For this project, a zine or collaborative fanzine, is a collection of fanart, writing, music, and other media that all relate to a certain theme or media. The theme for this zine is Ace Attorney Otome.

An otome game, also referred to as a dating simulator, is a visual novel-style game where your choices in the game determine your (romantic) relationship development between a handful of characters and lead to different possible endings. Like Ace Attorney, also a visual novel game, otome games feature a protagonist which is the point of view character, choices that impact your progression, an overarching story that develops throughout the game, and many 2nd lead and side characters who impact the narrative. The difference is that otome games are focused on romance and relationships whereas Ace Attorney is about court and murder mysteries.

We have created a dictionary as a quick reference for our zine! Not every Otome game uses the same language so we wanted to clarify the terms we will frequently use in this zine. The Dictionary can be found in the ABOUT section of our carrd!

This zine will be mature-leaning SFW (safe-for-work). Since this is a ship-based zine, suggestive content is allowed to an extent. Similar to games like Dream Daddy, references to sex or suggestive text/reactions are allowed, but no actual illustrated/detailed sex scenes or nudity. Similarly, as these games are canonically about murder trials, canon-typical depictions of crime will be allowed at the discretion of the mods.

Not only are ships allowed, but they’re more than encouraged! Otome games, or dating simulators, are all about romance. However, romantic pitches aren’t the only ideas you may pitch. Friendship endings, bad endings, etc. are a critical part of otome games so we highly encourage applicants to think outside the box when it comes to pitches and ships! This includes rarepairs such as Layton x Wright or Apollo x Simon, just make sure that the pitch follows our guidelines on what is appropriate.

As this is a shipping zine, we have guidelines on what is appropriate to pitch. No incest, adult x minor, or attorney x assistant ships will be allowed in this zine. Pitches containing those or any other hateful depictions (racism, queerphobia, misogyny, etc) will disqualify your application.

Alternate Universes (AUs) and headcanons are allowed, so long as they not only fit the theme, but are what we call canon ‘compliant’ or ‘plausible’. We want to stick with our theme of ‘What if Ace Attorney itself was a dating simulator’ but we won’t discourage you from pitching an AU. We are open to your ideas, though recommend that only one of your pitches is an AU. An example of a “canon compliant” AU is a modern The Great Ace Attorney AU where all the events are the same, or similar, except it now takes place in a Modern Day Setting. Original Characters (OCs) will not be allowed unless under extenuating circumstances – an example being a pitch focused on Athena’s school life reimagined as a high school romance otome and you need extra school characters to fill in the background. Canon Character x OC ships will not be allowed, as this project will be focusing on canon characters only.

Our zine will be organized by “Main Character” Sections, those being Phoenix, Mia, & Apollo, as well as an additional umbrella section labeled “Extras” that includes every other possible defense attorney and their respective ships, art or writing that is more Otome / Video Game inspired such as fake cover art or sprite sheets, or anything that wouldn't easily fall under the "Main Character" sections. “Extras” refers to the Main Menu option found in many Otome games (and even games like The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles!) where you can find all the fun in-game artwork and concept art, Original Soundtrack (OST) list, sprites, and more.

The characters aren’t restricted to just Phoenix, Apollo, and Mia, those three attorneys from the main series have the most screen time and interactions with other characters that gives them more potential pitch prompts! Other defense attorneys such as Athena, Gregory, Kristoph, etc. will be featured in the ‘Extras’ section if we get a pitch featuring them from our contributors. This section was made specifically to include all other potential defense attorneys. And as to not crowd the main fanzine with too many attorneys, we are making a secondary digital mini fanzine to focus on Ryunosuke and Susato from The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles!

Defense attorneys who become prosecutors will not be featured as the POV characters in this zine since they will still be a part of this zine as Love Interests. Characters like Kazuma and Diego have more development as prosecutors and will be featured in Ryunosuke and Mia’s sections, respectively.

Any other defense attorney that doesn’t double as a prosecutor! This includes: Athena Cykes, Gregory Edgeworth, Kristoph Gavin, Marvin Grossberg, Calisto Yew, Raymond Shields, Jill Crane, Aristotle Means, Dhurke Sahdmadhi, and Robert Hammond.

To an extent, yes. We want a diverse array of pitches and styles in this zine. We would love to showcase more than just, say, Phoenix x Miles, for example. Unique pitches are a great way to give a leg up to your application, as we are looking for creativity and fun ideas for our zine, and not art/writing style alone.

Depending on sales, the mod team will do their best to provide a full bundle or at the very least a physical zine at no cost to the contributors. In the event that contributors need to pay for any items, prices will be at production value, including extra merch items. The contributors must have a Paypal to pay for any extra costs.

Along with our head mod Berry, our mods Hirumberyl & Téa will be handling Finance, Production, & Shipping. To learn more about our mods, check out our mod page!

The zine and merch will be shipping from the United States and will be shipped internationally. More details will be provided closer to preorders.

Feel free to send us your question on our Tumblr or Retrospring. You may also email a question to [email protected]