#you don't have to moralize your taste in media

[f1-giuki]

prompt game within the tsgc and the fic gods decided to give us this a helping b wash up (whether it be their hair, body, some blood off their hands, etc) prompt! so naturally I had to make it 2022 lestappen!!!!! hope you like it darlings!!!

-

“You didn't have to punch him,” Max says, watching as Charles breathes from his mouth while he scrubs his hands under the scorching hot water of the bathroom sink.

“He called you an ugly faggot, I have morals, Verstappen,” Charles huffs, taking a pause, closing the water and placing his hands on the sides of the ceramic sink.

The pain on his face is throbbing and growing and Max's constant complaining is not doing him any favours. Not even the pent up anger and repressed feelings are helping him.

“Still, punching the FIA president at the fucking gala isn't very smart,” Max argues, not knowing what to do with his hands.

Max knows shouldn't tease Charles, after all, he's the one who got punched to defend his honour.

After he accepted the World Driver's Championship trophy and made a few jokes at the expense of the FIA, making Charles laugh and Checo roll his eyes, he didn't expect the FIA president to get on the stage suddenly, and start talking about how Max should be more grateful that he was never suspended for his language or his behaviour, or his deviances.

“You should be thankful the FIA is such a great organisation and it allows people like you to participate. It takes all our strength to support your kind,” the guy had said.

Max, in another circumstance, would have joked that yeah, competitive racers are really a strange breed!, but he knows what the words of the President mean. He knows he's referring to the paparazzi pictures plastered across every single sports news outlet the past summer. Pictures of himself kissing a random guy in Spain, during the summer break.

Everyone in the paddock, after the first month conveniently forgot it. The sponsors, the fans, the media. It was better for them to ignore that side of Max. It didn't fit their narrative of him, and so they scraped it off his character's page.

Max dreaded becoming the queer driver, in his strange wonderings late at night. He hated the perspective of becoming a symbol. Maybe he would have liked better to always wear the bisexual driver on the grid title than facing the complete erasure of an essential part of his being.

But the unprompted attack on the FIA prize giving ceremony might have shifted things.

After Ben Sulayem's abhorrent speech, Charles and Checo looked at each other and nodded, deciding to charge against the man, giving him a taste of his own dog-eats-dog mentality.

Max was only able to stop Checo, not Charles, who made an impressive use of his toned biceps. He got punched back, and, before an army of angry Italian people could intervene, his nose was broken and bloody.

"It will for sure be a night to remember…” Charles mumbles, not remembering which is the position to keep one's head with a nosebleed.

“Here… Let me…” Max mumbles instead, taking the handkerchief from the pocket of his suit and wetting it with cold water.

Charles flinches lightly as Max starts cleaning the dried blood on his prominent cupid's bow and upper lip, looking up, staring into those icy blue eyes.

“You don't have to cover for me, I can punch a bitch too… But thank you, Charlie…” Max whispers, holding his face softly in one hand, caressing his cheek with a thumb.

“I'm the only one who can destroy you,” Charles mumbles, gravelly, making goosebumps appear on Max's skin.

“And slam me into a wall?” Max asks, passing his thumb on the cleaned lips, watching as Charles parts them slightly, his tongue deciding whether to lick Max's finger or not.

“Yes, I am the only one who can draw blood, others shouldn't waste it for us,” Charles whispers, opening his legs so Max can slip a thigh in between them.

"Be prepared for next year, you and the gravel will have a deep and meaningful relationship,” Max grins on Charles' lips, caring to angle his face so as not to touch Charles' broken nose.

“Fuck you,” Charles laughs on his lips, before kissing Max, latching his bruised hands behind his neck.

[grayve-mistake]

this is just kind of a big tangent but like I fucking hate when nerd ass losers see a game with even vague similarities to another game and go "ERMMM. HOW ORIGINALL (SARCASTIC). THIS IS JUST ANOTHER GAME IN THE STUPID TREND OF-" and then they list every genre/label under the sun to try and discredit the game as unoriginal by comparing it to other games. 90% of the time they haven't even played the game they're complaining about. they just see pixel art and get angry ig.

like look at this image. look at this and tell me it's not just alphabet soup. what do half of these words even mean. congrats on discovering what a genre is I guess?????????? good for you?????? do you want a fuckin award or something???? a little handclap??? shall I pour you a little glass of wine for being oh so smart and sophisticated for figuring out that Things Can Have Little Similarities Sometimes?????? just say that 7 years later you're still bitter that undertale got popular and leave oh my god "quirky dialogue" oh I'm sorry did you want your dialogue boring and soulless yeah let me just remove the personality from the game. here's your Nothing Burger I hope you're happy. "pixel art" oh so i guess like almost every game that came out in the 80s and 90s is actually just part of a so-called "2010s-2020s trend". These people genuinely think earthbound and celeste are "Basically The Same". it's not even an rpg. You had to throw in platformers in your disgusting word smoothie because otherwise you couldn't even find any real similarities besides "has a story and contains pixels". they think the psychological horror game Omori is just Undertale 2. yeah sorry guys Super Fuckin Mario Brothers is part of the quirky rpg metroidvania fjhksdgjhlkfgsdhkfgh-like diarrhea trend. cant play it now or you're cringe and bad. do you people ever get TIIIRRREEDDDDD. DO YOU EVER ENJOY THINGS. ON THEIR OWN MERIT. DO YOU EVEN GIVE THINGS A CHANCE. YOU'RE NOT SPECIAL FOR NOT LIKING THINGS YOU'RE BORING AND ANNOYING AS FUCK. I'm so fucking done

[transmascutena]

akio ohtori ass argument

[sloanout]

The bad rap Taash and veilguard as a whole get remains equal parts confusing and frustrating to me. It's one thing to see culture war chuds seething over woke or whatever, but really I expected better from Tumblr of all places. Whether or not you enjoyed DA:tV, it is objectively an incredibly inclusive game that did a lot more for representation across the board than most titles, and trying to debate that fact or tear it down because it didn't do its representation exactly to the letter of how you wanted it is, straightforwardly, poisonous to the fight for diversity in gaming as a whole. Call me dramatic, but every time you act like a spoiled child and pitch a bitch fit over a nonbinary or trans character not being exactly what you wanted, you are actively hurting your own cause. You don't have to like Taash, but if you care about the community it's the least you can do to restrain yourself from posting freezing cold, Steven Universe discourse level takes about how they are actually "harmful" or would have "put you back in the closet".

Here's the tough truth about portraying nonbinary and trans perspectives in media: these identities are not a monolith. Nonbinary, as a whole, is not a secret third gender with its own set of trappings, it's a wide, wide label that means many different things to many different people. That you can look at an nb character written by a nb person and say "they did it wrong" with your whole chest speaks more to your own limited viewpoint and disconnection from the greater queer community than it does to the actual quality of the character.

The impossible challenge that creators face when their writing hits fandom spaces is that people want many different things from art. I've seen people adamant that the correct and most helpful way to do rep is to have a character turn directly to the camera and say "I am transgender" and then have that part of their identity explored for the next 300 pages. I have also seen people, just as adamant and righteous as the first, claim that representation is best and most correctly done when queerness is an incidental background detail in the same vein as hair color or favorite food. The truth is that neither of these perspectives, nor any in-between is inherently more or less correct than the other. Different people will want different things, because at the end of the day different people have different experiences with their queerness and would like to see that reflected in the things they love.

The only real way to be incorrect here is to malign and defame a story for daring to depict something outside of your particular experience - as I see many people do with Taash. I had to read with my own eyes a post about how their romance with Harding is predatory or some shit and that it reflects poorly on the nb community. Quick question: could you please go do your moral crusade about 50 Shades of Grey or some other piece of work so I don't have to see it? You help no one with this hyperbolic bullshit. The only thing you're doing is handing the worst people in this world further unsubstantiated ammo for casting genderqueer people as inherently sexually abusive. Think for a second about who and what you sound like for the love of God. Taash and Harding are both into what happens on screen, your weird moral panic is your own problem. Once again, you don't have to like it, but please do not try to frame something as ontologically evil and harmful to the community because it doesn't suit your tastes.

Taash is fine nonbinary rep. As a nonbinary person, especially one who is afab and spent most of my life feeling a bit out of place and uncomfortable with what the world expected of me, I think it's just right. They managed to represent me. Sorry that it didn't get to be your experience that got put in the game, but it's impossible to tell every single queer story at once. If you really give a shit about the community, celebrate the wins of your fellows, not just your own.

And the sad thing is, I see two big 'critiques' about Taash's questline - either that it's all about their gender identity, or that it doesn't explore their gender identity enough. Sometimes I see these takes in the same post and I can only imagine what sort of doublethink Koolaid the culture war nonsense has gotten you to drink. Taash's gender is front and center, and that's great! But it's a part of a larger story - a story about a difficult family relationship. Taash's story is about the ebb and flow of their relationship with their mother more than anything else, and to be honest? It's one of the best in the series.

Family drama has been a mainstay of Dragon Age - you have Hawke's personal tragedy in DA2, Dorian's alienation over his identity and beliefs in Inquisition, and hell, Morrigan throughout the series tends to be more tied up with family dynamics than anything else. Taash is the continuation of that tradition, and I love what they have. The binary choice at the end is pretty weak and downright misunderstands the experience of being mixed race, but the dynamic between Taash and Shathann is fantastic. It's pained and restrained in such a realistic way, two people struggling with the old and new who dearly care about each other but can never seem to see eye to eye, and end up falling back on their worst vices - anger for Taash, and discipline for Shathann.

Veilguard has a tendency to pull its punches and make everyone a bit too chipper and chill, that's a legitimate criticism given the series' history, but I was deeply struck by how unforgiving Shathann's death was. It was really, unrelentingly realistic - life happened, and Taash never got the chance to sort out their relationship with her. They didn't get to reconcile or ever see eye to eye. Despite spending most of their screen time together bitter and simmering, Taash is so devastated by their mother's death that you have to pull them out of certain death. It was cathartic and brutal for me, a nb person who has had a really really poor relationship with my mother in the past, it made me go plan a lunch with her because I was so grateful that things didn't end like that for us, that I did get the time to work through it.

And sure, you can accuse me of going easy on Taash because their story resonated with me - but isn't that what a story is supposed to do? Reflect the real and sincere, evoke emotion in the audience and crystalize experience and feeling on the stage? Isn't that proof of its value?

At the end of the day, representation has no single golden standard. The only real end goal is to be represented at all - not only by shining heroes and perfectly squeaky clean moralists, but also by characters who are just as human and fallible as the real life people they draw from. Taash succeeds there, and I think they deserve a lot more love and grace than many in the fandom want to show them. If you still want to slander Taash as harmful or bad, why don't you call me that too? Why not call every non binary person who fails to meet your rigid standards evil and degenerate while you're at it? See how much of a community you're left with, and who the ghouls cheering for you actually are.

[anomaly-076]

mixing whb with tkdb again... What do you think each ghoul's biggest fetish is?

Sorry for filing up your inbox so often 😭😭😭

Tkdb boys idiosyncrasies (18+)

‎‧₊˚✿Masterlist✿˚₊‧

♦ Don't worry at all! I'm glad someone's interested in my writing! ^^ I also went all out with their full idiosyncrasies like all the WHB demons have, so I hope you don't mind ^^ ♦

  ⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆

Jin

Master/Servant play

A Prince of Frost, who'd do anything to keep his peace. The only ones allowed into his chambers is his trusty servant Tohma and you. He might be cold, but should you tempt him, things will heat up fast.

Tohma

Capnolagnia (smoking)

Timophilia (gold, wealth and high social status)

If you feel a pair of observing eyes on yourself while in Frostheim, rest assured it's the Prince's advisor. Fear not, however, he's merely making sure you cause no trouble. He's usually the center of attention during Frosteim's balls.

Lucas

Crurophilia (legs)

In search for his twin brother, Lucas finds little to no time to relax between studying and training. Many other students, including his good friend Kaito, have said he simply needs some healthy distraction.

Kaito

Mazophilia (boobs)

Katoptronophilia (mirror sex)

As confident he is, the moment you're around reduces Kaito to a babbling mess. Give him a few moments and he'll compose himself only to attempt charming you.

  ⋆˚✿˖°

Alan

Sthenolagnia (muscles and displays of strength)

Asphyxiophilia (choking) - after he overcomes the fear of hurting others on accident

A gentle giant with an air of danger who is like the older brother of all his fellow Vagastrom students. Some gossips say he's done some bad things in his past, but nobody dares or knows to say what.

Leo

Autagonistophilia (being in front of an audience/camera)

A small social media influencer with a tongue sharper than most blades. Him and his partner in crime, Sho, are the primary source of trouble in the Vagastrom dorm with Leo being the sole insinuator.

Sho

Amaurophilia (blindfold kink)

The students of Vagastrom are known to never pass up a good fight and Sho is no different. You're likely to either run into him at his food truck or in the Vagastrom garagaes, tending to his bike Bonnie.

  ⋆˚✿˖°

Haru

Doraphilia (texture/feel of fur/animal skin)

The naughty and energetic president of Jabberwock who carries his son Peekaboo around everywhere. If you're not shy ask to pet him, he'll let you, and then he'll also let you pet Peekaboo too.

Towa

Dendrophilia (plants) - plants need love too, ig (sorry, again T-T)

A romantically oriented ghoul with a very light-hearted and curious nature. Don't let that fool you, though, his hugs are that of an anaconda about to strangle its prey. He's so in tune with the nature he eats flowers and the weather reflects his emotions.

Ren

Fictophilia (fictional characters)

A gamer who, despite being chosen into an outdoorsy and hardworking Jabberwock, has the right opposite personality traits. He's an overthinking homebody and will refuse to do even the slightest tasks unless he gains a reward or an achievement for it.

  ⋆˚✿˖°

Taiga

Anthropophagy (cannibalism) sorry

Erotophonophilia (murder)

The lunatic president of Sinostra, with very particular tastes. Anyone who's seen him eat will tell you he doesn't mind getting his face dirty while devouring his meal. His impulsivity makes him very trigger-happy.

Romeo

Hoplophilia (guns)

Romeo is a perfectionist and expects nothing less from his partner either. Curiously, one of his closest Sinostra residents is Taiga, who is nothing of that sort. After spending some time around Romeo, you will find yourself getting whipped into shape.

Ritsu

Hybristophilia (criminals, people who committed crimes)

Dikephilia (justice)

Always striving for justice, yet always seeming to condone criminals' behaviour as evident by his lack of interference and defense of Sinostra's president. Perhaps his moral compass more arched than expected?

  ⋆˚✿˖°

Subaru

Chirophilia (hands)

A legacy-bound actor who constantly worries about minuscule things. His compassion knows no bounds even if it might place him into a dangerous situation. His fellow students would say he simply needs a reassurance from someone he trusts.

Haku

Stigmatophilia (tattoos and piercings)

Capnolagnia (smoking) - you couldn't pry this HC from my cold dead hands

Some students might describe him as nothing but nice, and yet some account him to be a mischievous flirt. Both are true, but only his chosen person gets to fully experience how real those rumors are.

Zenji

Metrophilia (poetry)

A truly gifted poet constantly seeking for another source of ideas for his erotic poetry collection. Loves seeking out new partners to inspire his writing and doesn't shy away from describing acts between him and his partner in his poems.

  ⋆˚✿˖°

Edward

Hematolagnia (Drinking/seeing blood)

Odaxelagnia (biting/being bitten)

The ever so thirsty president of Obscuary, though barely few students could testify to seeing him in the flesh. His chambers are only for the most resilient due to the lingering smell of death and mess of clothes, his or someone else's.

Rui

Voyeurism

Calygnephilia (beautiful women)

To many students and employees he is known as a bartender. To many female students, he is known as an irresistible flirt, but who really knows what happens at his bar after the closing hours?

Lyca

Autozoophilia (being/acting like an animal) - for him it's his wolf form

Amychophilia (getting scratched/scratching)

A young werewolf, who is still struggling to navigate living in the human world. He's very curious and eager to learn. He may come off as a bit intense, but those are only his wolf instincts coming out.

  ⋆˚✿˖°

Yuri

Piquerism (cutting/stabbing someone with a sharp objects)

His personality strongly resembles Henry Frankenstein, which is a reputation he gladly upholds. The image is even enhanced when his assistant is around. In the surgeon's eyes, humans are only interesting or mediocre specimen.

Jiro

Free use kink

A stoic and reserved medical assistant, who isn't opposed to most things. His mobility may not be the best, but he will try. He may not feel strong happiness or pleasure himself, but seeing his partner experience them is enough for him.

[queeraang]

sometimes, you dislike a piece of media that is very popular and objectively well made. the popularity of it will only make it more annoying to you. now, the solution is not to then comb through a thing you don’t like to see if you can find something problematic to harp on to prove it's actually bad (you will find it, no human being has ever created perfectly inclusive perfectly inoffensive art) that just tanks the vibe and discourages new art because what's the point if it can never be perfect, also sometimes you spin out of control and start accusing people of real life crimes over like... a niche webseries

as someone with over three decades of 'bad taste' under their belt, allow me to guide you on best responses using a real life example of a popular film series, i couldn't give less of a fuck about. the nolan batman trilogy

block, mute, blacklist, whatever you have to do to avoid seeing this thing on your preferred webbed sites

allow yourself a quiet “ugh this shit” when things slip through the cracks

pick a neutral element of the thing to dislike when people ask ���i’m not really a batman fan" "i like more lighthearted superhero movies"

when inevitably someone can't BELIEVE you don't LOVE the best thing EVER MADE, you make it boring to talk about "yeah couldn't get into it" "it's just not my thing"

it also helps if you admit that it is good (i'm so sorry) just not good to you. the metaphor i use is gordon ramsey could make the most immaculate mushroom risotto ever made, but it's still not going to taste good if you don't like mushrooms

change the subject/leave the convo. i don't sit around listening to ppl talk about the dark knight, i ignore the gc for a few minutes, i go get a drink irl, if it's one on one i go "no, but you know i did like birds of prey, have you seen that?"

if someone really won't let up, stop talking to them! a guy who always wants to talk about how i should watch batman is a fucking weird guy to know

vent about this with like minded people SPARINGLY, too much and you'll fall down the "and everyone who does like it is morally bankrupt" hole

crucially, don't do this to other people for stuff you like. you're not the arbiter of taste, your "best movie ever" could be someone else's "if i have to hear about that shit again i'll scream"

like i'm sure i could figure out ways the dark knight trilogy is racist/ableist/etc if i really examined it, but like... i would so much rather just NOT WATCH THREE MOVIES I DON'T FUCKING LIKE

[animentality]

attaching morality to someone's tastes in fiction is baffling to me.

you understand that Christians read the Bible and self help books and good moral wholesome pro family/pro child friendly literature while doing some of the worst shit you've ever heard of to their own families/children...?

meanwhile the heathen writing piss kink and watersports and consensual choking is the nicest person you'll ever meet who just sits in her room writing porn and daydreaming all day.

you insist that people who read or write dark content are amoral, and yet don't seem to realize that by banning or condemning such content, all you do is make it more difficult to recognize and talk about.

it's like christians saying don't teach sex ed, then the children won't know sex exists -

children are going to have sex regardless of whether you ban sexual materials or not. they're human beings, human beings have sexual urges.

sometimes these urges are not fucking pc or palatable to everyone.

as long as they don't bother anyone, why the fuck does it matter that they exist

oh you people... saying thought crimes exist...

stop it.

you might as well join the Christian fundamentalist camp. stop pretending to be progressive and start reading some fucking christian lit.

you don't like noncon or dubcon or age gap or incest or toxic codependency or fetish content in media- great, don't fucking read it.

you can literally go read Dr Seuss books, nothing is stopping you.

But going out here with your torches and insisting that everyone love the same shit you do... blah.

if something makes you uncomfortable, walk away from it.

it's so bizarre that you care what other people are reading or watching on their own time. if they're not hurting anyone else, you're just attacking for the sake of it. because it's what you like to do.

and other people might not be able to see through you, but I can, you're like glass to me.

[olderthannetfic]

I think preferences in fiction does have some (keyword some) correlation to what your irl morals are though. If someone's favorite movie is Birth of the nation unironically it does say about them a lot of things. If someone enjoys a dark romance book between KKK member and a black woman where the black woman is not questioning the KKK members politics and is secretly enjoying being kidnapped by him (yes a book like this exists) it says something about that person.

There are conservative movies. Created and written by conservatives specifically that align with conservative values. If someone watches and thinks they are a pinnacle of art that does say something about the audience.

If fiction didn't have effect on reality there wouldn't be so many book bans and books about queer and POC experiences wouldn't be removed from libraries and schools.

I understand that a lot of this usually is aimed against women who enjoy things for their own escapism, but like we gotta have this conversation. And just saying "don't like don't read" really doesn't help.

--

"we gotta have this conversation"?

So I, a stranger, owe you a specific conversation I may have already had with people I know for decades?

I don't, buddy, and that's the root of most of the problems with this kind of discourse.

--

A lot of people like shitty or dark or immoral art for reasons other than finding it the pinnacle of art. The more the art in question is about lust or fear or disgust, the more likely it is that they like it for some lizard brain reason and know perfectly well that it's Bad™.

Yes, sometimes, media tastes do correlate to other things, just not in a simplistic way, and not in a way where I owe you a detailed account of my entire media diet and inner life.

Pro-censorship people believe that media will turn their kids gay or into devil worshippers or whatthefuckever. It does not matter whether they are correct. Their behavior is based on the assumption, not evidence. If you give them evidence, they will continue to operate on the assumption.

Book bans happen because someone feels uncomfortable and mistakes discomfort for morality. This is a separate question from the relationship between fiction and reality.

--

Me saying "Don't like, don't read" doesn't help you know my politics or sort out how you feel about anything, but it helps me not waste my day on sealions.

I consider that a win.

[moralesluvr]

so i have a few really close guy friends like we’re close to the point where they call me any time of day just to talk and I feel like 42!miles isn’t exactly the jealous type but if his girl had friends like that he would definitely side eye them and be kinda bitchy with his girl if she picks up the phone while they’re together

mine & only mine ft. miles morales

♡ pairings & aus: earth42!miles morales x black!fem!reader ♡ summary: after your boyfriend goes to get food, he walks in your room to see you on the phone with some dudes he's never seen before, and he acts out. ♡ warnings: banter-like arguing, suggestiveness maybe? one use of the n word ♡ a/n: thanks for your request!! ♡ got a request? | masterlist ♡

"I'M STARVING." You complained as you rested your head on your boyfriend, who was scrolling through TikTok while you relaxed in his lap. One of his hands was fidgeting with your coils, twisting them around his ringed fingers as he looked down at you. He cocked his head to the side as you pouted, "Me too, mami. What'chu got a taste for? I'll go pick it up."

"I was thinking wings, boneless lemon pepper?" You asked him, looking up at him with warm eyes. He gives you a nod and stretches, the hem of his white T-shirt slightly riding up, exposing his toned stomach. Smiling, you sit up as your boyfriend climbs out of bed and grabs a pair of shoes, "Bring some lemonade too, please."

He nods, grabbing his wallet before quickly giving you a placement of affection on your cheek, warmth sprouting on your skin as he told you that he would quickly be back with the food.

In the meantime, you sat on your boyfriend's bed as you scrolled aimlessly through social media. You were continuously clicking on 'Copy Link' and sending all the funny or romantic ones that you saw to your boyfriend, knowing that he'd probably end up watching them with you when he got home.

You were happily scrolling until your screen illuminated with one of your friend's names flashing on top. When your eyes scanned the letters that spelled out 'Amari', you found yourself grinning at the device as you clicked the green accept button.

Your friend's face lit up the screen as he waved at you, "Y/N! What's good? Haven't seen you in a hot minute!"

"Dude, I know, it's crazy," a laugh sounded from your throat as you propped yourself up on the bed, conversing with your old friend as he caught you up on the things that have occurred since you left your hometown to move to Brooklyn. He even gives the phone to his mom for a brief moment as you catch up with her, telling her how much you missed them and promising that you would visit in no time.

Although your conversation felt much shorter, it had to be at leas an hour long because you were still on the phone, giggling and laughing when your boyfriend got home. He called you twice to come down and eat with him, but he didn't understand why you weren't answering until he entered his bedroom.

You were propped up on the bed with your phone leaning against the TV, the TV that you were gaming on, Miles' purple controller in between both of your palms. You were laughing about something, violently clicking buttons as you won against whoever you were playing. Until Miles realized the boy that was on your phone screen, a controller also in his hand.

His jaw clenched.

He walked over to you, close enough to where he was in the frame, Amari's vision drifting to Miles and you. You looked up at your boyfriend as he gave you a sloppy kiss, tongue grazing over your lips as he grasped at your waist. A shaky breath left you as you hummed against his lips, before he pulled away from you with a 'pop'. He turned his attention to the screen, "Who the hell are you?"

"Amari?" Your friend questioned, almost as if he was assuming that your boyfriend should know who he was. Miles picked up on that tone and he immediately settled the phone in between his fingers, face all in the camera. He gave him a slick smile, "Ion know how you don't know me, 'cause I'm your friend's boyfriend," he gave you a hard look before looking back at your phone, "You can go now, 'lil nigga. Byeeeee!" He dragged out, waving sassily to Amari before hanging up the phone.

He then turned around to you, "Y/N, who the hell is that and why he don't know who I am? You just out here actin' single now?"

You rubbed your temples, preparing for the argument that was bound to bubble up from your lover. You looked at him with glossy eyes, "Baby, that's my friend. I haven't seen him since I moved so he called. He doesn't know you 'cause we haven't talked in forever."

"He like you?"

"No."

"How you know?"

"He has a girlfriend."

"Oh."

Miles gave you an apologetic face as you flattened your lips at him for acting out. He gave you a kiss on your forehead before murmuring an apology, swearing up and down that he just didn't want you being friendly with boys that probably liked you. He then took your hand and led you downstairs, where your meals were on opposites sides of your dining table, a small candle lit and the lights lower than usual. You giggled, "What's this?"

"An unexpected apology gift," he chuckled, arms snaking around your waist as one of his hands caressed your cheek, leaning into you as his soft lips connected with yours.

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 ☻ thank you for reading!

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @enj4i // @chrissytalia // @chaoticevilbakugo // @motheroffae

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[friendlyneighborhoodamara]

Can't sleep so I'm gonna talk about Akane Tendo's reputation among fans. It's no secret I'm an Akane fan, and I'm glad that the fandom seems to be kinder to her today than in the past. In light of this, I'd like to address some of the common arguments people make or used to make against her.

For reference, a significant chunk of the humor in Ranma 1/2 involves Ranma, often intentionally, pissing Akane off, to the point that she hits him really, really hard. This is a pretty common comedic trope in shonen anime prior to like...I wanna say the 2010s? (I never watched Naruto since it looked bad but I am pretty sure that's Sakura and Naruto's dynamic.) Anyways, while I joined the fandom recently, I have learned that when the show came over to America in the early 90s, Akane was SUPER controversial for treating Ranma like this, with her critics calling her a violent domestic abuser and misandrist, and her reputation has only really recovered recently.

Now, if the "girl character beats up boy character in fit of rage" trope is something that isn't your taste in comedy, then it's not your taste in comedy. However, it's important to keep in mind qualifiers for Akane's behavior. Akane at the start of the series has been harassed by boys at her school who want to beat her up and force her to date them, leading to her having a justifiably poor perception of men and boys. Her hating boys and seeing the worst in them is very different from a man hating women due to patriarchal expectations, and even then she treats boys who are nice to her like Ryoga well.

Honestly, the only area where her dislike of boys gets kinda like morally problematic in my view is if you interpret Ranma as a trans girl: while I joked in an earlier post that Akane is a TERF, one could argue that, albeit unintentionally, Akane's negative reaction to seeing Ranma naked in her bathtub (even if accidentally) and then calling him/her a pervert plays on transphobic rhetoric against letting trans women use the women's restrooms like we're supposed to. (Humorously, most of the people mad at Akane seem to be, ah...not exactly fond of trans!Ranma headcanons, but I digress.) If other trans girls or our allies don't find the slapstick funny for that reason, fair enough, but I don't feel bothered by it given how most of the time Ranma gets hit it's for being legitimately rude and again the violence is very unrealistic.

Admittedly, if Ranma 1/2 had a more serious tone and grounded level of violence, Akane hitting Ranma would be abusive. But in the series, martial artists can walk off stuff like being crushed by a boulder, so Akane beating Ranma up by kicking him/her 50 feet into the sky because she thought he/she was trying to feel her up is not so much like domestic abuse and more akin to a wife giving her husband a light dope slap. Remember, much of the violence in this series is basically just that of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, albeit with an early Dragon Ball aesthetic. Furthermore, Ranma - as much as I love him/her as a character - is usually the instigator, with the wiki even having a list of the cruel nicknames he/she gives her, so it's not as if her actions are unwarranted:

There is, per some people, a gendered component to this discussion, that if the genders were flipped, this wouldn't be funny since Ranma doesn't hit Akane. Now, firstly, if you're a man and a 35-year-old anime not having a boy beat up a girl enough is your worst experience with "sexism", well...get over it. Secondly, in terms of wider media, men commit violence against women that is framed for laughs all the time (ex.: Miroku in Inuyasha, another Rumiko Takahashi series, is a male character where his running gag involves him groping women, which is a more realistic form of violence than anything Akane dishes out), so the notion that it's only women who hurt men in media for laughs is untrue. Thirdly, the notion that hitting Ranma is viewed as okay because "he's a boy" is dubious since he does canonically turn into a girl and Akane hits Ranma regardless of gende, and despite his claims to the contrary he/she doesn't really hate being a girl as much as he/she claims. As a concession, I will note that especially in the past some writers can be reluctant to show slapstick against women, but this is more due to internalized misogyny and viewing women as weak and needing protection. Personally, even assuming that Akane was a boy and Ranma was wholly a girl, I'd have no problem with the slapstick since it's clearly goofy and unrealistic.

Anyways, I'd like to conclude by saying (1) I am glad that I joined the fandom at a time when Akane is being perceived more and more fairly as a flawed but generally pretty nice and hilarious character who has a good deal of pathos despite the clearly slapstick-y nature of the series, and (2) thanks for reading this long, very sincere post.

[ponett]

Whenever I complain about graphic or dark content in media I watch, I keep hearing people retort with this apparently very popular opinion that people who enjoy comfy, wholesome things are actually more likely to be raging assholes than people who love things like death metal and gore. As someone who seems to enjoy comfy, wholesome things yourself and likely met many others who enjoy similar such things, do you agree with this opinion? If so, why do you think this happens?

So I've been sitting on this ask for like a week, not knowing whether or not I wanted to touch it because it kind of feels like being handed a live grenade

For one, I don't like being pigeonholed as someone who just likes "comfy" or "wholesome" things. Yeah, I enjoy My Little Pony and Animal Crossing. I made a game with cute furry characters and lots of bright colors. I also enjoy things like Berserk and Chainsaw Man and Doom and violent crime dramas and punk rock with vulgar lyrics and porn. Variety is the spice of life

Anyway: I generally don't think it's a good idea to make sweeping statements about peoples' moral or intellectual character based on what genres of story they enjoy, regardless of what direction you're coming at it from. But this is a very leading question that kind of skirts around the root problems

There's frequent (perhaps a bit exaggerated) pushback these days against people who prefer their fiction to be a warm blanket, a form of escapism meant to distract you from the real world. In particular, the dreaded "person who only watches kids' cartoons" is a form of this that gets brought up a lot. I don't think the root problem here is what media people enjoy or don't personally enjoy - taste is subjective, and I don't think it's a moral obligation for everyone to have diverse tastes in TV shows - but I do think some folks should try to get out of their comfort zone a bit more. Sometimes stuff that seems like it won't be for you on a surface level will really end up speaking to you, but you won't know until you give it a shot. Trust me, I've been there many times

It becomes a problem when people demand that media ONLY cater to that "warm blanket" attitude. And I think that's part of the reason why that stereotype you mentioned about fans of ""wholesome""" media being assholes exists. People who view dark or violent content as an inherent flaw because it's not what they like. People who yell at creators when they make bad things happen in their stories, because how dare you do this to my comfort characters? People who say movies should never have sex scenes. People who want "problematic" moral complexity stripped out in favor of black and white moral instruction. People who seem to hate any sort of interpersonal conflict in fiction at all

These attitudes can be the result of many different cultural factors, factors that can't all be traced back to Tumblr or what shows you like, but sometimes it's definitely because of that lack of broader perspective on media. You can tell when someone's opinions on The Right And Wrong Ways To Write Fiction were shaped almost entirely by, like, Steven Universe discourse. (Yes, this is a jab at Lily Orchard.) And when these people are very loud about their opinions, well, it becomes a trend people notice

Like. I don't know you. You sent this anonymously. But when you say you "complain about graphic or dark content in media you watch"... that could mean a few wildly different things! Maybe you're just venting about something that unexpectedly triggered you, and that's totally fine. But the wording could also imply that, like, you take issue with these things being present at all, and that you expect a person who likes "death metal and gore" to be more of a "raging asshole" than someone who likes the "wholesome" things you like. So... well, maybe you're more dismissive or judgmental of things outside your comfort zone than you realize?

Unfortunately, in case it's not already obvious, on the internet this shit quickly becomes a proxy battle over dozens of intersecting cultural issues at once where everyone is kinda just talking past each other. So it gets messy

For example, I have no reason to believe that the people who run the "Wholesome Games" showcases have anything against games that are dark or violent or contain adult themes. (They've outright said they don't. Many times!) But when you see people going "why is Spiritfarer allowed in the showcase? That's a game about DEATH and that's NOT WHOLESOME, why would you make me think about death?" or "Ugh, why does Disco Elysium have to be about a cop? Why can't we apply these systems to a game about a young witch who's trying to find a lost cat in an idyllic village instead?" it... Well, it makes me sympathetic towards the indies who don't feel comfortable with the "Wholesome Games" label and consider it limiting. But it also doesn't make me think that devs catering to a demand for more chill, nonviolent video games are categorically facilitating fascist censorship from the Christian right

It's complicated! The written word is imprecise and the internet is a nightmare

I've kind of gone off on multiple tangents here. Basically: I do think that people can kinda turn fans of "comfy" media or "adults who only watch Bluey" into an overblown boogeyman these days. I think people online generally have a habit of swinging too hard in one direction or another in their stances on certain things, overcompensating based on what group of people online are currently annoying them the most and turning said group into like The Main Problem With Society Today. But I also think that boogeyman only exists because of very real examples of people demanding that everything cater to their narrow comfort zone. Go like what you like, but also, y'know. Don't be that person

[kittyandco-archive]

something i've been thinking about for the last few... forever.

shout out to the people who identify so strongly with, and/or find the most comfort in, the worst character(s) of any media that you're into. some of us find connection and similarities with the most terrible figures that canon has to offer. often, you're expected to identify most strongly with the good guy, or aspire to be like them (and not to say you don't, because i do sometimes). but that often doesn't happen for me, and i see more of myself in the evil impacting them.

not because i think i'm a bad person, and not because i aspire to be a flamboyant supervillain, but i often understand their feelings, their mindset, i understand how they got there, because i often went through a lot of the same things they did, even if only emotionally. it often goes beyond sheer appreciation for me (though i often find them more interesting from a narrative sense). and if i were in their world, i might become like them if things were even slightly different. if i didn't try to unlearn the fact that destruction is the only way to get what you want. catharsis is a powerful motivator.

i think it's important to embrace the "they're just like me" perspective when it comes to characters who aren't always "morally sound," and i do unequivocally include the "unsympathetic" ones. we're always going to find fictional characters we admire so long as art keeps being made, and sometimes admiration moves into "i identify with this character because of our background/personality/etc.", and sometimes these characters are the ones you're supposed to hate and root against... intentionally or not, many antagonists are very relatable (though often in unspoken ways).

none of this is to say that your taste in favorite characters means anything about you as a person, because it doesn't. how you treat others says all it needs to say about you as a person. i've seen this first-hand: people being surprised that i am friendly and compassionate (i try my best!) simply because i have a deep love for fictional guys who commit atrocities. yes, my worldly experiences, and the way i view them, as well as my fantastic taste draws me to fictional bad guys, but at the end of the day, i strive to be the best i can be every day. i aim to exude the kindness that i didn't always get when i practically begged for it. on the other hand, you could like the most sugary sweet, do-good fictional characters ever created (and good for you! no shame here!) and still be a nightmare to those around you.

i don't like the idea that you CANNOT like these characters, or identify with them, without condoning some sort of evil or being a bad person. they are people (or robots, or monsters, or whatever they are) who did bad things, whatever their reasons -- here's no inherence about it, and i think that belief has helped me in trying to understand them. i try to practice this with everyone i encounter. and along the way, i actually find that we aren't so different

[qlventingspace]

I'd like to drop some of my thoughts about The Heart Killers here.

You know I'm kinky ace, my love of Pete in the VegasPete days was quite evident as well as my belated realization that I forgot I've always been kinky on some level.

I get that show like Heart Killers is not everyone's cuppa and it's totally fine to be sad about not being able to watch show with your favourite actors for whatever reason.

But.

But this is a show made by a queer man about fantasy queer men.

If you start hating on it (based just on what was shown to us in a trailer) just because you can't watch it and/or it's too sexual or kinky for you ... that's not a problem of the show.

That's a you problem. If you don't like, do not watch and for fucks sake do not start with moralizing.

I'm more than happy to be surprised and I'm on the edge of my seat looking towards what the show is gonna be like bc they didn't give us any concrete hints.

FUCK YES.

I also think that First and Khaotung are literally powerhouses regarding acting and I can't wait to see them in completely new roles we haven't seen them before.

It's surprising, yes, considering how fluffy and cute and comfy vibes they're excluding in their own personal lives but what do we know?! Maybe they wanted to try smth new or maybe they are multifaceted people who like the roles for personal reasons?

Not my place to speculate.

But to see people insisting on them being pushed to filming scenes like that against their will or feeling like they are 'too pure' for kink or sex scenes - that is outright disrespecting their integrity and free will and truly viewing them as only a dolls fans can play with and dictate what they can and cannot appear in.

They are talented, mindful and picky actors, who have enough of will and freedom to choose whatever roles they wanna explore.

P'Jojo is adamant about actors being okay and comfortable filming scenes like that and it was also mentioned that the final nc scenes are always first approved by the actors who star in them (as mentioned in the OF bts).

So knowing all that, insisting on FK being somehow unwilling participants of that, is reeking of homophobia and fan entitlement to actors choices. Stop that.

I went on a tangent a bit.

What I wanted to share as well though is the joy and anticipation!!

I struggle with series that literally rely just on sex scenes, while the plot, cinematography and editing is shite. In those cases sex scenes (though filmed well) are not enough to keep me interested.

In case of Heart Killers I am only excited. I know Jojo's work, so that's in itself is guarantee of quality as well as authentic queer experience (or fantasy in this case).

The soundtrack again will be a blast bc of Jojo's excellent taste and ofc Khaotung singing the smashing ost.

As for the genre I still have no fucking clue what's that supposed to be but I'm swinging wildly from action to romance to crime to comedy to thriller.

(side note: why are people now complaining about it being "soft/lith porn" is beyond me when similar people were excited about porn in different series ??? explain?

sideside note: also manymany straight media is basically porn hiding under fantasy or romance genre but I don't see people accentuating those being porn when talking about them

sidesideside note: also reducing the series that HAVEN'T EVEN COME OUT YET to mere porn is outright disrespectful to creators as well as actors)

The plot (excluding any possible spoilers since I avoid them like a fucking plague) seems engaging and interesting and full of twists and it will probably be not what we imagine or expect but that's exactly what I ehehe EXPECT of it.

As for the sex and kink.

Why should it be smth bad or morally wrong just because it's a bl? Just because it's a gay sex and kink?

I swing wildly between finding sex scenes boring, fascinating, completely no shut it off and being horny cause it's hot.

It's just how I am.

THK has the advantage that it has FK to keep my hyperfixation happy and considering the filming crew, the aesthetics and general vibe of the nc scenes will be bloody fucking beautiful.

I was fully hooked from the trailer and I can say that the combo of FK talent, sub/dom vibes, bondage and probably whole layer of christian guilt (saw you Jesus on a shirt, I'm so sorry) will be my downfall.

[mortalityplays]

I kinda wanna know why consuming disney military propaganda - that's to say, a bad media diet that victimizes people - should be condemned but eating hamburger at mcdonald's - a bad diet with food sourced via animal cruelty - should not be. Like yeah one is food and necessary for survival but isn't art necessary for living life with a soul? Even if it's bad art, it's necessary. Maybe that's all that's available, or the person uneducated and doesn't know better. Is associating media preference with morality acceptable now, even though we clowned on antishippers when they said that shipping Will and Hannibal promoted cannibalism or liking Black Butler is the same as CSA? How is liking a movie made by an american media conglomerate different? I'm genuinely asking, I don't mean to sound sarcastic. I want to judge people and put them down for their bad and imperialism-enabling media takes as much as the next person, but I'd been operating under the assumption that tastes aren't up for debate. Maybe I got it all wrong.

just because "I like putting dogshit in my mouth" might be a true statement for an individual to say out loud doesn't mean it will pass without comment at my dinner table. also I don't know why you're bringing souls into this, there's a lot of unnecessary moral anxiety here that you should probably unpack for your own wellbeing. nobody's going to hell for having bad taste in anime.

[renthony]

I haven't enjoyed a Marvel movie since I stopped bothering to keep up with the MCU in 2014. I don't care for most Marvel movies. I think Marvel Studios is a case study in things that are shitty in the entertainment industry. But holy shit, pretentious posts along the lines of "haha, I don't watch Marvel films, I have real taste, go watch another movie!" are so fucking annoying.

Like, go put up your middle finger at some preps or something. People are allowed to watch whatever they want and enjoy whatever movies they want and make whatever fandom stuff they want, and that doesn't say anything about their intelligence or morals or character. It doesn't mean they are somehow bad at watching movies, or are too stupid to realize whatever nugget of wisdom ye high-and-mighty Marvel Haters think you're the only ones to understand.

Again, not personally a Marvel fan, but this whole "haha, I'm better than Marvel fans" relates to something I've been musing on about media analysis as a whole. There is a persistent idea that mass entertainment is inherently lower quality or less artistic because it's made for a wide audience, and that bad art isn't worth analyzing or engaging with just because it's low quality. In this mindset, the only art that has the possibility to be any good at all is 100% independent projects made by amateurs, and anything produced by a studio or with wide appeal is inherently poser art with absolutely nothing meaningful to say. In this mindset, you can't possibly learn anything or take anything from bad art, and if you find meaning in bad art, you're clearly just stupid and uneducated and have bad taste.

The thing is? Liking bad art is not a sin. Having a different opinion about what constitutes "bad art" is not a sin. Finding something entertaining despite its flaws is not a sin. Studying bad art is not a sin. You can learn a lot from bad art, you can learn a lot from interpreting propaganda, you can learn a lot from engaging with things even if you don't think they're very "good."

My vaudeville research keeps turning up author after author who talks about vaudeville as some sort of "point of no return," like the performing arts all turned to shit the second things were intended to be seen by more than a single audience for a single show. Popularity gets equated with lack of skill or quality, because all the performers were "just pandering to the audience" instead of relying on "real skill."

For one, what the fuck does that even mean, but for two, the theatrical quality of vaudeville isn't what makes it interesting and worth engaging with. Every single thing that ever came out of vaudeville could be 100% total utter garbage, but vaudeville would still be worth studying because of how influential it still is on arts and entertainment today. It has significant historical and educational merit. And some of it is still genuinely fun and entertaining, once you pick out all the things that didn't age well or were just plain bigoted. There's artistic merit in those old sketches and songs, and there's meaning to be drawn from plenty of it even here in 2023.

You want to learn about the Hays Code? Well, let's talk about how early films were shown on projectors on vaudeville stages, so vaudeville censorship went on to influence American film censorship. Let's talk about how we still use slang to this day that originated on vaudeville, such as "skit" or "one night stand" or "ad lib" or "the big time." Vaudeville is still in the bones of the modern American entertainment industry and pop culture, and you can't really escape that influence.

People in modern day use Marvel movies as proof that big studio films are singlehandedly responsible for the decline of art, and there is nothing to learn from them or see in them at all, ever. But to me, "Marvel movies are bad" is such a flat, uninteresting observation, because when it comes to media analysis, it doesn't really matter if Marvel films are good or entertaining. If you want to actually dig into the problems with big-budget summer Hollywood blockbusters, and the way they're impacting the industry as a whole, you have to go deeper than "pop culture is all stupid stuff for stupid people, unlike me, who isn't like other girls actually has good taste in media!"

There are so many more factors at play than "mass entertainment = bad art." Let's look at the ways capitalism screws over small creators and forces them to seek funding from the very same studios that fuck them over. Let's talk about how the actual workers in the industry are fighting tooth and fucking nail against the exact same things all the Marvel haters harp on about. Let's talk about studios that accept funding from the United States Government to turn superhero comics into propaganda films, and then threaten the actual workers with never having a career again if they complain or quit. Let's talk about how the actors are regularly abused and treated to hostile work environments.

Let's talk about the people who made the films, because the films were not made by a CEO pressing the "make movie" button. The workers made those films. The workers were exploited by those studios. Let's try giving a shit about them, instead of taking the "haha, Marvel fans are stupid and cringe" route.

There is so much more fucking nuance and detail and conversation about mass media as a topic, and boiling it down to, "art made for a wide audience is inherently shitty and has nothing to say."

You're not a better, more intelligent, more educated person just because you don't like Marvel movies. Making posts about how much better you are than Marvel fans does nothing to either explain or tackle the issues in the entertainment industry.

It just makes you look like a dickhead.

[thegutterbunny]

Leftism Tires Me.

I'm just gonna put this here because nobody's gonna see it anyways. I'm just trying to organize my messy ass thoughts. Lately, I've been feeling really disillusioned with leftism, but I don't have the proper words for why. Every time I try to google "leftists are annoying" or something all I get is right wing shit. A lot of this is based on experiences I've both IRL and Online. A lot of this is me struggling to put feelings to words. I feel like my personality just doesn't JIVE right with leftists. I'm pretty materialistic, I love stuff. Mostly books, games, kink gear, and clothes. I drool at other people's wardrobes and goth decorated bedrooms. I don't really care which online stores are the "bad ones". I DO want them demonias. They look cool. I like fan servicey/sexy character designs. They're hot. I want more hot characters that aesthetically appeal to me that I can gawk at. I hate when twitter users and talking heads pretend like they are above such "base tastes". I think people are too uptight about having a squeaky clean record of consuming media. Steering away from problematic artists and art into an ever-shrinking circle of "safe" art and artists. It should depend on what you're personally comfortable with, I think. I've dropped artists that I think are reprehensible. Not ever out of some sense of morality and duty, but because they gross me out and I can't look at them the same. Other artists do or have done terrible things, but that adds to the flavor somehow. Makes them more interesting and worth diving into. Sometimes it even humanizes them. Sometimes the art is SO GOOD I just don't give a shit. The constant emphasis on the collective over the individual is off putting to me. I think rules based on morality always end up having to be made arbitrarily because when building a moral system you ALWAYS run into contradictions and inconsistencies. This is because morality is this thing we made up. We don't find morals in nature. They weren't "discovered". Morality isn't divine. Morality is a TOOL. Which is why this idea that being a small part of something "larger than myself" freaks me the fuck out. Sacrificing pieces of myself... Be it my time, my identity, my aspirations, and my body to a machine called "revolution" is off-putting in an existential way. "Your feelings matter until they don't" is that unspoken leftist creed. Philosophers and philosophy enthusiasts are the most annoying irritating motherfuckers to be around. OH HOW I HATE THEM. NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER VENT OR SPILL YOUR GUTS TO A PHILOSOPHY NERD. NEVER MAKING THAT MISTAKE AGAIN.

Sometimes I feel like leftists are more concerned with defending leftism itself than actual people and their feelings. They sanctify the lens they view the world through other then the people they view through that lens. They can be just as biased, stubborn, and incurious as everyone else. Look, not everyone has the time or energy to look through constant studies or be scholars, I get it, but summa y'all just unthinkingly latch onto narratives and refuse to unclutch only because everyone else around you has latched onto the narrative too. The amount of times I've seen someone latch onto a narrative without even thinking about it... Just based on vibes... FUCK. This last one... Speaking as an autistic person... Is rough. Leftist spaces are SUPER cliquey and ran by the same Social Capital rules as anywhere else. There are the same invisible lines to tread here as anywhere else that torture me as someone who's blind to where they lay. Break and self censure yourself to fit in. Nobody's in disagreement. It's just you, and if you disagree we'll all quietly and silently move away from you without a word like everyone else. It depends on the exact space you're in. Whatever friend group or discord server, the feel can "change". People with the most charisma are rewarded with attention, admiration, and a feeling of belonging. Being awkward, shy, quiet, or having the neurodivergent "stench" makes to ostracized. Just. Like. Everywhere. Else. FUCK. YOU.

OK that's enough schizo posting. There's even more I could touch on, but I'm tired and I wanna play Silent Hill 2. If anyone who's read this has the time, what's the diagnosis? What should I do with myself? Am I beyond saving or whatever? I don't even want to "leave leftism" or whatever the fuck, but there's so much... Pressure... here. So much judgement. I want something better for myself but I look everywhere and I can't find it.