360degreesasthecrowflies:

“When I was a kid, the most thrilling thing that could happen to me was getting permission to have a friend stay the night. These sleepovers were so much fun that I was sure when I grew up I would live in a giant house with all of my friends forever. (I never wondered who would do the dishes.) Nearly everyone I know had similar daydreams, but this is something we are supposed to grow out of, and replace with daydreams about living with a romantic partner. This isn’t entirely going as planned for our society. It seems like every few weeks an article is circulated that inspires a giant online hand-wringing about millennials resisting committed romantic relationships, or Gen Xers continuing to have roommates. (“The millennial generation lacks the ability to love!” “Meet the people flatsharing in their 40s!”) We’ve collectively decided that people who live with their friends have failed terribly, people who live with a partner have achieved incredible domestic success, and people who live alone or don’t centre their lives around romance are possibly just broken. We are all encouraged to work hard to have stable lives. But at the same time, we’re encouraged to anchor our lives around the relationship that is the least stable. It is uncomfortable to think of romantic love in those terms, but it’s not inaccurate.”

—

Audra Williams, from this National Post article “Why living with your friends doesn’t make you a bad adult”. Really interesting and valid as an observation of the state of our society nowadays and the fact that focus on marriage as ‘success’ is totally ideological, but it also resonated with me as a defense of asexuality; and ace, aro issues. Romance does not have to rule your life.

Check out more of Audra’s work and words [right here]

problackgirl:

we’ve taught girls to romanticise nearly everything a boy does. when i was younger i thought it was cute that boys chased the girl even after she said no. i loved it when after a girl moved away from a kiss, the guy would pull her back and force it on. i thought a guy saying ‘i won’t take a no for an answer’ was passionate and romantic. we’re literally always teaching girls to romanticise abusive traits.

agrownupgeekgirl:

To be honest.. if more children were shown from birth that they are loved, cared for, and listened no matter their gender we might not have some of the problems we have now.  

writerlyn:

The most important writing lesson I ever learned was not in a screenwriting class, but a fiction class.

This was senior year of college.  Most of us had already been accepted into grad school of some sort. We felt powerful, we felt talented, and most of all, we felt artistic.

It was the advanced fiction workshop, and we did an entire round of workshops with everyone’s best stories, their most advanced work, their most polished pieces. It was very technical and, most of all, very artistic.

IE: They were boring pieces of pretentious crap.

Now the teacher was either a genius OR was tired of our shit, and decided to give us a challenge.  Flash fiction, he said. Write something as quickly as possible.  Make it stupid.  Make it not mean a thing, just be a quick little blast of words. 

And, of course, we all got stupid.  Little one and two pages of prose without the barriers that it must be good. Little flashes of characters, little bits of scenarios.

And they were electric.  All of them. So interesting, so vivid, not held back by the need to write important things or artistic things. 

One sticks in my mind even today.  The guys original piece was a thinky, thoughtful piece relating the breaking up of threesomes to volcanoes and uncontrolled eruptions that was just annoying to read. But his flash fiction was this three page bit about a homeless man who stole a truck full of coca cola and had to bribe people to drink the soda so he could return the cans to recycling so he could afford one night with the prostitute he loved.

It was funny, it was heartfelt, and it was so, so, so well written.

And just that one little bit of advice, the write something short and stupid, changed a ton of people’s writing styles for the better.

It was amazing. So go.  Go write something small.  Go write something that’s not artistic.  Go write something stupid. Go have fun.