#I'm just getting on my lil soapbox for no reason

[daisywords]

you know what specific strain of discourse I find really reductive and annoying? that whole "Oh parents are pushing dolls onto little girls to indoctrinate them into believing that their whole personality has to revolved around motherhood yada ya"

because like. First of all the concept of dolls has been around like everywhere forever. It's not like they were invented as some part of malicious misogynistic scheme. Some kids will literally kiss a stiCK on the "head" and put it to sleep.

which leads into the second of all: because I don't think kids playing at taking care of something has much to do with hypothetical future parental roles as it has to do with their own conceptualization of their current relationships.

Think about it. For most young children, their most important relationships are with the people who take care of them. And playacting as the other role in that type of relationship I think can be a way of learning to understand the world and the people around them.

It's not so much that the kid is supposed to have babies later, it's that they are someone's baby right now. (Not to say that kids who aren't so into doll play are socially stunted or anything; everyone's different.) But what I am saying is that I don't think that giving little girls dolls is insidious as a concept. I think that kind of play should also be available and encouraged in boys.

And like yeah girls should also have other outlets and opportunities and everything but ugh it's not an either or between "cool in interesting stem toys" and "dumb dolls" like hm idk. Maybe we should all be a little more focused on learning to care for other humans actually.

[landograndprix]

Sorry me back again. I don’t get to normally chat like this, so unfortunately you’re receiving my wild theories.

I think, and this is just me living in delulu land that in RB’s mind that having Daniel lends an air of credibility and/or prestige. Like you said it’s the same idea of putting Hamilton into a Hass. The car might be shit and the team might be shit but that’s still going to be Lewis Hamilton driving it. It’s going to A.) boost the development of the car B.) boost the image of the team. We saw something similar happen with Vettel and Aston Martin. (That’s part of the reason that AM started out the year so strong, but that’s a whole other soapbox😂) So from a business standpoint if I’m trying to convince everyone (including investors) that AlohaTauri is NOT a junior team that I use to filter out my rookies before giving them a chance at a full seat at RB you want someone like DR3. It’s also theoretically beneficial to have some that knows what a race winning car drives like, and to be able to give that feedback. Based off what I’m seeing so far, I’d really like to see Yuki/DR3 at AF for 2024, give it a year and let them develop a decent car. Slot Lawson into the 2025 season with some that is upper midfielder so he has his time to really shine. Let DR3 head to RB to hopefully keep MV1 interest and not destroying another rookie. I would really hate to see Lawson go the same way as Albon/Gasley/Sainz. Yes they bounced back but I don’t think it’s really fair to Lawson to put him throw that. MV1’s current contract ends in 2027, and with the way he’s already talking about retirement that would give Lawson a prime seat up for the taking.

Also as far as the Williams seat, I’m still not sure about that one. I really think James is going to do whatever they can’t to give him another year. But they’ve also come out and said they would have liked Sargent to have had more experience. Also Wolff has supposedly been pushing hard for Schumacher to take that seat if it were to come open. And with how intertwined the 2 companies are I’m leaning towards Schumacher getting 1st dibs; at least until Hamilton retires.

Will also 100% agree that the “staniels” did mange to make one of the most likely driver ever almost intolerable.

Maybe I'm a bit biased when it comes to lil' Liam and maybe it's me trying to get on staniels nerves because they do just the same to me with their anti-oscar and daniel is a god agenda 😂 but I get where they're coming from but from the things I've read and seen from others on here or in the comments on their insta pages, right now liam is favored but I guess we'll see how it ends up for Daniel (not wishing him the worst of the worst but I'm also not going to be delulu about his chances 😢)

going to start my own team, liam and mick amd because im hella leclerc biased as well, arthur as reserve 😂🥰

[coulsonlives]

Yesterday I learned someone I blocked had reposted one of my psas, and I just wanna vent for a moment w a lil update. Because I need to soapbox (and also give a friendly notice about sending asks on my behalf)

I just got an ask from someone (making this post so I don't reveal their url) who anonymously told that person to not repost my things. This was the reply they got back:

A couple thoughts here

First, blocking vindicated again, because this def isn't the kinda person I want to be around. Generally I can tell very quickly from someone's pinned post and blog activity if they're gonna be a jerk, and this is a prime example of why I usually follow my hunches with that. Second, I feel super bad for this person (they're a minor) because obviously this isn't healthy, none of what I saw on their blog was healthy and tbh after the minute or two I spent this morning, I'm scared to go back and look more

I saw lots of maladjusted things on their blog, but what stood out were all the casual posts on their and their moot's blogs that went something like, 'he should kill himself' and 'we should kill (person)'! Replies like this (the suibaiting) are part of why I HATE even CASUAL posts that talk about killing people. I feel like it just waters down the gravity of that stuff, and makes people way too emboldened to say things like well, this, to real people, they're just too used to saying it that it comes out automatically as like. a kind of meme or something flippant. The way they see these phrases is so far removed from how the average person reacts

For people like this, everything's on the computer, they can't measure reactions, things don't feel 'real' because they're not physically seeing and processing a real person and it removes them from the reality of what they're doing

And that leads to some v upsetting results, like this!!

Chances are, even if someone tries to talk to this person, they're not gonna reach em. Esp if it's not done super super tactfully (which I hate to say, this anon was not). So it's better just to leave people alone and let them work things out for themselves, it doesn't have to be our responsibility to fix their problems

That brings me to my last note: pls pls don't bother people on my behalf! Especially people like this (for obvious reasons). Things can get nasty super fast, and I'm a low spoonie potato who can't deal w the drama. 😭

I'm not mad, I appreciate the consideration, but this ain't the way. If I have concerns I'll talk to someone myself :)

[heretic-saint-taliesin]

ohhhhh my gods that shipping post resonated so hard with me; i am Exhausted by the trend this fandom has taken lately to make everything about ships ships ships all the time etc

pls; i really just wanna enjoy this interesting story about interesting characters ;-;

Okay so like not at you directly but you're gonna get my lil soapbox.

I honest to god CANNOT STAND the vast majority of current BSD fandom because of the shipping that seems to permeate every single aspect of how they want to interact with things.

Ignoring the outright woobification of certain characters (Chuuya, Dazai (and im no fan of canon dazai but fanon dazai is absolutely abhorrent) Fyodor and Akutagawa to name but a few the insistance that everything HAS to boil down to [REDACTED NAME BUT YOU KNOW THE SHIP] or its counterparts really boils my blood.

You're presented with a manga where unlike other anthropomorphic concept storylines (insert name of the one with the countries. again. you know it) the characters are, for the most part at least, ACTUALLY GENUINE HOMAGES to their literary inspirations. The elements of Raskolnikov in Fyodor. The notes to Gatsby in Fitzgerald. The ways in which Asagiri has genuinely and lovingly put time and EFFORT into knowing these authors and respecting their works and paying tribute to that in his character design.

And y'all just wanna boil it down to who takes it in the ass in bed. Real mature. Like I KNOW this fandom skews uncomfortably young given the media's theme (and i'm not here to bash on 14 yos i just don't want you in my space because I'm an adult with boundaries) but there is NOTHING to stop you from like.. enjoying media for what it is. Not everything has to be a gay ship. Yeah shipping can be fun but it does not have to be the be-all-end-all of something. It can just be a fun aside.

Plus the need to then.. inflict that on others? Like? Don't. It's rude and some of the fans have bad enough sense of boundaries as is. harassing the creator is outright sick and rude and nobody should be condoning that. It's not YOUR story. It's Asagiri's and I still trust that he knows where he's going with it. Nothing HAS to cater to your ships. To be quite frank a lot of [REDACTED] should be freaking grateful a lot of the mainstream merch and marketing actually DOES cater to their favourites! Some of us who enjoy the non-main-four have sat around watching you guys get priority with Stormbringer and BEAST and Fifteen when all we'd really like is to see 55min or just SOMETHING a little more different.

Appreciate what you have and don't get greedy!

The load of people lambasting Asagiri for not bringing back chuuya? You wanna know when I last saw MY favourite? CHAPTER TWELVE. AND SHE DIDN'T GET HER ONE MAINSTREAM APPEARANCE ANIMATED.

Added to which like... Shipping just makes everything so toxic. Some people are in this for other reasons (OCs, the literature, or maybe just the story itself??) and we dont want to have to go through hearing how you're whinging over all this. We just wanna enjoy the story.

That's my two cents rant. Apologies it's nothing on you for asking. I just feel very VERY strongly about this lol.

[mumblesplash]

I'm gonna say you're a 6 on the intimidation scale. Reasoning, your art skills are really good and I always feel intimidated by those who can draw better than me. Still gonna sit there and love it, but then hate myself cause why I can't I do that. Keep it up!

heyyy hey hey this is my blog and i make the rules and nobody’s allowed to hate themselves over my art ok? it’s illegal 

and i’m not just saying that to try to make you feel better, it’s also the best art advice i have. there’s plenty of people who are better at the kinds of art i like to make than i am, and there always will be. in my opinion it wouldn’t make much sense for me to be jealous of them, or angry at myself, because what i want is to get better at drawing. 

think of it this way: there’s so many different types of art and so many skills involved in them, and it’s not like i particularly want to be good at *all* of these things. i have my own goals, specific things i want to achieve, things i want to be able to do. i don’t ever find myself wishing i had the skill to do something i don’t want to do, so when i see someone else’s art and think ‘‘i wish i could do that” that’s a *good* thing. it means i’m seeing something i want, and something i know i don’t have. it means there’s something new to learn, and as someone who’s trying to improve that’s what i need the most. 

if you like my art and wish you could draw like me, use that! try to figure out what you like about my art, find other artists who do those things, pick apart what we draw and why it appeals to you. try to recreate the elements you like in your own drawings, and if it doesn’t work that’s just more information to pick apart and learn from. art isn’t a linear skill, or even set of skills, it’s just an infinite series of opportunities to learn new things. that’s why i love doing it so much

anyway sorry you sorta stepped into the line of fire of my relentless art positivity, i’ll get off my lil soapbox before i lower my 4.25 intimidation score average even further by being an enormous dork. i just really like drawing a lot lmao but thanks for the encouragement and good luck! if you (or anyone) ever happen to have any specific art questions just drop them in my inbox and i’ll do my best to answer

[airedelalmena]

theres babygay followers now so i feel like i should say, i dont endorse getting wasted on the regular, esp not if youre lgbt. its a temporary bandage and one i only use sometimes but for a lot of ppl they cant limit it to sometimes because regular life hurts...the answer is not getting more messed up but like getting to the root of the life issues and being real about ur feelings and probably a psychologist to at least occasionally hash this out to helps. i'm going thru some shit in my rl right now that involves such a packed schedule that i literally would struggle to get a psych in. on top of that i very strictly limit myself, but again in a way that someone struggling wouldn't always feel able to, esp if doing anything for reasons of life negativity. take care of yourself and use the concepts above as well as moderation and only rarely doing things once in a while. think less an alcoholic uncle and more the grandparent who now and then will be like "lets have a glass tonight, (then they joke) its good for your heart" but yknow, theyre not overdoing it nor every night. i honestly feel like younger people would benefit from that approach before totally wrecking themselves. i have had family members ruin their lives and known ppl who overdosed on hard stuff, not ur lil plants, ok, and dont think it couldnt be anyone, it absolutely could. that's the end of my soapbox rant. tl;dr dont romanticize or repeat my current lifestyle. bc even if its only a green one (lmao) it's knowingly temporary, not that gr8 for me, and i don't even like it, & am only doing it until i get more of my shit together in the next couple months and follow my own advice above. something between just getting conditions right and actually making my life improved and yeah a psych lol.