#cg spoilers

[exulzae]

Pre-zero requiem. A plea for—

Pose by hireath_21 on twit.

[giggly-squiggily]

Excuse me while I literally scream-

I have found what I deem to be the cutest tickle scene ever

(Spoilers for Cupid Parasite Sweet and Spicy Darling under the cut!)

ALLAN IS TICKLISH AHHH 😭😭😭😭🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

HELP I CANNOT- HE’S GOT A LOUD LAUGH I LOVE HIM SO MUCH AHZNANZNWNS 😭😭😭🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🥰🥰🥰🥰

I mean- I already loved him before discovering this but YALL- 😭😭😭🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Excuse me while I plan and write all the Lee!Allan fics upon discovering this I am literally on cloud nine this was so freaking CUTE-

[iinziivii]

Happy zero requiem 🫠

I am once again sobbing uncontrollably

[otome-mondays]

Collar x Malice: Unlimited Review 🐈‍⬛

Ok I know I recently posted a Collar x Malice review, but I’m going in order I played these games. Who’s ready to jump back into the world of Collar x Malice! So some background info to start: this is the first fandisc I have ever played, and as of writing is the only one I’ve played. Because of this, I’m not generally sure what the standards are for fandiscs. I also played this back in 2021, so it has been a while. Please go back to my previous review on Collar x Malice for trigger warnings (use the otome mondays tag)

Spoilers Ahead

Prologue

So to start off this game, we have a separate prologue. You do have to play the prologue because it unlocks all the after stories. So let’s see how this game starts out! Well, for starters we have one of my least favorite things: retroactively adding characters and events that would’ve DEFINITELY been mentioned in the original if it happened. Yeah, needless to say I was not please at this start and quickly became frustrated having to unlock routes. Oh, right if you want to play anything else you have to unlock each boy’s route separately with their prologue choices. So fun! Let’s actually move on to what I bought the game for, 3/10.

Sasazuka Takeru 🍩

So for the after stories, I started with Sasazuka. I saw a recommendation to just pick one that you enjoyed but wasn’t your favorite or pick your favorite to start the game since there’s no need for a route order. I did originally place Sasazuka’s route as solid middle ground in terms of my favorite love interest and also route itself, so it seemed like a safe bet. And thank god it was! This one starts up after the events of his best ending and him rejoining the cyber crimes division. The main conflict here is that Sasazuka and Ichika are learning how to balance work and life and being in a relationship together. The pacing was pretty solid and even though it’s short, it’s enjoyable! If you liked Sasazuka’s route, you’ll enjoy this after story. 8/10.

Yanagi Aiji 🚬

I decided after Sasazuka’s route, I was going to get Yanagi’s out of the way. I do enjoy all the characters, but Yanagi is my least favorite out of the LIs here. After the events of Yanagi’s best ending, we have the start of the after story. Yanagi’s started his private detective agency and everybody’s getting back to normal life. That is until Yanagi’s older brother randomly shows up and threatens him to rejoin the police. So this story mostly focuses on that conflict. This is another cute and short story, so if you liked Yanagi’s route you will like his after story. 8/10.

Enomoto Mineo 🪭

I honestly picked this route next on a whim, and I’m glad I did! This story picks up after he’s been reinstated into Field Ops 2 and now the couple work in the same building. Enomoto’s route definitely focuses on him maturing and developing his relationship with Ichika, and it’s so refreshing to have a portrayal of a healthy relationship in a game (which is rich coming from me tbh). Thanks to his after story, he moved up spots on my favorite LIs list. Honestly I don’t see how anybody would dislike this route. 10/10.

Shiraishi Kageyuki 🐱

Shiraishi yet again stealing the show for some of the best writing…it’s a shame he has this weird extra character. I feel like it’s obvious, but this story has a lot of angst. Because of Shiraishi turning himself in and all of his crimes he committed, he’s under arrest and contained in a special cell. Unfortunately, random extra dude is the main issue in Shiraishi’s story. It is nice to see his growth though as a character. I feel like they did him dirty by making a third of his route flashbacks to the og game. 7/10, Shiraishi fans will probably enjoy but it could’ve been way better.

Okazaki Kei 🏃‍♂️

So I saved my favorite for last, and I’m glad I did! After the X-Day events have wrapped up, Okazaki returns to HQ and Ichika stays with SRCPO. This story also focuses on the two of them trying to navigate being in a relationship and work and life. I was a bit disappointed to see that Okazaki kind of regressed and goes through the same growth all over again but speed run edition. Even though it ends good, this story is kind of meaningless because of this. It isn’t a bad story, just disappointing. Sorry for all us Okazaki fans, 7.5/10.

Other Routes 🐈‍⬛

So let’s talk about the additional bonus routes. To play any of these extra stories, you do need to play through all the after stories. First, let’s go over the Adonis route. This takes place after Yanagi’s tragic end. Ichika joins Adonis after everybody she has cared for is murdered and Zero convinces her to join. It was nice to see Ichika interacting with the Adonis members and how they showed Ichika and Zero have a horridly toxic relationship. If you do want to see all this route has to offer, you do have to replay it a couple of times. Due to this, it’s a little more repetitive than enjoyable at points. Still nice additional content, 8/10. We also have some extended short stories, one from Kazuki’s perspective during X-Day, a semi-Minegishi route, and a semi-Yoshinari route. Kazuki gets an 8/10, Minegishi gets a 4/10, and Yoshinari gets a 7/10.

Overall Thoughts 🐈‍⬛

I like the idea of a fandisc and I think some elements were executed very nicely! Unfortunately, I do have a few issues with some of the content here (mainly the random dude being added and prologue entirely), but I still would recommend it for anybody who enjoyed Collar x Malice! 8/10

Since characters stay the same here, I’m not adding an LI ranking. I will add my route ranking though!

Route: Enomoto > Sasazuka > Yanagi > Adonis > Kazuki > Okazaki > Shiraishi > Yoshinari > Minegishi > Prologue

Resources 📝

I once again used CGs and screenshots from the game and I relied on Otome Kitten’s walkthroughs.

[fangirls-existencial-problems]

I'm currently playing Taiga's route from Variable Barricade (I'm almost done), and I love him SO MUCH. At the same time, I want to beat him to death (yep, I may be a little violent).

Like

I love his smile, I love his freedom and his direct manners. He makes me laugh.

And other times, I just want to slap him. Cause he's a big jerk, a coward, and too much shameless!!!

When he said, "I was a total ass," I just cried, "YES, YOU DUMBASS!!!!". Take three more slap!

And sometimes (only in this cg, tbh) he looks like a big pervert! Who made him this gaze lmao!

But in the end, I LOVE TAIGA. He's so much interesting, upsetting. He's very human.

I could speak about how the heroine is totally great with him too! I love the fact that in the end, she's more honest with her feelings.

She tells Taiga a few home truths and makes him bashful.

It was my first route of Variable Barricade, and I truly loved it!

[baconcolacan]

Hey! About church grim, (Lil question-) was Tom ever a human? Or has he always been a unnatural entity/church grim? (I've been thinking alot about this book lately is all-)

omg, I didnt think someone would still be thinking about CG given its more of my ‘distraction’ fic than anything. But yie, here, its all but confirmed in this part, I didn’t plan on hiding the fact that Tom used to be human, since most lore about Church Grims were either it was an animal or it was the first buried soul.

If anything, the “hidden” fact would just be about how he got there and why he became the Church Grim.

[christotokos]

GODZILLA AS HIMSELF GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE, 2024

[isjasz]

🌕Total Eclipse🌑

Writer: @zipzapzooooooom Editor: @onawhimsicot

Assistance: @gingermaple @kunehokki @corvidaearts @/mybrotherjoso7

and THE AMAZING COVER by googly88fancy!!

===

NO WAY HERE IT IS part 1 of MY TEAM'S COMIC!! FOR @hotguycomiczine !!!!! :D

I pour my blood sweat and tears into this one fr. HGCZ is the most insane project i've been in and I am so so proud of it <3 Big giant shoutout to everyone that ended up in my team, without any of you I couldn't have done it and ty for putting up with my shit HASHDSAEHEGLP. <333

If you haven't yet checked out the entire monster of this amazing zine, def do so here! 🏹

Part 2 will be posted tmr but if u dont want to left on a cliffhanger. pspsppspssps🪤

===

[ START | PREVIOUS | NEXT ]

[ MERCH ] [ MISC ]

[codacheetah]

smile for the camera! :)

[egophiliac]

starting off with an amuse-bouche of some of my initial favorite bits! y'all, this update was WILD.

[spyres]

miwa............. . .. .....

[remxedmoon]

you see a vision of the future…

IM BACK ON MY BULLSHIT 🎉🎉🎉

and by that i mean that i’ve officially started working on redrawing every battle cg in isat!! <- i say this like i haven’t already finished like 20 of them. ttthis is what happens when i forget to post… anyways!!! king special attack :3. not much to really say here, this was a pretty straightforward redraw!! only thing to really note here is the stars in the craft? i think it’s fun to combine the island and vaugarde’s craft styles teehee.

also!! like my battle portrait redraws, i will eventually compile everything into a google drive!! i’m just posting these early lol

anyways!!! here’s the original cg for comparison!! enjoy :3

[radchocoart]

THE HANDS ARE BLACK!!! THEY'RE MY HANDS!! MY HANDS ARE IN THE GAME!!!

YALL IM SO FREAKING HAPPY RN, THANK YOU SO MUCH TWO AND A HALF STUDIOS IM SO FLI[[ING APPLY!!!! BEST USE OF MY $10 OMG I LOVE THIS SM I LOVE CASPER I LOVE DATE WITH DEATH I LOVE IT!!!!!!! THIS IS AWESOME!!

[sunshades]

part 2 spoilers im sorry. im sorry. this guy.

[otome-mondays]

Review: Collar x Malice 🐈‍⬛

Ok yeah I’m very late to reviewing this game, but in my defense I didn’t have a blog where I felt ok posting otome reviews until now lol. Disclaimer: 1) it has been years since I last played this game. I have my thoughts written down but this is not going to be as polished as I hope my future reviews are. 2) This game has really rough themes and topics, please don’t read if topics such as terrorism, violence, suicide, and police are triggering to you. I’d recommend looking up a full list of triggers before deciding to add Collar x Malice to your list of games. 3) Like all my reviews, this will contain spoilers. This one has spoilers for some CGs and general route spoilers!

Onto the review!

Collar x Malice takes place in the city of Shinjuku, which is currently under lockdown due to terrorism attacks from a group called Adonis. You play as a girl name Ichika Hoshino, and while you can change her name I chose to keep the default. Ichika is a rookie officer assigned to the SCRPO department. Their goal is to help keep peace among the citizens, meaning there’s little crazy action happening in her specific department. Part of the SCRPO duties are doing patrols to look out for Adonis members and maintain as much peace as can be possible when you’re in such a situation. Unfortunately, thanks to plot bad luck, Ichika is targeted by the group and they try to convince her to join. How so? That’s where the collar comes in. So Ichika gets snatched by a member and a collar is placed on her neck. Not just any collar, a collar filled with poison. How wonderful! Now, there is a slight issue because she already got a small dose and can’t move and is stranded in a church of some sort in the middle of the night. A random group of men come in and save the heroine, being given a memo from Adonis. They introduce themselves to Ichika as a small ragtag detective group looking into X-Day outside the police force. There’s 4 members, but only 3 are present. These 3–Enomoto, Sasazuka, and Yanagi—are all former cops who quit for their own reasons and have all decided to do independent work looking into X-Day. Oh right, I should explain X-Day. X-Day is a day Adonis is counting down to with monthly attacks before basically purging Shinjuku from who they think are nasty lowlifes who deserve death. Adonis has the ability to fully monitor Ichika and those around her from the collar, and they want to ultimately recruit her and if possible the ragtag investigation group. Ichika also can’t tell anybody else outside the group or they’ll kill her. So now she has to hide this information from everybody close to her. Totally not stressful at all right? As she’s deciding to join an figure out what she wants to investigate, one more problem comes in. Okazaki Kei. He’s a SP officer who, along with his subordinate, are assigned to monitor Yanagi’s group. He also seems a bit persistent on monitoring her. Oh also not to mention the other oddball in the group, Shiraishi, who seems kind of suspicious. Ultimately, she decides to investigate a certain set of cases and put an end to Adonis with help from Yanagi and friends. And that’s where the route split is, depending on how you answered the questions in the common route determines which cases and ultimately which route you play. I played this game back in 2020-2021 when everybody was supposed to be inside and in lockdown as well, and it felt really fitting at the time. I’ll add some thoughts on each route next, but if you just wanted a general plot starter and to see if I recommend it, scroll past all the character sections for the end! I’m not going to make walkthroughs as there are already plenty out there, but I will mention I relied on Otome Kitten’s walkthroughs located on her website. I’m going to review the characters in the order I played:

Spoilers Ahead

Okazaki Kei 🏃‍♂️

So I decided to start with this route because honestly I was the most interested in Okazaki out of all the characters. I spent way too much time trying to see route order recommendations and I saw enough people say that his wasn’t big on lore so it’s ok if you do his route first. I also had the interesting challenge of otome being even more of a niche genre in the west than it is now so I struggled to find resources on the game. Now that could also be me struggling in general with technology sometimes lol. Okazaki here is kinda the odd guy out of the group. He isn’t investigating X-Day incidents with Yanagi and Co, but rather he’s keeping an eye on them with his junior partner Yoshinari Hideaki. The case we’re exploring in this route is the July case, and then we start investigating the November case. Nobody’s been investigating this specifically in Yanagi’s group, so Ichika is all on her own with understanding what happened. Okazaki decides he’s going to help for seemingly no reason, which does help her solve the incidents since she doesn’t have much experience. Without going into more details for spoiler reasons, Okazaki is a very sad character and honestly I love how well written he is. His route doesn’t go too much into the overarching story of the game and is also very isolated from the other characters. This is most likely due to how he’s not in the same group as the others and he’s not privy to how they are as people but rather their general actions and behaviors. This route is a really good starting out point! 9/10

Enomoto Mineo 🪭

Enomoto is highly recommend as a starting route by most people and I can totally see why! Even if you’re not a fan of genki style characters, he is a very enjoyable one. Enomoto is the youngest of the love interests and is a former Field Ops 2 officer. His mentor was a victim of one of the X-Day attacks, and because of that he ultimately left the force and joined up with Yanagi to investigate those specific incidents. On Enomoto’s route, we are investigating the April-May case, also the very first countdown to X-Day attack. Enomoto and Ichika really do start out kinda rocky as investigative partners, and slowly get to know and trust each other. I also think that Enomoto is a very well written character, and his route has some of the best writing for lots of side characters. I do have a couple gripes, such as his main tragic ending not being anywhere near tragic as…oh I don’t know…BAD ENDING NUMBER 4. That one actually caused me emotional pain. Anyways, his route can easily spoil who the leader of Adonis is to anybody who isn’t as clueless as I am (genuinely was focused on solving other mysteries to the universe). Like Okazaki, his route is very much an introductory route and is another great one to start with! Either play this one or Okazaki’s first and then play the other. 8/10

Sasazuka Takeru 🍩

Alright now for Sasazuka’s review. This was an interesting route, and honestly pretty good middle of the game route. I’m going to be honest and say I wasn’t super interesting in playing through his route, but I really came to love Sasazuka as a character while playing it. So let’s get into some details. Sasazuka is a former cyber crimes officer and he’s also our tsundere character. Now, he’s the type of tsundere that’s honestly very much verbally aggressive and it’s a very hard start for Ichika and Sasazuka. Like every other love interest and character in general it seems in this game, the man has severe trauma. His route has you exploring the June and August cases, starting with the August case. This route we learn a lot more about Adonis and why they’re doing what they are doing. Yet again, Collar x Malice is wining an award for great character writing in my brain. I really do like how Sasazuka is written and how he starts recovering and healing from his trauma. Now as for endings, like Enomoto he suffers from a mediocre tragic ending and also not great bad endings. His best ending is definitely the good ending, but who’s surprised about that. Definitely play this game 3rd though, it makes the most sense story wise. 8/10

Shiraishi Kageyuki 🐱

And here’s the controversial one. I cannot begin to explain how much I love this route. This is such a wild route and at first I totally hated Shiraishi but by the end he ended up being one of my favorite characters ever. I’d say Shiraishi’s route is like pseudo-yandere route? Or at least that was how it was described in some of the few posts I saw before playing and that immediately made me concerned. It honestly is a really good route and I wouldn’t personally classify it as a yandere route. This one goes over so much in universe lore and uncovers a lot of secrets, so please don’t play this before the other 3 routes above. Shiraishi’s route is also one of two that have to be unlocked, so even if you wanted to start with his you won’t be able to. To unlock Shiraishi’s route, all you have to do is finish one of the first three routes. I don’t think you have to get the good ending, but you do have to get either the good ending or tragic ending for it to count if that is the case. Now Shiraishi’s route goes over the September-October case. Out of all the cases you explore, I think this one was the saddest with the June case being a close second. Shiraishi is the only one in Yanagi’s group to still be working with the police as Director of the Field Ops department. Because of this, Ichika is very suspicious of him at first and thinks he’s potentially a double agent. I’d say he is easily the most traumatized one out of all the characters. He has a very intense love-hate relationship with Ichika even as colleagues, but they figure out how to communicate with each other. Now, a lot of people talk about how his good ending isn’t truly a good ending to them or a larger discussion of what makes an ending a good ending. This route has amazing writing, and the good ending is a part that proves it. Warning, it is very bittersweet but it is the best result based off of everything that happens. Now the tragic ending…I once again do not have words to express how I felt reading that. That ending is so twisted and I love those types of endings for bad endings. Honestly, this is probably the best route in the game even if he’s not my favorite LI. 9.5/10

Yanagi Aiji 🚬

Alright, final route time. Now, if you want to play Yanagi’s route and fully see the world of Collar x Malice and answers to all the questions, you’re going to have to wait a while. You will not only have to finish all the other routes, but you specifically have to have obtained all the good endings. If you’re like me, this will take a while because you want to see all the endings. If you’re not, congrats it will take you slightly less time! So Yanagi here is basically marketed as that “true route” but not really. He has his own prologue, he has the longest route, and he’s only unlocked after playing through the other routes. I hate to say this but Yanagi’s route was the most boring one to me. I love Yanagi as a character, but I do not really like him as a love interest…which is unfortunate because he is the most stable one. But, as with all the other routes and boys, he definitely is well written and has a well written story. His route definitely focuses more on solving X-Day and definitively ending Adonis and the terrorism attacks. Because of this, you’re not getting much romance. Sorry to all the Yanagi fans. Yanagi, as the little leader of the group, is investigating all of them. At this point, you already understand and have solved the cases in previous routes so now we just have to figure out who is behind X-Day and Adonis and why they are so freaking weird. As is the pattern, Yanagi is also a traumatized man. We love to see it. Anyways, he also has some growth and development from confronting his trauma in his route. Thankfully, unlike Enomoto and Sasazuka, he has both a great good ending and tragic ending. I’m not going into detail on either because major spoilers. 8.5/10

Overall Thoughts 🐈‍⬛

Collar x Malice is a great entry point into Otomate titles or otome as a genre. It has has some unique features like trigger mode, investigation mode, and then an occasional map mode for the station Ichika works at. I didn’t mention it above, but this game also has great side characters including Ichika’s little brother who does play a huge role in the story. If you’re looking for a recommended route order, mine is going to be Enomoto/Okazaki -> Sasazuka -> Shiraishi -> Yanagi. As for which route to play first, either pick who you’re more interested in OR pick whether you want to learn more about the characters or Adonis. If you want to experience the characters first, start with Enomoto. If you want to see more of an intro to Adonis first, pick Okazaki. My rating of this game is going to be a 9/10! It’s truly an enjoyable experience!

EDIT: I am adding in my LI and route rankings! This one is really hard for me, because I genuinely liked them all.

Route: Shiraishi > Okazaki > Yanagi > Enomoto > Sasazuka

LI: Okazaki > Shiraishi > Enomoto > Sasazuka > Yanagi

Resources 📝

I obviously pulled my information about the game mostly from the game itself. The CGs are also from the game. Now for people’s thoughts on the game, I looked at the otomegames subreddit, Blerdy Otome, and Otome Kitten. I also followed Otome Kitten’s walkthroughs. I highly recommend looking into these places of the internet for otome content and also more perspectives on the game!

[fangirls-existencial-problems]

I just love these two cg! <3333