1. Around 8 years old, I dressed up in a ballet outfit with my sister and her next-door neighbour girlfriend. Pictures included (thanks, mom).
   
2. Around 10 years old, I prayed every single night for God (sad tears included) to make me a woman. I was developing "breasts," even though the rest of my body was slim. I started to see myself as "different " than the rest of my friends. I grew up in a predominantly female-led household and saw the world through a sensitive, soft lense. I was becoming the caregiver, maternal role in my friendship circle.
   
3. Around the age of 12, I used to play "bum doctor" with best friend (involved pulling down pants and bending over, while the other pretended to give a needle). I found myself initiating this game a good deal more than him. At this age, there was still a young naivete to this, and I wasn't aware it was "strange."
   
4. Around age 14, "on a dare," I dressed up with (a different) best friends mother's clothing. His mother was away at work, we hand-picked items, right down to the underwear, and got changed together in the bathroom. I changed behind the shower curtain as I was too shy and very embarrassed how my breasts completely filled out the (lactating) bra.
   
5. Around this time, I started to experiment with dressing up in my mother's nighties, as well as both of my sisters clothes. There were little pockets of free time to do this, and everything just felt "right"; like all the dots connected.
   
6. Around age 16, I started getting into porn. I was a late developer, as far as sex drive goes. Started off as regular guy/girl porn, then I quickly became interested in the "anal" category. I found myself very turned on by the cock scenes, but not the rest of the male body. I was attracted to the female body, but in a way that I wanted to "be" the female. The idea of making love to a man put my stomach into knots.
   
7. This "kink" grew and grew, unbeknownst to my family and friends. I was a very late developer, and all my friends had girlfriend's around this time.
   
8. I discovered my sisters had toys, and became rather infatuated with them (insert shameful secrets). The idea of being in a submissive role, the idea of a "male" becoming the one who receives - rather than gives, ignited a very deep switch in my brain. It just felt right, natural.
   
9. I started to become brave enough to buy porn DVD's from the local convenience store - but was very embarrassed, as the same owner basically watched me grow up from a kid to this point. I started to buy exclusively DVD's that featured anal. Finally, it took everything in me to one day buy a trans DVD, and I made a pathetically awkward excuse to the owner of how I was buying it as a joke birthday present for my friend. Oh, the shame.
   
10. I started watching the DVD's, imagining myself as the trans women, and essentially worshipping cock, worshipping men. I had little "sexual" desire at this point to be a male role with any future girlfriends. Still, the idea of men's abs, lips, thighs, arms, butt, etc still turned my stomach into knots. Although, in the very very back of my mind, I think I was starting to consider it.
    
11. I discovered Marijuana and beer around the age of 18, and would cut loose at my friends house (the same friend that I tried his mother's clothes on). He would occasionally put on porn (on mute) later into the evening, and meanwhile we were listening to music / playing guitar, etc. I started to sexually become interested in him. It was slways kind of there, but now with the porn playing, and being able to feel those feelings at the same time, I became sort of turned on by him. More so the idea of getting high and then becoming his submissive plaything. There were moments where iI could tell he was imagining the same, but - spoler alert - I never did (as i was way too shy to pursue it) but that only made the infatuation to be a submissive plaything for men even stronger.
    
12. I started talking to a girl online, and after almost four years of talking and developing a friendship, we decided to meet. I was 23 years old at this point. Fast forward, I became her boyfriend and when we were camping, she had just started showing signs of spotting (on her period), so we were just playing around - I was very nervous, especially because i was expected to be the dominant one. Next thing I knew, I had lost my virginity to her. But here's the kicker - it was from anal.
    
13. Curiosity got the best of me, and I started to seek out the validation and attention from men online. I accidentally left my browser open one night, and she saw everything. There was a big blow up, and she was calling me gay. We were both living at my parents' house at the time, and I'm pretty sure they must have overheard it. We made amends, and I confessed to her that I think I was bi and just needed to understand better. We played around with a strap-on quite often, and I also discovered chastity. Chastity became something of an excuse to not have to be the dominant one. I honestly felt more natural being the one receiving anal vs. penetrating a woman. We ended up mutually breaking up when I was 28. We are still best friends to this day.
    
14. I started to think of the man's body, beyond just his penis. I don't know if it was just due to exposure in films, but the right kind of stomach (slightly hairy, soft, but strong "dad" abs) as well as strong hands and forearms started to turn me on. When I would see older men in real life with any of these attributes, a switch went off in my head and I realized that I was turned on by them, and would start to imagine more than just sucking his cock, or receiving anal. I would imagine first kissing his stomach as a show of affection or adoration before taking him into my mouth. I was starting to imagine holding onto his strong arms and pulling his body closer, deeper into me. Maybe softly kissing his fingers, even playfully biting them.
    
15. I use reddit now, as a means to try and find Mr. Right. It is sort of an unwritten understanding with my partner now that I "explore" myself on reddit, but I don't share any of the details. Perhaps there will come a stage where I'm more open about it.
    
16. Sometimes, I can imagine myself in a gay relationship, but there would be very specific parameters - I would be the submissive one. I would be expected to present as femme as often as possible. I would be the stereotypical "housewife" (cooking, baking, cleaning, being sexually ready at all times, nurturing the husband). Ideally, I would be in chastity 24/7, or have complete disregard toward my penis until it just learns to remain soft on its own (maybe still getting nocturnal emmisions at night). The idea of worshipping and submitting to his body gives me butterflies. And this is a BIG one --- if he knows how to treat me and our chemistry is right, I would maybe even allow him to kiss me.
    
17. As far as porn goes, I now watch different genres for different purposes. Lesbian porn: Imagining myself as one of the "girls" and the other girl is just like me. Genetically born a male, but identifies strongly as a "girl". I imagine that we are playing while Daddy is away or that we're just playing for his amusement. He never let's us orgasm unless he tells us to, and he makes sure that there is a strong, imprinting, humiliating aspect to our orgasms - so that each time, we go deeper into our roles and can no longer deny who we are. Trans porn: obviously imagining myself as the trans pornstar, being taken forcefully by a real man. Having no Fouts about my sexuality. Hypno porn: This pushes me past any of my self-doubt and encourages me to not only drop my defenses but also to accept my fate. Everything I fear, I learn to entertain and even embrace when I'm watching the right kind of hypno porn. Finally gay porn: if I have refrained from cumming for over two months, then my mind really goes to that "desperate" place. Ideally, one man is the Dom, and is masculine, but cute. Not the kind of man who "acts" manly, but just naturally is - confident, smart, strong, manipulative. The other male is the more femme type, but not overly. Still a male (not trans) - soft, gentle, body made to receive, ass is more like a pussy, no hesitation to kiss, to play with his own soft cock, to suck his own fingers while looking at his Daddy in the eyes, gripping onto his Daddys hips, pulling him closer, moaning his name, fully accepting his place.
    

Going forward: I would love to have both a female and male partner. Essentially, to be a cuck to my wife, and only allowed to please her with my mouth - never with my penis (unless after an instructed orgasm, knowing that I'd be too soft to be able to penetrate her). I would only be able to make love to him, and my wife would enjoy watching, and would taunt me, encouraging me to go deeper each time. I would sleep with her each night, wearing something soft and silky, and we may kiss or fondle, or she may get me to eat her out (even if Daddy's cum is inside her still). Some nights she would either sneak off into Daddy's bedroom to sleep with him, or just openly sleep there, leaving me in bed alone some nights. I would hear them making love, but I would be locked in chastity, unable to cum. I'm encouraged at all times to play with my ass (aka my pussy) with either my fingers, a dildo or butt plug, so as to keep me constantly ready and make sure I'm always aroused - and aware of feeling empty if something isn't inside of me at any given time.
I want to be in a safe, loving, encouraging and open relationship where everyone is happy and their needs are met. I'm not sure if I'd classify myself as bi or gay. Definitely not straight. The idea of exploring these limits are what gives me life.

Last night, my friend was working late and asked if I could help her with a big favor. She said she wouldn't have time to do her grocery shopping and asked me to do it. I agree and she sends me a list. While at the grocery store, she sends me a photo of a black shirt and ask if I can stop by our local Target to buy it for her. She doesn't give me much more detail such as name brand or size.
"What size do you need? Do you want a particular brand?" I text.
"Medium." she says a few minutes later.
"Ok but what brand?" She doesn't respond. I finish the grocery shopping and head to Target. I try finding this shirt in the sea of women's clothing but can't find anything that looks exactly like the one she sent me. I ask an employee if they recognize it and they can't. I find 3 shirts that looks like it and text pictures of them to her.
"Are any of these good?" I ask.
"They don't have the one I sent you?" she replies a minute later.
"Well what brand is it? Maybe I can find it better if I can narrow down the brand name."
"I sent you a picture already."
"Yeah but I can't see the tag on the shirt."
"I don't have time for all your questions right now. I'm at work right now and you keep bugging me about this shirt."
"You asked me for help but didn't give me all the proper information. Rather than buy something you don't want, I'd rather show you what they have and what your opinions are. I'm not texting you to annoy you, I have honest questions and your directions are unclear."
"Just forget it. I'll do it myself later or you'll fuck it up."
"You asked for my help. I already helped you by getting groceries for you. How am I causing issues now?"
"Cause you don't agree to help someone then start giving them shit for it."
I decide not to respond to her after that. I leave Target and drop off her groceries at her house (her roommate let me in) and go home.
Two hours later, she texts me one of the photos I sent her.
"I won't have time to go tonight. Can you buy this shirt for me instead and bring it to my house? I'll pay for you for everything then." She texted.
"After the way you talked to me, you think I'm willing to help you again? Do it yourself." I reply.
She doesn't reply for a few hours. Just before bed, she finally answers.
"Thanks for getting groceries but too bad I won't have time to prep meals now cause I had to run to Target after a long day at work to get a shirt that you didn't want to help get for me." she texted.
I go on to tell her that this isn't my fault and I won't feel bad for not helping her. I politely ask her to send me $80 for the groceries from earlier and she says she will after I apologize for my attitude. I haven't responded since. Am I wrong for agreeing to help, then arguing? I'm sorry for semi ranting here.

I’m kind of looking for specific brands/links etc.. but what things (clothes, pillows) were lifesavers for you after your lap surgery? I especially am looking for pants/gowns that don’t hug the waist or abdomen.. also, I guess those huge unders that go super high so that the waistband isn’t a bother? I don’t know what they’re called, but I see women with them after their lap surgery all the time.. 😭
I’m also looking for recommendations for neck pillows, if they helped at all? Are there any other articles that helped you a ton during your recovery? My surgery is in 20 days, so I want to get my hands on them sooner rather than later.

I don’t feel bad for him at all. He said he’s dated men in the past meeting Douglas wasn’t this awakening for him. Aliyah is in her early 20s. Being in his 60s and having children of his own he should know that people around Aliyah/Douglas’s age are in a huge transition stage in their life. Especially with MTF transition, majority of trans women were gay men and have a similar story to Aliyah’s.
What did he think he was getting into dating someone in their early 20s?
What bothers me the most is that Shawn is so passive aggressive about it. The scene of him giving Aliyah all of the wigs annoyed me because his storyline is how much he hates Aliyah compared to Douglas. To Shawn it’s such an issue for him but instead of being a real man and talking to Aliyah saying “Hey, this transition is new I’m not sure how I’m feeling about it.” My best friend is trans but MTF. For him it was binders and men’s clothes, but for any those items they’re not just gifts, they’re reaffirmation that the person who’s receiving them is getting approval and support for their transition.
Instead he’s financially supporting it, while crying his eyes out looking at old photos of when he looked “manlier”…
Trust me being a gay guy myself I get it having a type. It’s ok to want more masculine or feminine qualities in anyone. For Shawn to tell Aliyah he wanted to go back to his old scared, timid self made me want to barf. That to me says Shawn has this fantasy of Douglas he can’t let go off. Aliyah’s light was shining so bright at dinner and you can tell Scott was trying to dim his because Aliyah isn’t Douglas anymore.
I don’t see him as this man just wanting love. I see a passive aggressive, self centered person who only wants people committed to him when it’s convenient for him. Found out he was gay? Goodbye wife. Douglas becomes Aliyah? Goodbye. He has no concept of love and what it means to compromise.
If they were the same age and dates for decades I’d understand. But Shawn is going about it all of the wrong ways.

“Replay” Zendaya is a cambion on she has human mother just like i been said not new info and when Saturn returns even if its only one parents your still demented and of your FATHER the devil! The mother is important as well as the Father! Daybreyah can’t claim me i vern made a child myself in alien 👽 years not only that had her mother not been so foul disrespectful and forcing him to do child support something my mother neverrrrrrrr did i would gad more sympathy because she forced this she is directly responsible for Enslaving me. Zendaya has better estate than to gave a demon mother! In Judiasm the mothers seed matters more. And my brother darkness and she for fck sake can’t claim me. The brother with black people they too like white people don’t know whos who who belongs to which race. Satan comes in all colors even in with in the same group but sub branch or slightly different offshoot. Her mother is dark skin yes but not a holy race her mother is a nubian same way Aquila (oh they steal names) Haim shalom’s baby mom is .. dark skin can be a problem of you don’t know who or what.. curses are passed thru the father.. my brother is no man.. my dad isn’t either but a manipulator he Spins his inward condition on to my mom.. which in marriage you become one.. They reversed roles exactly why no one in their right mind would hold on to a “ring AD”.. MOVE ON. Nor can you claim another’s mans cross thats not your husband .. Herodias .. Most nations when wiped out all the men are killed and whiped out exactly why one should live truthful seek truth.. because the sins of that father will be passed on. And often the victor claims your women.. replacing your seed so it doesn’t pay to be a COWARD or ignorant.. I’m not Expert but in my genes is intuitive knowing better than most.. on who’s who.. i still had to go thru “Samaria” (West bank) 🏦 and you seeing that play out right now with the West .. I can’t stand a educated foolish n*gga in business they have NO BUSINESS ZERO data for .. white women are guilty of this too.. “Obama and his mother” you never gonna see me fake teach a class in a subject Im weak in.. I want on record son you were warned and see my true fact and complete essence I will NOT have sympathy on this child again.. she means NOTHING to me.. just so you know. Any relationship that is based on deception, usury, trickery ends BAD only on the movies and entertainment someone forgives a bad foundation.. nothing good comes out of a BAD FOUNDATION.

I've been wrestling with the best way to come out to my friend and would love some input from all the lovely people in this subreddit <3
So, for context, I am 21, have been tranisitioning medically for well over a year now, and have been generally passing quite well.
Now, I met my closest friend from being housemates with her last year, which was my second year of uni and her last year. She graduated and moved back to her country, but we still talk and play games for hours each night. She does not know that I'm trans, but knows that I love generally to do makeup and most of my clothes are from the women's side. She also knows that I have been lasering my face. She knows that I exist in online spaces as female (voice included) and actually goes along with it so well, has never misgendered me online or even messed up my name irl when i poliety gave her a new name to use for me, abeit a shortened, feminine nickname. We've done makeovers and photoshoots and just overall done "girly" things together with no issues. She did ask me if I was gay one time but I said that I am not because even though I am gay (lesbian) I know she meant am I a gay men.
I never came out to her before because honestly I never thought we would become so close and stay friends for so long to the point where she has actually brought a ticket and will be staying with me for two weeks during my graduation. The need to come out never really happened and I was happy with how things were so I never saw the point in telling her, like I can present completely femme, use a female voice and she uses the right name for me.
In the time that she left the country, I doubled my dose of E which is when the majority of changes, including me being able to pass as a cis woman have happened. I'm at the point where most people in my life know me as a woman, and I would like to come out to her.
The only reason I'm a bit nervous is that she may not actually view me as a woman. I know that she is completely fine with people being gay/trans or just queer in general but I need more than that, I need her to view me as a woman and use the correct pronouns and everything for me. She's said a few things before such as not accepting trans people as their correct gender until they actually start to tranisition medically which make me think that she may accept me and being trans but not view me as a woman.
Now, of course I don't want people in my life who cannot view me as a woman (in fact I recently cut off one of closests friends for this reason) but I really hate argueing and really enjoy her being my friend, It's almost like a sort of if it aint broke then dont fix it sorta thing, because I have pretty much everything I could want considering im not out to her but I also think being out would help explain some things such as boobs when she comes. Overall I'd just love for her to accept me fully as a woman, and to be honest not that much really needs to change in our friendship and I generally feel like she treats me like one anyway but for some of the reasons I mentioned earlier I'm just kinda nervous and think it may be smart to have some extra talking points for when I do tell her with how some of the things that she says can be problematic sometimes.
I really hope this made sense, my brain feels very scattered currently during the last week of my uni and honestly typing this out made me feel like I am 15 again, confused about identity and pretty much all things trans as well as how to come out to people in my life at the time.

My(f35) ex (m37) has two daughters ( lets call them Lily and Mia) with two different women (Cara- Liliy's mom and Maya- Mia's mom). Liliy turned 18 this weekend and Mia is 16.
My ex and I are still friends, we split after 6 years, there was no drama, no fighting no abuse, we had another one of "what is next for us" talks, and he added he thought that my "I don't want kids" stance was just a phase I would have got out "by certain age". He wants more kids. I don't want kids. I have/had a good relationship with both of his daughters. Maya and I had a friendly relationship while I was with him. She asked for my number and asked to meet me before she was okay with me meeting her daughter - Mia. I had no issues with this; in fact, I instantly respected her for it. Cara, on the other hand, was always hostile.
I'm financially well off. Earning significantly more than him, we had a joint account that was mostly funded by me (98% of the funds in it came from me). I was okay with him spending that money on his family and daughters. The only rule I had was that I didn't want it to be used for lavish gifts to his ex. He was okay with this. But during one of the family gatherings, Cara asked if she could borrow some cash from him; he said yes and to take what he had in his wallet. She took a card to our joint account and went on a spending spree. I was pissed. But I was furious when he didn't make her pay it back. She is the mother of his child, and what do I expect him to do, blah blah.
Last summer, while we were still together, I promised Lilily we/ I would take her to Taylor Swit's concert in Paris and a proper shopping trip for her 18th, we extended invitation to Mia as well and her mom agreed. So I bought 4 concert tickets ( for the girls, ex and me) and booked a hotel. Fast forward to winter and we had our split.
Last month, I asked him what he wanted to do. I couldn't transfer my ticket to his new girl (or anyone), but I was willing to give it up and told him to go with the girls. I would even pay for plane tickets. He admitted he had forgotten all about it and that he had already booked all his allowance of annual leave, so he couln't take them. He asked if I would find it awkward to go on the trip with girls instead. As mentioned, I have a good relationship with his girls and have said okay if their moms agree. Mia's mom - Maya, said no problem, but Liliy's mom- Cara, insisted that the only way "I was taking her daughter out of the country was if she was going." I offered not to go and have Cara take them. She wouldn't be able to get into a concert venue, but the hotel was paid for, and I would still pay for plane tickets. But Maya said she wasn't letting Mia anywhere with Cara. Here, in order to make a minor over the border, you need a form signed by both parents. Not wanting to punish girls for something that was out of their control, we agreed I would take the girls and Cara would join us. As I also promised a shopping trip to Liliy, her dad set up a spending limit, and I asked Maya to allow me to buy something for Mia as well so she wouldn't feel excluded; reluctantly, she agreed and also set a limit.
Of to Paris we went, we arrived the day before the concert and were due to go back in the evening on the day after the concert. From the moment we landed Cara complained about everything. When we got to the hotel she demanded separate rooms ( I have originally booked a two-bedroom suite), and thought Mia and I could take one room and Liliy and her another ( she knew this before we left). She proceeded to yell and make a scene until the receptionist said they had another smaller suite available. I ended up taking that one for myself and Mia.
Next day after breakfast we went shopping. Lily said she would prefer one or two higher-quality pieces of clothing rather than brands she could get at home. So we went to Galeries Lafayette. About two hours in I got a call from a client that there was an issue that needed immediate attention. I gave Lily my card, reminded her of the limit her father set, and told Mia that we could go somewhere else afterward if she didn't find anything she liked that would honor the limit her mom set. Both girls said they understood; Cara gave me a side-eye. So I sat at a nearby bench dealing with my client's issue while they shopped. Not sure how much time has passed when Lily came crying, saying her mom made her give her my card and was buying things for herself. I went to a till, and indeed, Cara was paying with my card for things that were clearly for her. She didn't even have the decency to look guilty when she saw me marching towards her; she even smirked. So, in a fit of rage, I said to a cashier that she was paying with a stolen card, my card. Cara tried to insist I gave her the card, but I stood my ground, security was called, I continued to insist she stole it. Eventually, they called the police. Since it was my name on the card and the cashier confirmed Cara was one that used the card, and I continued to insist she stole it they arrested her. We had to go with them to give a statement. Few hours later when we left the station, I sat down the girls and explained we would go back in the morning to get Cara, but that right now she needed to learn there were consequences.
Neither of the girls was in the mood to go back to shopping, so we went to the hotel and got ready for the concert. By the time we reached the concert venue, both girls were in good moods again. In case you are wondering, we had a blast.
The next morning, I returned to the police station and retracted my statement, saying it was a misunderstanding. I gave the card to one of the girls, and she gave it to her mom. Two fines ( both myself and Cara got fined) and a few snide remarks from the officer later Cara was free. She refused to speak with me for the rest of the trip. Fine by me. I don't even mind the fine I got, it was worth it.
Girls and I went for one more round of shopping before it was time to catch the plane.
When we got back, chaos erupted. His family is now divided, some saying I was petty and b**ch for what I did, and other side clapping, saying it was well deserved.
My ex stopped by my work this morning and said that what I did to Cara was bullying. And I was an a**hole for dangling my money in front of her, that I should have left it be, and he would have paid me back if I told him.
I don't think I was. Was I petty, maybe, probably, but I don't think I was A**hole, she literally tried to steal.

I am a 35f with a one year old son. I am very active and relatively fit. I love hiking, yoga, working out, and biking. I consider myself a fun and playful person despite being a mother and approaching middle age.
As I got ready for a bike ride/outdoor workout yesterday I put on my black athletic shorts, a bright and fun bathing suit top that I wore as a sports bra, Birkenstocks, and a bucket hat. I wondered to myself.. do I look silly?
I often wear athletic clothing that can be tight and usually my midriff is showing. For going out I will wear high waisted jeans or flare pants and a low cut top or a flowy dress. I love colorful, fun jewelry and accessories. Recently I have been super into Billabong, O’Neil, and Roxy.. brands I wore as a teenager! I love boho/beach clothes and believe the 60s/70s and the 90s are timeless in regards to fashion.
My question is.. do you think women over 30 should dress a certain way? Do you think mothers should dress a certain way? Is it cringy when you see mature women wearing styles that may be viewed as youthful?
I remember seeing make over shows as a kid where women were ridiculed for having an outdated style or dressing too provocative for their age. Was this just early 2000s bullshit? (Keep in mind this was during a time where Tyra Banks was telling size 6 women they were plus size models.) Am I going to embarrass my son one day by being too funky or showing too much skin? Or is this all just societal constructs?
Edit: Love what someone said about reading the room. I absolutely cover up for professional events or funerals. I am also a preschool teacher so I do dress modest for work (imagine Miss Lippy).

Let me share my 3000h of modded wisdom with you, my fellow vanilla comrades. My attempt here is to provide you with as many as possible improvements to the base game while keeping the style, balance, and content as vanilla as possible. As they say, when it works the best is when you don't realize it is there. I guarantee you that after playing a few dozen hours with these, you will no longer be able to tell what's vanilla and what's not.
I decided to cut my recommendations onto different types of lists, so it's easier for you. The most purists players can stick with QoL only. Or, even if you're a psychopath purist who doesn't any QoL improvement, you can still use the performance list.
Mandatory mods: Harmony and Huglibs. Something, something, libraries. They do nothing on their own, but most mods require them. While fewer, a lot of mods also require Vanilla Framework Expanded. And this one actually does cool things on its own, like automatically loading new factions without having to start a new game, so I would recommend subscribing to that one as well.
Performance

• Dub performance analyzer. Enable the optimizations and override options, you can ignore everything else. If you want to disable alerts, use rocketman.
• Rocketman. By default, it should be good enough. This mod also allows to disable alerts you may don't care about, like, dunno, tattered apparel or unhappy nudity. It is recommended to run adaptive move occasionally (in stat cache settings).
• Performance Optimizer. More hacker magic. If you don't like the UI changes, you can disable them in the options. This mod does more performance stuff aside from that, so use it anyway!
• Performance Fish. You will have to install this mod manually, since it's not available in the workshop. You will also need to install its dependencies, Fishery and Prepatcher. Please, be aware that at the present there's an issue in which linking storage crashes the game. However, this is solved by disabling "TryFindBestBetterStoreCellFor" in the options.

Quality of life

• Optimization Meats. Unless you really want dozens of different meat types for some weird role-play reason, this mod reduces meat micromanagement. It can also improve performance a bit.
• Animal Tab
• BetterInfoCard
• Bionic icons
• Conduit Deconstruct
• Disable Automatically Select Travel Supplies
• Dubs Mint Menus
• Improved Need Indicator
• Map Preview. You can preview and reroll the map until you get something with a shape you like.
• Prepare Landing. You can search tiles matching your conditions.
• Medical Tab
• More Harvest Designators!
• ModDiff
• Pharmacist Temporary Update.
• Smart Turret Covering. Fixes an issue with turret covers.
• PawnTargetFix. Pawns prioritize the closest target.
• Poisoned Food Stack Fix (Fix). Fixes an issue with meal stacks.
• Priority Treatment Ressurected. Doctors will finally prioritize keeping your pawns alive over taking a nap. Disable the X option, it can cause issues.
• QualityBuilder. You can set up a target level for furniture, and your pawns will reconstruct it until it's achieved. If I remember correctly, it's enabled by default for all furniture? Disable that in options.
• RPG Style Inventory Revamped. Much better looking inventory.
• Replace Stuff. Allows to directly replace buildings, without having to deconstruct first.
• Research Tree. A better research tree, if you ask me.
• RimHUD. The best mod of the whole list.
• RimSaves. Overhaul of the save menu.
• Show Known Techprints on the trade screen.
• Show mechanoid weapons
• Smarter Construction. No more babysitting pawns when building walls.
• Stack gap
• Sun Lamp Honesty
• Trait and Backstory Icons
• Trade Ships Drop Spot
• Trading Options
• WVC. More work modes for the mechanitor.
• XML Extensions. You won't be able to access the options of some menus without this mod.
• Save Settings
• No Max Bills
• Better ground-penetrating scanner
• Colored deep resources
• Common Sense

Minor changes

• Almostthere1.5
• Stepping Stones. A more realistic research path.
• Animals Logic
• Non uno Pinata (don't drop items)
• Beautiful Jade
• Bulk Smelting
• Stonecutting Extended
• Electric Stonecutting Table
• Faster Smoothing
• Do Your F****** Research. You can order pawns to research.
• Go the Fork to Sleep. You can order pawns to sleep.
• Dubs Break Mod
• Gene Trader
• Fists Aren't Made of Steel. Reduces the unarmed melee damage, making prison breaks and tantrums much less frustrating.
• Just Put It Over There
• Meal Radius
• No Burn Metal
• Prisoners Should Fear Turrets
• Realistic Rooms Rewritten. Allows to tweak how pawns perceive room sizes.
• Ugh You Got Me
• Smarter Visitors. Visitors will leave if things get dangerous.
• Better Gene Inheritance
• Better Pawn Control
• Better Pyromania
• Death Acidifiest
• Memorable Auroras (Continued)
• Custom Guilt Duration
• Death Rattle + Biosculpter Patch + Life Support
• Dress Patients
• Way Better Romance
• Enemy Self Preservation
• No One Left Behind
• Hunters Use Melee!
• Injured Carry
• Mortar Accuracy
• Deep Storage + Simple Storage
• Not My Fault
• Pick Up And Haul. Improved hauling.
• While You're Up. Complement for the previous mod.
• RunAndGun.
• Snap Out!
• Vanilla Genes Rebalanced
• Trading Spot
• Better Camp Loot
• Graze up
• Vanilla Base Generation Expanded

Mayor changes

• Dubs Bad Hygiene
• Dynamic Flooding
• Some Things Float
• Layered Wall Destruction
• Vanilla Temperature Expanded
• Yayo's Combat 3 (Continued)

Visual/atmospheric changes

• Better Explosions
• Better Vanilla Masking
• Graphic Chair Overhaul 2
• Not Overhead Meal
• Graphics Settings+
• Graying Hair
• Show Hair With Hats or Hide All Hats
• Gunplay
• Blood Animations
• Childrens Drawings
• Cuter Biotech Cat/Dog Ear Replacer. If you don't like the meat-colored animal ears from Biotech, this is for you!
• Geological Landforms. New map shapes!
• Biome Transitions
• Interaction Bubbles
• SpeakUp
• More Mini-Horns
• More Vanilla Textures
• Muzzle Flash
• My Little Planet
• Sand Castles. Like snowmen, but for sand.
• Spectacular Skullspike. You can rotate them now.
• ReGrowth. Overhaul of biomes and much more!
• Sandstorms
• Vanilla Races Expanded - Custom Icons. For Biotech.
• Yayo's Animation (Continued)

Retextures

• Parka Retexture
• Retextured Apparel
• Retextured Sculptures
• Vanilla Beards Retextured
• Vanilla Hair Retextured
• Vanilla Pawns Retextured
• Marbled Marble
• Essentials: Stone (the stat changes won't work)
• Vanilla Textures Expanded - Variations
• Vanilla Textures Expanded
• I Hate Daylilies
• Biotech Mechanoid Retexture
• Tastier Vanilla Clothes
• Van's Steel
• Glowing Healroot

Audio

• Ambient Rim. New sound effects.
• Realistic Human Sounds. Pawns make sounds when hurt.
• Actually Vanilla Music Expansion. New music.
• P-Music. New music.

Hairs

• Erin's Hairstyles 2
• Hard Times
• Rimsenal - Hair pack + Retextured
• Roo's HD Hairstyles
• Roo's HD Royalty Hairstyles
• The Vanity Project - Female Hair
• Won hair_men + Retextured
• Won hair_women + Retextured

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Ideology:

• More Ideological Words
• More Religious Origins
• Peer Pressure
• Persistent Precepts
• Style Change Anytime
• Conversion and Recruitment
• Icons and Symbols
• Relics and Artifacts

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Bonus: artists! For fun comics, and the occasional animation, check the profiles of u/daleksdeservevictory , u/AzulCrescent , u/AetherealVanguard , u/Senseless0 , u/ATTF , u/Aelanna , srgrafo, u/Fonzawa , u/Ivancmedia , u/zyll3 , u/meto30 , u/AeolysScribbles , u/cavalier753 , u/GABESTFY , u/VectorData , u/arxian , u/Nguyenanh2132 , u/sorrowful_dance , u/meto30 , u/-desdinova- , u/truffli

Edit: If you are going to comment on the length of this post, please don't. This is not a simple snark but rather an actual critical think piece about feminism and Taylor Swift.

Introduction

Pertaining to Taylor Swift, "Female Rage" has deviated from its intended meaning after Swift debuted a new performance of The Tortured Poets Department during the Eras Tour. Now, according to Swift's use of the phrase, female rage is interpreted as public backlash against Swift's dating choices rather than as a response to the broader injustices against women and women's rights. This post examines Taylor Swift's flawed feminism, philanthropy, branding, and the controversial trademark petition for the phrase "Female Rage: The Musical". Swift's background as an entertainer, indeterminate politics, and alignment with capitalism over feminism pervades her legacy, again threatening her public tolerance as not just an individual but as a brand.

Once Upon a Female Rage...

If you were cognizant in the early 2010's, you've heard countless jabs at Taylor Swift in the media. Magazines, radio, or online. Music critics did not take her seriously as a songwriter; parents put a woman on an unrealistic pedestal as the ideal role model for their children; she dated too much and used men as lyrical fodder. No matter the story, it inevitably spread, conjoined with everyone's respective opinions, and you'd be left to wonder, "Why does everyone hate this girl so much?"
Taylor's target demographic has always been young or adolescent girls, more so when Swift herself was one. She made music that spoke to the awkward misfit, cultivating a para-social relationship with fans on MySpace, then later twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, where Taylor posted relatable vlogs showcasing the life of a homegrown American girl. Taylor had a delayed public "growing up" and, compared to her female pop contemporaries, Swift never "gratuitously sexualized her image and seems pathologically averse to controversy" (and, apparently, never even had a sip of alcohol until she turned 21). She was more than happy to spin this narrative to allude to an inherent moral superiority above other women in the industry (Better Than Revenge, heard of it?), engaging in the very slut-shaming that she herself endured (the Madonna and Whore archetypes). The victim complex arose with the need to prove Taylor as a different type of pop girl. Based upon her holy and clean image, Swift had been dubbed "a feminist's nightmare", and that "[To Swift] other girls are obstacles; undeserving enemies who steal Taylor’s soulmates with their bewitching good looks and sexual availability." Feminism and Tennessee-Christian country values don't exactly mix, it seems.
Years later, Swift befriended Lena Dunham and thus experienced white feminism osmosis, where Dunham taught Swift that real feminists defend rapists, makes insensitive jokes about rape and abortion, and prioritize all-white casts. Swift then declared herself a feminist in 2014, saying,

"Becoming friends with Lena – without her preaching to me, but just seeing why she believes what she believes, why she says what she says, why she stands for what she stands for – has made me realize that I’ve been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so."

I suppose the male-centric songwriting subject that permeates Swift's discography contained covert feminism and that we just didn't see that. Perhaps, the "Bad Blood" song and music video were written only in jest and not about poor Katy Perry, for Swift, as a feminist, would "never make it a girl fight" or tear other women down (though all Katy did was date your terrible ex-boyfriend and allegedly steal three backup dancers from your tour). In 2013, Swift said, in response to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's joke towards her serial dating, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
There was that time in 2015 Taylor said that Nicki Minaj was "invited to any stage [she is] on" (as if Taylor expects to have access to every stage, award, and platform that Nicki might not otherwise have as a black female artist...yikes!) in response to Nicki's criticism of the white + thin VMA nominations. Later, Nicki responded with confusion, as Swift continued, "It’s unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot..". Of course, this 'beef' was 'squashed' when Nicki performed with Taylor at the VMAs, with Nicki quite literally only having 38 seconds of stage time without Taylor. Maybe all that parading around with a legion of famous white women - similar to the way Taylor might've done with her numerous 1989-era handbags - was in fact a stance against gender inequality, and that this display of "girl power" should be enough to constitute Swift as a feminist icon.
Even while Swift says that Dunham informed her feminist outlook, she dances around the exact contents of those beliefs: "what she believes, what she says, what she stands for" is not exactly insightful towards what beliefs Swift might have inherited. Taylor never broaches women's rights topics such femicide, FGM, forced pregnancy & marriage, sex trafficking, women in slavery, women's financial and political oppression, women's educational rights, women's health, or women's autonomy, so we can assume she only gives a fuck about "girls supporting girls" (whatever that fucking means).
Despite some questionable (and sometimes vindictive) behavior, Taylor as a young woman did not deserve every media lashing that she received. We cannot deny that most headlines and criticisms perpetuated a misogynistic rhetoric which has plagued Swift for a majority of her career. Acknowledging events such as the development of her ED, her sexual assault trial, "Famous" lyric and MV depiction of Taylor, and the explicit Twitter deepfakes, for example, as both disgusting and unfortunate things that happened to a young woman in Hollywood does not negate the fact that Taylor is mostly a performative feminist.

Get Your Fucking Ass Up and Be a Philanthropist, It Seems Like Nobody Wants to Be a Philanthropist These Days

In 2013, Taylor Swift cut the ribbon at the grand opening of the Taylor Swift Education Center at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. The donation amount - $4 million - was the largest individual artist gift ever donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame, which is, of course, mentioned on Swift's website. The two-story facility features three classrooms, an instrument room, and an interactive children's exhibit gallery. Swift also performed at "All for the Hall" charity shows and has donated numerous artifacts from her career (such as notable guitars, tour costumes, etc) to the museum.
This was over 11 years ago, and it is still the only notable philanthropic contribution Taylor Swift has made.
For a woman of her net worth and stature, and a woman who recognizes the difficulties for women in film and music, you would think that Taylor Swift might establish a scholarship program for women to study the arts or something. Perhaps Swift might even consider becoming a member of organizations that support female artists, or one that supports LGBTQ+ causes (since she is now proudly an ally), yet she remains superficial with her graces. Broader philanthropy, such as donating relief aid to Palestinian women or women impacted by violence and discrimination will probably never receive any financial support from Miss Swift because then she'd be using her money towards philanthropies involving anyone but white entertainers.
She even says herself in Miss Americana, "My entire moral code as a kid and now is a need to be thought of as 'good'." Well, she's certainly thought of as good, though her actions say otherwise. She's more than happy to do a vaguely altruistic song and dance for a clip-worthy interview quote and mass appeasement, then fuck off to one of her mansions on a 20 minute private jet flight, rather than actually contribute to anything pertaining to the causes she has endorsed. Yet, far too many people continue to give a woman such as her their money, time, and energy, and she hoards these resources to herself.

I Like Some of the Taylor's Songs, But What the Fuck Does She Know About Feminism?

Swift continued with her self-proclaimed feminist campaign, positioning herself as a political activist and LGBTQ+ ally in the Miss Americana documentary. The primary focus of the documentary consists of the sexual assault trial, Andrea Swift's cancer diagnosis, Taylor's ED and body dysmorphia, media scrutiny, and, largely, finally speaking up about her politics publicly, mostly her opposition to the 2018 Tennessee Republican senate candidate, Marsha Blackburn, and Blackburn's beliefs. Swift says, following a scene discussing her experience during the trial,

"I just couldn't really stop thinking about it. And I just thought to myself, next time there is any opportunity to change anything, you had better know what you stand for and what you want to say."

We must ask ourselves, though: when has Swift ever spoken up to change anything? Okay, pulling her entire catalogue from Spotify because they didn't pay their artists enough and similarly pulling her catalogue from Apple Music are changes that she leveraged due to her revenue potential and power, but they are not pertinent to the average woman's rights. Moreover, these are issues that directly impacted Taylor's income, which was enough reason for her to protest in the first place. Swift has sold the most units for a female artist in first week sales, is the first female artist with 100k monthly Spotify listeners, is the first female artist to win the Album of the Year Grammy 4 times, and is the first female artist to do X, Y, and Z, all while being inoffensive and family-friendly to boot. The actual Taylor Swift seems unwilling to compromise the brand of Taylor Swift by contributing in meaningful ways to feminist causes, especially if it is for women outside of America and Hollywood.
The reason political anthems such as "The Man" and "Only the Young" of the Lover era feel disingenuous and corporate is because, well, it is. Taylor has taken every opportunity to advance her career or public image at the expense of other women. What is truly genuine to Taylor's outlook on other women is vying for male attention, taking down female competition, and vocalizing feminist injustices only if they directly impact her and her money. Some will argue that it's satisfactory for a woman with such a huge platform to even TALK about feminism, but that just isn't enough. It's even less impressive when you candidly look at the scope of her feminist lens: "If I was the man, then I'd be THE MAN", or "I really resent the ‘Be careful, buddy, she’s going to write a song about you’ angle, because it trivialises what I do", and, of course, "We all got crowns". Feminism, but only when it happens to me. It gets worse when you look at Taylor's track record of copying other famous women and removing other female artists as potential threats to her pop prowess.
It's good for PR to align yourself with certain blanket feminist and political beliefs, therefore good for branding, therefore good for ticketing and merchandise sales, therefore good for business. And Taylor Swift is a business.
She's not a feminist. Taylor Swift is a capitalist.

I Can't Pay Those Sweatshop Workers a Livable Wage or Benefits! How Else Would I Make My Billions?

Recently, Taylor's team filed to trademark the phrase "Female Rage: The Musical" after Taylor said during Paris N1 of the Eras Tour,

"So you were the first ones to see The Tortured Poets at the Eras Tour...or as I like to call it, 'Female Rage: The Musical'."

This trademark petition was filed last week on Saturday, and news comes about just as numerous unofficial fan-made merch designs have cropped up with this phrase plastered on Fruit of the Loom basics. I'm of the opinion Swift's team motioned for a trademark so that they can send out cease & desists to all those that make knockoff merch, which disrupts potential sales for Bravado, UMG's choice merchandising company; however, since it was filed earlier, perhaps Swift has bigger plans with the bizarre use of the gendered phrase. One Swiftie referred to the phrase "female rage" as "a funny Eras Tour joke". Could it be a possible fourth version of the Eras Tour Movie? Whatever the reason, the motion to capitalize off of such a concept is disgusting, but not unsurprising, for a woman that profits on her vain feminism.
Swift, through her company, TAS Rights Managements, has also trademarked over 200 phrases, including "1989", where she owns the property rights to this calendar year on keychains, phone cases, sunglasses, stationary, bags, beverage ware, clothing, entertainment services, your subconscious, and, of course, Christmas ornaments.
The vapid consumerism in Swiftie culture is, frankly, disgusting. Bravado's sustainability statement is non-existent, the quality control is abysmal, and the materials they use are horrible. The materials, such as acrylic and polyester, are made from petrochemicals. This means they are non-renewable, shed microplastics, and are quite toxic in production. The manufacturing process to make all of those lazy-rushed Eras Tour logo graphic tees is a huge blow to environmental well-being. Apparently, though, Swifties don't give a fuck. They sell out products in seconds and either have to face the manufactured scarcity or buy from a scalper that resells for 200% of the already ridiculous retail price. This doesn't include the environmental impact of vinyl records, CD, and cassette production, of which Taylor produces many variants that sell unsustainable amounts.
If we're talking about women's rights violations, why is no one acknowledging the women that work in the inhumane sweatshop conditions that have to pump out fugly t-shirts and hats? The millions of plastic microfiber dander they are inhaling, or the toxic dyes that touch their bare skin? Are they being compensated fairly for their skilled labour and are they in safe working environments? Do these women have minimal bargaining power, and do they have authority over their worker's rights? Is Taylor Swift female raging at their injustices? Does Taylor Swift ever feels bad that her wealth was built on the backs of women of color, disadvantaged by the demands of the global economy and garment industry? Do you think she ever says a little white feminist prayer for them before she goes to sleep at night?
What's even crazier is not that Taylor herself doesn't care, it's that Swifties don't care. There CANNOT BE ethical billionaires. You only make a billion dollars if you are exploiting other human beings for capital gain. Based on public perception of the possible "Female Rage: The Musical" trademark, it seems like Swifties are already asking for merch with this phrase. "If Taylor made it, I'd buy it." Oh, cool. So not only do you champion Miss Swift's avarice and billionaire status, but you also are unashamed to admit to your blind consumption of her music and merchandise, no matter where they might originate in production or sincerity. Just as Swift takes and takes and takes, Swifties' consumerism of Taylor Swift cannot be quelled.
The tortured artist's most vulnerable and sincere poetry...available now in 21 different versions!

I Am Tortured Poet, Hear Me Whinge

Look - even if Taylor's intention is to characterize TTPD as more "tortured" and "angry", the main thread of the album is "I was ghosted by my decade-long situationship with a controversial indie boy and my fucking stupid fans wrote a 'Speak Up Now' open letter prompting me to drop him" anger, which is adequately expressed in the lyrics and performances. The extent of Taylor's "female rage" on TTPD is on tracks such as "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?", which contends with relentless media scrutiny; "But Daddy I Love Him", where Swift firmly states she'll date whoever she likes no matter how "Sarahs and Hannahs" may react; and "The Albatross", a track mythologizing her reputation and the consequences of dating her. Of course, these coincide with deep psychological wounds that formed during Swift's early years in the media, and so, from her feminist perspective, these subjects tackle the misogyny and double standards that she faced.
Yet Taylor Swift still has no grounds to be claiming that TTPD best exemplifies female rage and therefore she, in the context of this album, is female rage incarnate. As the daughter of a stock broker and mutual fund marketing executive, Taylor was born into wealth and allowed privileges like trips and subsequent relocation to Nashville all so that she might get a record deal. Her father even invested at least $120,000 into the then-fledgling label, Big Machine Records, which ensured Taylor's place with Borchetta after leaving her dead-end development deal with Sony. The fact that her parents were able to buy her a fucking brand new guitar for Christmas and pay for music lessons says so much about the financial security and safety of her childhood.
Money is privilege and protection, and despite Swift's experiences with misogyny and loser boyfriends, she does not know what female rage is.
Her rage is derived from her frustrations with her obsessive fans pulling the moral superiority card on Taylor in response to her rebound with Matty Healy. That's literally it. She's just pissed that the monster she created is no longer obediant, it's become a feral, sovereign entity that depletes the world of its natural resources and thinks it is more intelligent than it actually is because it's mommy has started to talk to it with big words. Apparently, 'illicit', 'elegy', 'nonchalant', and 'precocious' are considerably big words for the oafish monster, and I find it strange that this level of literacy is present in a group of fans that allegedly have GPAs of 3.5 or higher, but I digress.
Taylor Swift has never been one paycheck away from destitution. Taylor Swift has never experienced racial discrimination. She may have instances of gender discrimination, but she possesses the ideal white, blonde American beauty standard and therefore reaps the benefits of being a conventionally attractive woman. Taylor Swift has sufficient social capital. Taylor Swift is a billionaire woman prolonging her victimhood though she, as a woman, has mostly had control over her image and music (unlike her contemporaries). Taylor Swift is NOT entitled to be championed for her "female rage", nor should she be. Taylor Swift has never even been the struggling artist, for fuck's sake. I don't give a fuck if she's trying to fill the empty lunch tables of her past. Taylor Swift purporting herself, her unpolished album, and her lukewarm feminism as a musical bleeding with female rage is asinine.

Sigh Try and Come For My Job, Poors

Out there in the world right now is a 23-year-old woman, a recent college grad, who works as a barista. She has to wake up and get ready to go into a minimum wage job because she cannot get a job in her field. She doesn't have healthcare benefits or sick time, so she has to go into work no matter how she's feeling. All day long she is berated by vicious customers and creepy men, and, exhausted from being on her feet, she knows she has to go home to her shitty roommate that never does the dishes and her roommate's shitty dog. To comfort herself, she considers getting a treat, but thinks against it when she remembers that matcha lattes cost $15 and they taste like milky dirt. She knows that she needs to buy groceries this week, and so the woman resolves to go home, but notices that her gas tank is low. She goes to put gas in the car, but the pump stops at $27.86 because that's all that she has in her checking account. The woman, bereft and reeling, sinks into the driver's seat. "Well," she thinks, her head in her hands, "at least I don't have Taylor Swift's job. I just couldn't imagine."
Fame is somewhat of a choice. If at any moment Taylor feels that she is misunderstood, misconstrued, or overwhelmed by public opinion, she can LEAVE the public eye - Lord knows she has the retirement fund and residuals to do so. In "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart", the TTPD song about meeting the demands of your career-zenith mega-tour while in the relationship trenches, Taylor ends the song by rambling,

"You know you're good when you can even do it with a broken heart...you know you're good...and I'm good, cause I'm miserable, and no one even knows!...try and come for my job."

Yeah, obviously we wouldn't know, you recently passed the billionaire threshold and are the most famous and in-demand performer in the world right now. Taylor Swift makes an estimated $10 to $13 million dollars A NIGHT on the Eras Tour. Furthermore, the Eras Tour movie grossed $261.6 million globally, (which, as the producer, Taylor takes home 57% of the ticket sales) not counting the streaming revenue from Amazon Prime Video and the estimated $75 million deal that Disney paid to have it on Disney+. We're not even considering the income from cheap plastic popcorn buckets and drink cups plastered with colored squares in her Era-specific likeness.
It's funny. Taylor Swift often said that being famous wasn't hard, that she "isn't complaining". I'm sure it is difficult to always have to present in a good mood, else you'll end up misrepresented in the media, and I'm sure it's invasive to virtually have no privacy or semblance of anonymity. Still, Taylor Swift shows up each night of tour and performs. For a majority of her career, she has penned her sad songs while on the road. Most of "Red", her breakup album, was written in the thick of the Speak Now World tour. Now, some Swifties say they almost "feel bad" for attending the Eras Tour with Swift's revelations in this song, that they have had a 'dimmed experience' upon hearing Taylor's misery whilst performing. Despite the fact that Taylor said that "this was the happiest she's ever been" at Gilette Stadium in May, the lyrics "boohoo, woe is me, smile for the cameras and make the fans happy!!!" are jarring for Eras attendees.
While Taylor Swift was making double-digit millions a night in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and feeling miserable, Ana Clara Benevides Machado passed away due to heat exposure. The concert promoters, Time For Fun, are now the subject of a criminal investigation due to their lack of adequate hydration and safety. Taylor Swift cancelled the Sunday show that was to follow and offered VIP tent tickets to Benevides Marchado's family, which was a kind gesture, but perhaps incongruous to the incident of which they were offered as consolation. Everyone grieves differently, of course, but I'm not sure attending the very show at the very same venue that my daughter or sister passed away in two days prior, where the singer CONTINUED the show despite her death, would be healthy for closure.
There was no female rage at the show as Swift never saw Benevides Machado pass out. There was no female rage towards the disregard for fans as humans while Swift elected to proceed with her Brazil tour dates despite the country being in historic heatwaves (at risk of overheatting herself). If Taylor Swift was so shaken by touring with a broken heart or a fan's passing, she wouldn't have added an additional North American leg of Eras just two months after the Matty breakup. She's brokenhearted but willing to mend the cracks with your money and move onward with her worldwide female rage induced pillaging.
No matter what happens, even if you die at a Taylor Swift concert, Taylor collects a big fat check and flies away. She doesn't know you as anything other than a conversion rate or earning potential despite what her nearly 20-year long parasocial relationship with fans might otherwise indicate. She knows that, while some Swifties are without disposable income, they feel obligated to spend on a "48 Hours Only!" exclusive vinyl variant instead of necessities because they are so entrenched in Taylor Swift's intoxicating celebrity, they'll prioritize materialistic fandom before their needs. This is good enough for her because this means she can expand her real estate portfolio and finance her cat's lavish lifestyles. They're worth an estimated $100 million dollars. Her three cats could pool their net worth and solve world hunger.
While you and I might be denied bereavement leave and barely surviving the current political and economic climate, Taylor Swift has to, instead of gets to, perform for stadiums at full attendance for three nights in a row across the globe. You and I might be replaced by AI at our longtime jobs, but Taylor Swift is threatened with losing more and more money each time you listen to a "Stolen Version" of her songs. If we don't buy every variant of all of her albums, then who is going to pay for the fucking cats?
It is tone deaf to spend as she spends and lives as she lives in this economy, but this is her reality. She was able to donate $100,000 to all of her tour truck drivers, and that's wonderful, but it leads me to wonder about the ethos of the 2020s where one woman can hoard such life-changing amounts of money. Remember in 2014 when she gave a fan $90 ($120 in today's money) to get Chipotle because she had no fucking clue how much it cost? This is a 34-year-old woman who is increasingly out of touch with the reality for working class people and women in general. Normal everyday adults must wake up and go to their thankless jobs, and yet Taylor Swift, despite all her riches, incessantly references the lows of her life and career as a public figure and entertainer to farm sympathy and drive sales. And still, the corporate women have latched onto "I cry a lot, but I am so productive! It's an art!" as their cubicle battle cry.
Do you think that, from up in her private jet, Taylor Swift gazes at the world through her poetic, tortured eyes, and thinks, "All the little people, in their cars, walking, going about their lives...all those girls that don't support girls...do they know that I've made an album about female rage?"

Conclusion/TLDR

Thank you for reading. I would love to hear your critical insights towards this entire ordeal: TTPD, the trademark, the implications of it all.
TLDR: Taylor Swift is a bad feminist and is delusional to think that the TTPD eras set exemplifies female rage at women's injustice.

Murder Drones is an indie animated show produced and directed by GLITCH Productions. It was originally created by Liam Vickers before signing a contract with GLITCH to turn it into a show. The plot of the show follows young robot characters going on adventures throughout the episodes. The show is primarily marketed towards the teenage and child audiences. It is free to watch on YouTube meaning that it is available to be watched by anyone who has a Youtube channel. While all of this might seem innocent and harmless at first, there is much more to Murder Drones than meets the eye. We must take into consideration that the main characters of the show which are teenagers (as shown by the fact that they are seen going to school in multiple episodes) have highly sexualised designs and are often placed in highly suggestive situations with one another which has extremely disturbing implications. We must mention one character in specific, V, who has a ridiculously sexualised design due to her over exaggerated features and revealing outfit. This design choice obviously serves no purpose other than to bait lonely induvidials into clicking on Murder Drones episodes by using predatory tactics like this. Characters such as Lizzy and Doll also have revealing clothes that they never change once. There very clearly seems to exist a pattern of oversexualised female characters within the show. This sexualisation and objectification of women is never addressed. GLITCH Productions themselves also directly promotes shipping of their characters by integrating romantic relationships into the story. One such example is "Nuzi", a ship made canon by GLITCH Productions that involves the characters N and Uzi. Uzi is clearly shown to be underage as evidenced by the fact that she still goes to school and N is shown to be in his early 20's at lowest. This clear depiction of pedophilia is completely ignored by the show's writers and producers. Not only is it ignored, as a matter of fact, it is actively encouraged. Liam Vickers, the creator of Murder Drones has made several pedophilic remarks in the past regarding underage characters. The fact that the main person behind the entire show is possibly a pedophile does not help it's reputation in the slightest. Furthermore, Liam Vickers once had a thumbnail that clearly sexualized a fictional minor on one of the videos on his old Scary Story Time With Liam YouTube channel. Although, not as subtle as the depiction of problematic relationships, Murder Drones web series might be secretly promoting racism through different implications. Robots vs humans kind of stories are as old as our world, but i would like to draw attention to several "coincidentally" questionable moments. Main characters of the show all seem to have skin color of white and you might say that they are just robots and that their so called "skin color" is just the paint. That point might have been valid if the showrunner didn't make a design decision of making those robots look so much like real humans. Speaking about real humans, they are depicted as "shadowy silhouettes" of some sort, which inevitably makes them look pitch black. This would not have been so bad, only if the main character of the show - Uzi, didn't make numerous claims about killing all humans, and do keep in mind that the coloration of her skin is pale white. In conclusion, Murder Drones is an inherently pedophilic and racist show that is especially harmful considering that it is targeted towards minors and is accessible by anyone. It should be banned worldwide for promoting subtle pedophilic and anti-black agendas and preying on juvenile population of 3rd world countries that is unable to afford cable TV and is instead forced to watch YouTube videos.

Blunt and to the point. All this talk of men having to pay for everything in a relationship is a cop out. Men do it because they think it gives them "power" when in reality it makes them simps. And women demand it because what person wouldn't just demand everything given to them for free? Thats human nature to be greedy.
All this talk about "Biology" is false and simply used to manipulate. In modern society those biological urges might extend to feeding and protecting. But everything else is BS. An example?
"Women need to find the best because she has a child and will need to be provided for."
By that logic, when a woman finds a man with resources wouldn't her first "Biological" response be to take those resources. Invest them and grow them to insure her future child is cared for? Thats the excuse for women demanding that of men. But what's the actual result?
Her demanding him to spend all his resources on her. Buying handbags, Trips, Expensive dinners and dates. Clothes and makeup, hair extensions and "Maintenace". And once that guy is drained, or has to start spending less what happens? She gets bored. Jumps to the next guy and repeats the process. which NEVER leads her to having children. She becomes angry because relationships don't progress and she ages out of the dating market. Where's the kid? She hasn't even had one and yet we are supposed to be "Biology" tells her she needs all that?
So again. Why was she looking for a "provider", when in reality very little of it goes to the very reasons men are told they are expected of being a provider?

I (38 F) have been married to my husband (41 M) for 7 years, this coming June and together for 9 years. We have two kids, twin boys, that are 5 months old. I'm going to give a long backstory so stay with me or scroll to the bottom for the TL;DR.
2 weeks before Mother's Day, I found out my husband had been cheating on me for at least 7 months. I used his phone to use the Lowe's app to order lawn chairs since it's tied to our Lowe's card and I wanted to use our rewards. While I was looking for the particular set I want, he received a Snapchat notification from a woman. I didn't even know he had Snapchat so it peaked my interest. During this time, my husband was mowing the grass.
I open the snap and it's a nude of a woman looking to be in her mid-20s with the caption "I miss you being inside of me". My jaw hit the floor. I started going through his text messages and there were no conversations there with other women except employees from his practice (he is a dermatologist) that were harmless.
I started looking through his Snapchat and I guess he deletes everything because there were no chats between him and this woman. I am not familiar with Snapchat so I Google how to use it while I'm trying to figure out if I can retrieve deleted messages. I don't want to spend all the time I have left of him mowing reading through articles so I give up. I do go through his friend's list and end up coming back to it to take a picture of with my phone.
I look through the rest of the apps on his phone and they all seem benign except this secure folder. I open it and there's a passcode. I try three or four until I figure it out (the date of our first date, ironically) and it opens. There are dozens of nude photos of at least 3 women, including the woman from Snapchat. I know it's the woman from Snapchat because she has a very distinct tattoo on her stomach. Not only are there nudes but there are 2 videos of this same woman giving him oral.
My heart felt like it was trying to come out of my chest. I started shaking and tears started flowing. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down and then grabbed my phone and started taking pictures of the evidence. I even recorded clips of the videos, I just couldn't watch them in their entirety.
I look through all the apps again and realize that maybe he has some hidden. So, I google hidden apps on android and follow the instructions. Three apps were hidden. Two messaging apps and a hook-up app called Adult friend finder. I debated even opening them because I was so scared of what I would find. But I ended up viewing them because knowing is better than not knowing for me.
He had been messaging at least 4 different women, including the video girl. He had sex with at least two of them that I found proof of. All messages made me sick but the video girl's messages were the worst and completely shattered my heart. I had to stop to go throw up because of the stress and anxiety.
Some messages that hurt me the most were: Her: "Tell me how much better my p***y is than your wife's." Him: "Wetter, tighter and infinitely better."
Her: *sends nude* "How does my body compare to your wife's?" Him: "There is no comparison baby, you are a goddess."
There were so many others but those two come to mind as the ones that made me feel the absolute worst. Remember, I just had twins 5 months ago. I am very insecure due to all of the changes that happened to my body and my c-section scar. I am also 25 pounds heavier than I was pre-pregnancy. My husband and I stopped having sex because it was so uncomfortable for me about 2 months before I gave birth, around the same time he started messaging these women coincidentally. We've only had sex about three times since they were born due to my insecurity issues and just being so exhausted caring for and breastfeeding twins every day. I also have a business and work from home around the twins' schedules so I can stay at home with them.
I take photos of everything, using my phone again like before. The earliest messages were sent 7 months ago so I know it had been going on for at least 7 months, while I was freaking pregnant with our twins. Oh, I also found out that the night after I had a c-section and while our newborn preemie twins were in the NICU, he met with video girl for a hook-up at her apartment. He told me he was going to get food and check on his office. With our twins being preemies, anything could have happened and he wouldn't have been there because he was with her. But, that wasn't a thought for him I guess.
I close out all the apps, make sure the hidden ones are hidden from his home screen and put his phone back exactly where I found it. I also make sure the snap notification was gone. I was nervous that he would find out about the snap that was opened but he didn't.
I call my best friend of over 33 years who is also my business partner. I tell him everything and have a good cry to let it all out. He helps me to collect myself and gives me some sound advice. He tells me to not tell my husband I found anything yet and to speak with a divorce lawyer as soon as possible. He said to meet with the best ones in my area so that they couldn't represent my husband. He offers me and the twins a place to stay at his home if I need time away from my husband, assuring me that his husband would love to have me there.
Over the next week, my BFF helps me take care of the twins while meet with 5 different divorce lawyers and end up hiring, in my opinion, the best. She tells me not to leave the family home so I end up not going to stay with my BFF. She starts the divorce paperwork immediately. During this time, I am doing my best to continue on like nothing is wrong. I want to make sure all of my ducks are in a row before he realizes what I know.
Fast-forward to Mother's Day. My husband makes me breakfast in bed, gives me very expensive jewelry, flowers, the works. I can't enjoy it, of course, because it feels so fake now that I know what he's been up to. I pretend to love it though.
My husband's father planned a cook out that afternoon for my husband's mother, sister (let's call her Julie), sister-in-law (let's call her Fran) and me. We all have infants under a year old so it's everyone's first Mother's day, except my MIL's of course. I told my husband that I didn't feel like going and he guilt-tripped me by saying that my FIL had a big surprise for me and he's been really looking forward giving it to me. So, I reluctantly agree. I ask if my BFF can come since his mother sadly passed away just under a year ago. He calls his dad and my FIL replies that of course he can come. My BFF agreed to come to offer me support since he knew it would be very difficult for me to be there.
I plan to act like nothing's wrong and try to enjoy the day since it's my first Mother's Day after all. I tell myself that I will focus on the twins and get cuddles from my two nieces. Julie has an 8 month old daughter and Fran (husband's brother's wife) has a 10 month old daughter. I'm also the closest to Julie out of all his family since we became friends 10 years ago and she's the one who introduced me to my husband.
We get there and everything is fine. My husband is helping his dad, brother (let's call him Chris), BIL (let's call him Roger) cook on the grill. My MIL and the women are taking turns holding the babies. My BFF took over the kitchen, finishing up all of the sides so the moms could relax. It started out to be a really good day. I kept myself from thinking of my husband's betrayal for the most part and focused on the family.
After we eat my MIL starts taking pictures of the family. I'm sitting on the couch and she tells my husband to sit beside me for the photo. He does and then she tells him to put his arm around me and jokingly says "pretend like you love her" and I lose it. I start to uncontrollably sob.
My MIL pulls me up and hugs me and my FIL comes over and joins in the hug. My BFF comes to stand right next to me. My FIL asks me what was wrong. I look at my BFF and he gives me a "tell if you want" look.
I tell them that I found out my husband has been cheating on me for at least 7 months. Julie gasps and everyone stares at my husband. He stands up and says "that's not true at all, why would you think that? You know you and the boys are my whole world." Everyone is silent, looking at me. I tell them all that I found messages, pictures, the hook-up app and even videos on his phone. My husband looks faint and sits back down. Nobody says anything for at least 2 minutes.
Finally, Julie asks my husband, while crying herself, why? My husband tells her that "I made a mistake, I only talked to the women, I never physically cheated." My BFF quickly replies, "Liar!" Julie then asks me what all I found. I tell them everything, the nudes, the videos of my husband receiving oral, the messages and even tell them what those horrible messages said about me. He continues to deny it! I pull up a few message photos and show them to Julie, my MIL and FIL. My husband tries to gaslight me by saying that he admitted to talking to other women but he never slept with any of them. I really don't want to show them the video but I do find a few messages where my husband and a woman talked about their previous sexual encounters. My husband again says that he admitted to talking to them but never really cheated. He literally says "if the message talks about sex it was just role playing."
Roger (Julie's husband) goes over to my husband and jerks his phone out of his hand. My husband tries to get it back but Roger is 6'7 and my husband is 6'1 so he just holds it up where my husband can't reach. He asks me what his passcode is and I tell him. He then asks me where to find things and as I start to tell him my husband grabs his phone back.
At this point my MIL, Julie and Fran are all crying. Chris starts getting upset with me. He tells me this was not the time nor place to bring this all up and that I ruined Julie and Fran's first Mother's Day. Julie speaks up and says no, my husband is the one who ruined it. Chris starts yelling and saying that our personal business needs to stay private and that I had no right to bring it up to his family and ruin the only first mother's day the women will get. Fran agrees with him and tells me I'm definitely in the wrong for bringing it up, if it even is true.
At this point both of my twins start crying. I am not going to breastfeed them there and I want to get out of that house as quick as possible. I ask my BFF to take me home and we transfer the car seats from my husband's vehicle into his. My MIL follows me outside and says that Chris was right, I should have kept it all to myself and that now future Mother's Days will be a reminder of this fiasco for everyone. I just ignore her and put the twins in the car. My husband comes outside and asks if we can please talk. I tell him no, get in the car and my BFF, the twins and I leave. I end up feeling horrible and guilty that I let it all out to everyone.
My husband didn't come home and ended up staying at his parents house and has been there the past two nights. He got my FIL to come over Sunday evening and pick up clothes, toiletries, work stuff and various other items. While he was here I asked him, did I ruin Mother's Day? He tells me no that my husband did. He said that he asked me what was wrong and I was honest. He said he understood now why the "pretend like you love her" comment caused me to breakdown. I asked him about my MIL, Chris and Fran since I know Julie and Roger aren't mad at me. He said that they are still angry with me but they will eventually get over it.
TL;DR - I found out my husband had been cheating on me for at least 7 months with multiple women, starting while I was pregnant with our twins and continuing after I gave birth. I didn't tell him I knew for 2 weeks. At a Mother's Day cookout that his family hosted for his mother, me, his sister and sister-in-law, his mother made a comment that made me break down. I ended up telling everyone about the infidelity. His brother, SIL, and mother told me I ruined his sister and SIL's first Mother's Day. and that I shouldn't have said anything about the affairs.
Am I the AH?

Genocide looked to the sky. He thought of his mentor. The one who had saved him. He remembered his childhood. How powerless he was. He remembered the anger. He never wanted to hurt anybody. He thought of all the times he showed compassion. How much they hurt him for it. He saw the world before him, a graveyard. Humans. People that were supposed to be made in the image of some divine creator. They were but maggots feasting upon his remains. They ate away at his very being until nothing human remained. His thoughts were no longer his own. He had no joys in life that mattered. He hated humanity more than he could love anything about himself. He remember his first killing spree. Being gunned down by police. Left for dead. He remembered a hooded figure moving towards him. Getting closer the more he neared his death. He saw its pale face. Its impossibly black eyes. It was a man. This figure in question appeared to be of Japanese nationality with long, straight, loose hair. It emanated extreme malice. It offered him a choice. A purpose. Power. He thought the figure a reaper but it identified itself as Amakusa Masataka. Masataka guided him on how to kill and gave him specific locations to kill people in. In a sense, he became a hitman for quotas of people. He inquired what Masataka was. The presence of evil, his ability to appear and disappear at will, how he could control what people could see him and what people couldn't. While vague, years of killing for this being offered some insight. Amakusa Masataka belonged to a group of people not of this world. His people had been corrupted by a dark force long ago and had aligned themselves with the warlord who had subjugated their version of Japan. Their dark high priest assisted the warlord along with two others. These four rulers in turn served a larger order. The four were tasked with bringing about the end of the current world as an act of retribution for some fallen deity. Masataka's people acted as covert operatives for this empire. They were feared across the land and were collectively referred to as "Shinigami". An agent of the coming apocalypse, a servant of evil possessed by the will of those gods of death, Genocide would walk the earth.
Genocide stepped toward the station. A police cruiser rammed into him. He pulled out a knife and stabbed the hood of the car. The inhuman force of the knife created sparks which burst the engine into flames. The car crashed into a streetlight and exploded. A second cruiser neared the scene. No way a man could have done this. Yet still, out of the fires Genocide strode forth. It set upon the second vehicle, shooting out it's tires while jumping 9 feet into the air. The car tries to reverse but crashes into a wall. Genocide lands on the hood and kicks through the front window. Glass shatters under its boot, blinding the two officers inside. Genocide shoots one of the officers with a shotgun, killing him. The second officer in the passenger seat readies his pistol and takes aim. Only two shots fired, both directed at Genocide's head. It casually cocks its neck to avoid them. Then it grabs the officer's arm, breaking it. Genocide uses its free hand to grab the officer's head and bangs it into the dashboard no less than 5 times. The skull is shattered on the final impact. Genocide jumps off the car and continues on his mission.
Detective Evans speaks through a megaphone," This is your first and final warning. Stand down or we will use any and all means at our disposal to put you down." Genocide dropped its shotgun and raised its hands. A group of five SWAT team members rushed out the station, surrounding Genocide with riot shields. An officer accompanies them, edging behind the figure to apply handcuffs. Suddenly, Genocide springs to life , grabbing the officer behind him. He flips the officer over his head, slamming him into the pavement at his feet. Then Genocide stomps his head causing it to burst. Genocide drops a flash bomb from his coat sleeve, blinding the SWAT team as he draws his knife. He drives it into one SWAT member, the knife puncturing the shield and piercing his chest. Genocide kicks the corpse away withdrawing his knife. He goes to another, this time using the end of his boot toe in a rising kick to disarm their shield. He grabs them by the throat and drives the knife slowly into their eye socket. Another is tackled to the ground and beaten to death despite still being under the shield. Another is picked up and thrown into the fires still burning from the first auto incident. In no time, Genocide stood before an indistinguishable mass of gore, blood streaking across his black leather outfit. He laughed" So this is all you can give me. I'm not entertained." Officers took aim from the station windows, and snipers did so from other rooftops. Genocide laughed maniacally as he was rained down upon from all sides by a hailstorm of bullets. His body convulsed, but he did not fall. Moments more and he was on his knees. Still though, their efforts were futile. Gracia looked out and saw a black mist coalescing around the man in black. His blood. Blood erupted from his body only to transform into this dark mist that reentered his wounds. Genocide screamed. No. It was just an elevated pitch in his laughter. Optimism failed everyone yet again. Gracia saw Genocide holding something in his right hand. She could only make out a beeping red light. Genocide pushed the button triggering the carefully concealed explosives he laid in preparation for this event. C4 explosives went off in all the places he saw fit. The sniping posts he couldn't reach. The assault of lead lightened. Then Genocide drew an RPG from...somewhere. He collected himself and fired at the station's entrance. The explosion shook the station. From inside, the lights began to flicker. Communications were down on all fronts. Had he modified the rocket with some type of EMP? Not good. Amisdst the confusion Genocide entered using smoke bombs to mask his presence. Moving like a shadow, he killed everyone in the lobby silently with his knife. He made his way to the holding cells. Still they chanted. Still they praised. Still they raved for the arrival of genocide. Genocide shot the lock opening the cell. Jim Jimenez walked out and bowed before his master. Genocide smiled. He couldn't have imagined how proficient he had gotten with possession. Well, not quite possession. He had known of the Shinigami's ability to share their thoughts and emotions with humans. Shinigami like his mentor were ancient. They had so many years of memories, such strong a hatred for life that they overwhelmed the personality of the victim. The victim sees themselves as one of them. Shinigami can't force the will of the victim, so they find those who are already similar to them in some way. Genocide found the collective universal distrust of police to be a prime sentiment to capitalize on. He armed the inmates, infecting them with samples of his own dark essence.One particular inmate caught Genocide's eye. He knew the man's work. An arsonist. The one whom he recalls was responsible for blowing up his first car way back in high school. Rather than a standard firearm, Genocide gave the man a random assortment of grenades containing a special surprise. Genocide showed them visions of anarchy, of sending a message to a society that used and disregarded them. While this was also true of how he felt, years of living in darkness had changed him. He needed no purpose. No end goal. No justification. He just wanted to watch the world burn.
Genocide's small army broke off to engage several different wings of the station. Genocide went to the security room. He found Wayne, his informant, playing some FPS on one of the monitors. Wayne took of his headphones and asked," You kill everyone yet?" Genocide responded," No. You should get going before that happens. Your life becomes fair game if I run out of pigs to cook." Wayne clapped his hands, "Aight, GC my man, say less." He packed his things and left. Genocide drew a twin pair of handguns and laid waste to the station. He followed a group that took cover in the men's restroom. Kicking open multiple stalls he was surprised to find...nothing. Where had they gone? He turned around and saw his mentor, Masataka, smiling at him. It looked like him. Long, dark hair, black clothing, and soulless, empty eyes. But it wasn't. It was Genocide's own reflection in the mirror. Genocide smiled. He didn't notice the changes at first. They must have happened gradually. Subconsciously. From the final stall, an officer sprung into action, rushing Genocide, hitting him point blank with a shockgun round. Genocide felt the tingling sensation electrifying his body and grew numb. In spite of the pain, he took a single step. Then, another. He came within striking range of the officer and snatched the shockgun. Two more officers erupted from another stall, battering him with baton strikes. Genocide felt nothing. He clutched the shockgun in his hand like a bat and went to work pulverizing his attackers. An officer kicked in the bathroom door, a woman holding a pistol. She fired multiple times to no effect. Genocide stood covered in blood. He even let her reload. Twice. He wanted to see her despair. Her hopelessness. He walked towards her, shrugging off bullets as they pierced his body. His wounds healed nigh instantly due to the dark essence he had been imbued with. He held her face with both hands, lifting her body off the ground. As she screamed, he used her head to shatter the restroom mirror, running down the full length of it while smashing her into it at several points. He dropped the remains of what he held, washed his hands with soap, dried them, then exited the restroom.
The inmates that rallied for the cause of genocide attacked the station. Fortunately, they were nowhere near Genocide in terms of power and only carried one type of firearm each. They shared his healing ability but could be killed quite easily. Gracia encountered a sniper on the end or a west wing hallway. Other officers waited behind corners unable to get close. Gracia noticed the faulty lighting. In this hallway, the lights flickered in intervals of 3 seconds. Finding a pattern and timing her movements, she rushed the sniper at the exact moment the lights went out. Running the length of the hall, Gracia zigzagged, dodging the sniper inmate's bullets. She jumped on a wall, ran 3 feet on it, then kicked off it, pouncing on the assailant. She fired five shots into him, making sure to hit the brain and the heart. Two severe injuries that were impossible for Shinigami essence to heal simultaneously. Elsewhere, Evans took on another escaped inmate. A vehicular arsonist named Carson. Carson had a bag filled with an assortment of different grenades and was happily giving them out like candy on Halloween. "A flash bang here, a bit of tear gas there. Oh. Wait! Was that an ice grenade? Did the explosion freeze your leg to the floor? Whoops. Maybe a fire grenade will melt that for you. Hold on let me get one fore you," Carson rambled gleefully. Evans looked at the carnage before him. Officers burning. Officers partially frozen in blocks of ice. He took a breath and aimed his wristgun. He steadied his right forearm. Carson readied to throw a random grenade. Evans shot it the moment it left Carson's hand. The grenade exploded directly in front of Carson. Both Evans and Carson looked at each other in shock. Confetti. A party grenade? Carson quickly fumbled for another but was tackled and restrained by several officers. Meanwhile in the South wing, Lary had some colleagues set a trap for another shotgun toting inmate. He had them bait the inmate and flee. Giving chase he turned a corner and ran straight into Lary's fist. The inmate recovered and motioned to shoot Lary. "Let's tango. " Lary gave the code word. Nearby officers activated a device. A signal jammer of sorts. The inmate shoved the barrel of his gun into Lary's gut and pulled the trigger. Nothing. The special signal jammer in question was designed for firearms. It was a last resort as it left officers just as defenseless. Lary was having fun. He boxed the inmate in hand to hand combat. Despite the inmate's enhanced strength, Lary's technique pulled through. Lary ducked under one of the inmate's wide punches and did some type of rising uppercut where he jumped off the ground while spinning. One of the other officers whispered" The rising dragon." Lary smiled giving a thumbs up" Yeah, it was a rising dragon uppercut. Saw it in one O my kid's vidya games. Thought I'd try it out while I'm jacked on adrenaline".
Jim Jimenez looked long and hard at himself in the mirror. He was in the women's restroom. Some brainless woman had broken the men's restroom mirror with her face. For the first time in a long while Jim could think clearly. He was becoming sane. At the least he was no longer a raving lunatic. The life essence of the dark gods had healed the wounds to both his body and his mind. He saw his face, his scraggly dirty beard. He found a razor and shaved. He trimmed his beard somewhat. He liked it. He washed his hair. It fell down his face like silk, no longer greasy. His bloodshot eyes once burning with crazed intensity had cooled. He blinked. Just for a second, he saw the man known as Genocide. The man that attacked him. The one that killed him and gave him new life. The drug dealers. The police. They were all the same in his eyes now. They were all to blame for the world being what it is. Jim wanted to hate them. He wanted to take revenge, but he felt nothing. It didn't matter. He knew he was wronged, could logically justify acting against them, but he just didn't care anymore. About anything. He was finally free. Sensing his presence was no longer needed here, Jim vanished into the night. He needed to find someone who had had the answers he needed. Himself. Who had he been? Who was he now? Who could he become? Where was he going? So many questions to ponder indefinitely. So much time left in the rest of his life.
Genocide ran down the station's halls raining hailstorms of bullets upon its occupants. He had a handgun in each hand as well as a wristgun on each wrist. This effectively gave him 4 separate firearms that he could use simultaneously. Lary regrouped with Gracia, Evans, and a handful of others. They radioed all surviving officers near Genocide to flee to the roof. This plan had been set in motion days before the assault and had been kept hidden from most of the force. The plan involved scheduling flights for several helicopters to arrive at some point after Genocide arrived. There would be no way for him to prepare for them and pre-scheduling their arrival ensured they arrived regardless of if they were called or not. Lary and the others set about preparing the second jamming device. Genocide stood among a hallway of bodies. He saw one man clinging to life trying to crawl away. He decided on trying that other thing he saw his master do. He grabbed the dying man and pinned him to the wall. Slowly he drove a knife into his chest. As the man's life slipped away, something else entered his body. Genocide channeled a small amount of his essence into the vessel. He had steadily done this with other casualties around the station whose bodies were somewhat salvageable. He dropped the body he was holding and looked upon the others. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, his eyed were black, both sclera and iris. The scene before him changed. Genocide had a vision. He saw a dead gray wasteland littered with bodies. These people however weren't cops and wore traditional Japanese attire. In his hand wasn't a gun or knife but a short sickle akin to a farming tool. He heard a dark voice call out to him. Slowly, the corpses around him began to rise, now mere puppets bound eternally to their master's whim. The bodies sold to the reaper who had claimed their lives. Genocide's vision ended. His eyes had returned normal. Around him, dead cops began to rise. His dark essence had entered their bodies and reanimated them. He sent his dead army to attack the officers fleeing to the roof of the station. These zombies swarmed the stairwell giving chase to the few survivors. There were five of them. They had two flights of stairs to climb and a horde of their former colleagues close behind them. One officer tripped and was set upon by the horde. The zombies didn't bite them but held them firmly in place. The other four officers stared down wondering what to do. They could hear Genocide chuckling. They could hear humming. They could feel the temperature rising. Their colleague and the two zombies holding him were hit by an enormous green fireball. Genocide had fired a Magnum Opus and had charged the bullet to level 3. The Magnum Opus was simply a magnum that shot fireballs, with bullets that could be charged by holding down the trigger. It had three levels of charges. Level 1 was a small reddish ball of plasma. Level 2 was slightly larger and yellow. Level 3 was the maximum charge and resulted in a large slow moving green blast of energy. The officer was ignited and Genocide watched gleefully as the force of the blast sent him flying through a wall. The four officers continued up firing occasionally to slow down the zombies. Soon they made it to a door leading to the roof. Before one officer could reach it, he was sniped by Genocide, a bullet to the head killing him instantly. The remaining three made it out. They regrouped with the others already there, 12 in total, including Lary, Evans, and Gracia. This would be their final stand. They just had to hold out until Genocide made it up there. They just had to keep Genocide occupied until the helicopters arrived. Genocide slowly ascended the stairs behind his horde. On the roof, the remaining survivors faced off against waves of the undead. Evans recognized the attackers. These zombies were being controlled by nanomachines. He heard the stories of several weapons encountered by soldiers on the battlefield. These creatures were called Metaldeads as they were reanimated via machines. They had been officially banned by most of the worlds' governments for being unethical. However, this did not stop the technology from being spread still between shady organizations, terrorists, etc. Evans wondered how Genocide got this form of nanotechnology. Evans long speculated that the dark essence used by most of the killers they encountered was a a form of nanotech however it was different from anything else he had seen or heard about. The dark essence seemed to be an amalgamation of other types of nanotech. Evans had to save his inquiries for later. He reloaded his wristgun and took aim at the approaching group of Metaldeads. Gracia steadied her handgun and shot two Metaldeads in the head. From the single door countless arms seemed to spill forth from the darkness. The other officers took turns firing in intervals. this allowed them to create a steady stream of fire where no more that three guns needed to be reloaded at once. The horde seemed to thin out over time as if they were making progress. In actuality, the Metaldeads were just making room for Genocide to enter. Genocide exploded in a sprint from the door. Everyone fired upon the killer. Genocide had now chosen a wrist mounted mini flamethrower to use as his weapon. He stormed past the oncoming bullets taking some damage, but refused to slow down. He unleashed a stream of fire that caught five of the officers in one fell swoop. Gracia fired five rounds into Genocide's face. He stumbled back. Lary took the chance to fire several mine gun bullets at Genocide's feet. The mines quickly detected his movement and exploded. In seconds, Genocide was on his back.
Staring at the night sky Genocide saw the moon. He reached for it. He called for the darkness to give him more power. His wounds began healing. In the sky he could hear the whirl of propellers. There were six helicopters in total. The first two had evacuated the survivors while the others stayed to engage Genocide. Genocide got up and unstrapped the sniper rifle from his back. He stood before the searchlights as a black silhouette, cornered but unwilling to back down. Lary stared down at him smiling. "Okay!" He shouted, "Let's Tango!" Upon this declaration the second jamming device was activated. Now, isolated on the roof, Genocide's guns couldn't be fired and the helicopters were out of range of the device. Now Genocide stood like a sitting duck. A helicopter fired a rocket. Genocide side stepped and grabbed it. He turned his body redirecting the rocket to hit another helicopter. As it exploded Genocide drew his knife and threw it at another helicopter. Behind the knife was such force that it shattered the helicopter window's glass, embedding itself in the pilot. This helicopter too went down where it exploded. "Holy clucknuggets!Did you see that!?" Lary said dumbfounded. Evans looked out the helicopter door he was in jaw open in shock. "There's no way." He collected himself quickly and radioed the remaining two helicopters to keep moving and to use their machineguns as much as possible. The helicopters reigned down upon Genocide tearing apart his body. Shreds of leather and darkened blood sprayed across the pavement of the roof. Gracia watched as Genocide's body was destroyed repeatedly as it tried to heal. Surely he had to stop at some point. After 10 minutes the helicopters had exhausted their cache of ammunition and soldiers opted to fire their own rifles and occasionally throw grenades. After about six minutes, they too had run out of bullets. Genocide stood unfazed. He had long since healed himself and now appeared intangible with gunfire seeming to pass through his body. His coat once ripped , now appeared whole though on closer inspection seemed to writhe. Gracia looked in horror as she remembered the tales her adopted father had told her. Tales he had in turn heard from his predecessors. Every so often officers had reported encounters with ghost like beings cloaked in a cloud of living dark mist. The beings were rumored to be responsible for the deaths of multiple people ranging from scientists, veterans, mafia, politicians, etc. They were seen near such crime scenes and even more shockingly appeared around several sites where suicides were committed. These beings were reportedly impervious to bullets and filled anyone who got near with an impending sense of dread. If Genocide was connected to them or somehow turning into one , there was little chance they would be able to defeat him. Gracia's fears were confirmed when she saw that Genocide's leather coat had been destroyed and he had replaced it with the dark mist coalescing from his own spilled blood. The dark mist, swirling, grew larger and several tendrils sprouted out from it. Gracia could briefly make out a figure standing next to Genocide. A hooded figure cloaked in the same black substance. The figure stared up at her with soulless, blackened eyes which seemed to beckon her to jump from the aircraft she was standing in. Compelling her to give in to the death that plagued the earth. Genocide kneeled to his master. The Shinigami, Masataka stared down at his disciple. "You have done a great service to us. Even now the sealed god stirs in its slumber. Its...Awakening will soon be upon us. It calls out for war. It begs for famine. It longs to continue its conquest. We are the death it so desires. The death that is necessary for this civilization to grow. Use the power that I have bestowed upon you. Finish the mission as you see fit." The Shinigami vanished and Genocide stood.Genocide stared at his hands. He remembered the first killing spree. He was on a bus. It stopped. A woman got on the bus and walked to the back smiling as she passed him. Something about her eyes unnerved him. They were so bright but something dark reflected inside them. He ignored the thought and put in his headphones. In minutes he had dozed off. He jumped awake. He looked around and froze in panic. All around him, everyone had been hacked to pieces. He saw the driver, actively being stabbed by a masked assailant. The mask, painted white with black eyeholes, stared back at him. It raised a finger over where its lips would be. Even under the expressionless visage, he could feel that same smile. He ran home that morning. He went to his room to find it destroyed. His posters, his computer, his tv, everything, had been ruined. He turned around and saw a man at the end of the hallway holding a sledge hammer. "The hell you been, boy?", his stepdad sneered. The man dropped his hammer and walked closer, veins pulsing with rage. He tried to explain how his car had caught fire forcing him to walk 4 miles to the nearest bus stop, but the man's fist was faster than his words. "Boy!Answer me when I talk to you!!" the man says as he backhands the taste out of the would be Genocide's mouth. He took that beating for several minutes before being left to stare at his ransacked room. He hated how his stepdad went out of his way to destroy the things he loved. Soon, another set of footsteps could be heard. It was his mother standing behind his locked door. She didn't knock, or say anything. She just stood there, doing nothing as always. He never knew if she came to talk to him or apologize. All he knew was that she could never bring herself to speak to or even acknowledge him. Maybe out of guilt or perhaps shame. A year or two later after he had had enough he ran away from home. Living out on the streets alone, without friends, or family, he would embark on countless killing sprees. These killings weren't of his own volition however. He was coerced by some corrupt officers from The Unit. They made him kill on their behalf. Sometimes they were protesters, sometimes they were drug dealers, other times, petty criminals they couldn't be bothered to process. It was routine for him to be used to kill entire houses of drug riddled addicts. During one such venture he entered a drug den, killing the dealer as instructed. He took out several junkies before turning to leave. A woman who survived her injuries clung to his heel begging him to stop. Looking down he aimed the handgun he was carrying at her head of long disheveled brown hair and fired. Feeling nothing, he kicked her body aside like trash when it hit him. Her face. This woman had been his mother. What was she doing in a place like this? He felt a shock of emotion. He wondered if she had always been like this, or had she changed after he left. He never made amends, but decided to stop killing from then on. The unit did not like that. Once it became apparent that he was no longer of use to them they started a manhunt to apprehend him with lethal force. They found him. They killed him. But he survived.
He remembered the girl on the bus. He remembered her eyes. Those of a sadistic killer. Still there was something else inside them. Something faint but deeper. So. Much. Sadness. Just like him. He felt the hatred begin to spread. His purpose, he decided, was to make all humans rot in the hell they created for him.
These people, he thought to himself, these living diseases, all needed to die. Their struggles, their problems, they spread like cancer to others. The only cure for humanity's sin, its collective wrongdoings, was genocide.
Around him, dark tendrils continued to form and expand, spinning in a vortex. Genocide pulled out two pistols. He squeezed the triggers to no effect. "As I see fit, huh? Hehe." He squeezed both guns in his hands, breaking them into pieces. He concentrated. In his hands, two more guns materialized now completely black due to being forged from the dark essence. Forged by his will. Immune to the jamming device that shut down conventional firearms. He raised his arms at each remaining helicopter and opened fire. Countless tendrils whipped out and slashed at his targets joining the dark essence bullets. It was chaos. Dark tendrils and bullets tore through every direction as Genocide spun and swirled around in 360 degrees firing randomly with purpose. A tendril pierced Gracia's right arm, another, her abdomen. She was however, fortunate, as the other passengers of her helicopter were dismembered. She barely had time to jump from the vehicle before it crashed. She fell 2 yards onto solid concrete. She felt immense pain as her right shoulder shattered on impact. She looked up to see Genocide's blade like appendages ripping through the other escape helicopters. She rolled onto her back and tried to steady herself. Within seconds her body began to repair itself. The nanocells inside her had saved her life but were now depleted. She would need another supplement lest she receive another fatal injury. The standard nanocells she and the others had were much less potent than those of the killers they faced. In truth, they had only minimal strength boosts being able to lift 5-8 more pounds than before and healing being limited to one or two fatal injuries so long as death didn't occur instantly. Gracia blacked out. She awoke the next morning in a hospital. There the doctors refilled her nanocells. She learned that the station had been left in ruins. Genocide had detonated some type of minature nuke following his rampage. He always blew up the stations as if to send a message. Gracia looked out the window thinking about why she became a cop. Twice her family had been murdered by them. Her biological family had been killed in an on record drug raid committed by a group of corrupt officers called The Unit. She had been adopted by another officer that arrived at the scene who found her as a child hiding in a closed. Sadly, he too was killed for trying to expose the activities of The Unit. Gracia joined the force to avenge both losses and bring justice to the killers that disguised themselves as normal people. Law enforcement was neither good, nor bad. It depended upon the people that made it up. In the dying corrupt world Gracia lived in, she vowed to be a beacon of light. Evans laid in a bed adjacent to Lary. "That damn Genocide's somethin else in' he?Like the stories you told us were understatements. That man could legit not die at this point in the story. Like he has friggin plot armor or somthin.'' Evans cut him off" I get it. We all got our asses handed to us. But did you see that ..thing that appeared next to him. Right before he created that black vortex that wiped us out. That must have something to do with his power. Maybe there's a still a way to stop him."Lary chimed in," That fella looked like he was on the way to a black metal concert wit all the black facepaint he was wearin' Creeped me out to be honest." As the survivors mulled over their predicament, the cycle of evil continued to spread elsewhere.
Budley flips through the pages of a magazine. He checks his watch. He looks around the gas station and doesn't see any customers. Seizing the opportunity, he puts in his headphones and begins playing an imaginary guitar as he jams to a progressive deathcore album. Oblivious to the screams coming from outside, the store clerk moves on to thumping two candy bars on the counter to simulate drums. Budley sees that his shift has ended and begins locking up the store. He sweeps the aisles and jumps as a shadow appears behind him. He turns and sees a well groomed bearded man dressed in a black hoodie, black shirt, and black and gray camo pants. The man holds out his hand and smiles. Budley rings up the pack of nicotine substitute gum. "Tryin to kick the habit huh?" Budley asks. The man replies, "Somethin like that. Gotta get my priorities back in check. Focus on the things that really matter. That damn KonCreep's a hell of a band aren't they?" He nods to the playlist on Budley's phone. "Yeah, they're killer. just got into them a month back." Budley answers. "You know, I'm something of a musician myself. Maybe you'll hear of me on the news someday." Jim Jimenez says as he sees himself out. He walks to the back of the building and passes an ominous form of graffiti. A woman lays unmoving and above her, written on concrete in red is a message that simply says "Genocide Reigns".

Whenever men are asked about their favorite clothes on women, or their favorite thing about summer, comment section is all sundress sundress sundress. They give joyful vibes, like the life itself got happier for no reason.
Is there anything in men that gives you this feeling? Whether that would be your man, or just strangers passing by

Hi! I'm 34 MtF, closeted yet, only out to my close family. I present as a male everywhere, but I wear femenine clothes in my house (live alone, only with my dog). Even though I would love to start hrt, I haven't seen any doctor, so probably it will take some time before starting.
The thing is that I love women clothes, and I've have already bought some pieces and wear them everyday inside. And I keep finding more things I would like to wear.
My doubts about this situation is that if I star hrt, and my body starts to change, how possible is that those clothes won't fit me anymore? Will I be able to wear them for some time at least, before that point? I want more things, but it will feel terrible If once I decide to come out and present as a woman, I can't wear any of those clothes. Do anyone have some advice?
Last thing, I understand that changes depend on each person, but is there an average of how fast or how much should I espect? For context, I'm 163 cm (5.34 ft) and 55 kg (121.25 lbs), almost 0 visible fat.
Thanks to everyone!!!

Hi everyone! I am new to Ottawa (and Canada in general since last time I lived in the country was during the pandemic- not much getting about). I am looking for recommendations on places to get alt clothing (for sizing help I am typically a 12 in women’s)! I like a more subtle look so I can pair pieces with “less alt” pieces or wear them into an office. :) When I searched for alt clothing in this subreddit I did learn about the hot wench market and will be going, but am looking for something more permanent!
I am also interested in recommendations for everyone’s favorite thrift shops and used book stores. I live in the Vanier area currently but have both easy access to bussing and a car :) So no need to limit based on location.
If you have any other favorite Ottawa places or must-sees don’t be shy! Thanks everyone :)

Im asking here in askwomennocensor because of course unless you aren’t a straight women and don’t care for how a man looks, women obviously know what looks best on men when it comes to clothes, style, hair, body types etc. However I’m leaning towards a different aspect this time and asking about cosmetic surgeries.
Let’s say you have your average looking guy and he wants to find ways to improve his face. What advice would you recommend or areas of his face to focus on? Like for example, would you recommend a beard transplant or face lift something or of the sort? What would you recommend?

Aside from fashion being all over the place these days (and we could possibly pick a decade and be ok), I'm having a really hard time dressing myself. I feel like it's a uniquely Xennial thing for some reason. Gen X will always be plaid flannels and dr martens to me. Millenials will always be 2000s TRL to me. We fall in between, but as a 44 year old woman, I have no idea what to wear or how to dress myself for work in the morning without looking 55 or like I'm going for a jog. Any other Xennial women have any insta accounts they follow for minimalist clothing ideas etc? Feeling frumpy in my over-sized old navy button up today.

I (27 F) was taught by my older sister to play rape with her when we were kids. I think I was 5-7 years old and she was 8-10 years old. She would call it "R-A-P-E" as I didn't know how to spell yet, and would have me roll up my pajamas and shirt to seem to dress provocatively. She would then roleplay different scenarios as if I'm walking down the street from the store and she would pretend to jump out from an alley to pin me down. I remember her specifically asking me to "put up a fight". I don't exactly remember what she does after she pins me down and pretends to kiss my neck. I just remember being scolded at to not roll my clothes back down or whenever I don't "react properly". One day, I intentionally went downstairs while my parents were watching the tv while I had my clothes rolled up. I didn't know why I did that but that's how my parents knew we were playing a sick game. "We're playing R-A-P-E" I answered, when my dad asked me why my clothes were rolled up like that. He then went up to explain to my sister why that was wrong and that we should never do that again. It wasn't treated as a big deal though. It just became a running joke in the family until I grew up.
Looking back, I remember I had photos of me dancing seductively as a child and pulling my tank top strap down and my family laughed at me with pure joy. I remember neighbors and my mom's guy friends jokingly smacking my butt because I've always had a huge butt eversince. I remember old men asking me to sit on their laps while they would bounce me up and down or have me pick up shells and when I bend over, apparently exposing my undies, they would laugh and I would run.
In college, my uncle (mom's brother), ran his hands on my inner thighs, poked his elbow & hand at my side boob while we were in a packed family car. (We were not close. We were never close. We don't even hug) During a reunion, he grabbed my boob when we were posing for a family photo and when I looked at him, he just grinned like nothing happened. He would sometimes be touchy even when were not close or give compliments about my body. I told my mom about it, but that's for a different story.
Today, I look at who I am sexually. I remember masturbating with a faucet as young as 10 or 12 even when I didn't know what I was doing. I would run to the bathroom when a rape scene plays on TV thinking I need to pee only to realize now that I was wet. I was introduced by my sister to anonymous chat forums at 13 where I was sexually manipulated and was exposed to stuff about sex. I played kissing games in Y8 that led to explicit cartoon sex games. I got addicted to meeting strangers on Omegle doing you know what.
Today, I am almost always horny watching only rape and forced/groping porn content. I had SA experiences that were equally traumatic and a huge turn on for me. As a woman who advocates strongly against SA on men and women, my story is very embarassing for me.
I wonder if what my sister did to me played a huge part on who I am today sexually. As a child, I never knew if it was wrong. But as an adult, everything about my preferences feels wrong. I can't even tell which is SA and which is not.

Found this very interesting interview. Read the tl;dr part if you hate reading longass walls of text.
Note: Page 1 is mostly about Ryou's early days as a struggling novelist, then mangaka assistant and then mangaka and workflows during analog and digital era, the only important part is that Boy's Abyss is... not much of a culmination of her mangaka career, but a work where she can satisfy her ego the most, so i skipped them due to time. Pages 2, 3 and 4 have more info about Abyss.
PART 2: ABOUT BACKGROUND DESCRIPTIONS THAT SUPPORTS THE HUMAN DRAMA
Sauce: https://youngjump.jp/comic_award/interview/2024/05/index2.html
--How do you decide on the locations for your works?
It depends, but I tend to choose places where I have spent time in the past or places that remain in my memory.
--I see. Is there anything important to remember in order to recall the right location for the scene?
You can't open a drawer where there isn't one, so I think it's important to look at various places on a regular basis to increase the number of drawers.
--In "Shounen no Abyss", bridges seem to appear many times in important scenes, including in the first episode. Is this intentional?
Yes, it is. In the first episode, I put the bridge as a kind of borderline between life and death, and I think that the readers came to feel the danger from the bridge. So I may have consciously chosen to use a bridge in decisive scenes. Also, since Reiji is a person who cannot decide for himself whether to live or die, I have him hovering on the bridge, which is between life and death.
(Footnote for a panel from ch. 2: From the second chapter, "Incognito Date". The location of the bridge makes us feel more that Reiji is wandering between life and death.)
--I see. By having them perform on the bridge, you are also conveying the character's condition and humanity.
(Footnote with a page from ch.87: From episode 87, "After the dream". In episode 87, which is set in Tokyo, Reiji's wavering state of mind is expressed in detail using a bridge as a stage.)
--I feel that the timing of the rain is also very well thought out.
Rain is an indispensable element in a gloomy work like this, so I often think about the weather from the plotting stage. Also, when I draw rain, I imagine myself being in the rain. It is cold, my clothes stick to my skin, it gets in my eyes.... I hope that the reader can feel these things.
(Footnote with the page where Akira betrays Shino'oka and gives in to Yuko's temptation in ch102: From Chapter 102, "Amid the Overflowing Water". The texture of the rain effectively shows Nozoe's inclined mind.)
--you have to think about what kind of environment the person is in and what kind of air he/she breathes.
I think it depends on the type of work. For my works, that kind of accumulation is important, but there are also works where other things are important. I think you should think about it according to the kind of work you want to paint.
PART 3: ABOUT THE PICTURE DESIGN THAT SUPPORTS THE WORK
Sauce: https://youngjump.jp/comic_award/interview/2024/05/index3.html
--I assume that it was difficult to learn to draw pictures from a place with no experience in manga.
I learned by trial and error while actually drawing. Even now, I still have a hard time with drawings.
--I see. I (the interviewer) like the pictures in "Shounen no Abyss" very much because they match the content of the story, but it seems to me that you have changed the design of the pictures quite a bit from your past works. How did you decide on the style?
When I started my first serial, "Hoboreru Hanabi", I didn't have time to choose the style yet, so I drew what I could draw at the time. From the next serial, "Himegoto: Juukyuusai no Seifuku," I started to think about "making the eyes a little bigger" or "adding deformation.
--In the next serial work, "Hatsukoi Zombie," you used a much more deformed style of drawing. Why is that?
I think it was because it was serialized in a shounen magazine called "Shounen Sunday. I was conscious of the drawings of Rumiko Takahashi, who I have been a fan of for a long time.
--Did you have the medium of "Weekly Young Jump" in mind when you created the artwork for "Shounen no Abyss"?
If anything, I tried to make the design more in line with the content of the book. Considering the content, for example, it was difficult to use the same body size and eye size as the characters in "Hatsukoi Zombie". However, in the case of "Shounen no Abyss," the reality line differs slightly from character to character, and the way in which deformation is added is different for each character.
--Do you have any advice for new artists who want to improve their drawing?
I think it is important to be aware of the importance of observing what you are drawing. If you just draw from your imagination, you will end up with buildings whose structures you don't know, or wrinkled clothes that don't convey the texture of the wearer's clothing, which is a habit of mine. The result is a worldview that is not convincing. In this age of the Internet and other sources of information, it is important to observe the subject matter carefully and draw it, rather than making rough guesses.
--Do you still search for materials when you draw props, backgrounds, etc.?
Yes, I do. For example, I think about "What kind of room would this person live in?", "What kind of shoes would she wear?", "What kind of car would she drive? I think that the accumulation of such details leads to the sense of daily life that is conveyed in the work.
From episode 19, "seducer". The decor and accessories in Chako's room give us a sense of her life. (there was a page from that chapter i can't put in the post, gomwnnasai, gomennasai, gomennasai....)
End of part 3
PART 4: ABOUT WEEKLY SERIALIZATIONS (this is the important shit)
Sauce: https://youngjump.jp/comic_award/interview/2024/05/index4.html
-I feel that "Shounen no Abyss" has a great live-action feel to it. The characters' actions and the development of the story are unpredictable, and each time I am surprised to see how the story will unfold. Do you have a rough idea of how the story will unfold?
There is a general flow of the story, but basically, I myself draw the story while excitedly thinking, "Well, what will this person say or do on the next page?" In a nutshell, is this a romcom in which Reiji meets a variety of women and decides who he will fall in love (or into the abyss)? It's something like that (T/N: Ryou answered like questioning and answering to herself in the last paragraph of this section)
--I have heard that the starting point of the project for "Shounen no Abyss" was "a story about a double suicide" Do you often draw the story with the theme in mind?
Yes, I decide on the axis to some extent at the beginning. If there is nothing at all, the project itself will not be communicated, and it will be difficult to start a serialization.
--I think that in a weekly serialization, it is necessary to attract the reader intensely in the first episode. What were you conscious of in the first episode of "Shounen no Abyss"?
It's an ensemble piece, so I was conscious of showing all the main characters in the first episode. I also decided to make a memorable appearance of the heroine, Nagi, in the last part of the episode. I also thought about the order of the characters that Reiji meets. First, he meets Shiba-chan, who is outside of his interest, and then he meets and talks with his friend Chako. Then his childhood friend Gen would appear, and things would take a turn for the worse. Then, his family, which is the most painful existence for Reiji, makes an appearance. Then he crosses paths with a mysterious man, and finally a beautiful and bewitching woman appears. In order to make it easier for the reader to enter the world of the work, I made the flow of the story gradually fall into darkness.
--It's like Reiji is going down a flight of stairs one step at a time.
Yes, Nagi is waiting for him when he descends the last step. I changed the background accordingly. When he is with his friend Chako, the sun is out, and when the sun begins to set, he meets his family, and by the time he meets Nagi, it's already nighttime.
--I'm so impressed...! You have built in the backgrounds and elaborated on the details.
(Footnote for 2 pages from the 1st chapter that were shown: Both are from the first episode, "The Boy from That Town". He meets his friend Chako on his way to school in the daylight, but by the time he meets his family, it is dark and shadowy outside. The contrast of the background also depicts Reiji's descent into darkness.)
--What are the most important things outside of your work when working on a weekly series?
Physical strength is important. I also think it is important to keep your mind clear and avoid unnecessary stress. There are many times when I think, "I should have done this better," or "It will be difficult this time because I did that last time," but there is no use in overthinking things, so I try to switch over as soon as possible.
--Finally, do you have any advice for new artists?
I think it is important to have a lot of input while you are young, and to push your luck a little in creating your work.
--Thank you for your valuable talk!
Now, the tl;dr:
-2: Bridges in this manga are used as a gate between life and death.
-1: rain is important in this manga to depict the characters' overflowing emotions.
0: Ryou had to choose carefully the type of atmosphere and air for this manga.
1: Ryou drew Drowning Fireworks on a rush and could define a proper style, she shifts styles according to the tone and magazine shenis doing her works for.
2: She had to study locations and interior plaves to depict characters, their lives and mental states.
3: Boy's Abyss is a romcom on its structure. And the characters were introduced in a way you could instantly get familiarized with from the start, as it's an ensemble work.
4: characters were introduced in a way you can feel Reiji is going downstairs into the abyss. Yuri being the first because she's the character he's the least interested into, Chako next because she's the sun, the light, she's Kana Arima... okno, and Nagi last because she's Chako's thematical opposite and had to have an impactful introduction. and the endgame and endgoal are already decided since day one. Nagi is waiting for Reiji to do the last step
5: a good physical condition, being resourceful and brave enough are the keys for a successful weekly story.
That's it. See ya tomorrow.