

So I guess all I’m saying is that you should ignore the 4 million voices shouting at you what it means to be beautiful and instead listen only to me saying just try to look like your brain. I’m tagging the entire world in that challenge. 

Ally Condie, Matched (via larmoyante)