#Which I did. Because I was eating it like an animal

[twig-tea]

2024 BL/GL/QL Round-Up Post

Since I did this last year, I thought for posterity I'd post another reflection on everything I watched that completed in 2024. For me, that means anything that started in 2023 but the last episode was in 2024 is on this list, but anything that was still be airing after 31 December 2024 11:59 my time (EST) is not on this list, even if the bulk of the show did air in 2024.

A few stats:

[The image is TL;DR for what follows lol]

I watched ~150 discrete pieces of new QL content in 2024 (series/films) that I tracked [It gets complicated with specials and split seasons but I did my best to be consistent]; plus 10 things that I would consider "adjacent". For contrast, I listed 110 pieces of discrete content in 2023; that's a 45% increase year over year!

This clocked in at an est. 900 hours of new BL/GL and adjacent content (up from ~600 in 2023--which also tells us that the content I tracked was a little longer overall because that's a full 50% increase in terms of hours spent).

The new content I watched came from 9 different countries [same as 2023]: (Cambodia [1], Philippines [2, down from 3], Hong Kong [1], Japan [32, up from 18 in 2023], Korea [20; was 19], Myanmar [2, up from 1], Taiwan [12, up from 6], Thailand [75; up from 56], Vietnam [4, down from 7]), China [5], and then 3 joint effort productions from Thailand/Korea [2] and Thailand/Taiwan [1]

This means just under ~47% of the content I watched on this list is from Thailand [close to the 50% in 2023]

So many more shows had multiple or varied distributions this year, but like last year ~85% of my content was on 3 platforms: YouTube [38%; down from 40%], GaGaOoLaLa [30%; up from 23%] and iQIYI [17%; down from 21%] Note: I'm in Canada and my access routes are sometimes affected by that.

As unbelievable as it sounds with all that, I did actually drop shows this year! I dropped 9 shows, which is I think more than I've dropped in my entire previous 20+ years watching queer asian media combined (that might be an exaggeration but I do really hate dropping shows); 4 Thai, 3 Filipino, 1 Taiwanese and 1 Japanese (listed at the very bottom of this post if you want to be messy). I didn't track any dropped shows in 2023.

And if you're wondering how many shows there are in the world in total, I am aware of an additional 11 shows I just did not have time to even start (2 from Cambodia, 4 from the Philippines, 3 from Thailand, and 1 each from Korea and Myanmar). That does not include the vertical short reels that I didn't track this year--see @ellsieee 's tracking post for these--as well as several GL shorts from JPC media YouTube channel and Sastra film app YouTube channel that I just have not had time to try or even keep track of, though I do peek in on them to see if there's anything that looks particularly good, and I do always link these folks in my GL round-ups.

All of this doesn't include re-watches or catching up on old shows, or non-QL queer media, or non-queer media (the hets sometimes do deserve rights); but does include films as well as shows.

I hope you all appreciate that with this much content, and with my general brand of being unable to make decisions, I really struggled to narrow down a top 10 list. What follows is the best I could do lol

Top 25 QLs I'd Recommend From This Year:

[Links are self-indulgently to what I thought was the most relevant post I'd made this year relevant to that series/media, mostly spoiler-free pitches]

She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat S2 (Tsukutabe) [GL]

Love in the Big City

Love For Love's Sake

Tadaima Okaeri [anime]

Ossan no pantsu ga nandatte ii janai ka (Oppan)

Marahuyo Project

Knock Knock Boys

Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo

Love is Like a Poison (Doku koi)

Ossan's Love Returns

Twilight out of Focus [anime]

At 25:00 in Akasaka

Cooking Crush

Cherry Magic [anime]

Cherry Magic Thailand

Takara no Vidro

Soul Sisters / Twin Rabbits [GL]

Perfect Propose

Unknown the series

Paradise of Thorns [film]

Blue Canvas of Youthful Days

The Secret of Us [GL]

Mr Mitsuya's Planned Feeding (Mitsuya-Sensei)

The Time of Fever

A Man Who Defies the World of BL S3

I tried to put these in some kind of order but honestly if you asked me to rank them the numbering would change all the time and I would combust. The ones I liked best are closer to the top of this list. I also debated back and forth on whether Paradise of Thorns counts as QL so many times. But in the end I decided the main character was queer and queer romance of a sort was at the heart of the drama, so I've left it in this list even though technically it should probably sit with the 'adjacent's.

Worth noting that though only ~20% of the content I watched was from Japan, ~45% of my favourites were from Japan.

+5 notable pulp offerings worth mentioning:

Bagan Beginning (Myanmar)

City of Stars (Thailand)

Gym Affairs (China)

To the Ex Who Hated Me (Korea, GL)

Under the Oak Tree (Vietnam)

I think I'll do a top 10 GL post separately since we had enough content to warrant a top 10 (yay!) but this is already long enough. I just want to take a second to acknowledge that this year was so much better than in 2023 when I didn't feel like I could recommend any of the new GL shows. Thank you content creators for better and more GL in 2024, please keep that energy for 2025!

Bonus: Not a QL but worth calling out:

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (Thai film)

I saw both this and Paradise of Thorns in theatres during the Toronto International Film Festival and they were both so powerful! Extremely different tones but they surprisingly hit on similar themes, and very beautifully filmed. HTMMBGD was a complicated film filled with very rounded and complex characters, and I still think about it all the time. Very excited for more folks to have access to both of these soon.

Sidenote: The fact that I watched 45% more shows in 2024 than I did in 2023 and still managed to keep my rec list to 30 (*cough1cough*) does seem to back up the general feeling that though we had more content, we didn't have a proportional rise in good content. I do want to crunch those numbers in another post.

Double Plus Bonus: Best Older QL Content I watched for the first time in 2024:

Life as a Girl / Joshi-teki Seikatsu (Japan, 2018; I'm so sad I missed out on this one for so long due to misinfo, it is fantastic! Thanks to @so-much-yet-to-learn for helping propel me to this one)

Iron Ladies (Thailand, 2000; thank you for the rec, @happypotato48)

Nacchan's Secret / Himitsu no Nacchan (Japan, 2023; thank you @furritsubs for making this watch possible)

Can I Buy Your Love From a Vending Machine / Sono Koi, Jihanki de Kaemasuka? (Japan, 2023; thanks to @nicks-den for making this watch possible)

I Fell In Love with the Villainness (Japan, 2023; watched because of a convo with @pilanthitasanilaphat)

Doi Boy (Thailand, 2023; this one I had on my list and just had to work up the energy to watch, but it was a beautiful film and I'm glad I did)

BL Metamorphosis (Japan, 2022; another thank you to @furritsubs)

Dear Dad (India, 2016; thanks to @neuroticbookworm for the rec!)

Salty Blue / Kakenuketara, Umi (Japan, 2023, thank you again @nicks-den!)

[I can't believe I forgot this at first] The Miracle of Teddy Bear (Thailand, 2022, thanks for going on that journey and writing great meta with me and for calling me out for forgetting @lurkingshan!)

There is so much good content in the world and despite my best efforts I haven't seen everything! So grateful to the fansubbers and people who write about past shows so that those of us who missed them the first time still get a chance to see them.

In terms of my output based on all this input, I continued not lurking this year, and have enjoyed it very much; see my Top 10 posts from 2024 here as well as the content I linked in my recommended shows above--going through the process of adding those links really highlighted to me how much more I've written this year, and how much more motivated I am to write about shows I love. It's no surprise I had dedicated posts for most of my top shows! To highlight a few specific projects this year that I'm proud of, I participated in the Love in the Big City Book Club read and watch-alongs organized by @lurkingshan, which was such a fun project that I am grateful for, and I started my GL Odds and Ends posts (tagged with #gl recs) that I am still feeling out but am really enjoying seeing the impact whenever someone watches a show because they found out about it through one of my posts. I also made an appearance on several episodes of @the-conversation-pod and had an incredible time trying out different things in a quarterly 'Dispatch' and having some really rich conversations with @bengiyo and @shortpplfedup. I love this corner of tumblr that we've carved out for ourselves as a QL watching community, and I just want to say to everyone I've interacted with in 2024: Thank you, and wish good things for you all in 2025!

Full list of 2024 shows under the cut for anyone curious! [Mostly in order it completed but may be slightly off--if a special aired immediately after the final episode I only list them as one thing and count the airing of the special as the end date, for example].

Bagan Beginning

Love Senior the Series

After SunDown

VIP Only

Twins the Series

Last Twilight

Night Dream the Series

My Universe

Bake Me Please special episode

Sahara Sensei to Tori Kun / Mr Sahara and Toki-kun

Love for Love's Sake

7 Days Before Valentine

Happy Ending

PitBabe the series

For Him the series

Cooking Crush

The Sign

Chaser Game W

Playboyy the series

Perfect Propose

Ossan's Love Returns

Tsukuritai Onna to Tabetai Onna S2 / She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat

Cherry Magic Th

Dead Friend Forever

Sukidoya / Although I Love You and You / Sukiyaken kedo dou yaroka?

Healing Thingyan

Love You in Every Multiverse

Cherry Magic (anime)

Please Teach Me

Anti Reset

Jazz for Two

Blank the Series

A Secretly Love

To Be Continued the series

Love is Better the Second time around / Koi wo Surunara Nidome ga Joto

City of Stars

Sea You Soon

Human Too

Man Who Defies the World of BL s3

Gray Shelter / Gray Currents / Grey Current

Gym Affairs

1000 Years Old the Series

Love is Like a Cat

To the Ex Who Hated Me

Lady Boy Friends the series

Deep Night the series + Special Episode

Unknown the series

Memory in the Letter

You are My Star

Lonely Girls

Boys Be Brave / Roommates / I Can't Confess

Blossom Campus

Two Worlds

VIP Only special episode

Pray In Love

I Fell In Love with My Male Best Friend

Friend With Benefit

Stay By My Side special episode

23.5

You Made My Day

Living With Him

City Boy Log pt3

Anti-Reset special episode

The Time of Huan Nan

Xiao Xiang Yi Jiu

Inverse Identity

At 25:00 in Akasaka

Only Boo!

Tadaima Okaeri

Love Bully (Club Friday)

Blank the Series S2

Marahuyo Project

The Two of Us

Blue Boys

OMG Vampire!

My Stand-In

We Are the series

Ossan no pantsu ga nandatte ii janai ka / Oppan

Wandee Goodday

Under the Oak Tree

The Rebound

Love Enemy

Love in the Apocalypse

Bad Guy

My Marvellous Dream is You/ Dream the Series

Century of Love

Knock Knock Boys

Be Your Star

Meet You at the Blossom

BOYTOY

The Secret of Us

Ayaka is in love with Hiroko / Ayaka-chan wa Hiroko-sempai ni koi shiteru

My Love Mix-Up!

This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans

Love Sea the series

Cosmetic Playlover

City Boy Log s4

Sunset Vibes

Mr Mitsuya's Planned Feeding

Takara no Vidro / Takara's Treasure

Paradise of Thorns

I Hear the Sunspot

The Time of Fever / when your temperature reaches my fingertips

4 Minutes The Trainee

Twilight out of Focus

Happy of the End

The On1y One

Live in Love

Heaven'sxCandy

The Two of Us s2

Addicted Heroin

I Saw You In My Dream

Monster Next Door

Our Golden Times

Affair

First Note of Love

Battle of the Writers

Reverse 4 U

Unlock Your Love

Chaser Game W s2

Let free the Curse of Taekwondo

Uncle Unknown

The Hidden Moon the series

Love in the Big City [the series]

Smells Like Green Spirit

Red Whisper

Eccentric Romance/PT is Love

My Damn Business

Apple My Love

Dominant Yakuza and Wimpy Corporate Slave

The Nipple Talk

Kidnap the series

Every You Every Me

Jack & Joker

People Come Later

Blue Canvas of Youthful Days

The Loyal Pin

Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru 2

Love is Like a Poison / doku koi: doku mo sugireba koi to naru

Bad Guy My Boss

Haunted Hearts

Seoul Blues

The Renovation

Love Sick 2024

Love in the Big City [the film]

Spare Me Your Mercy / Euthanasia

Soul Sisters / Twin Rabbits

My Hot Butch Roommate

Whisper Me a Love Song / Sasayaku you ni koi wo utau

Boys' Christmas

Bonus: FuFuKnows bi-weekly shorts [every other week they post a short film, almost always a QL storyline; there were 23 in 2024]

And those QL-adjacent shows I mentioned [these are all adapted from QL media or starred QL actors or were part of a QL franchise but did not have a canon queer romance at the core of its storytelling]:

The Spirealm

Close Friend 3 - Soju Bomb

How to Make a Million Before Grandma Dies

Man Suang

High School Return Of A Gangster / I, a Gangster, Became a High Schooler

Kimi to Yukite Saku: Shinsengumi Seishunroku

Hoshikuzu Telepath

A Balloon's Landing

Peaceful Property

My Strawberry Film

The shows I dropped:

Time the series

Beside You

Sugar Dog Life

The Whisperer

Kiseki in Tokyo

Q18

Sky Valley

The Fate Trap

Dear Miss Becky

And as a shout-out in penance, the shows I had on my list to get to but haven't yet watched:

A Blue Sky (Cambodia)

Ending Friend (Cambodia)

Pretty Boys (Philippines - requires an access fee on VivaMax+)

Oh My Boo (Philippines)

The Perfect Heartbreak (Philippines)

Where I found You (Philippines)

My_ the series (Myanmar)

What's In My Bag (Korean GL - requires an access fee on Vimeo)

Complicated (Thai)

Club Friday: Hot Love Issue (Thai)

2nd Chance (Thai; not to be confused with Second Chance, this was a smaller 3-episode short series from this year)

Thank you for reading!

[solradguy]

I never brought a spoon to lunch in high school for my fruit cups because I was convinced it was more efficient to lap the fruit pieces out of their syrupy broth with my long freak tongue and not a single soul tried to stop me. Why did they let me do that

[d1sc01nf3rn0]

I'm seeing a lot of people with neurodivergency, specially under the autism spectrum say that "Laios is annoying, never shuts up, is insensitive, and I can't stand him"; and the irony is not lost on me lmao.

[neverendingford]

skyglow:

(alternative title: photo dump of a midnight desert run)

[thefawnfallacy]

I’m thinking about Hannibal and Mischa and how Hannibal is a monster but before he was a monster, he was still this growing thing trying very hard to fit into his human skin that simply ceased speaking because the brain was a monster but the heart was just a very small, very sad boy who loved his sister and then perhaps, hated his sister for making him feel the things she did when her death was used to nourish his body.

[moonchild-in-blue]

I've been painting my walls for the past 6? hours ? and i think the smell has been burned in my brain 😷

[pa-pa-plasma]

I hate how half of people think "natural climate change = humans cause all climate change" & the other half thinks "natural climate change = no climate change is caused by humans at all"

"the Earth's climate naturally changes over time" & "human activity has caused rapid, unstable climate change" can & should co-exist

[nico-di-angelfish]

i just finished reading the world according to garp and oh my god. what a book! so now i immediately have to read everything else john irving has ever written

[worstloki]

Are you really suggesting that Angrboda is a bottom and not a slam you against the wall?

it's. possible to be both. you know.

[oodlenoodleroodle]

I forgot to eat lunch so I had to scrounge up something that'll tide me over til dinner but won't make me too full...

Had some chocolate spread on bread and some crisps.

Which works out nicely because dinner's gonna be tofu and parsnip (trying a new fancy recipe) and I forgot to include a starch with dinner.

[daisywords]

One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.

Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.

It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?

Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.

[caesarandthecity]

Acceptance in Prison and Understanding the Outside World

In Portuguese, the word "accept" comes from the Latin acceptāre, meaning “to receive what is given; to conform to; to receive with pleasure; to admit; to approve.” The word “admit” comes from the Latin admittĕre, “to give access; to admit,” which means “to allow entry; to receive; to permit; to believe in; to accept; to hire.” I believe that to accept is to open the door to forgiveness. Acceptance is never easy; it’s painful, it takes time, and it forces us to rethink our beliefs because true forgiveness goes deep into the soul, cleansing everything. Acceptance means looking at the past and asking forgiveness from everyone. I, personally, wrote letters—many letters—but I never sent them. Letters addressed to the past, to my former selves, who did what they did because it was all they knew at the time. I asked myself for forgiveness over and over again.

I remember sitting for hours in prison, writing. That cold bench, the table scribbled with gang names, signatures, debts, day counts. Prison is brutal; it turns you against yourself, against your family, your friends, your lawyers—against everything. Inside, prison messes with your mind, making you believe that no one is doing anything for you, that you are abandoned, forgotten. That’s the feeling. Eating that horrible food every day, three times a day, like an animal. Leaving the cell when they want, returning when they want, waking up when they command, sleeping when they force you. Prison is brutal.

The C.O.s (correctional officers) are both your friends and your enemies. Get close to them for better access, but never too close, so they don’t think you’re a snitch. My greatest fear was being seen that way. Many choose to rebel, to hate the place even more, their egos crushed by the shame of being imprisoned. But I realized something that many don’t: life in prison becomes much more bearable when you accept it.

Accepting the past has a tremendous impact on accepting the present. It may sound confusing, but accepting, as I explained earlier, is opening the door to forgiveness. When we forgive, we free ourselves from past pains and, consequently, learn to accept the present, day by day. Accepting that I was in prison, accepting my guilt in my crime (and that hurts so much), accepting the guilt of the other who never has and never will ask for forgiveness for what happened, was the most necessary and liberating step in making my experience in prison less traumatic.

Accepting that, many times, you won’t hear an apology, accepting that you won’t get what you want but rather what you need, is liberating. Finding this freedom within prison was essential. Through acceptance, I forgave myself, forgave my past, and was able to move on lighter, understanding that I was exactly where I needed to be. Nothing was out of place.

Acceptance gave me freedom because I learned not to complain about being in prison. I learned that everything happens for a reason, and with that, I gained much more free time… Now, how I filled that free time is something I will talk about in another post.

[euthymiya]

“Did you know—”

“I don’t care,” Sukuna interrupts, wholly disinterested. It’s half past three—(which is, of course, his fault, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less tired).

But you, wholly uncaring, promptly ignore him. “—That some female spiders eat the male ones after mating?”

“What do you want me to do with this information?” He looks at you irritably, glaring at you from the corner of his eyes. You flash him a grin—it’s a mischievous little thing, your lips curled in a cheeky, flirty way that warns him silently that he’s about to risk popping another vein. He seems to do that around you quite often, and it certainly feels like it’s underway once more.

(And, as it always is, his intuition would be right).

“It’s a warning,” you hum.

He snorts, raising a clearly disbelieving brow as he hums, “oh yeah? For what? Are you gonna—wha-hey!”

Not a lot catches Sukuna off guard. You giggle as he barks out a surprised yelp of your name, harshly shoving you away from his chest. There’s a nice, fresh, very crystal and very clear outline of your teeth marked right on the flesh surrounding his nipple.

He looks at you like you’ve lost your mind.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He asks incredulously.

You let out a soft, amused little giggle that sounds through the room before he feels your weight shift and fall onto him, making him grunt as his arms steady you and his eyes stare up at your hovering face with an agitated purse of his lips.

“I’m eating you,” you say cheekily, “see?” For emphasis, you leave an equally as shocking bite to his bicep, your head leaning down to get a mouthful of his bare arm. He lets out a low, startled grunt before one large and very firm hand grabs the back of your neck and yanks you off.

“Have you completely lost it?” He hisses.

“We just mated—”

“Who on Earth talks about sex like that? We are not animals who—”

“—And now I’m going to eat you after mating. Like a female spider.”

“If you’re going to be weird, just go the fuck to sleep,” he grumbles lowly.

Sukuna is tired.

(And yes, the reason is partly because he’s a bit inexhaustible once he’s felt the velvet heat of your walls, and yes, it’s technically his own greediness that’s worn him out so physically for the night. But that’s all been the cost for something of greater benefit to him. Something he doesn’t exactly mind draining his energy for.

Bur your odd, unsettling, abnormal and very plainly weird schemes are not a part of the list of things he’s willing to sacrifice his energy for. There isn’t much pleasure in entertaining your nonsense most of the time.

If anything, there’s pain—the stinging bite marks on his skin can attest to that.)

“I’m not tired,” you hum.

“Then let me make you tired,” he offers smugly, lips tugging into a cocky grin as he looks up at you.

“If you didn’t manage that the first time, what makes you think that’ll work the second?” You tease.

He doesn’t seem to like that very much, because with a growl, he pushes the back of your neck until your face falls into the crook of his neck, a strong, bulky arm wrapping around your waist and keeping you in place against his body.

It’d be awfully intimate, and awfully sweet if he didn’t mumble, “I love when you sleep because it’s the only few hours of the day I get to hear you shut the fuck up.”

“Maybe if you’d just appreciated my fun fact—”

“You bit my fucking nipple.”

“I could bite the other one, too, if you want,” you pipe up with an excited grin. He can feel it pressed against his skin as your face buries deeper into the space between his neck and shoulder.

Sukuna is tired. Most of the time, it’s because of you. All of the time, he chooses to allow it because he likes having you around for a good fuck.

(And, of course, there’s all that bullshit about love and affection, too. But that’s just that odd stuff you like to babble about—that odd, unsettling, abnormal and very plainly weird emotional part of you that somehow ropes him into being the same way every once in a while.

He doesn’t like it.)

“You need a lobotomy,” he mutters, wincing when you bite the skin of his neck in response. Not in a manner he likes, either—very much in a manner that makes sure he feels the sharpness of your incisors.

“Don’t be rude,” you scold, “I’m biologically meant to be your predator.”

“You biologically give me fuckin’ migraines.”

You grin—it’s a smile that’s easy. Smooth. Maybe a little giddy, too. It comes out only around Sukuna. Him and his gruff, rugged way of accepting your affection, and his double as rough and crude way of giving it back. His callused hands and toughened knuckles that brush along your cheeks carefully. His crass and undignified words that are carefully thought out enough to never cross the line. His downturned lips and narrowed eyes that only ever soften at the sharp corners around you.

“Next time, I’ll eat you for sure,” you murmur, settling against his chest and getting comfortable. He wraps both arms around you, warm and tight enough that you almost think you can forgo the blanket altogether. “Assert my dominance.”

“You can’t even open the pickle jar.”

“That’s different.”

“It’s only a matter of time until natural selection gets you,” he snickers quietly. You huff, biting back a smile as he yawns.

Gently, with a kiss over the bite mark you left against his neck, you say softly, “goodnight. Love you.”

“Night.”

“I love you.”

“For the love of—love you too, holy fuck. Go to sleep.”

[artbyblastweave]

Being a henchman suuuucks dude. This latest guy I'm working for, the War-Madillo, he's got a, an Armadillo- motif, or theme, or whatever, right? That's fine, fine, I did a two-month stint with a Marmoset-themed guy once, it's not bottom of the barrel- except. Except. It turns out, he picked the Armadillo thing because he thinks that they're obligate carnivores. Which they kind of are, I mean I googled this, they're insectivores, but he thinks that they're like, land piranhas. He thinks they work in packs to take down significantly larger animals. He thinks they lay eggs in the remains of their prey. He's killed like three guys for trying to correct him. Me and the other guys are paying out of pocket to get the poor little guys in his Armadillo pit food that they can actually eat. Every time he drops some sucker into that thing we all have to draw straws to see who's gonna have to go in and gnaw on the body so he thinks the Armadillos are doing it. Thank god it's such a long drop

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

average United States contains 1000s of pet tigers in backyards" factoid actualy [sic] just statistical error. average person has 0 tigers on property. Activist Georg, who lives the U.S. Capitol & makes up over 10,000 each day, has purposefully been spreading disinformation adn [sic] should not have been counted

I have a big mad today, folks. It's a really frustrating one, because years worth of work has been validated... but the reason for that fucking sucks.

For almost a decade, I've been trying to fact-check the claim that there "are 10,000 to 20,000 pet tigers/big cats in backyards in the United States." I talked to zoo, sanctuary, and private cat people; I looked at legislation, regulation, attack/death/escape incident rates; I read everything I could get my hands on. None of it made sense. None of it lined up. I couldn't find data supporting anything like the population of pet cats being alleged to exist. Some of you might remember the series I published on those findings from 2018 or so under the hashtag #CrouchingTigerHiddenData. I've continued to work on it in the six years since, including publishing a peer reviewed study that counted all the non-pet big cats in the US (because even though they're regulated, apparently nobody bothered to keep track of those either).

I spent years of my life obsessing over that statistic because it was being used to push for new federal legislation that, while well intentioned, contained language that would, and has, created real problems for ethical facilities that have big cats. I wrote a comprehensive - 35 page! - analysis of the issues with the then-current version of the Big Cat Public Safety Act in 2020. When the bill was first introduced to Congress in 2013, a lot of groups promoted it by fear mongering: there's so many pet tigers! they could be hidden around every corner! they could escape and attack you! they could come out of nowhere and eat your children!! Tiger King exposed the masses to the idea of "thousands of abused backyard big cats": as a result the messaging around the bill shifted to being welfare-focused, and the law passed in 2022.

The Big Cat Public Safety Act created a registry, and anyone who owned a private cat and wanted to keep it had to join. If they did, they could keep the animal until it passed, as long as they followed certain strictures (no getting more, no public contact, etc). Don’t register and get caught? Cat is seized and major punishment for you. Registering is therefore highly incentivized. That registry closed in June of 2023, and you can now get that registration data via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Guess how many pet big cats were registered in the whole country?

97.

Not tens of thousands. Not thousands. Not even triple digits. 97.

And that isn't even the right number! Ten USDA licensed facilities registered erroneously. That accounts for 55 of 97 animals. Which leaves us with 42 pet big cats, of all species, in the entire country.

Now, I know that not everyone may have registered. There's probably someone living deep in the woods somewhere with their illegal pet cougar, and there's been at least one random person in Texas arrested for trying to sell a cub since the law passed. But - and here's the big thing - even if there are ten times as many hidden cats than people who registered them - that's nowhere near ten thousand animals. Obviously, I had some questions.

Guess what? Turns out, this is because it was never real. That huge number never had data behind it, wasn't likely to be accurate, and the advocacy groups using that statistic to fearmonger and drive their agenda knew it... and didn't see a problem with that.

Allow me to introduce you to an article published last week.

This article is good. (Full disclose, I'm quoted in it). It's comprehensive and fairly written, and they did their due diligence reporting and fact-checking the piece. They talked to a lot of people on all sides of the story.

But thing that really gets me?

Multiple representatives from major advocacy organizations who worked on the Big Cat Publix Safety Act told the reporter that they knew the statistics they were quoting weren't real. And that they don't care. The end justifies the means, the good guys won over the bad guys, that's just how lobbying works after all. They're so blase about it, it makes my stomach hurt. Let me pull some excerpts from the quotes.

"Whatever the true number, nearly everyone in the debate acknowledges a disparity between the actual census and the figures cited by lawmakers. “The 20,000 number is not real,” said Bill Nimmo, founder of Tigers in America. (...) For his part, Nimmo at Tigers in America sees the exaggerated figure as part of the political process. Prior to the passage of the bill, he said, businesses that exhibited and bred big cats juiced the numbers, too. (...) “I’m not justifying the hyperbolic 20,000,” Nimmo said. “In the world of comparing hyperbole, the good guys won this one.”

"Michelle Sinnott, director and counsel for captive animal law enforcement at the PETA Foundation, emphasized that the law accomplished what it was set out to do. (...) Specific numbers are not what really matter, she said: “Whether there’s one big cat in a private home or whether there’s 10,000 big cats in a private home, the underlying problem of industry is still there.”"

I have no problem with a law ending the private ownership of big cats, and with ending cub petting practices. What I do have a problem with is that these organizations purposefully spread disinformation for years in order to push for it. By their own admission, they repeatedly and intentionally promoted false statistics within Congress. For a decade.

No wonder it never made sense. No wonder no matter where I looked, I couldn't figure out how any of these groups got those numbers, why there was never any data to back any of the claims up, why everything I learned seemed to actively contradict it. It was never real. These people decided the truth didn't matter. They knew they had no proof, couldn't verify their shocking numbers... and they decided that was fine, if it achieved the end they wanted.

So members of the public - probably like you, reading this - and legislators who care about big cats and want to see legislation exist to protect them? They got played, got fed false information through a TV show designed to tug at heartstrings, and it got a law through Congress that's causing real problems for ethical captive big cat management. The 20,000 pet cat number was too sexy - too much of a crisis - for anyone to want to look past it and check that the language of the law wouldn't mess things up up for good zoos and sanctuaries. Whoops! At least the "bad guys" lost, right? (The problems are covered somewhat in the article linked, and I'll go into more details in a future post. You can also read my analysis from 2020, linked up top.)

Now, I know. Something something something facts don't matter this much in our post-truth era, stop caring so much, that's just how politics work, etc. I’m sorry, but no. Absolutely not.

Laws that will impact the welfare of living animals must be crafted carefully, thoughtfully, and precisely in order to ensure they achieve their goals without accidental negative impacts. We have a duty of care to ensure that. And in this case, the law also impacts reservoir populations for critically endangered species! We can't get those back if we mess them up. So maybe, just maybe, if legislators hadn't been so focused on all those alleged pet cats, the bill could have been written narrowly and precisely.

But the minutiae of regulatory impacts aren't sexy, and tiger abuse and TV shows about terrible people are. We all got misled, and now we're here, and the animals in good facilities are already paying for it.

I don't have a conclusion. I'm just mad. The public deserves to know the truth about animal legislation they're voting for, and I hope we all call on our legislators in the future to be far more critical of the data they get fed.

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｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ i like my men older - simon riley♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

you knew that your friends from school raised an eyebrow when you told them that you were dating a man almost double your age. you were in your twenties, while this 'simon' guy was close to fifty. you told them that he was an army man who had a gooey center for you.

your friends could see the upgrade in your laptop and the new knapsack with a logo that proclaimed it was expensive. the small chain around your neck with a 's' on it that you toyed with when they asked questions about him.

you looked happy, healthier even! you weren't eating minute meals and surviving off of black coffee. there was a little roundness to your cheeks now and you looked more alive. a glow to you that wasn't that while you trudged through your graduate program. so honestly, how could they complain?

if you had a glow to you, it was because you were often fucked out. most women your age through that dating an older man would mean having to go slow. be patient about technical difficulties regarding their cocks. that was what you expected from a man that old. especially one with aches and pains like simon. your poor si, he had been in the military his entire life. barely had the touch of a woman during that time! poor guy! of course you'll teach him all the ways a woman should please a man. the first time you ran your tongue on the underside of his cock he cam all over your head, and while you whined. it made you crazy hot. fucking simon was like fucking a live wire. he hadn't slowed down with age. he fucked like a stallion in breeding season. and he loved when he pulled his heavy cock into you. you once told him that he could be a cervix breaker. and he simply said, "well, if i break it... i can't breed it." which made you go slack jaw for a moment before he continued to rut up against you. you didn't expect a man of his age to have a breeding kink.

you practically begged your doctor to give you birth control, because he was not buying condoms. "don't fit in 'em, lovie." he said as he patted his clothed cock when you started dating. you knew that was impossible, condoms could fit a lot of things and while simon was fairly big. he could fit in a condom. but, no. when you tried to put them on yourself, he simply took it off, tossed it to the side and pinned you under his heavy weight. legs in the air as he rutted against you like a hungry animal.

he was so much bigger than you. wide shoulders, strong thighs and a bit of a gut to keep you folded under him. there was a masculine heft to him. he was strong, picking you up was easy to him even when you tried to tell him your weight. one time he gripped you by the waist with one arm and moved you out of the way. you kicked and squeaked as you were moved. but to simon it was easy as lifting heavy equipment. but that softness to some of his muscles really got you hot all over. it didn't help that part of your role as his girlfriend was to make sure that your man was fed. you cooked him meals and he over devoured in your sweet dessert. he loved you in an apron. all domestic and sweet for him. you were real wifey material. could easily be cooking meals for him and the kids in a few years. you can have a graduate degree and a few riley babies. "look good cookin' for me, darlin'. know how to make a proper meal for your man." you wouldn't admit but his words excited you.

simon can be a little... chauvinistic. it was just his age. while he respected female colleagues in the military and was beyond happy that you were getting your degree. he'd do things for you that you could clearly do on your own. like when you tried to fix the leaky tap in your flat. or when you try to carry all the groceries inside. yes, darling, you're a strong woman. but let him take over. take care of you. that was what a man did right? he'll cut the onions for you and try to fix your buggy wi-fi connection. he's pay for dinner every time and even get you dessert after. he'd wipe your face clear of the sweet treat you'd have. "don't ask her anything too difficult, johnny. she doesn't need to be thinkin' too hard." he once said with his hands over your ears and glared at his teammate. which only made the scotsman laugh. simon didn't mind if he had to take over. he'd never pull the rug out from under you, even when you were under him. you looked prettier under him, letting him take charge of your fucking. he took care of his girl, even when you whined and told him you were capable. there was no need to whine. simon needed to take care of his much smaller, much weaker baby girl. no need to break a nail trying to do stuff that simon could easily do for you.

even with the grey in his blond hair, he still kept up to you. there were times that you were too exhausted from day-to-day that you let simon rut between your thighs until he covered your round ass with his hot cum. you'd whimper which would turn into a yelp when he easily slipped his heavy cock into your sweet pussy. where it belonged. he fucked you heavily as his cum coated your behind, even trailing down your sloped back as you had your head in the covers.

"don't spill a drop off that pretty ass, baby girl. or else i'd might have to mark you again." thank god you liked your men older. <3