10 Years of Blogging, Looking Back at this Journey

This was my first ever review on this site! Yup, my first review was for a BL game, not an otome. Dramatical Murder was my first ever BL game and considering the other Nitro+ titles… this was a pretty tame start. I originally started documenting my playthrough over on Tumblr through some pretty cringey live blogging. You can actually still find the whole thing over there…

The Pokémon series are my first ever video games and I have a lot of nostalgia for the series. But, despite being from the Gen 1 generation, my first Pokémon game was Crystal. I still have fond memories of staying up late with my electric purple GBC hunting Pokémon late into the night with the help of my trusty light attachment…

I have always been and will always be a proud fujoshi. In fact I was well into the BL fandom even before I ever knew what an otome game was… This was a fun personal post about my intro to BL media and the series that made up my early experiences. (and no, I never did write that part 2 lol)

Mystic Messenger, the game that had all of us sleep deprived over a 2 minute phone call with a fictional 2D man… I was so sleep deprived playing this game that I vaguely remember anything about those chats. But, I did walk out on a date to make one of the chat sessions with Zen–and I am not ashamed to admit that.

I was hitting otome burnout hard when I wrote this, so I wanted to do something to remind me why I loved the genre. My first otome games were f2p mobile games and Voltage pay per route stories and even now I still have a lot of love for those cringey early otome. Sometimes it’s nice to remember where it all started.

I LOVE BANANA FISH!! I read this series during my freshman year at Howard and y’all it had me BAWLING by the end! To this day, BANANA FISH is still one of my favorite series. When I wrote this I was apart of a blogging group called OWLS that came up with monthly blogging themes and you picked a series that you felt applied to it. So, of course I had to write about my fave couple, Eiji and Ash…

Gah, this feels like a lifetime ago… Starting a new fandom can be overwhelming, there are so many terms and tropes to keep track of, so I created this to help new otome gamers out as they take their first steps into the fandom. I have gone back and updated it a few time to keep up with new trends and things and plan to do that far into the future too.

Okay, this was a dumb funny post I came up with after playing an otome and belatedly realizing that otome games were making us into yandere! I had a lot of fun writing this and honestly, I plan on making it into a video one of these days…

Sweet Pool is a game that I will never forget. I came for the booty meat monster babies, and stayed for the introspective story and heartbreaking conclusions. No notes, just vibes.

Melanin Monday is a bi-weekly post series that I started for Black History Month, where I talk about Black and Brown skinned characters in anime, manga, video games, etc. So, of course I wrote a post about diversity in otome games and how that extends beyond just having people of color in these games. We need more rep!

I have been playing indie games for just as long (if not longer) than I’ve played mainstream games. There is a level of accessibility and immersion that I don’t always get from bigger titles. So, I wanted to give the five reasons I think everyone should play more indies!

This started as a prompt from a fellow content creator from Twitter. It was so much fun thinking back on the games that impacted my love of gaming and how different they are from each other. I kinda want to do a replay of some of these to relive some of the nostalgia.

This was so much fun to do! I do a lot of talking and sharing my thoughts here on Blerdy Otome, so it’s rare to get insight from someone else. While, I could have done another list for Pride Month I thought it would be more impactful to hear from actual developers. Collaborating with so many amazing game developers to get their thoughts on LGBTQ+ representation in games. They gave some great insights into their personal and professional experiences creating the games they want to see in the world.

There always seems to be discourse in the otome community, but one topic that seems to ALWAYS come around is “inclusivity in otome”. It’s actually funny that I wrote this 4 years ago and it is STILL relevant… we need to do better.

There is always hope for oldies getting a remaster and so far from this list we have Apollo Justice and Ghost Trick… I need someone to swing around and give us a remaster of Time Hollow, because that game is too good to be locked to the DS!

Celebrating the amazing women and femme game devs in the indie space! Each of these creators have made some great games that you definitely need to add to your to play list! And they are all around awesome human beings!

This was such a HUGE undertaking and I’m still surprised that I managed to pull this off by myself. Which is probably why I didn’t do one last year, because the setup was insane. But, it did provide some unique insight into what the community liked and didn’t like from the otome releases that year.

So, I wanted to try something new since I tend to get games early for review purposes. Kind of a way to give my first impressions of a game before the in depth review. It’s fun to see how my thoughts on a game change over time, and I’d love to do more posts like this. Unfortunately, I am a terrible procrastinator, so I usually wind up barely finishing a game in time for the release.

We need more Black heroines in visual novels and otome games! As a Black woman and gamer I want to see myself represented in the games that I love!

I was an unapologetic yandere hater, but over time I played more yan games and I’ve since changed my tune. Would I want one in real life? No. But, in a video game, I guess I see the appeal. Unwavering love and support and they’ll take out your enemies… what’s not to love?!