Good Lord! Everyone at the Reunion For My Religious All-Girls School Is a Trans Man... And They're Hot?!

My partner and I (transmasc and transfem) played this and just have oneeeeee thing to say: We theorize the reason we only meet three trans men at this seemingly large, extravagant high school reunion presumably full of dozens of other trans men is because these are the only three dumb enough or unlucky enough to be caught interacting with MC Irene, the most insufferable little navel-gazing, willfully (arguably maliciously) ignorant, cis woman to ever come out of catholic school, who demonstrates the same kind of terrifying "allyship" as Bible-thumping Christian liberals do: only respecting the trans characters' identities out of fear of public shame and a desire to get her way with them, and not even admitting to herself that this is her end goal even as she manipulates other characters for a chance at having sex with them, which in at least one storyline with love interest Angel (whom she fetishizes as her own personal manic pixie dream boi) results in her cornering xem in a deeply uncomfortable situation, centering her own feelings while barely considering his, and being forgiven by the narrative of the game, which more or less takes her side after Angel briefly calls her out for taking advantage of him, but later apologizes for "snapping" at her because "masking is hard" and essentially walks back the only boundary xe was allowed to set, a situation the game uses to imply that not only does he as an autistic person (another detail Irene fails to be normal about) owe her masking, but that it is his job to clean up the debris of a conflict Irene causes, and as if he owes her, a person he has just met after ten years, an explanation of his emotions when he is not only having an autistic shutdown, but a reasonable response that anyone regardless of neurodivergence might have to someone cornering them for sex in the only remaining bedroom of a remote vineyard during a thunderstorm. The game is a disturbing representation of transness, autism, and one cis woman cis womaning her way into never carrying her own weight of the emotional labor required to interact with people different than her and therefore never allowing the titular trans men to be anything other than stereotypes and fetish objects. 10/10 excellent horror game if you're a trans person!

Okay. I'm a trans man myself, so I was intrigued when i saw this. I played it as part of my valentine's day stream. And... I didn't get very far. But what I did see left a very sour taste in my mouth. Everyone is a stereotype, and the main character is insufferable. She has such a homophobic tone to everything she says, which I can kind of understand since she grew up incredibly religious, but it's played off as silly and endearing. Which is not at all how it came off to me. She's also just flat out rude at times for no good reason. She comes off as someone attempting to be an ally but has deeply seated cis-heteronormative world view. I didn't like Elias's early comments about joking that she'd be a cute boy either, as though he was "playfully" pressuring her to explore her gender and "make" her trans. It comes off a trans person "forcing someone to become trans," which is incredibly harmful. To be fair to the developers, I'm sure this game was made with good intent and meant well. But it really comes off as someone who's out of touch with actual queer people beyond stereotypes and tumblr lingo. Someone in my chat while i was playing said Elias is what a straight person would assume a trans person would act like. And I can't help but agree. Would not recommend, very disappointed.

I wanted to like this game, I really did. I love silly dating sim games and god knows I've crushed on enough fictional men in gaming, plus this one had a goose! And all the love interests were also trans men! But speaking as a trans man myself, I was very put off by the constant 'gay panic' in Liam's route. Liam is a man, Irene is a woman. Finding him attractive makes her very straight and, quite frankly, all it did was bring up a lot of bad memories of real life chasers and straight men I've dealt with that assert they are still straight despite wanting to sleep with a man (because they aren't *really* a man, right? Just one of them Women Lite!). I'm mostly just disappointed, a dating sim with a range of trans masc love interests sounds like so much fun, and I wouldn't even be against the MC being a preset cishet woman rather than customisable, but how it written here is just off-putting. At least it was free, I guess, and the art is very nice. I always love watercolours.

It was like. Fine? As a trans guy, it did feel very uncomfortable for a bit whenever they did the extreme stereotyping of stuff. And the religious MC just comes off as dumb rather than uneducated. Like what do u mean she follows the most obvious toxic masculinity trans guy ever and somehow just skipped their “hi I’m trans” video? I only did angels route and I won’t lie I was fine with the mild cringe writing until the Romance game with the OTOME tag went “lol you thought you could romance game??” And basically said “this was gross of you to try and corner your Love interest into the share one bed trope” which like. Again. This is TAGGED as a romance and Otome game. Why are you making the player feel bad for expecting a romance and Otome game???

protag needs to shut up about "gay panic" girl they're men!!! nothing about this is gay!

The art is gorgeous ♥ Unfortunately the writing is not my cup of tea. I love visual novels but this wasn't it. As someone else mentioned: The MC is insufferable and attempts to act like an ally but somehow fails to conceptualize the most basic things. [spoiler]She didn't even read the mail she got prior to the reunion well! [/spoiler] But I mean she uses the right pronouns and that MUST mean she's a saint.... right? RIGHT? As for Angel's route: [spoiler] The way the MC thinks someone she barely knows would fall in love with her in a couple days? Acting clueless about everything anyone mentiones? Not cute. Not enjoyable. [/spoiler]. I´m happy I got to experience this game for free though♥

FOR CONTEXT: I didn't get through very much of this game, I am also bisexual and genderfluid (they/them), I also have a lot of queer and neurodiverse friends, though I am NOT personally neurodivergent, I fear my dislike may make me slightly biased I did not enjoy the 30ish minutes I played this. It's a very fun concept, I just find the MC insufferable and the love interests kind of insufferable too. ELIAS: My problems with Elias are mostly problems due to the MC's ignorance and blatant bigotry. She's supposed to have been friends with Elias for a while since they text semi-often. The MC seems to be thinking incredibly transphobic thoughts despite being friends with a trans dude and supposedly being an ally. I also kind of hate that the MC is pretty much a vessel for the player to watch the events unfold while also being framed as an interactive visual novel. So really, I have more issue with the MC than Elias. Side note, I believe Elias made a comment about gay-panic in the very beginning of the game, which I found odd since the MC is a cis-het woman and these love interests are all trans men. ANGEL: I didn't get super far with this game, obviously. I've found that apparently Angel is autistic, and I can't comment on this depiction personally because I know autism presents itself in a variety of ways and I am not autistic, though the signs earlier on do seem a bit stereotypical though not necessarily inaccurate. I will say that Angel seems a bit too stereotypical and a bit like a caricature of what an uneducated Cis-Het assumes some trans-men are like. I understand the premise is that the MC is supposed to be uneducated, but she seems far too uneducated and unable to understand even the simplest of concepts, especially considering she's friends with Elias. LIAM: I found him very irritating when he was first introduced. I found he was absolutely the most stereotypical caricature of a liberal trans-man out of all of them. He's incredibly over the top and according to other people who played this game all the way through, the MC has an entire 'gay-panic' about Liam which doesn't make sense because the relationships in this game for the MC are completely heterosexual. Plus, the MC is automatically attracted to him regardless of how the player wants the MC to be. the MC also follows Liam online and somehow doesn't understand anything about queer culture of even that Liam was the cheerleader from highschool. He's just a bit too poorly written in my opinion. IRENE: Irene is the MC and she is so annoyingly ignorant and can't grasp the most basic of concepts. She has no idea what it actually means to be an ally, she's kind of stupid and thinks super bigoted thoughts on a consistent basis. Apparently she also thinks it's gay to like Liam because Liam is a trans-man. Liam actually made this comment in his introduction about how Liam calls out transphobes for being 'gay' because they are attracted to Liam. Irene thinks it's gay to like a trans-man and that implies that trans-men are 'not real men' which is super harmful to insinuate. It would be fine if she was straight out of religious high school, but she's friends with a trans-man and that's got to feel incredibly hurtful for your girlfriend/friend to think she's gay for liking you because you are AFAB. If this doesn't make it obvious how trans-phobic Irene is, idk what will. She just seems so dumb, and I hate reading her thoughts as the player because the game aims to make the player put themselves in the place of the MC and her thoughts made me super uncomfortable. CONS: Poorly written, Love interests seem like stereotypes, female MC is irritatingly ignorant to the point she seems willfully ignorant PROS: The art is gorgeous, It could be an okay game for people with family/friends leaning ignorant or transphobic, The developer doesn't appear to be writing semi-poorly on purpose, It's not written maliciously, It's okay if you don't mind feeling uncomfortable as a queer person, It's okay if you are a queer person and enjoy the game OVERALL: It's okay. I absolutely ADORE the concept. I personally hated the game itself. It's just not my cup of tea, I guess. The love interests are pretty stereotyped, but my problem is moreso with Irene. IRENE, the MC, is SO annoying and ignorant it's hard to watch. The plot is too linear for me personally. I would not recommend the game but it's fine if you like it. NOT FOR ME, that's all.

A short game that's silly and fun. It caught my eye because I'd never seen an Otome game with a trans male love interest (let alone several). In fact I don't think I've seen a romantic relationship between a straight cis girl and a trans man in fiction...ever. The religious all-girls high school reunion premise also felt unique and ripe for shenanigans. The game has some grammatical/formatting errors (ex. there were a lot of random question marks in the dialogue in some places) and sometimes the writing was a little awkward but, I'd say it was overall enjoyable. Angel is now another character I can add to my "canon autistic characters that don't make me want to fling myself into the sun" list (it's very short) which was a pleasant surprise. I'm autistic myself, and I rarely see autistic characters written with such care. His ending where [spoiler] he calls out the MC for making him uncomfortable for the whole "ohoho there's only one bed" seduction thing when he just wanted privacy and didn't want to sleep with someone he barely knew [/spoiler] felt refreshing. It subverted my expectations in a good way. Like instead of just being tropey we had characters communicate with each other honestly like adults. I liked that. Loved Liam the evil twink. Absolute riot of a character. Hilarious with a nice amount of depth. I know he's awful but it still came across as charming lol (and there's more to him than meets the eye). His antics are best not taken too seriously, though your mileage may vary of course. I liked that he's also [spoiler]a SHORT KING HE TAKES OFF HIS SHOES AND THEY'RE FIVE INCH TALL PLATFORMS LMFAO HE ONLY COMES UP TO THE MC'S TITTIES HELP[/spoiler] I liked learning about Elias as well. I liked that his route had a clear "reconnecting best friends" dynamic with the MC (i.e. they way they're so comfortable joking and messing around with each other). It's not something I've really seen in the VNs I've played. I wish we got to see a little more of his and the MC's past friendship. I’m not the right person to comment on the LGBT representation (I also identify as a straight cis girl lol) but I will say that each LI felt like an interesting human being to me, with flaws and interests and distinct personalities. They did not feel shallow. Each one felt pretty well fleshed out for the length of a short VN. I liked that each ending fell into the area of "I have feelings for you and I'd like to get to know you better as a person and see where this takes us." It felt refreshing and more realistic/grounded for the type of scenario the game is presenting. I can also say as someone who has attended a private Christian school before, the MC hit kind of painfully close to home lol. She's maybe a bit exaggerated, but she really does remind me of people I've met. I know that some of the comments she makes can come off as cringey or uncomfortable (ex. being extremely hesitant to swear or even say "oh my god", not fully understanding what transgender or nonbinary means, not always knowing slang words, telling herself she's such a good ally when she remembers to use the correct pronouns) but it felt believable for the type of character she's supposed to be. I took her as being written in a kind of tongue-in-cheek way. But yeah, I understand why this type of character can be eyeroll-worthy, especially when you have to play as her and when she doesn't really get to develop much. I didn’t always enjoy her POV either. I do want to add my two cents about when the MC describes her "gay panic" over Liam. I completely understand why someone could be uncomfortable about a straight cis girl using the term "gay panic" to describe her feelings for a trans man [spoiler] but I interpreted that to mean she had some confusing feelings for him back when they were in high school and he was still presenting as female. She even says she's having a gay? straight? bisexual? panic at one point. And I thought her feelings were further recontextualized after playing Elias' route where Irene comes across as being ambivalent about her gender and is maybe questioning things herself. I kinda got the vibe that she's maybe not quite as straight/cis as she seems. [/spoiler] BUT YES this does circle back to my point earlier about awkward writing, moments like that could maybe have been handled better. Overall though, it's a pretty decent game for the whopping price of zero dollars. It has some cool characters and plenty of cute, funny, and heartwarming moments. It was clearly made with care. I'd say it's worth checking it out if you're interested. At most I think it needed a bit more polish, and maybe a few more options to choose how the MC acts.