To my family, who supported me through this endeavour, and many others. Most of all, thanks to my parents and older sibling, who were key advisors and editors for this project. It would likely never have been finished without them.
To my friends, who lightened the hard times and listened to me talk their ear off about “ideas for my story.” Those ideas came to life!
To @Byzantiuum, who made the excellent cover art on my very meager budget.
To the other artists in the trans community who shared their own artwork freely, giving us a voice and giving me inspiration to tell our own stories. In particular, Crystal Frasier, the first transgender writer I ever encountered and still an example to me.
And, last and least of all, to Dr. Kenneth Zucker, my angry muse, whose coercive, dehumanizing treatment of me and any number of other transgender children animated both this story and my career. No one should have to prove themselves worthy of healthcare, especially not to people who hate them. But, if they do, they should write a book about it.
Thanks for reading.
This is a significantly polished version of a web novel I've previously published on Royal Road, Itch.io and AO3. Phrasing and pacing were improved, typoes were fixed, chapters given better names, and abrupt scenes expanded. Some scenes were completely new. For instance, I added the battle with Jek in order to remedy the lack of any malform seen actively hunting Thyssa after her exile. At time of writing this, I'm still backporting the changes to the previous versions.
If you liked the book, I'd be most obliged if you gave me a good review. I'd appreciate it even more if you helped spread it around! This is the only full-length work I've created, so I'm very fond of it and always love seeing more people read it, especially in the trans community, aka the cool kids.
On that note, derivative works - fanart, fanfiction, etc. are not only allowed but cool as shit. My only condition is that they also be free (which I hear information wants to be), and that you link back to the story/the tvtropes page/etc. so people can find it. You don't have to ask my permission, you have it, but if it's not too embarrassing, please do let me know so I can have a look and show it off to my friends!
Weirdly enough, I was searching tv tropes for a novel I read a decade and change ago, and this one turned out to be right next to it alphabetically.
And I'd already been thinking about stories of monstrous creatures reclaiming humanity as a metaphor for transition. The de-dragoning scene in Narnia always hit really close to home for me.
So I decided, heck it, I'll just read the whole thing now that it's finished.
I had been reading it as it released, but the chapters and writing style were just a bit too short and snappy for me to endure the waiting.
I enjoyed it a lot more reading the whole thing at once.
I really like stories that have a dreamlike quality to them, and this one reminded me a bit of a cross between Pilgrim's Progress and The Giver. There's a lot of really cool ideas bouncing around in here, and even if there are definitely some flaws in the writing style and plot, there was always just enough cool stuff to keep me interested in what was around the next corner.
(Okay this started out as a comment, but it kinda turned out to be more like a review, so I'm gonna copy the stuff above and post it as a review)
Anyway thanks for writing this, and good luck in your future projects
Thanks for the thoughtful review, and for posting it as such! I'm impressed at the allusion to Pilgrim's Progress. The "Slough of Despond" definitely comes from there, although admittedly I first found found it in Ellison's "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream." I did read The Giver, although it wasn't one of the long list of conscious influences.
Cool that you found it on Tvtropes! Looks like there's no YMMV section (F), which is a shame since that's always the part I like. I love people seethe about things and roast the hell out of weird aspects. Also lots of cool trivia about fan reactions that would be hard to glean from other sources.
I am planning on writing a sequel in the not-too-distant future (still need to work out the outline more). If you were able to share your thoughts about the writing and plot issues that didn't work for you, it would definitely help me improve for the next one!
Cheers.
Thanks for a great story! Great world building, I found it quite unique.
Thank you very much! I did work very hard to make something truly fresh, something I wanted to read but had never quite seen.
I intend to start work on a sequel at some point - currently, I'm wrapped up in bar exams. I'll post it here when I have something ready.
In the meantime, if you liked it, it would mean a lot to me if you could help spread word of my work! Although nearly everyone who reads it loves it, I'm still very obscure at this point, and I'd very much like to see more people enjoying my work!
@Deusexlachina Will do my best to spread the word. Also good luck with the bars! I can hear them calling you already.
@SaraAlanna TYSM!