kudouusagi

[kudouusagi]

Citrus Con '25 postmortem

This weekend I attended a virtual con exclusively about BL fandom called Citrus Con and generally, it was a chill time. I met some nice people, ran into a few of those "wait you work with X?? I've been friends with X for years!!" situations, a friend and I judged people silently from inside our DMs, normal con stuff really!

But I also noticed a LOT of misinformation going around. Misconceptions and things that are straight up wrong and often racist or xenophobic that have been floating around the BL community for twenty years are still coming up and I wanted to take a minute to hopefully set the record straight on a lot of things.

Shut the fuck up about illegal activity. Good lord. This was a CORPORATE SPONSORED EVENT and people were talking about series they were in the middle of scanlating or where to find links to content. At one point a representative for DL-site, who was a SPONSOR FOR THE EVENT, came into chat to inform people discussing Drama CDs that they sold english translations and then the chat just KEPT TALKING ABOUT ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS. Like, if i was a company picking events to sponsor I'd probably pass on this one next year.

Weeb terms. Something I saw a lot of was people using Japanese terms as if they inherently mean something different from their English equivalent, or using Japanese terminology completely incorrectly. It's bizarre at best and racist at worst. I also heard a lot of people touting to be some sort of authority in the community grossly mispronouncing japanese words. Quick break-down: Fujin - This just straight up isn't a thing. It sounds like some google translate nonsense but currently the accepted terms for BL fans are all explicitly gendered. If you say this in Japan, best case you will be mistaken for a 貴婦人 (kifujin), a word for elder fujoshi, and worst case 夫人, married woman. A friend I spoke to said they mostly hear people just say 腐 (fu), for "rotten" which is coincidentally not gendered. Seiyuu - This means exactly the same thing as "voice actor." they're completely interchangeable. There's nothing wrong with saying "seiyuu" but you're probably pronouncing it wrong-- it's 4 syllables. I personally find "voice actor" or even "VA" to be much easier. There's a ton more overly specific Japanese words that get used despite having perfectly good equivalents in English! Seme/Uke - These are actually great words and I love them but "uke" does not sound like "ukelele!" While we do have English words for these, "top" and "bottom," BL has this silently agreed upon convention that one man exclusively tops and one man exclusively bottoms in anal sex, which is always the pinnacle of sexual intimacy in these stories. The words "seme" and "uke" refer to something that has no basis in reality. Shounen Ai - Way back in 2005 or so, Aarinfantasy, which was THE place for BL content and socialization, had a landing page that defined some common BL jargon and they used the terms "BL," "Shounen Ai," and "Yaoi" to describe increasing levels of explicit content. This is completely false and to this day I have no idea where it came from but everyone took it as gospel. "BL" covers the whole genre, and it is a marketing term. Books that are marketed as BL get shelved in the BL section (not just in Japan-- specialty manga stores elsewhere in the world are also starting to do this). Things that may have more LGBTQ themes (eg, My Brother's Husband or Until I Meet My Husband) get shelved in the LGBTQ or Autobiographical section. But anything from a story about two boys who hold hands this one time to a balls-out BDSM smutfest may be marketed as BL. "Yaoi" is a much older term in Japanese fandom originating as a self-deprecating term (and if you go far enough back, invented by cishet male internet trolls), and if you use this word in japanese spaces, you'll sound weird(though apparently awareness that foreign fans still use the word still is increasing). Shounen Ai is specifically BL about school age boys. This is usually high school or coming of age stories. A BL work about office workers can never be considered Shounen Ai, no matter how tame it is. Bishounen - See above. This term specifically refers to school-age boys and would be rude as hell to refer to a grown-ass man as. The literal breakdown is "beautiful boy." When I was 14 this was a perfectly acceptable term to be throwing around for cute anime boys. Now, in my 30s, it comes off as kinda creepy!

There's no such thing as "realistic BL". That's called LGBT manga, and is often autobiographical in nature (though there's some pure fiction like My Brother's Husband). There's tons of good stuff out there too! Just not in the BL space. BL isn't real. It's not depicting a real relationship any more than A Court Of Thorns And Roses or 50 Shades of Gray, though obviously there can be varying levels of toxicity or lack thereof. It's a set of storytelling conventions with shared thematic elements and rules and while it has evolved and become more "progressive" in recent years, it's still all just pretend. BL is not about real men. And to that end,

You cannot just assign a gender identity or sexuality to a creator. Or to anyone really. But especially not a stranger you've never met who is still alive. BL is written primarily by women and a lot of people are uncomfortable with that and are desperate to show that their hobby is unproblematic and go looking for examples of gay men writing BL (regardless of how misogynistic the idea of a fictional story being "lesser" because it was written by a woman is). Being Out in Japan is also typically very, very, VERY different than in western countries. Again, this is something that's changing in recent years but it's more of an open secret, where the mindset is more that there is simply no reason to bring it up. I also saw the words "repressive society" get used and boy do i hate that phrase because what it means in practice is "I don't understand these backwards barbarians and their inferior collectivist culture that is different from the great individualist culture I come from."

Broadsweeping generalizations about Japan and Japanese language in general because you saw something a lot in anime or because you saw a Japanese tiktoker do something one time. Come on man.

Independent Academics. This is the one that's really been bugging me. 10 years ago, we called people with no special qualifications who weren't associated with an institution but liked to do research investigative journalists. If they weren't looking to sell their discoveries and self-published them online, we called them bloggers. There's nothing wrong with being an investigative journalist or a blogger but an unsuspecting BL fan looking at the profile of someone on twitter making some sort of assertion is probably more willing to accept the words of an "academic" as fact than a blogger. I'm mostly seeing the term in fandom media circles and like. It's not that deep. There are real BL academics! Professor Anna Madill at the University of Leeds has done extensive field research on BL across cultures, including with Chinese fandom and even here on Tumblr. You can take a look at the papers she's published, the journals she's published in, heck you could probably even try emailing her, and compare that with what you see from an "independent academic" if you like. I'm sure that no harm was meant when people started calling themselves "Independent Academics," but think about what impression you had of this word when you first read it. Did it maybe give the person a greater sense of authority on a topic than they really had?

No one is forcing you to translate anything. This isn't about citrus con specifically it's just a pet peeve I have with the BL community. If you didn't do a good job with a scanlation and you KNOW you didn't, simply don't post it. Don't include a page that says "omg please go easy on me im a noob translator" just don't fucking post it! And don't go "recruiting" translators, if you don't have a translator then you don't have a scanlation group. If you can't write well in English, passing your translation off to someone who doesn't read Japanese isn't going to make things better. And for god's sake if you're going to shamelessly do a shitty scanlation built on the back of google translate or deepL or whatever, at least have some fucking shame and try to hide it.

[kudouusagi]

Everyone should be entitled to a free little treat once per day when they leave the house. A hot beverage, a cookie, whatever. You should have government issued daily tokens and you should be able to go into a shop or a cafe and pick what you like and take it to the counter and hand them your token and say "this is my free little daily treat" and then you don't have to pay for it. please vote for me as your local mp in the next general election.

[kudouusagi]

Hii :3 I hope you are well You were talking about moving last time, have you moved or will you move later?I apologize if this was rude or selfish, but I'm really curious about the sk8 ova magazines and design books (there was something like that, wasn't there😭)So when can you translate the estimate or is there more time?(srry for my bad english btw,english is not my first language..)

I've moved now. And you're not rude it's fine!

I need to figure out which box my stuff is in and then I'll translate some stuff! Someone this week hopefully.

[kudouusagi]

[kudouusagi]

“deserve” shit is so obnoxious with shipping as well. the only one who deserves anything is me. i deserve the characters i want to see fucking fucking

[kudouusagi]

the fact that i have to be in the “right headspace” to do even the simplest tasks. absolutely humiliating

[kudouusagi]

popular culture used to be very much about eroticism. rockstars used to be on stage in sequins and thongs and thigh high boots playing guitars like they were masturbating. girls used to wear velvet mini dresses and no bras and red-brick-brown lipstick and mascara on their bottom lashes. people used to have body hair on television and in the movies. people used to be sweaty. people used to touch each other over denim and under cotton. foreplay used to be staring at someone over the rim of a glass across a bar across a park across a dinner table. people used to want. i think we’ve lost something

[kudouusagi]

Thank you for explaining relationships in Kyushu. It was very informative. I had no idea. I think people tend to forget that every area has a different direction of what they see is a normal relationship. It's good to know more. Thank you again for this 😊

Yes of course! I figured it would be good to offer some extra context to their relationship!

[kudouusagi]

I love that each volume of Koisuru Boukun is a new development in their relationship!

me too!!

[kudouusagi]

Thank you for the Koisuru Boukun scans!

You're welcome!!

[kudouusagi]

Morinagas needs to get Souichi pregnant. Then I'm sure Morinagas parents will be happy. LOL 😂

If that was possible I don't think they'd have a problem with him being gay lol

[kudouusagi]

I just read the new KSB! I love how it was like "having the parents meet each other" moment that happens in relationships. Deep down, I hope Morinagas mother see that he and Souichi are more and supportive with their relationship. I know that's asking a lot but I want that so bad!

Yes I hope she learns to accept them by meeting his family!

[kudouusagi]

[kudouusagi]

kill the imposter syndrome in your head because not only is there someone out there doing it worse than you, they’re also using chat gpt to do it

[kudouusagi]

now say it with me: authors/artists dont owe you moral purity. an author/artist job is not to hold you by the hand & tell you exactly what is Good™ & what is Bad™. you should be able to think for yourself

[kudouusagi]

Hiiii thank you for the last chapter!!! It was amazing. Full of laughs and worries. So good!!! Already excited for the next and how it will be the end of this Morinaga’s mom arc!

Yes me too!

[kudouusagi]

I suspect Morinagas father is the kind of man who cannot function without his wife but also doesn't respect her (like cannot handle laundry, cooking (expecting her to do it)) then expects her to always be on his side about everything, not even asking her opinion. He is going to lose his wife and both of his sons at this rate.

Morinaga is from Fukuoka which is on the island of Kyushu.

People from Kyushu are well known in Japan for being conservative and having traditional family values. I'm outing myself here but there's a few people who have caught me in the love is blind subreddit comments before lol... but the best known example of this I know that's accessible is that the Japanese version of Love is blind had a bunch of girls talking about Kyushu Danji (Kyushu men) in the pods. They were saying that the men in the pods who just wanted a house wife were kyushu danji because of this association.

Here's a couple other articles about it:

So yeah, I expect Morinaga's father to be exactly that. A conservative asshole who just wants his wife to serve him and do what he wants her to do.