Angel Darling

So the ‘new’ TC&TF art actually comes from an app called 1001, which was a story app available in China, and it took three Choices stories and translated them for the Chinese market: TC&TF, HSS, and TRR. The app’s since shut down.

The 1001 version of HSS was called “Immediate Attraction”, and it was mostly the same as HSS, but there are a few…differences.

The most notable being that almost every character who is a PoC has been whitewashed.

I regret to inform you that this is supposed to be Caleb.

And this is Payton and Ezra.

Interestingly, Myra, Principal Hughs, and Nishan still have non-pale skin, but everyone else is whitewashed.

This includes the MC, who can only have pale skin - the three body options per gender only change your eye color and hair.

Also, you are not allowed to be gay. F!MC can only romance Caleb, Michael, and Aiden, and M!MC can only romance Emma and Maria. Mia and Sydney are no longer dating, just friends.

The plot is the same except it’s supposed to take place in a university, but all other aspects of the high school setting (like having a principal & prom) are still there.

No High School Story universe is worth it for me if my mspec, trans masc, music geek MC can’t end up with his pansexual, music nerd boyfriend and spend the rest of his life with him.

They fired me for taking a day off after I explicitly asked them if it was okay.

They went out of business a few months later.

I remember being there. Hating the gender you belong to is exhausting. It’s worth deconstructing I promise, even just for your wellbeing. Here’s a start:

Manhood isn’t inherently tied to misogyny and violence. Misogyny and violence are choices. Just choices that men are disproportionately conditioned into making. Men can and do rewrite that conditioning all the time. Manhood isn’t the problem. The problems are misogyny and violence. You’re not a bad feminist because you let go of the hate you have for the manness of yourself. Your manness doesn’t make you violent or misogynistic, being violent and misogynistic make you violent and misogynistic make you violent and misogynistic. Testosterone HRT doesn’t turn you into the archetype of male violence. Testosterone isn’t the driving force of misogyny and violence. Do you understand what I’m saying? Misogyny and violence are not inherent and inescapable to anyone, regardless of identity. Being a man doesn’t make you evil.

Treating misogyny and violence as inherent to manhood excuses men for being violent and misogynistic. Accountability is real hard when you consider doing bad things a fundamental nature tied to an identity. If men are sexist, can you blame this man for being sexist? That’s just how men are. Do you see how this is boys will be boys hidden behind a couple layers of pseudo feminism?

I spent years dancing around manhood because I believed the second I labeled myself a man I was the enemy. The number of ways I found to describe my masculine identity that weren’t man. The number of times hearing ‘at least you’re not a man’ set me back. The number of times I came so close to manhood, but ran into an explicitly trans inclusive ‘I hate men’.

I think the best word for how manhood feels to me is settled. Being a man feels like home. Masculinity feels so gentle, in a big ol’ teddy bear sort of way. Growing a beard and letting your little cousin stick flowers in it. Making sure none of my students think it’s okay to make fun of the kid who cries a lot. Answering ‘boys don’t cry’ with ‘I’m a boy, and I cry every single time a dog in a movie is sad’. I want to be so kind. I want to be the man someone chooses to start working on their dog’s fear of men with. I want to be trusted to watch a drink and to walk with people to their cars at night. I want them to find a cure for cat allergies so I can get that patting-tiny-animal-with-hairy-hands gender euphoria without eye irritation. Cardigans and top surgery scars. Wrinkled hands injecting testosterone. My dream life closes on sweet if eccentric old man.

One of the first rules in any confrontation is for attempts to de-escalate. Use of force is last on the list.

That is, if one is interested in resolution.