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So last weekend, I was at the second installment of CitrusCon! The organizers went harder than before with the event lineup/artist alley selections/etc., and I did a LOT more shit as a result. This is gonna take a lot of cuts to not clog up y'all's reading pages, but I hope you click thru nonetheless! Anyway, let's get into it.
MIGNON WATCH PARTY
Because I preregistered for this con before a certain date, I was able to get into the server early, and therefore take part in some exclusive events! But since I had work the next day, I was kinda limited in what I could jump in on. So the one event I was able to catch was a watch party for Mignon, a Korean BL web animation about a boxer in an underground fight club, and his doctor who ends up being a vampire. Unfortunately, it was kinda hard for me to follow since my craptop was NOT cooperating. I had to leave the stream and reenter it when it started lagging too much for my liking. But then I decided to go through the TVTropes article to see what the show's deal actually was, and after reading it, I gotta say it's quite up my alley. (I didn't really have to worry about spoilers too much, because I had managed to catch the most spoiler-y part in the watch party already. Plus I'm not overly bothered by spoilers? Idk man,,,) I think I'm gonna try bingeing it sometime, because the total series length is about 90 minutes or so? So it's the equivalent of watching a movie for me.
REBUILDING COMMUNITY ON THE (FUJO)WEB
I found out about this panel through Ms. Boba, who I've been following on the Fediverse for a while. I'd kinda dipped my toes into her projects (namely, The Fujo Guide to Web Development), but didn't engage with them too deeply until now. I went into the panel hoping some of these would be broken down in more detail and focus mostly on the technical side of the webdev experience. But instead, I got a dual combo of social power dynamic analysis and a motivational speech that didn't make me feel like I was inadequate for having uncooperative brainweasels (unlike a lot of other motivational speakers grumblegrumblegrumble...) Also shoutout to the person in chat who said “attention spans are shot and that’s why artists get all the attention and writers get shafted”. It came right for my jugular as both as a writer AND an art-viewer.
THE CONCEPTION OF YAOI JESUS - A BL GAMES PANEL
Saturday started off with this panel that gave me a lot of good BL game recs, some of which I'll list down in another section where I put all the stuff I wanna check out. But the main thing I took from this panel is that Dramatical Murder may be a bit more up my alley than I previously thought. Originally, I always thought DMMD would be a bit too uncomfortable for my personal tastes. But apparently the English dub of the anime adaptation brings a bit more levity to the story/situation, as well as the anime as a whole removing the mental obligation for me to project on a bottom whom Bad Things happen to (which is where I got the most inital ick from DMMD). So with those factors in mind, I think the anime will be a decent stepping stone for me getting into DMMD.
I was also introduced to a one-shot interactive fiction piece on itch.io called "Fake Racing Game" which follows an anonymous drag-racer looking to challenge someone for his boy-toy (or man-toy? The guy was bigger and hairier than conventional bottoms in BL, but not quite reaching gachimuchi territory? You'd have to play for yourself.). I still haven't gotten the good ending for it...
SO WHERE ARE WE AT?
This panel focused on LGBTQ+ rep and other aspects of representation/translation/localization in the VA industry, starring some well-known names like David Wald, James Cheek, and Steve "WarkyChocobo" Nunez. I didn't pay too much attention to it because my craptop was being shitty again, but I did remember this one good part from one of the VA's (I think it was Wald, but don't quote me on that). He said that a lot of the people who complain about translations/localizations not being a "pure" enough representation of the text (read: a lot of the shitty dudebros who frequent GamerGate-type spaces) are just internalizing culturally Christian purity politics. Which I agree with.
BL AGAINST HUMANITY
Unlike last year, I only watched this panel instead of actually participating. As a result (plus the fact that I was prepping a wig at the same time), I didn't pay as much attention to it as last time. But I still had fun. Apparently, there was some sort of inside joke about soup that spawned from one of the sessions, and it grew to the point where someone made a Discord server for it? Which I'm not in, but still. Also the legendary "Getting masturbated to while your butt is stuck inside a tuba" card made another appearance. To this day I have no idea if it was a reference to some obscure BL material or just someone throwing in some lolrandom humor in the card submission box. Which bugs me, because... Reasons(TM).
BUILD-A-BL WORKSHOP
I ended up participating in this panel on a whim, and I'm glad I did. This was a fun challenge where people had about an hour to crank out an original work with nine randomly selected tropes, one of which got drawn halfway through the creation period. I ended up writing a work set in the Old West where a saloon owner's son tops a twunkish courier. It's already out on AO3, but I'm gonna crosspost it here soon as well. It was also fun seeing what other people came up based on the prompts. Most people opted for art, but I think there was one other person who wrote a fic? I'll have to check.
BOKU NO SEXUAL HARASSMENT WATCH PARTY
I was mostly there for the Corn Scene(TM). Was actually lowkey uncomfortable with the premise at first, but despite that, I was also getting hella Whore Knee over it. It was surprisingly easier on my craptop than the Mignon watch party, although I got bored and left shortly after the Corn Scene(TM) ended. Might finish it myself, idk.
PEENS AND PIXELS
This one was pretty similar to the Yaoi Jesus breakdown on BLVN's, but with more of a focus on new titles. I was half expecting them to put out a segment on Lkyt, a VN I've been eyeing since seeing people post about it on my Blorbo.social timeline, but they didn't. Sadge. But I did get a lot of other recs.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Speaking of recs, here's a list of media I'm gonna get down to checking out thanks to panels, people in the rec channels, and people in meetups I perused. Sorted by medium, not gonna describe because I'm too lazy. But some googling will get you what you need. Probably.
MANGA/COMICS:
Breathless Momentum
Haga-kun Wants to be Bitten
Be Kind, My Neighbor
ANIME/MOVIES/SHOWS:
Boku no Sexual Harassment
Evelogia
Dramatical Murder (also VN)
GAMES/VISUAL NOVELS:
Synthetic Lover
Patient S Remedy
Lamento
Fake Racing Game
UuultraC
Full Service
Naked Butlers
Mr Versatile
Beyond Eden
Ooe (not yet released)
MEETUP TALKS
Just like last con, I was able to have more in depth convos with people in the meetup section. Most of my chatting took place in a meetup dedicated to Ace Attorney, where I surprisingly resisted the urge to plug Contempt of Court. (Although if the announcement of the fan-remaster dropped while the con was going on, I probably would've fanned the fuck out over it in there.) Instead, I mostly talked about Gantworth and Truthena, as well as complaining about how anti-dominated the twitblr side of the fandom is. Also started a meetup for folks in the AO3 exchange community, where we talked about upcoming exchagnes we'd like to try. (which sadly none of them meet my fannish niche or fit my exec funciton criteria. Oh well. Maybe I can pinch hit if needed.) Alsoalso started a MGS themed meetup that was only me and one other person discussing Ocelot x all the Snakes for a few minutes. But it was fun. Shout out to Discord user elendraugr for being a real MVP.
BADGES
One thing I didn't really partake in last year was the badge/image edit templates staff had provided for people to fill out. I did do one last year, but it was pretty plain, with just my name and me railing against the gacha gods for not giving me Aster’s SSR in Nukani. But this time I actually did something with them, spanning multiple fandoms and blorbos from past and present. So here they are in all their low-effort-photoshop glory!
ARTIST ALLEY
My credit card (and PayPal) was working a lot harder than last year. Ordered a lot more, both in terms of money spent and shops I bought from. Here's a sumup of what I'm currently waiting on in the mail (or already have because it was a free printable):
Groovyocelot = 2 DanVer prints, one modelled after the iconic art for minato's "magnet"
Spillingdown = "Kindred Souls" (Liquidmantis art) on a T-shirt
Scumsuck = sticker of nurse!AU Misa (Death Note), "Pussywhip "(a zine/doujin/etc. about a hair metal band)
Fanmuimui = 2 pairs of earrings, one with catfish on them, the other with Father (Rei's owl companion) from Nukani
MarineHaddock = AA attorney’s badge pin + “Mid Pussy” ribbon bookmark (+ two free zines off his Itch.io, one about Tumblr's collapse under Automattic, the other about ideas to overcome your self-directed cringe about participating in fandom)
mrbatbird = Free zine modelled after a pamphlet detailing the crimes of Kray Foresight, the main antag of Promare (which got me hooked enough on the movie that I'm probably gonna watch it)
COSPLAY CONTEST
Finally, I decided to do the cosplay contest this year! When I saw the theme for this year ("Pink Lemonade"), I put together a closet cosplay for Simon Blackquill if he were on vacation (or something like that), spent more time than necessary wrestling with my wig and shoving it onto my big-ass head, and went out on my deck to shoot. And yes, I ended up drinking the drink I'd put together for a prop. (but it wasn't actual pink lemonade. It was strawberry-kiwi Crystal Light.) I didn't win any of the prizes, but I still had fun putting the fit together.
.
So that's basically it for another year. Hopefully I'll keep up the pattern of immersing myself in these online gay cons for years to come.
MIGNON WATCH PARTY
Because I preregistered for this con before a certain date, I was able to get into the server early, and therefore take part in some exclusive events! But since I had work the next day, I was kinda limited in what I could jump in on. So the one event I was able to catch was a watch party for Mignon, a Korean BL web animation about a boxer in an underground fight club, and his doctor who ends up being a vampire. Unfortunately, it was kinda hard for me to follow since my craptop was NOT cooperating. I had to leave the stream and reenter it when it started lagging too much for my liking. But then I decided to go through the TVTropes article to see what the show's deal actually was, and after reading it, I gotta say it's quite up my alley. (I didn't really have to worry about spoilers too much, because I had managed to catch the most spoiler-y part in the watch party already. Plus I'm not overly bothered by spoilers? Idk man,,,) I think I'm gonna try bingeing it sometime, because the total series length is about 90 minutes or so? So it's the equivalent of watching a movie for me.
REBUILDING COMMUNITY ON THE (FUJO)WEB
I found out about this panel through Ms. Boba, who I've been following on the Fediverse for a while. I'd kinda dipped my toes into her projects (namely, The Fujo Guide to Web Development), but didn't engage with them too deeply until now. I went into the panel hoping some of these would be broken down in more detail and focus mostly on the technical side of the webdev experience. But instead, I got a dual combo of social power dynamic analysis and a motivational speech that didn't make me feel like I was inadequate for having uncooperative brainweasels (unlike a lot of other motivational speakers grumblegrumblegrumble...) Also shoutout to the person in chat who said “attention spans are shot and that’s why artists get all the attention and writers get shafted”. It came right for my jugular as both as a writer AND an art-viewer.
THE CONCEPTION OF YAOI JESUS - A BL GAMES PANEL
Saturday started off with this panel that gave me a lot of good BL game recs, some of which I'll list down in another section where I put all the stuff I wanna check out. But the main thing I took from this panel is that Dramatical Murder may be a bit more up my alley than I previously thought. Originally, I always thought DMMD would be a bit too uncomfortable for my personal tastes. But apparently the English dub of the anime adaptation brings a bit more levity to the story/situation, as well as the anime as a whole removing the mental obligation for me to project on a bottom whom Bad Things happen to (which is where I got the most inital ick from DMMD). So with those factors in mind, I think the anime will be a decent stepping stone for me getting into DMMD.
I was also introduced to a one-shot interactive fiction piece on itch.io called "Fake Racing Game" which follows an anonymous drag-racer looking to challenge someone for his boy-toy (or man-toy? The guy was bigger and hairier than conventional bottoms in BL, but not quite reaching gachimuchi territory? You'd have to play for yourself.). I still haven't gotten the good ending for it...
SO WHERE ARE WE AT?
This panel focused on LGBTQ+ rep and other aspects of representation/translation/localization in the VA industry, starring some well-known names like David Wald, James Cheek, and Steve "WarkyChocobo" Nunez. I didn't pay too much attention to it because my craptop was being shitty again, but I did remember this one good part from one of the VA's (I think it was Wald, but don't quote me on that). He said that a lot of the people who complain about translations/localizations not being a "pure" enough representation of the text (read: a lot of the shitty dudebros who frequent GamerGate-type spaces) are just internalizing culturally Christian purity politics. Which I agree with.
BL AGAINST HUMANITY
Unlike last year, I only watched this panel instead of actually participating. As a result (plus the fact that I was prepping a wig at the same time), I didn't pay as much attention to it as last time. But I still had fun. Apparently, there was some sort of inside joke about soup that spawned from one of the sessions, and it grew to the point where someone made a Discord server for it? Which I'm not in, but still. Also the legendary "Getting masturbated to while your butt is stuck inside a tuba" card made another appearance. To this day I have no idea if it was a reference to some obscure BL material or just someone throwing in some lolrandom humor in the card submission box. Which bugs me, because... Reasons(TM).
BUILD-A-BL WORKSHOP
I ended up participating in this panel on a whim, and I'm glad I did. This was a fun challenge where people had about an hour to crank out an original work with nine randomly selected tropes, one of which got drawn halfway through the creation period. I ended up writing a work set in the Old West where a saloon owner's son tops a twunkish courier. It's already out on AO3, but I'm gonna crosspost it here soon as well. It was also fun seeing what other people came up based on the prompts. Most people opted for art, but I think there was one other person who wrote a fic? I'll have to check.
BOKU NO SEXUAL HARASSMENT WATCH PARTY
I was mostly there for the Corn Scene(TM). Was actually lowkey uncomfortable with the premise at first, but despite that, I was also getting hella Whore Knee over it. It was surprisingly easier on my craptop than the Mignon watch party, although I got bored and left shortly after the Corn Scene(TM) ended. Might finish it myself, idk.
PEENS AND PIXELS
This one was pretty similar to the Yaoi Jesus breakdown on BLVN's, but with more of a focus on new titles. I was half expecting them to put out a segment on Lkyt, a VN I've been eyeing since seeing people post about it on my Blorbo.social timeline, but they didn't. Sadge. But I did get a lot of other recs.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Speaking of recs, here's a list of media I'm gonna get down to checking out thanks to panels, people in the rec channels, and people in meetups I perused. Sorted by medium, not gonna describe because I'm too lazy. But some googling will get you what you need. Probably.
MANGA/COMICS:
Breathless Momentum
Haga-kun Wants to be Bitten
Be Kind, My Neighbor
ANIME/MOVIES/SHOWS:
Boku no Sexual Harassment
Evelogia
Dramatical Murder (also VN)
GAMES/VISUAL NOVELS:
Synthetic Lover
Patient S Remedy
Lamento
Fake Racing Game
UuultraC
Full Service
Naked Butlers
Mr Versatile
Beyond Eden
Ooe (not yet released)
MEETUP TALKS
Just like last con, I was able to have more in depth convos with people in the meetup section. Most of my chatting took place in a meetup dedicated to Ace Attorney, where I surprisingly resisted the urge to plug Contempt of Court. (Although if the announcement of the fan-remaster dropped while the con was going on, I probably would've fanned the fuck out over it in there.) Instead, I mostly talked about Gantworth and Truthena, as well as complaining about how anti-dominated the twitblr side of the fandom is. Also started a meetup for folks in the AO3 exchange community, where we talked about upcoming exchagnes we'd like to try. (which sadly none of them meet my fannish niche or fit my exec funciton criteria. Oh well. Maybe I can pinch hit if needed.) Alsoalso started a MGS themed meetup that was only me and one other person discussing Ocelot x all the Snakes for a few minutes. But it was fun. Shout out to Discord user elendraugr for being a real MVP.
BADGES
One thing I didn't really partake in last year was the badge/image edit templates staff had provided for people to fill out. I did do one last year, but it was pretty plain, with just my name and me railing against the gacha gods for not giving me Aster’s SSR in Nukani. But this time I actually did something with them, spanning multiple fandoms and blorbos from past and present. So here they are in all their low-effort-photoshop glory!
ARTIST ALLEY
My credit card (and PayPal) was working a lot harder than last year. Ordered a lot more, both in terms of money spent and shops I bought from. Here's a sumup of what I'm currently waiting on in the mail (or already have because it was a free printable):
Groovyocelot = 2 DanVer prints, one modelled after the iconic art for minato's "magnet"
Spillingdown = "Kindred Souls" (Liquidmantis art) on a T-shirt
Scumsuck = sticker of nurse!AU Misa (Death Note), "Pussywhip "(a zine/doujin/etc. about a hair metal band)
Fanmuimui = 2 pairs of earrings, one with catfish on them, the other with Father (Rei's owl companion) from Nukani
MarineHaddock = AA attorney’s badge pin + “Mid Pussy” ribbon bookmark (+ two free zines off his Itch.io, one about Tumblr's collapse under Automattic, the other about ideas to overcome your self-directed cringe about participating in fandom)
mrbatbird = Free zine modelled after a pamphlet detailing the crimes of Kray Foresight, the main antag of Promare (which got me hooked enough on the movie that I'm probably gonna watch it)
COSPLAY CONTEST
Finally, I decided to do the cosplay contest this year! When I saw the theme for this year ("Pink Lemonade"), I put together a closet cosplay for Simon Blackquill if he were on vacation (or something like that), spent more time than necessary wrestling with my wig and shoving it onto my big-ass head, and went out on my deck to shoot. And yes, I ended up drinking the drink I'd put together for a prop. (but it wasn't actual pink lemonade. It was strawberry-kiwi Crystal Light.) I didn't win any of the prizes, but I still had fun putting the fit together.
.
So that's basically it for another year. Hopefully I'll keep up the pattern of immersing myself in these online gay cons for years to come.
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