There’s some sensitive stuff going on under the cut (especially at the end of the post!) – just be warned…

Previous

• Eps 1 – 2

Impressions

• “She did wear a boy’s uniform on the first day of school.”
• The CGI’s a little obvious with this artstyle…
• I keep hearing soudan (consultation) when the girls are discussing “that’s what friends are for”, so there’s obviously more to that conversation than just “that’s what friends are for”.
• “I feel like crap.” – Well, ain’t that people’s mood all the time…(“#Relatable”, if that’s still a thing that trendy people do)
• I’m just smirking at Shu’s friend (Makoto, I think his name was…?). He’s such a good friend. Update: Yes, that’s his name.
• I remember reading in a book about trans people (it was called The Art of Being Normal and I read it a few months before the whole COVID-19 thing went down, which is why I remember it so well) that it’s said there are two trans people in every school…or something like that.
• I always thought that boob grope trope was incomprehensible. Sure, it’s played for drama here, but as fanservice, I don’t think it works, because that’s not the way girls act in my experience.
• “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” means “Why are you called Romeo?”, if I’m remembering my old English classes right. So Nitori just messed the ol’ Shakey’s words up.
• Hmm…It may just be a rather random desire to understand an experience different to my own (can’t write fiction without understanding your own characters, after all), but I’ve always been slightly curious about how male characters’ voices deepen. I know it doesn’t drop immediately, but…that’s as close as I’ll ever get to knowing. Is it like a sore throat, when your voice can cut in and out and then suddenly, it’s permanently deeper? Or does it gradually drop and you get so used to it that you don’t remember ever having a higher-pitched voice at all…?

…welp, time for a story.

I guess part of this curiosity about trans people was, aside from the thing I’ve mentioned already, because of a trans-guy friend – and fellow Boueibu nut, naturally – of mine from about…somewhere between 4 – 6 years ago, whose name I never really knew because I only really remembered them under the names “Cat” and “Rei” (correct spellings unknown), who told me they were going to undergo the transition and detailed some of the things they had to do for that process. I’ve never actually used that knowledge in my stories because most of their words have been buried with the passage of time…

I don’t know what happened to them because I lost track of them after a while, but I do hope they’re out there and safe (especially with COVID-19 around, but that’s neither here nor there). I don’t remember exact statistics, but trans people do have a fairly high suicide rate if what I remember is correct.

…There is more I’d like to say about my own experience regarding Takatsuki’s reluctance to wear a certain article of clothing, but that’s too embarrassing to even put on the internet (even with the “I’ll reveal all” attitude I’ve been having lately).