#.characters: Citron

[every-sanji]

[lemon-drop-soda]

Hey all! Long time no substantial post, I know

IRL things have been taking my focus for the most part, been trying to get back into the swing of posting things slowly but surely

Here's something I've been working on in the background; a redesign of Citron!

I intend to integrate her more into my social media presence, including a potential live2D model down the line (though I'm nowhere near close to achieving that anytime soon), hence why I felt she was overdue for a makeover

The first two are from my first redesign pass while the bottom one is my take after some feedback from my inner circles. Speaking of feedback, I'm more than happy to listen to outside criticism on increasing her visual appeal or simply adding outfit ideas to her wardrobe, so

Thoughts?

[squiscuit]

agent headshots!

i enjoy this line coloring style

[tessathegamefreak]

"Hello, darlings!~ It's good to be back for another Valentine's Day!~ Ha-ha!~ Oh, I can just feel all the love in this kingdom! But don't fret if you don't have a valentine; that's what I am here for~ Now, let's get to work, shall we?~"

Oh my! It is Valentine's Day, and that means Melton Citron is in the kingdom!~ In honor of the holiday, I FINALLY DIGITIZED HIM!!!

Melton Citron, the Valentine's Day exclusive racer, has been here since the first year the game has been plugged in. However, he is only supposed to be here for that week; once the holiday is over and he goes back to the hub, he isn't coming back until next Valentine's Day (or unless he follows another holiday exclusive out). He is based on chocolate-dipped oranges and orange chocolate mousse~

When the developers designed the Valentine's Day racer, they just KNEW they had to be based off a singer; they cycled through various concepts and sketches, then they finally settled on basing their cupid off of Elton John himself! Although, despite being based off of Elton, Melton dreads constantly being compared to his predecessor, and feels like a fraud since he lacks his own creative talent. It's part of why he gravitates to wanting to be idolized by his peers; which led to him being one of the four exclusives that actually sided with King Candy during his reign.

DOODLE DUMP!!!:

And an AU sketch concept of Melton as a royal~

[framboisezakuro]

[hadukilina]

[cherryblossomssmash]

A3! x SANRIO: SPRING TROUPE 🎭

[blank-citron]

I am back, yet again, with more thoughts. I'm nearing the end of house of hades (3 hours left!!) So here's my opinions about all the relationships!

OKAY SO:

Annabeth and Percy is fine, they're great, I don't mind them at all. Nothing weird, they got five books before they got together and they were genuinely friends first!! Good job have a metal: 🏅

Piper and Jason is??? Eugh. FIRST UP pipers original attraction to Jason is because of FAKE memories put inside of her head. And Jason?? Complete amnesia, doesn't remember shit, and they still kinda?? Stay together? Even though they're technically complete strangers forced into a relationship by a god. AND DON'T GET ME STARTED on the amount of time they spend focused on each other when Pipers dad is kidnapped and going insane and she thinks shes gonna be forced to betray them all. Like yeah, alright, but your boyfriend you know nothing about? Yeah spend an entire page talking about how attractive he is. OH AND THE CHARM SPEAK, DON'T FORGET THE CHARM SPEAK

Hazel and Frank is on thin fucking ice. The jealousy on Franks side is kinda uncomfortable but like, I get it. Fair enough. They've known each other for a while, they were friends before they were dating, and I can't say much about it?? Because it's before the book but at least it's not super uncomfortable or anything. Now my problem is kinda with their ages, Hazel is like 12 (13?) And Frank is uhh (checks wiki) **17???** I thought he was like 16 at most but alright, sure sure sure. You'd think? A 17 year old would know better than to date a 12 year old, like my guy, that's a whole ass child.

Leo and Calypso,,, Mmm.. most of my problems with Calypso comes with the fact that lore wise, it doesn't really make sense for her to still be on the island, her instant dismissal of Leo cause he's not super ripped and tall is also kinda uncomfortable but oh well. NOW LEO??? CONSIDERING that his main personal conflict comes from being the 7th wheel and the fact that his best friends kinda?Y'know, toss him aside after they get together??? The odd one out?? I feel, so uncomfortable with the fact that they decide to solve that problem by just giving him a girlfriend? Instead of y'know, making him more comfortable with himself and his friendships. Like sticking a bandaid of someone just liking him back for the first time ever fixes his major abandonment issues. Especially with?? The apparent "instant attraction"? Like c'mon.

[bunbox]

tutti frutti lipz

[irlmumrik]

i think her fav food is parfait 🫐🍓!!

[foundfamilyhq]

[hevromero]

Since I'm posting more gholdengo stuff tonight anyway, have a few that are based on my own gholdengos (three of them anyway.. I have four gholdengos ahah).

Plus my persona bee as a gimmighoul.

[akaikami-cherryblossom]

Something about Tangerine loosening up over his portraits and finally allowing himself to be carefree around his brother blah blah blah I want to scoop him up he’s baby shaped🥺

[opal-sparks]

Trouble With Past Love Interests In the future, Clemont has become a better inventor, and Opal has become more comfortable and confident in her own body. Lilia has become stronger (and tan) on her journey, and has chosen to rebel against her father's wishes for her to marry somebody that would take over the Orangics company. While it is true that Gary has apologized to Opal for being a jerk to her and breaking her heart when they were kids, he still likes to push her buttons and has chosen to do so by flirting with Clemont, knowing full well that it would piss her off. While Clemont is flustered by the unexpected flirtation, Opal has nothing to worry about because Clemont is faithful.

[winterswhite]

So, translating drained me a little, but I have been meaning to talk about my thoughts on this year's relay blog, and a discussion in the Kisetsu server about the Homare -> Citron post order sparked a ramble from me, so I figured I'd post it here, too.

I think putting Homare and Citron in sequence was really fun and showed us a lot more about both of them than any other order could have this year. While at first glance it looks like Homare trying to fill out Citron's profile properly until the "someone I look up to" section, and Citron responding with nothing but jokes, but looking properly at both posts, you see a lot more of each of their characters and development.

The way I saw it, with Homare putting down his own name for Citron's "someone I look up to," it would've been easy to dismiss that as showing that Homare still struggles with understanding people, but Citron's reaction ended up proving that he was right, and it wasn't just by chance that he was. Homare says himself that he analyzed Citron over and over again, and it shows in all three sections of the profile book that he *does* understand him, with him writing down "wordplay" for Citron's hobby, pegging him as someone prone to loneliness (there's a ramble about shared feelings of isolation somewhere here) and wanting to love (again, I could go off about Citron loving harugumi and expecting nothing in return), and even in the names he put down in all three flowers in the association corner, including his own. The way he was able to do this and the way he talks about it both show a great deal of his development and how much more confident he's become in his ability to understand the people around him.

Going forward, Citron's reaction to his profile only further solidifies the idea that Homare saw right through him. He felt seen, his perfectly crafted character was seen right through, and his entire blog was a response to that feeling.

He starts off his post with a title in his typical misspelled fashion (though this carries very different meaning in Japanese than I could ever convey in English with him using wildly inappropriate kanji instead of just misspelling or using hiragana instead of katakana or vice versa and I think it's really interesting what kanji he chose for his own name because they imply these choices were very intentional, especially in combination with what he chose for Guy, but I digress), setting up the expectation for a typical Citron blog, but from the very first sentence, the tone of the post completely changes and Citron is suddenly speaking in a formal and proper way that he hasn't before. He also says:

This time, I thought it would be better to make this easier for everyone to read, so I adopted this way of writing. However, my other blogs have always gotten through to you, right?

Immediately, readers think something is off, and to anyone who doesn't know what Citron is really like, the first question is "okay, who wrote this for him?" And that question is further justified by the way he ends his blog with "Written by: ???" (the Japanese word is 代筆, writing on someone's behalf), creating the impression that he didn't write this post himself; someone else had to write it for him. His hobby is wordplay, you say? What wordplay? He's simply bad at Japanese and messes up his words out of genuine inexperience. Silly Homare. To any outsider, it would seem that Homare genuinely is mistaken, but Homare knows, as we readers do, that he hit the nail on the head with that one, and it takes someone who can understand other people to see that Citron is just putting up a front.

This is further seen in the profiles he filled out, a stark contrast to the tone of the blog post in how joke-y they are, especially when right after correcting his own, he tells Homare not to joke around like that.

His corrections are filled with references to his manzai duo with Tsuzuru, where we all know he plays the role of the boke or funny man. Aside from acting silly throughout his corrections, there are three references to manzai in that one sheet, serving to really drive the point home; he's just a funny man, no more, no less. The first is him writing in "manzai" for his hobby, the second is him crossing out "A kind person" and saying Tsuzuru is his tsukkomi (straight man) in Citrun, and the third, which I meant to clarify in the posts at some point but forgot to, is his reaction/response to Homare's incorrect username for him. I tried to have it come across by having it say "what the heck?" to make it sound sillier than something like "what the hell?" or "what are you talking about?", which are also both correct translations of the phrase he used. That phrase is 「なんでやねん？」, which means what I said above, except that it's in Kansai dialect as opposed to 'standard' Tokyo Japanese, the significance of that being that the Kansai dialect is frequently associated with manzai.

In combination with the way he misspells Sakyo's name in two different ways and jokes around on his entire profile (especially by adding on that he's unsure of Sakyo's ID when it's obvious that the ID is the only thing he got anywhere near the correct answer with), it's clear that Citron is trying to drive two points home: that he's bad at Japanese, and that he's a funny man whose character runs no deeper than it seems on the surface. Essentially, he's all but telling Homare that he hit too close to the truth in a way that only Homare will be able to see; to anyone else, it's just Citron being his usual silly self, and that's why I really appreciate that these two got put one after the other. It gave us a really interesting look at both of their characters that I don't think any other medium would have showed us as well as these blog posts did.

[theangrycomet-art]

fun outfit/character redesign i might make into an AU