#feed the cities

[brudberg1]

From hinterland

Just a hint of salta gentle breezesweet and slowover farmland seaof rye and wheatfar from shipsand ports wherebread is bakedand rivers diein ocean surfswhere rain is bornto feed the fieldsof growing grains. Summer Evening, Wheatfield with Setting sunVincent van Gogh Today Mish hosts the Quadrille at dVerse where we write 44 word poem that has to contain the word hint in the body. January 27,…

[lurkingshan]

Hey Shan!! IDK if you're planning to do a BL wrap up or superlatives or anything like that this year so this question might be a bit too early but um...what has been a few of your favorite first watches for 2024 bls?

Hi Eboni! This is actually pretty good timing for a list because most of the shows that will end within 2024 are already over! The only two I could see maybe making my list that have not ended yet are Love is Like a Poison (Japan) and Blue Canvas of Youthful Days (China), so I'll mention them here (fingers crossed they end well and stay favs).

That said, here are my favorite completed BLs of 2024 (alpha order)!

At 25:00 in Akasaka (Japan, Gaga)

Two actors who first met in college are cast in a bl together, old feelings resurface, and the lines between their professional and private lives start to blur. This show is super beautiful and moody.

Cooking Crush (Thailand, YouTube or WeTV for uncut)

Ten and Prem are my favorite of OffGun's many couples. Ten is a med student with food issues who wants to learn how to cook, and Prem is a chef in training. Their romance is super sweet and I also really like the side couple and friend groups in this one.

Cherry Magic Thailand (Thailand, YouTube or Viu, requires VPN)

I still can't believe this show happened. How on earth did GMMTV manage to make a superior version of Cherry Magic?? Tay Tawan had a lot to do with it, along with a very smart adaptation. It's so sweet and funny and perfect (if you just pretend ep 8 doesn't exist).

City of Stars (Thailand, iQIYI)

I was surprised by how much I liked this charming little Thai pulp. It had an interesting story with strong writing and the pair was very good together. More people should watch it!

I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama (Japan, Gaga)

This is a short and sweet and note perfect BL comedy about two actors falling for each other while making a BL. Loaded with meta jokes about the industry and stan culture and very loving about it.

Knock Knock Boys (Thailand, Gaga)

I am obsessed with this excellent Thai BL that not nearly enough people watched. Two couples, both compelling and sexy and fun, and amazing friendship dynamics. I want everyone to watch it!

Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo (S Korea, iQIYI)

My top BL of the year. It's a second chance romance, you see the characters both in high school and later as adults and I don't really want to spoil anything else about it. It's beautiful, the characters are so compelling, and the story is masterfully told.

Love for Love's Sake (S Korea, iQIYI)

This one is special and quite unique, and I also don't want to spoil much about it! It begins with a basic isekai set up that then goes to some unexpected places. Really, really beautiful show.

Love Sea (Thailand, iQIYI)

Definitely my favorite spicy romance of the year. I really loved a lot about the story for this one, in particular the class dynamics that defined the characters and their relationship, and Mahasamut (played by Fort) is on my list of favorite drama characters this year.

Marahuyo Project (Philippines, YouTube)

We didn't get much from the Philippines this year, but they did drop one absolute banger in this show about a fierce and proud gay kid who gets booted out of school in Manila and sent to live with his grandma and mother on a small island. He makes friends and enemies and starts an LGBTQ+ club, and falls in love along the way.

Mr Mitsuya's Planned Feeding (Japan, fansub)

An excellent age gap romance about a young editor and the chef who writes for his magazine making food together and falling in love. Lots of fun side characters, too. I loved every minute of this show.

Perfect Propose (Japan, Gaga)

Two old friends meet when one of them is in need of housing and one is on the verge of a nervous breakdown from a soul-sucking corporate job, and help each other heal. This one is short and sweet.

Ossan's Love Returns (Japan, Gaga)

This one is technically a sequel, but you can enjoy it without having seen the original (and might like it better that way, tbh). One of the funniest shows of the year and featuring a main couple that is a personal fav and are now on my ride or die list.

Takara's Treasure (Japan, Gaga)

This one is a simple story but so, so sweet. A cute little bean follows his mysterious idol to university and joins the hiking club to get to know him better. They get to know each other slowly and fall in love.

Unknown (Taiwan, Viki)

ALMOST my favorite bl of the year, but we had a few issues on the back end. Despite that, I still loved it a whole lot. A family drama and a love story about two chosen brothers whose relationship changes over time. Easily the best BL Taiwan made this year.

Looking at this list, I am realizing how absolutely invaluable my Gaga and iQIYI subscriptions have become; it's where nearly all my favorite BL is airing.

[crow-caller]

Orbtacular...

[mrmeepsmadmind]

hes my cringefail little daddy issues goblin

[xxplastic-cubexx]

obsessed with whatever experiment he was doing here ..... like what ARE you doing that was so vital .....

[X-Men #31: "We Must Destroy the Cobalt Man!"]

[myeverythingeraaa]

did you know ariana used to own a white instax polaroid camera back in 2015?

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

With all the Fawcett weirdness it would not surprise me if there was a whole bunch of changeling or Fae kids bc the prevailing desire of parents to have kids that are theirs by some sort of blood over the process of adoption

I wonder if there’s some Facebook group or whatever telling aspiring parents how they can trick their way into having both kids Ala that tumblr post of a woman taking both children not caring which is which as long as she can love them both

Maybe the more malicious monsters that try and sneak into family’s by taking the form of their kids get loved so hard by some parents they just end up the kids new sibling.

Like, Fawcett has its magic issues but on top of it is magic in the city’s bloodstream too, but that also becomes an issue bc it forces out kids who do need adoption.

[bird-inacage]

City Boy Log VOL 3.0 | Jaejun x Jihan: Boyfriend Era

[rowanoftheunknown]

This is kind of getting wild actually. Like not to seem like I was 100% on board with the subscription service (I am not) but people are acting like watcher is run by the fucking monopoly man.

I had to do a production management course as part of my media degree, and people REALLY underestimate how much even the cheapest shows are to produce.

"Shane and Ryan could just sit in a room and people would watch." No. Not necessarily. Many people are saying they're glad watcher is getting shit because they never liked Too Many Spirits or Mystery Files or Beat Down. And even if they transitioned to that being their only content, with the most conservative of estimates, with things like set, research, guest scheduling, scripting, editing, mastering, uploading, you're looking at $5000/ep. That's the fucking reality of having a production company. It's not cheap. It is proportionally more expensive than big budget productions. And this is with them paying their staff correctly AS THEY FUCKING SHOULD. Laying people off or paying them less should not be words out of anyone's mouths rn.

"I want to watch ethically created videos that are well made and entertaining" and "I don't want to pay for my content" are mutually exclusive statements. I'm sorry but it is true.

Also, consider that their money makers at BuzzFeed were Worth it and Unsolved. Why would they assume that their audience wouldn't want more of that kind of content?? Especially now that people are bemoaning the fact that they'd have to pay for content that isn't like what they made at BuzzFeed.

Tldr: This should have been a very brief blip and learning experience, but it's turned into a big cluster fuck where people are feeling very personally hurt that the people they have become attached to on the internet are asking for money to give them more content. Was the subscription service a good idea? No. Are people being too dramatic by being like "I don't know if I can ever trust them again" and acting personally sickened because their entertainment costs money? Yes.

This sucked but some of you need to get over yourselves.

[tinkerbitch69]

link: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/baldurs-gate/astarion-has-breached-the-vatican-baldurs-gate-3-has-sold-2-copies-in-vatican-city-says-larians-director-of-publishing/

WTF IS THIS ARTICLE???!!!

[o-uncle-newt]

I WENT TO OXFORD

It was rainy but basically perfect- and now I have a question.

Anyway, first thing I did, while waiting for my Bodleian tour to start, was do the (very quick) "Harriet finally goes up like straw" walking tour, from the Broad Street gate of Balliol to New College Lane just past the Bridge of Sighs. It was excellent.

Below is the first photo I took- of the intersection of Broad Street and Catte Street (in my copy of the book spelled Cat Street), or the Holywell Corner, as Harriet calls it. This photo is how Peter and Harriet would have seen it, though presumably at night time (and I guess, potentially, on the other side of the street). From here, they'd cross ahead and to the right, and walk on the left side of Catte Street a few yards to New College Lane.

For those who like me have memorized the last page of this book- does anyone notice anything interesting?

I'll set the scene- they're walking back, and Peter drops that

'I have been afraid,' he said simply; 'because I knew that from anything you said to me here, there could be no going back.... But I will ask you now, and if you say No, I promise you that this time I will accept your answer. Harriet; you know that I love you: will you marry me?' The traffic lights winked at the Holywell Corner: Yes; No; Wait. 

Wait what? What traffic lights?!

I can confirm, I walked on all sides of that intersection and couldn't find a traffic light or any indication that one had ever been there. No traffic light, no pedestrian stoplight, no nothing.

I have to assume that, however much Sayers might like metaphors and allegories and such, she wouldn't invent a traffic light for the sake of one. But maybe she did? Or maybe one did exist in 1935 and has been since removed in the name of some kind of renewal project? Is it related to the New Bodleian (now Weston) library being built starting in 1937 on that corner, or totally unrelated?

I'm not going to pretend that any of this matters, just say that a) I am always interested in things like this, whether they are important or not, and if anyone knows please tell me and b) it's a tribute to Sayers that so many of the scenes in the book felt so vivid that seeing the locations in person felt like returning to them- and that something feeling even slightly off from that could be jarring.

Bonus photo, to thank you for bearing with me- picture two Senior Members of the university closely and passionately embracing just past the bridge over there.

[midnightripping]

“We are all born so beautiful, the greatest tragedy is being convinced we are not.”~ Rupi Kaur

[elemental-daddy-neos]

Bitches love my snail

[thenothlng]

where did you guys get those. guys

up-close shot cause i draw everything so fucking big or whateva

everyone say i love you beatriz and i love you vincent

[luck-of-the-drawings]

EPISODE 2 AND 3 HAVE BEEN SOOOO FUN im already so emotionally attached to each of these characters.. if anything bad ever happens to any of them im killing everyone and then everyone.

[theartingace]

Idea: orchard harvester saddle. More of a standing platform with a scooter handlebar for the rider where the centaur can hand things up and down. (playing Farming Simulator is making me crave more peaceful/agricultural world building; there's already so much Warlike WB around, it needs some balance)

(also, eat like a horse vs eat like a bird, horse metab is high efficiency but a lot of it just due to net size, imagine that efficiency applied to refined grains and breads. Centaur diets would be less-per-weight than humans, although not necessarily by much due to the metabolic needs of sapient brain and foretorso)

Ohhhh I absolutely love this and absolutely think it should be a thing. I've been thinking more about the inherent benefits of centaurs in an agrarian society and more and more the borders of the Merchant city has been expanding outward towards the edge of Rider territory with enormous matriarchal farm towns that feed most of the surrounding societies so this would fit right in to that kind of lifestyle! And sounds so useful! One doing the moving and loadbearing, one doing the climbing and picking.

And I agree, war shapes societies undeniably but so many worldbuilders forget that trade, craft and industry shape cultures and societies just as much! It's definitely a topic i could GO OFF about haha, I have major exports and interrelated trade agreements drawn up between ALL my current societies 😁

(also absolutely, the use of refined grains and bread was a huge part of my initial thoughts about how centaurs could survive feeding that big horse body with comparatively small/limited human teeth. The efficiency of processed grain and grass fibers would be SO necessary to their digestion and overall survival!)