The Church of BL: Desire, Devotion & the Alchemy of Boys' Love Fandoms

A Feral Fandoms conversation with Peachie from CitrusCon & The Church of BL

Boys’ Love has always been a kind of witchcraft. It’s ritual and rebellion wrapped in lace and longing, a language fans built for each other when the world refused to listen.

This week, I sat down with Peachie, the chaos priestess behind CitrusCon and The Church of BL, to talk about what happens when that language evolves into a movement.

We started with origin stories, as all good myths do, Inuyasha ships that sparked something curious, yaoi paddles clutched at conventions that felt half-sacred, half-forbidden. BL wasn’t just entertainment; it was initiation. Fanfiction was spellwork, proof that a story had lodged itself deep enough in your bones to demand reincarnation. And the first time you see fic about your own work? That’s divination. A mirror whispering, your characters live now; they’ve left you, and that’s the point.

The Gospel According to AO3

We talked about AO3’s rise as more than just a platform. It’s a reliquary—a living archive of obsession and care. Tumblr was its altar; BL was its incense. And conventions like CitrusCon aren’t just fan meetups—they’re gatherings of believers, proof that love stories outside the 'mainstream' can sustain an entire creative economy.

When creators say 'yes, write fic, just don’t monetize it,' what they’re really saying is we see you. We’re not afraid of your devotion. We understand what it means to love something enough to rebuild it in your own image.

Devotion, Desire, and the Side Couple That Deserved Better

Then we dove straight into the delicious mess: manhwa and BL recs that feed the feral heart. Brothers Without A Tomorrow. Taming the Tiger. Bloodlink. Mania. Stories where art seduces and pain redeem—until it doesn’t.

We talked BJ Alex and Jinx, the ones that make you flinch even as you scroll at 3AM, promising yourself just one more chapter. We talked second couple syndrome, how the side stories so often carry the emotional gravity the main arcs drop. The soft doms, the healed subs, the ones who communicate instead of combust.

Even ABO Desire, with its betas-in-disguise and alphas undone, reminds us that sometimes the subplot is where the real story breathes. Writers, take note: when readers skip to the extras, they’re telling you where the truth lives.

The Regional Magic of Boys' Love Fandoms

Each region’s BL has its own flavor of spellwork.Korean BL often reads like a perfect potion, tight scripting, emotional chemistry, and kisses that feel earned. It’s the antidote to burnout after too much darkness.Thai BL, meanwhile, is deep in its transformation arc: learning the language of consent, shedding the old 'wife' tropes, finding softness after chaos. When studios revise subtitles or reframe intimacy, that’s alchemy too—a living, breathing evolution born from fans demanding better magic.

Parasocial Energy, Sacred Boundaries

Fandoms—BL especially—thrive on intimacy. But intimacy without ritual becomes consumption.We talked about the parasocial energy that haunts both fandom and publishing, how easy it is to confuse gratitude with friendship, connection with ownership.

It’s why I call my audience readers, not fans. There’s power in naming things properly. A reader participates in creation; a fan consumes. One is communion, the other devotion without agency.

And yet, both matter. Discords, livestreams, visual novel playthroughs… they’re all digital covens in their own right. Shared energy, shared obsession, shared healing.

Playing God (and Boy): BL as Gender Alchemy

Peachie introduced me to the world of visual novels, where you don’t just read romance, you inhabit it. Choose your path, earn your ending, and sometimes learn that the bad ending is the truest one.

For trans and neurodivergent players, that embodiment is liberation. You get to be the boy. You get to experience desire as agency, not objectification. That inversion is what makes BL revolutionary—it rewires the gaze.

Healing, Humor, and Holy Chaos

Our talk drifted, as all good ones do, into the personal magic that fuels boys' love fandom. Gender discovery, late autism diagnoses, EMDR therapy, queer grandkids, banned-book lists, and the art of laughing through existential dread.

Because this is what fandom does. It metabolizes pain into language. It takes our weird, our wounded, our wild—and says, me too.

BL is more than 'gay romance.' It’s a survival ritual for the misfit, the masked, the in-between. It’s a creative ecosystem where kink meets care, and identity stops being a question and starts being a spell you write yourself.

Where We End: Celebration, Community, and the Call to Create

CitrusCon isn’t just a convention; it’s a temple for transformation. Panels about gender in BL, AO3 whispering about a masterclass, live reads that turn into communion. Peachie’s Church of BL is exactly what it sounds like—a sanctuary for soft chaos and sacred thirst.

If you crave stories that earn their redemption, couples that communicate like grown-ups, and communities that know how to love loudly and ethically, you’re home.

Bring your favorite toxic ships, your purest comfort reads, and your wildest headcanons.And if the second couple steals your heart again, don’t worry—that’s just the witchcraft working.

Writer’s Spellwork: What to Steal From BL

• Write relationships like rituals. Consent and communication are your altar.

  
  

• Feed the fandom that feeds you. Don’t mock the obsession—channel it.

  
  

• Side couples are prophecy. Where readers linger, your true story lives.

  
  

• Transform the trope. Alchemy isn’t inventing new magic—it’s refining old spells.