💬 Off-Topic Queer Book Club - "Listen to trans people" - now in book form!

[Magic Pickle]

Detransition, Baby is the biggest troon book I think that the farms hasn't covered. If we could get it and Nevada done one day, we could have the root autisms covered.

Detransition, Baby is also a pretty short read - only about 11 chapters, from what I saw. Likely very easy to breeze through unless it has similarly arduous and long-winded writing like Felker and Rumfitt (author of Tell Me I'm Worthless) are guilty of.

I'll go ahead and upload the PDF for it, as well as the PDF of Wrath Goddess Sing (in case you didn't have a copy of your own, @Athena Save Us!).

And since Sea-Witch is free to read, I decided to take a peek in, and... well, it certainly starts off distinctively. Just the cast list alone is galling.

Spoiler: Sea-Witch's Cast List

 

[AMHOLIO]

And since Sea-Witch is free to read, I decided to take a peek in, and... well, it certainly starts off distinctively. Just the cast list alone is galling

To quote a man: what the fuck?

I did not know one of the first results on gumroad would be so lucrative.

 

[Fapcop]

Done and done! If there were any threads I missed, please feel free to let me know - if this thread can offer anything, the very least it can offer is being a hub for finding these threads easily.

I can't remember the Kiwi that suggested it, but someone did suggest Wrath Goddess Sing (included in the list of books in the OP). I'll also be taking a peek into Sea-Witch that Amholio posted, so I may begin there especially since it's free and I hate giving money to people that I hate.

As a present to any threadfollowers, I'm also including PDFs of Nevada (a troon classic) and Manhunt in case anybody wanted copies of their own to tear asunder for their own enjoyment. I'll try to include them where possible because sharing is caring (and misery loves company).

What in the fuck?!?

I got a page and a half into Nevada, and we already have two “lesbians” choking each other, as well as a meditation on the difference in taste between “precome” and “come”.
What the fuck?!?

 

[Dick Johnson]

Good lord that cast list for Sea-Witch is awful. That reads like the unentertaining variety of mental illness - the sort of thing where the author is probably the kind of person where you just feel sad for them, and they don't do anything that makes you think 'Well, there are certain advantages in not getting them help' the way you might with an Andy Kaufman sort.

I've posted the first chapter of Girlmode, and while the trans main character instantly making friends with the nerds and the cool kids sounds out there...you ain't seen nothin' yet. This book is a grower, not a show-er.

 

[Chandelier]

I find it interesting a lot of gay male media tends to be consumed in order of most to least widely by pooners, women, TIM, and actual men being far behind.
Ver archivo adjunto 7072715
Going to use the free webtoon turned graphic novel "Boyfriends" as an example of how they basically stereotype a relationship between feminine men with some trooning out as they just stumble onto each other and never really have meaningful challenges or roadblocks in their Homo's Journey, with how immature the artstyle and the way it's written overall I honestly would be fine as labeling it pure indoctrination material meant for (or styled to be most consumed by) teens that fit the first 3 demographics as that's why I even know about that series (from people who were into it back in HS and likely inherited a liking for such styles of media from Jr. High).

I know of this comic because it struck quite a nerve in the discourse community on Twitter, where users like antis-delete-your-blogs was raising a bitch fit because people were saying it was objectifying gay men. It does not surprise me at all that the bright, obnoxiously pink design screams I'M A GIRL I'M A GIRL LOOK AT ME despite the insistence that the author is a GAY MAN, I'M A GAY MAN, BRO. It's so fucking female brained that I'd rather watch the full, unedited version of Catalinaville.

There is also 'A Lady for a Duke', which is the trans version of Bridgerton. I have that downloaded and will read it at a future date.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

I find it interesting a lot of gay male media tends to be consumed in order of most to least widely by pooners, women, TIM, and actual men being far behind.

Fujos, man.

This is almost certainly Japanese cultural osmosis: there's two very different genres of gay porn "romance," yaoi (the bright, sparkly BL stuff yore describing, aimed at straught women) and bara (not that, aimed at gay men.) The latter doesn't seem to have made the jump across the Pacific.

What in the fuck?!?

I got a page and a half into Nevada, and we already have two “lesbians” choking each other, as well as a meditation on the difference in taste between “precome” and “come”.
What the fuck?!?

Domestic violence and next-level coomerism? Damn, they manage to bring together the worst traits of gays and lesbians. I assume the discussion is a form of exhibitionism on the part of the author, since that's common knowledge among the gays.

 

[Magic Pickle]

I decided to get a little deeper into Sea-Witch, and I can already tell this is one of those attempts trannies like to make at being difficult to follow, avant-garde and pretentious. Here are some excerpts (there are not really properly delineated 'parts' to it, so I'm posting full pages).

Spoiler: Ready to see the author's asshole?

The start of our sorry tale, which rivals the literary giants of Western canon with its poetry and elegance. And yes, there will be pink (and green) MS paint scribblings all over this PDF, so I hope you enjoy a glimpse into what looks like a degenerate coloring book for SPED patients.

Is Sea-Witch a person or a place? Well, the author (named Moss Angel Witchmonstr, if you're wondering about the kind of troon we're dealing with) declares her to be both - so it's best if you've come with an itchy scalp because you'll be doing a lot of head scratching. I also enjoyed the casual mention of drowning birds here, because for some reason queer types really enjoy casually abusing animals.


The author is troonposting out the nose right here, because women do not sleep clit-to-clit. This is nitpicky, though, because what he really means is that they're probably two trannies sleeping with their dicks touching, which is the gayest thing imaginable. And for the record, that picture is of the man himself, which makes this one giant, narcissistic masturbation session. Glad you didn't pay for it yet?

Seems a bit disturbing to describe sex as involving tears, but trannies have never been known to have healthy, reasonable sex lives - otheriwse they wouldn't be in such a predicament. The prose continues to be winding, uninteligible and overly verbose; you can sense that he's trying to evoke imagery more than he's trying to convey a story or any kind of meaning, and it falls flat when you realize he's probably just tripping acid and putting everything he wrote down into a volume and passed it off as a story.



Something about presenting a man's distended asshole and naming it after L'Origine du monde is simultaneously so disrespectful and so funny that I'm not sure what my takeaway is. All I can really say about it is that, while IANAD, his anus is really concerning to look at and he should consider not shoving as many random household objects in it if he has any interest in a future with rectal continence.*

*He's a tranny, so he doesn't, but you know.

 

[Dick Johnson]

You know what, after some consideration the mixed-media format of The Sea-Witch really works in its favor. The mental illness comes through in a more vivid palette and fuller texture than it could have through text alone.

 

[Athena Save Us!]

Sea-Witch is an absolute mess of mental illness! I'm going to have to dive into some books and get this reading club going. Goodbye, brain cells. I thought that overdosing on lion's mane mushrooms (no, they aren't psychedelic) regrew my synapses after Manhunt killed them, but, alas, troons won't stop writing garbage and getting praise for it.

 

[Candidate No 7]

Transes colonising YA fiction reminds me of that viral photo a few years ago of a dingo eating a shark's carcass.

 

[Athena Save Us!]

Okay, I went and pirated a book because none of these people need my money, and neither do their publishers. This is Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane. Feel free to ease my suffering by taking over!

Chapter One
Achilles was still drowning. She was still trapped in the well, kicking against the water, clawing at the slick walls, fighting to break the surface, while Kheiron watched clinically from above, dangling a rope just out of reach.

But then the memory faded and the world regained its solidity. Achilles was safe on Skyros, clutching at the frame of Deidamia’s bed. Damia was still tangled up in their shared blankets, her pale chest rising and falling in the soft rhythms of wine-soaked slumber. Last night must have been fun, but Achilles could not remember.

Tense, barely able to breathe, Achilles stalked out into the terrace garden. The western horizon was still a blur of dark blue seas and dark blue sky, so she ascended the stairway from the women’s terrace and climbed the palace watchtower that looked out toward the mainland. She had befriended the watchmen months ago. As far as they were concerned, she was a noble lady from Aiolia, a pleasant, quiet girl with a sad smile and a fondness for staring out to sea at odd hours. If they thought she was looking for anything in particular, it was probably the sails of some lover or friend, some kinsman she longed to see.

The sun inched up. A few familiar fishing boats were out, small craft with unmarked sails in the distinctive style of the Sporades—boats from Skopelos and Skyros. Longships from the mainland would mean danger. Sails embroidered with the six-legged ant of Phthia would mean Kheiron and the Myrmidons had found her.

The wind shifted. “No ships will come today,” said Dolops, the older of the watchmen. “Storm’s coming off Euboia.”

That was a relief. Though Achilles prided herself on despising superstition, she always watched the sea more closely after a flashback, hands clenched at her sides.

So, we start off with a flashback dream that's supposed to pique our interest, but it just confused me. It's almost like the author is trying to do what the authors of that one Avatar: The Last Airbender middle-grade book, The Dawn of Yangchen, did more successfully.

Judging by the book's description, I'm assuming that Achilles hasn't undergone his transformation into stunning and brave form yet, so the constant use of female pronouns with no hint that his body is otherwise is jarring. The author, Maya (deadname: unknown), could be expecting you to rely on your knowledge of Greek myth to fill in the gap, but that's bad writing practice. You should never just assume your author knows something. As one of my writing mentors, Holly Lisle, wrote in her Create a Culture Clinic:

Spoiler: Create a Culture Clinic Stuff

There was a science fiction story once in which a man was able to disguise the fact that he was alien by wearing a hat on his head to cover his antennae. All men wore hats almost all the time, so he didn't stand out. The writer assumed that hats were essential to men, and that men would always wear them. And then the culture changed, hats went away, and the story now seems broken.
Novels set in the time of the writer frequently assume culture, and hope the reader will share (or at least comprehend) the culture the writer is assuming.

Spoiler: Create a Culture Clinic Stuff

These novels are written for the day and the moment; they'll be unreadable in twenty years. If you want to write for the ages, your writing has to have complete, working subsets of all the cultures you wrote about IN the novel. Every single time. Cultures change. Dickens and Twain are still comprehensible today because they included right in their stories everything you needed to know about how their worlds worked. Their contemporaries are gone because they assumed that their readers would live in a world just like the one they lived in, and would simply understand all the things they left out

Since Greek mythology is part of our cultural heritage here in the West, Deane is just assuming that we should know that Achilles is male; therefore, he doesn't have to write passages that hint at it. That's just bad practice all around.

Or, maybe he wants to hit us with a twist and leave the unwary reader shocked. Also bad practice. If you drag out the reveal of something as basic as a character's sex for too long, it's just jarring when the reader has to reconfigure their mental image of him or her. There are a three things that should be apparent to your reader right from the start, twists be damned: time, setting, and character.

If you really want a Twilight Zone-style of twist where, say, the characters eventually realize that they've been shrunk and are living in a model diorama and their house is a doll house, fine. You still have to make readers aware of where they are, though. They have to know they're in a kitchen, or out on the lawn. You should also put in some foreshadowing, too, such as the fact that a lot of things that shouldn't be made of plastic are made of plastic.

Witholdiing Achilles' sex in hopes that the readers who are in the know will just understand what's going on and that the readers who aren't will have a Shyamalon-style "What a twist!" is a terrible way to pull the reader in.

I could be totally wrong, though. Maybe the change has already happened, but if it has, then the next passages make no sense. Achilles is still being treated like some kind of soldier and not told to go back inside like a good girl, so...

Also, I bolded and italicized the passage about blue skies and blue seas. Why? Because the ancient Greeks didn't have a word for 'blue', hence why Athena is described as having gray eyes and the sea is often coded as 'wine-colored' in books like The Odyssey. When a language doesn't have a specific word for a color, they just gravitate to the nearest available word. I'll refrain from sperging about the history of this and its modern-day equivalents, though.

Immersion broken.

 

[Athena Save Us!]

Spoiler

Chapter One
“A longship,” she said. “Just ahead of the storm.” Her throat burned with sudden bile. She couldn’t make out the sail clearly, but a thousand fears and plans stormed through her brain regardless. If it was a Myrmidon ant sail, she would hide herself in the caves below the palace, or out in the forest, or in Skorpia’s farm village down the coast. She would stay there for weeks, until it was safe to come out.

I will never let them find me. I will never go back alive.

“They’ll drown.” Dolops seemed resigned. “Do you know what it’s like to drown, Lady Red?”

“Unfortunately, no.” It was easier to lie. Better to hear him explain again how the body died in water than to tell him what it really felt like, the way her lungs had burned in air, then in water, then in what felt like subtle fire. “Maybe they won’t drown.”

So, he's definitely a female-bodied person, then? That should be apparent on page 1!

Spoiler

Chapter One
A man clung to the bow, shaking his fist in the air as if shouting defiance at the sea. Magnificent he was, slashing the air with his hand. The oars rose and fell on his signal, and the sails billowed, warped and twisted by sailors clinging to the ropes. Thunder echoed again.

“I see it now,” said Lykourgos. “They’ll never make it.” The waves were rising nearer, and the sea was black, and the storm from the mainland was quickly closing in. “They’re probably praying to half the gods in the world right now.”

Ancient Greeks believed that all of the gods in the world were their own, just taking different names, forms, and roles. They believed Dionysus and the God of Israel were the same, that the Egyptian gods were also the same as theirs, that Odin and Hermes were the same, etc. If you're going to write a book that draws on both history and myth, at least do the research.

Spoiler

Chapter One
At the end of the longest pier, the island-rigged longship rolled with the waves, tied in place now, sails furled, safe from the gathering storm. The magnificent man who had stood at the prow now stood on the dock, in a hooded cloak of waxed wool. He was as splendid as she thought he’d be: full-armed and deep-chested as only a skilled sailor was, his elegant face stern and composed, his dark eyes difficult to read. He looked the girls over, then bowed. “Greetings. I am Diomedes of Argos, and in a moment—when he finishes tying the sails—you will meet Odysseus of Ithaka. We request the hospitality of King Lykomedes in the name of the Silent One and the Queen of Kings.”

“We welcome you in the name of Athena and Hera.” Damia opened the umbrella just as the rain began to come down in earnest. She pushed the pole into Achilles’s hands, and Achilles held it, grateful that Damia and her umbrella would absorb this man’s attention and allow her a chance to study him. “I grant hospitality in my father’s place. I am Deidamia, and this is Pyrrha. Shelter with us under this awning.”

"The Silent One"? "The Queen on Kings"? Who are these?

Also, you don't typically welcome people in the name of Athena and Hera. While both goddesses were wildly respected, Zeus is the god who presides over the laws of hospitality.

Spoiler

Chapter One
Diomedes joined them under the umbrella. A moment later, another man sprang down from the ship, less elegant than Diomedes, with a hairy chest, a rough beard, a mop of curly hair, and bright darting eyes. Odysseus of Ithaka stepped under the umbrella uninvited, pushing his waterlogged curls away from his forehead. “What a wonderful idea. A portable roof! From the Hittites?”

“From the Assyrians,” Damia said placidly. She pointed up the Mese toward the palace. “Come. In the name of the gods we will wash your feet and welcome you. Even on Skyros we know the name of Diomedes of Argos, hero of Thebai.”

Ancient Greeks had umbrellas. So did the Egyptians. In fact, umbrellas have been found in many ancient cultures.

Spoiler

Chapter One
“We travel under the protection of the Silent One,” Odysseus said boldly. “She taught me to sail like that. Let the Earthshaker do his worst!”

Damia stiffened, giving Odysseus a sidelong look. Everything about her face said, Do not trust this one, he will bring down divine judgment.

But Achilles grinned. She liked a man who wasn’t afraid of the gods. “What if I said there was no Earthshaker, Odysseus of Ithaka, only wind and waves?”

Odysseus’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Whatever do you mean?”

“The stories speak of thunderbolts that shattered mountains, shouts that leveled hills, walls of water higher than the highest peaks.” Achilles thrust her hand through the watery curtain of rain that ran off the umbrella. “Here I am—with the Earthshaker’s enemies!—and you are still alive. Either the gods are powerless or imaginary.”

“Are all the women here such radical intellectuals?” Odysseus had a light in his eye that softened the condescension of his words. His face fell a little. “I mean that question sincerely. I am told my greatest flaw is how much I love to talk to women.”

“His greatest flaw?” murmured his companion, who had been walking silently next to Deidamia. “He loves to talk. Don’t encourage blasphemy, old man.”

“I love to listen,” said Odysseus. His fox eyes darted back to Achilles. “Are you from here?”

“I’m a mainlander,” Achilles said. “Women come to Skyros from all over. For the climate. Why are you here?”

Odysseus leaned closer to her, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial murmur. “We were sent here by Athena the Silent One to find her son Achilles, prince of Phthia. Have you seen him?”

Why are we calling people the Silent One and Earthshaker? Am I missing who they are? Also, Achilles isn't being an intellectual, he's being obtuse. The Greek gods typically don't stand for blasphemy in the mythology.

Also, Achilles isn't the son of Athena. Athena is a virgin goddess who only ever claimed Erichthonius as her son, and he was technically the child of Gaia and Hephasteus. This is basic, like Mythology 101 kind of stuff.

Spoiler

Chapter One
Damia was talking to Diomedes in a low voice and did not seem to have heard, but Diomedes was exchanging glances with Odysseus every few dozen steps. So, they were a practiced team.

“I would know if any princes had come to Skyros,” Achilles said. “Is he handsome?”

“Scrawny as a spider, they say.” Odysseus frowned, keeping his voice low. “He is a cross-dresser and may have come to this island disguised as a woman, but I’m sure he couldn’t fool the ladies here.”

Achilles gave Odysseus a sharp look. He seemed sincerely not to realize he was talking about her, not to realize this was an unforgivable insult, something she would have challenged with a spear back in Phthia—and gotten herself thrown down a well. Your final lesson, faggot—here’s a rope, but it’s only for Akhillewos.

Deidamia was frowning too. “Customs are different in Skyros,” Damia said. “Such women—like me—are known as kallai here, and we are welcomed as sisters.” They were nearing the palace, and the gates were creaking open. “If your Prince Achilles is here, she may be here to stay.”

They passed into the great antechamber, where enormous braziers filled with coals warmed the whole room, and a porter took the royal umbrella to be dried.

“I meant no offense to you, Lady Deidamia,” said Odysseus. “But he is a prince with duties. We need him.”

“Why do you need this Achilles?” Damia asked, frowning, her expression suddenly very intent. “Did he say, Red?”

“No.” Achilles kept her face coolly neutral. “I am curious myself.”

Odysseus ran his fingers through his wet curls, trying to squeeze the water out of his hair. “I have an untrustworthy face, and everyone assumes from it that I am some sort of deceiver, but in fact I am absentminded. I have news from the mainland that concerns everyone here, and Prince Achilles is part of that news.”

“Odysseus is in fact a great deceiver,” Diomedes said softly. “But in this he tells the truth.”

“I am not a great deceiver,” Odysseus said. He leaned toward Achilles. “Lady Red, I think you may be trying to protect Prince Achilles. But he does not need your protection. He is a deadly fighter trained by Kheiron. If he is your kinsman or your lover or betrothed—”

“—or my pet—”

“—or your pet—I mean him no harm. But he is a man and has the duties of a man.”

So many things wrong, and so much poor writing. But I always knew Odysseus was based!

Spoiler

Chapter One
When Achilles first came to Skyros the year before, she had looked utterly different: gaunt from the overland and sea voyages, hollow-cheeked with the starvation she had used to stave off manhood, and feverish with a terrible, foolish hope that on Skyros everything would change, that on Skyros she would become everything she longed for. Girls like her were safe on Skyros—so said the herbalist of Phthia. And the temple whores of Tempe who fed her thick temple-beer when she swooned outside their sanctuary.

So she had come to this island, a wild spider of a boy-girl with a shocking mass of red hair that fanned out about her head like flames, and sat numbly at the threshold of the palace until Deidamia had come to investigate and recognized her face from long ago, when they had met in Aiolia as children and played together without a care.

Of course Troon Achilles thought that starvation would stop puberty. Typical troon logic, but troons can't help but make all their main characters avatar inserts. Also, funny how Achilles called his pre-transition self "boy-girl".

Spoiler

Chapter One
Achilles would never forget Deidamia’s radiance, even in later days when she wished she could close the eyes of her memory against the taunt of Damia’s beauty, the openness and the caution of her eyes, the kindness and the worry of her face. And of course there was no way to unsee the first glimmer of unsettledness and despair, the first signs that Achilles herself was a sort of poison that she had brought to Skyros for Deidamia to drink.

It began on the first night of their friendship, when Achilles stared with guileless envy at the Skyrian princess, marveling over her soft arms and full breasts and swelling hips.

Damia was fair, tall, and slim, with delicate curves and long pale hair, for here on Skyros, the kallai had herbs and medicines to prevent beard and stink and muscle and rough skin, and Damia had never known the fear of growing up into a man. The gods Achilles did not believe in had been kind to Deidamia of Skyros, and grateful Damia made offerings to the Triad every day. Whenever Achilles told her that the gods had gone away, or died, or else had never existed, Damia only laughed in her face. Anywhere else in Achaia, she would have been forced to live as a prince, a warrior, a man; but here Damia was a princess.

That this was even possible struck Achilles as the most wonderful miracle, and she begged for the secret: How had Deidamia grown into such a woman? What medicines permitted such a thing? Achilles begged for Damia’s aid, and Damia offered it freely.

As Achilles blossomed, they became fast friends, running along the mountain paths of Skyros together, watching the sheep in the high pastures and plucking burrs from their soft gray wool, splashing through streams in the forest, offering prayers to Aphrodite, the Queen of Heaven, hunting birds with slings. Damia liked her well in those days and called her “my little Red,” or “skinny Red,” or “subtle Red,” or “Red as red as fire,” which was a pun in the island dialect.

But later—When was it? When did the first signs show?—something began to change. Perhaps it was the reminders of their difference as Achilles grew fuller under the influence of the Skyrian medicines of womanhood, moonweed and licorice. She regained her grace, no longer clumsy and coltish, darting through the forests twice as fast as Damia could sprint. She could swim like a salmon up the forest streams; she could creep up on birds and pluck them from their nests; she found a fierce and restless pride in the movements of her body. More and more often, she glimpsed Damia looking at her with a brooding intensity.

Ah, so Damia is also a troon. Of course, we must bear in mind that when they transition, they don't just become Plain Janes. No, Achilles and Damia are like ancient beauty queens! But with modern beauty standards, naturally.

Also, why is Achilles an atheist? He's half god himself!

Spoiler

Chapter One
Still, it had been Achilles who seduced Deidamia. She had realized that what smoldered in Damia’s eyes was part desire and was so relieved by the idea that she never stopped to ask herself what else flickered there. One night in a grove dedicated to the Queen of Heaven, patron goddess of the kallai, Achilles arranged her limbs in just such a way that she could feel Damia’s eyes on her, and then—ever so slowly—she came closer and closer to the Skyrian princess until they were touching, and their lips met, and they breathed each other in.

Because Achilles was young, she assumed that the passion between them was love, and that it was enough. She did everything with Damia—walked with Damia, ran with Damia, sang with Damia, wove and sewed with Damia, swam with Damia, lay with Damia, whispered in Damia’s ear, kissed Damia’s throat and breasts and belly, and eventually, as their passion grew more creative, found ways to please Damia, and overcame her discomfort to allow Damia to return the favor. The story she told herself was that they were like Kastor and Polydeukes of Sparta, twin warriors hatched from a single egg, inseparable, yearning to be one.

She never fully understood what stories Damia told herself, and so she missed the first signs of their separation. She was content to tell herself there were no gods, that peace could last forever, that industry was enough and suffering a choice, and that love—or what she thought was love—was all that she needed.

Troon authors can't help but instantly splash their lesbian fantasies all over the page!

Okay, Chapter 1 is done! My thoughts:

So far this is a boring book. I'm just wondering, "Are the stakes really just that Achilles should be doing his duty as a man? He's just draft-dodging?" It reveals exactly what the author thinks of women, that they have no duties or work to do; they just have fun lesbian sex and giggle beneath umbrellas. Poor Achilles, being expected to take on a gender role he hates when he could be running through the fields and smiling in the sunlight!

Will Achilles remain hidden? Will he bang Odysseus? Tune in next time, whenever I get around to it.

 

[AMHOLIO]

So far this is a boring book. I'm just wondering, "Are the stakes really just that Achilles should be doing his duty as a man? He's just draft-dodging?" It reveals exactly what the author thinks of women, that they have no duties or work to do; they just have fun lesbian sex and giggle beneath umbrellas. Poor Achilles, being expected to take on a gender role he hates when he could be running through the fields and smiling in the sunlight!

I read some of these and all I could think of was how did the author find a way to piss everyone off at once? History speds (inaccuracies), mythology speds (halfgod denying gods & forgetting the god merging), men (either bigots or undesirable), women (self explanatory).

It at least sets up the troons as royalty so they can claim to be shiftless layabouts to be worshiped for existing and making good judgments for others, like a royal reddit moderator.

 

[Athena Save Us!]

I read some of these and all I could think of was how did the author find a way to piss everyone off at once? History speds (inaccuracies), mythology speds (halfgod denying gods & forgetting the god merging), men (either bigots or undesirable), women (self explanatory).

It at least sets up the troons as royalty so they can claim to be shiftless layabouts to be worshiped for existing and making good judgments for others, like a royal reddit moderator.

Funny enough, the title of the book, Wrath Goddess Sing, is an allusion to the opening line of the Iliad, which might trick some people into thinking Deane is more familiar with the subject than his writing suggests:

RAGE:
Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades' dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.
Begin with the clash between Agamemnon--
The Greek warlord--and godlike Achilles.

My guess, however, is that this is how this book came about:

Deane watched Disney's Hercules and liked it, and because he's a troon, he probably identified with Meg. Then he read one of the contemporary novels based on Greek mythology, probably the Achilles one, and decided books about Greek myth could sell. Still, he knows nothing about it outside of Disney, so he watched a couple of YouTube videos. He maybe tried to embark on the Iliad without realizing it's actually the middle of a long mythological 'universe' surrounding the Trojan war, got bored and quit several pages in, but decided the opening lines stick with you.

Then he immediately proceeded to start pantsing his way through this novel, and when he got hung up on pesky little things like who Achilles is related to, which god presides over what, how the Greeks viewed the world and their place in it, or what luxuries and technologies they actually had access to back then, instead of cracking open a book, heading to Google, or even just asking ChatGPT, he decided to wing it and hope his readers were too coom-brained over the lesbian stuff to notice.

Will start on chapter two this week.

 

[Magic Pickle]

Wow, thanks for taking one for the team, Athena - WGS fucking sucks so far.

What's really assaulting my orbitals at the jump is how wretchedly anachronistic it is. Take this passage here:

“Scrawny as a spider, they say.” Odysseus frowned, keeping his voice low. “He is a cross-dresser and may have come to this island disguised as a woman, but I’m sure he couldn’t fool the ladies here.”

Achilles gave Odysseus a sharp look. He seemed sincerely not to realize he was talking about her, not to realize this was an unforgivable insult, something she would have challenged with a spear back in Phthia—and gotten herself thrown down a well. Your final lesson, faggot—here’s a rope, but it’s only for Akhillewos.

Deidamia was frowning too. “Customs are different in Skyros,” Damia said. “Such women—like me—are known as kallai here, and we are welcomed as sisters.” They were nearing the palace, and the gates were creaking open. “If your Prince Achilles is here, she may be here to stay.”

As a word (and as a slur), faggot has been around for a pretty long time. Not as long as cunt has been, mind, but it's been around the block. Not long enough to make sense being used in this context, though, and that's where it caught my attention.

Deane is attempting to bring modern sensibilities to a society so far past ours that much of what we know is speculation and, essentially, guesswork. (This doesn't delegitimize mythologists or historians whatsoever - just makes it so that their jobs are trickier in ways that, say, astronomers and oncologists don't necessarily contend with.) But because of what we do know, it makes Deane's work come across as vastly more propagandistic than likely intended, assuming benefit of the doubt here. Troon authors are frequently unable to exercise enough empathy to imagine in full totality the difference of opinion held by those in the past, so it makes all attempts at writing period pieces and historical fiction to be... jarring, to put it pleasantly. (I Shall Never Fall in Love comes to mind as a piece suffering a similar affliction despite trying to be a "mash-up of Jane Austen novels.")

I was also amused that Achilles sought starvation to escape the effects of male development, because a skinny man is not a woman. It's a sentiment I've actually seen expressed by pooners as well, comically enough - they often headcanon slim, androgynous/feminine men as being FTM, and I'm sure it's partly out of envy for the ease of which men keep slim and partly out of a misplaced sexual attraction. But it's noteworthy that this is a notion promoted by both sides of the troon coin and serves as an example of painful, rigid gender roles that transgenderism endorses. Funny stuff!

Comical, too, is that Deidamia is written to be akin to a princess - not a warrior queen, a fearsome goddess, or any other position of power that can exist while simultaneously being held by a woman. No, Deidamia is described as being one of the most widely-objectified roles in history (in terms of how we, in the modern era, define princesses; let's be honest, most people aren't considering princesses as a position of respect and honor the way they would consider even queens. And nobody try to tell me about how some countries still have princesses, because you know Americans like Deane don't give a fuck). Definitely very telling in terms of what Deane fantasizes about the most.

Then again, with a mug like this, are you surprised Deane wanted to imagine himself as a cool, hot Greek-inspired princess instead of facing his reality in the mirror?


Anyway, sorry for letting this thread go hungry for a minute, life responsibilities have been making looking at Sea-Witch to be more traumatic than entertaining. But it's the weekend, so let's get the party started.
Last Post

Spoiler: It's like House of Leaves for insane perverts.

It's an often dull and pedestrian way to engage with works that confuse, baffle or even irritate you, but I feel it is actually a true statement to make of this one: this reads like the author was on a debilitating cocktail of party drugs during the making of this. While this is likely very true with troons, it's also just as likely that he took mushrooms while listening to The Mountain Goats and just went from there, imagining each line written as profound.

So you live in a giant woman and you can't even get gay married? What the fuck? That's so stupid I actually laughed out loud when I read it! Also, even in this hyperbolic, hyper-poetic, hypnotic world that the author has invented, trannies still steal their sister's underwear. Some things never change.

Feels like you could've used a program fancier than paint.net or Canva for your scribbles, but what do I know?

"When nothing seems real it can help to remember there is no agreed-upon idea about what is real & what is not. What we know as reality exists only through collaboration & sharing & you are in no way required to live there." Another sentence that betrays the psyche of its speaker.

He keeps writing about 78 men who cause pain, but let's be honest, there's way more tranny bashers in Brazil alone than just 78 of them. If you're going to exaggerate how much hatred you receive, go big or go home.

"I often think about myself" - Oh, really? That's a surprise. The rest of this is a rambling fever dream - perhaps more accurately described as brain cell death throes - that makes no sense to anyone, likely not even to the author that created it. But, like, who cares about being comprehensive to boring, dishwater cissoids?

52 pages to go, and many pages are just random doodles, extremely grainy jpegs of the author and poems, so it'll likely be a pretty short affair all in all.

 

[AMHOLIO]

52 pages to go, and many pages are just random doodles, extremely grainy jpegs of the author and poems, so it'll likely be a pretty short affair all in all.

You suffering from 78 menfolk and 1 giant woman with people inside of her (and the author's own asshole) is almost complete.

Gather round, Ol'HOLIO is well versed in metaphorical bullshit and is about to interpret it from crazy to human speak. The author is named Moss Angel Witchmonwhatever, and will be referred to as MAW for this.

Sea Witch is the entire state of being trans, being in the trans community, and transitioning. The author used to fantasize about making love to Sea Witch, meaning MAW wanted to transition and have the pleasure of a boyfriend free trangirl, personifying the idea of transitioning as "Sea Witch". The author is comforted by Sea Witch like a mother (mommy fetish + wanting asspats to be told his fetish is ok), then goes into Sea Witch (comforted by the trans community then becomes part of the transitioning state) and lives there. The other people in the Sea Witch covered their faces with mud like he did, as in he hated his apperance before transitioning, and their genders are ill-defined and changing as are their relationships and sex with each other because they're all transitioning and claiming different sexualities and pronouns. When "Sex requires multiple turns and can last a month", this is possibly a metaphor for falling in love with other trans people and the slowness of their relationship. The people covered with fur MAW mentions are furries and "puppygirls" who often overlap in these spaces.

Basically, imagine a troon with the username ️MossAngelWitch joining a discord server called "Sea Witch - the transtion journey server". Everyone changes there all the time because they're changing icons, names, and ideas as they explore the complex ideas (i.e. retardation) of gender expansiveness and queer love. Sea Witch is the sever mascot anime girl someone drew and they've been giving various fetish lore and general lore to her ever since. They even talk about being puppygirls and getting walked by their dream trans goddess Sea Witch.

MAW leaving Sea Witch is likely a metaphor for leaving the greater trans community, MAW might come back later but I'll let MAW say whether he did or not.

It's an often dull and pedestrian way to engage with works that confuse, baffle or even irritate you, but I feel it is actually a true statement to make of this one: this reads like the author was on a debilitating cocktail of party drugs during the making of this

It's ok because this is a dull fucking extended metaphor of "When I was first transitioning, I was finding my new identity and a lot of things had to be reevalutated." MAW had a fluid identity being lead on by his own whims as well as others, and this is just him trying to grapple with who he was.

So you live in a giant woman and you can't even get gay married? What the fuck?

Correct. This passage seems to be talking about how the trans community has a fluid sense of self and a different set of morals, as well as different meanings for words. Including crime (be trans do crime) and animals ( ).

In this scenario Sea Witch is the archetype of all trans women, and sea witcheans are transwomen. So they built a mythology statue around the shared experience of stealing your sister's undergarments, which is haram.

Another sentence that betrays the psyche of its speaker

Exactly. This is just a trans woman sad that reality isn't alinging to his wants and is pretending to stay in a fantasy all day.

The 78 men that cause her pain are likely a set of either the most wealthy on the planet or the author's genuine list of enemies. The short fingered man is Trump (of course) and the invisible ones are likely personifications of transmisogyny. I would not put it past the author for him to have a list of 78 male concepts he hates.

"Sea" is the life giving and nurturing name the entity gave itself. "Witch" is the derogatory term the oppressive high class normals came up with for this monster. As in, woman is what trans women call themselves, trans/tranny is what the patriarchy dubbed them.

You can see that he now calls his interactions when he first meets "Sea Witch" the trans memoirs, meaning this is his troon origin story of getting black out drunk and then finally accepting he was trans.


The giant meteor is like two in one: any abstract doom you can think of and the genuine revolution or a literal kill everyone apocalypse. They pray to it because they hate themselves and want everything wiped out to start anew. MAW doesn't talk about rebirth so far, so it could likely mean "all humans suck I hope we all die" type of thinking. So stupid revenge fantasies.

This trans person also cosntantly refers to himself as an other, a monster. Meaning he is likely neurodivergent and mentally ill. So it's him coping with feeling alienated.

1/10 don't see me after class I'm just sending you back to special ed.

 

[Athena Save Us!]

Deane is attempting to bring modern sensibilities to a society so far past ours that much of what we know is speculation and, essentially, guesswork. (This doesn't delegitimize mythologists or historians whatsoever - just makes it so that their jobs are trickier in ways that, say, astronomers and oncologists don't necessarily contend with.) But because of what we do know, it makes Deane's work come across as vastly more propagandistic than likely intended, assuming benefit of the doubt here. Troon authors are frequently unable to exercise enough empathy to imagine in full totality the difference of opinion held by those in the past, so it makes all attempts at writing period pieces and historical fiction to be... jarring, to put it pleasantly. (I Shall Never Fall in Love comes to mind as a piece suffering a similar affliction despite trying to be a "mash-up of Jane Austen novels.")

A lot of historical books, movies, and games do that, so I was almost tempted to let it go, but, no, Deane barely tries to mask the fact that he's written a bunch of ancient people with modern views. This goes beyond casting an actress who's considered beautiful by modern standards instead of by ancient standards, making Alexander the Great out as having at least some noble reasons for doing what he did, or writing John Marston (character from Red Dead Redemption) as being totally cool with women, gays, Catholics, the Irish, Jews, etc.

This is doing what troons always do: imagining women as only being worthwhile if they're sexy lesbians who don't have to worry about taking on responsibilities. AMHOLIO is right in that his portrayal of both men and women in this book is vile.

He tries to give it an ancient backdrop, but that's all it is. It doesn't come across as a place that has transported me to the past, it's at best a fantasy book that claims to be drawing from ancient myth and history.

Comical, too, is that Deidamia is written to be akin to a princess - not a warrior queen, a fearsome goddess, or any other position of power that can exist while simultaneously being held by a woman. No, Deidamia is described as being one of the most widely-objectified roles in history (in terms of how we, in the modern era, define princesses; let's be honest, most people aren't considering princesses as a position of respect and honor the way they would consider even queens. And nobody try to tell me about how some countries still have princesses, because you know Americans like Deane don't give a fuck). Definitely very telling in terms of what Deane fantasizes about the most.

No, Deidamia and Achilles are the dirty, lesbian versions of a Disney princess. They frolic and have sex and don't worry about being political pawns for men to use as bartering chips or to be controlled.

Women in Ancient Greece lived sucky lives on the whole. There's a book called Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice by a guy named Jack Holland that puts the poor treatment of women in the West purely at the Greeks' feet. I think this is somewhat unfair, but there's no arguing with the fact that the Ancient Greeks thought poorly of women. Even Spartan women, often considered strong and independent by people who don't dig deep enough, were heavily controlled; it's just that the state controlled them. That's not even counting the life of your average Athenian woman, but it's probably asking too much for Deane to insist on basic research.

Then again, with a mug like this, are you surprised Deane wanted to imagine himself as a cool, hot Greek-inspired princess instead of facing his reality in the mirror?

Aaahhh! Somehow, that looks like the face of a man who imagines himself as the troon version of Achilles, the great war hero who was totally ready to murder his commanding officer for demanding he give up his spoils-of-war sex slave to get Apollo to stop hitting them with plagues on behalf of her upset father.

 

[AMHOLIO]

That's not even counting the life of your average Athenian woman, but it's probably asking too much for Deane to insist on basic research.

This is the most simple way to put it:


Ancient Greece would work for a troon historical tradwife fantasy, it is the opposite of a woman empowering society. The author should have made it clear they're sinking deep into fantasy and shouldn't have even bothered to do any historically accurate nods.

 

[Athena Save Us!]

Okay, let's start on Chapter 2.

Chapter Two
They went down to the great hall and took their places halfway down King Lykomedes’s table, with Diomedes seated opposite Deidamia and Odysseus opposite Achilles. Following the etiquette of the royal court, brass wine flagons shaped like two-headed rams were passed down the table, and Deidamia and Achilles poured and mixed the wine for their neighbors before pouring smaller cups for themselves, dedicating the first drops of each to the Triad.

“Pyrrha,” Odysseus said warmly, “you look like a meteor. I saw one last week from my ship: a fiery comet with a tail like your red hair that trailed halfway across the sky. It was beautiful and deadly, like so many women.”

“Is this flirtation?” Achilles murmured. “It won’t work.”

“I am old enough to be your very youthful father,” Odysseus said blandly, sipping from his cup.

“Possibly my son,” Achilles countered softly.

Odyseus gasped, then roared with laughter, wiping wine from his beard. “Wit is the eternal enemy of table manners. I would give half of Ithaka for such a witty mother.”

“Is your mother not witty?”

The Ithakan’s eyes narrowed. “Not witty in the same ways,” he countered, “but wise as the Sphinx, which is better.”

“You can only praise your mother by contrasting her wisdom with my wit?”

“By the Silent One,” Odysseus exclaimed, “what did I ever do to you?”

“If you are invoking the Silent One,” Achilles said, “should you use so many words?”

I'm assuming this is the start of the Trojan War, which means Odysseus isn't that old. He's about in the same age range as Achilles and has a young son, Telemachus, back home.

Also, why are they pouring libations for "the Triad"? Who is this? Is this Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades? Why aren't the other gods getting their share of the libations, as was customary? I'm revising my theory of where the author got his knowledge of Greek mythology and customs from, because I forgot about the Percy Jackson series. This just reeks of their Big Three talk.

Also, I see we're invoking the mysterious The Silent One again. I searched everywhere to figure out who this referring to, but I keep coming up blank. The author isn't even trying!

Also, Achilles isn't witty here. This conversation is hardly the stuff of Socrates, Plato, or Diogenes.

Chapter Two
“He led the second Theban siege five years ago.” When Achilles only opened her eyes wider, Odysseus blinked. “He’s one of the Seven Against Thebai! Haven’t you heard the poem? ‘When purple-robed Tydeus breathed his bloody last / and the rattle of death filled his neck / his shadow broke free of his feet with a cry / seeking his son in the Islands.’”

There goes Deane, namedropping other myths to try and prove he knows what he's talking about.

Chapter Two
Odysseus smirked. Then his expression became deadly serious. “The war of our times is different. You cannot imagine a cause further from piracy.”

“International gift-giving?” Achilles said drily.

“The salvation of our world,” Odysseus said.

Achilles frowned, resenting her own sudden interest. “Explain.”

In that moment she realized that the table had been silent for some minutes; all eyes were on them, from King Lykomedes at the head all the way down to the porters and grooms at the foot. Damia was looking at Achilles; everyone else watched Odysseus.

The Ithakan chuckled for a moment, then rose to his feet. “I understand that ‘the salvation of our world’ is quite a claim to make,” he said, “but I do not make it lightly. I will fill everyone in. King Lykomedes, thank you for your gracious hospitality. I will direct my statement to you and also state my business on your lovely island.”

Damia’s father nodded quietly. He was a quiet man, one who managed the affairs of Skyros with placid care, issuing most of his orders in writing. “Speak,” he said softly.

Odysseus tugged at his beard, pulling it into two slender forks—fashionable in the islands, but also an interesting nervous tic. Perhaps he used it to stall for time, or perhaps he liked the roughness of it sprouting from his chin. Then he spread his hands officiously and began to speak in excellent diplomatic Achaian, using the Mykenaian prestige accent that everyone who was anyone learned to imitate.

“By now, all who have ears have heard the story of how the line of Minos lost the favor of the gods and how Klytaimestra Mino’o wed Great King Agamemnon of Mykenai and brought peace to the seas. The gods began to return, offering signs and portents of their favor. Meteors raced across the sky. The doors of the horizon were opened. In Hattusa, the wife of Great King Tudhaliyas fell pregnant and, after six long months, delivered a giant golden egg and died.”

Odysseus made an expansive gesture, indicating that the egg was over six feet tall. As he spoke, it seemed to Achilles that she could see the egg in her mind’s eye, perfectly smooth and burnished to a mirror sheen, and inside it, some ancient, horrible mystery. She frowned.

“It is said that the beauty of Klytaimestra is like the beauty of the stars at night, but from the golden egg erupted a baby of legendary majesty who grew into a woman even lovelier than Klytaimestra: Helen, jewel of the Hittites, prize of Assuwa. The beauty of Helen is like the fire of the sun at noon, and countless princes went to Hattusa to buy her from Tudhaliyas for on this mother could a race of such kings be sired as has not been seen in generations.”

I've never seen Clytemnestra spelled as Klytaimestra, and she's usually vilified by the Greeks instead of praised for murdering Agamemnon after he arranged to bring their daughter to the army under the false pretense of marrying Achilles because he wanted her for a human sacrifice. So much for Deane's insistence that he gets mythology. Also, I have no idea what he's trying to reference with Tudhaliyas' wife birthing a golden egg. I tried to looking it up but drew another blank.

Also, Helen was born in Sparta, not a Hittite city.

Chapter Two
“Knowing this, Great King Agamemnon increased the glory of the Achaians by wedding Helen of Hattusa to Menelaos Atreidai, his glorious brother, in exchange for peace with Hattusa and a tribute of two hundred pounds of gold, one thousand pounds of silver from Athenai, ten thousand pounds of copper from Alashiya, a thousand pounds of tin from distant Tuli, a thousand head of fine cattle, five hundred unblemished horses, and one thousand robes of rich cloth woven in the islands.

“Now Klytaimestra and Helen ruled as queens in Mykenai and Sparta, Great Queens for our great empire. Even the ambassadors from Pi-Ramesses and Babylon and Assur and Hattusa exclaimed that no more beautiful brides could be found in Egypt or Mesopotamia or Assuwa. A golden age began in Mykenai and Sparta, centered on the person of Helen, whose half-divine breasts poets call the Apples of the Sun.

“For seventy years the gods had not blessed us with their full presence, but I was at the marriage feast, and in the skies above us, gazing down on all of us with unimaginable radiance from the Couch of Heaven, breasts bared to nourish us with the milk of divine favor, was Hera, Queen of Kings, smiling down on us for the first time in a generation.

“This was five years ago. In summer and at harvest, the crops were richer in Achaian lands than for sixty years, and the winters grew warm. On Ithaka, we have not had snow since.”

What a mess of both mythology and history!

Chapter Two
“I will not dress this next part up in poetry,” Odysseus said grimly. “Late last year, Alaksandu, a Hittite prince of absolute corruption and potent sorcery, went into the palace of Menelaos and cast a spell on Helen, striking her mute and carrying her away. In that way, also, he sought to frame her as an adulteress, since no one heard her cry out. She was carried off across the sea to Wilusa in Taruisa—a city of great walls and armies, where Alaksandu and his father, Piyama the Sorcerer, hold Helen as their prize. Apollo smiled on the theft, and Tudhaliyas of Hattusa himself gave the theft his blessing, forgetting Agamemnon’s gifts and vows. We should never have trusted the treacherous Hittites.”

Odysseus began to move again, stalking up the far side of the table, still staring at Achilles, his eyes bright and dangerous. “With Apollo of the Plagues protecting him, Alaksandu grows richer and more powerful every day. His armies swell. He mounts Helen to fill her with his ugly Hittite spawn. She cries each night, unable to speak because of the spell cast on her tongue, mutely begging for Menelaos. Now Menelaos and Agamemnon, King of Kings, are gathering a great army to descend on Wilusa and rescue the stolen queen.

“But our war is hopeless unless we can find the son of the Silent One, Achilles, son of Peleus and Athena, whose spear alone can pierce Alaksandu and shatter his spell on Helen.” Odysseus let the words hang in the air, looking away from Achilles and letting his bright gaze sweep the hall, taking in every face in turn. “And Achilles is hiding on Skyros.”

Something stabbed Achilles’s palms, and she nearly winced with the pain. It was her own fingernails, clenched so tightly the skin was beginning to break. Suddenly it felt as if everyone was staring at her—but no, they were still looking at Odysseus.

Everyone but Deidamia, who met her eyes and glanced away.

“Therefore, King Lykomedes,” Odysseus concluded, “I ask leave to search for Achilles. The goddess herself told me that he is here, disguised as a woman. I know that the custom of your island protects women born into malformed shapes, women in the bodies of half men, women in the bodies of boys, and all other such, but Achilles is the son of a goddess and has duties.”

Okay, so we're skipping over Paris and Aphrodite and an ill-fated beauty contest that sparked the Trojan war and we're dragging the Hittites into this mess. This also means the Silent One is Athena, a title she never had. Once again, Achilles is attributed to Thetis, not Athena.

And there's Odysseus with his 'duties' thing that Deane hates so much.

Chapter Two
There was silence in the banquet hall. Only Damia knew the name Achilles belonged to Red, of course; but in that moment, Achilles read strange, shifting confusion on her face and knew she could not trust her. Damia would betray her for the gods.

“I am loyal to the Great King,” Lykomedes said softly. “If you can find Achilles on Skyros, Achilles will leave Skyros with you.”

Afterward, Achilles barely remembered how supper had ended. Probably with gossip from across the sea and music—she vaguely recalled a lyre and a young man’s chanting ballad—but it had been all she could do to keep fending off Odysseus’s questions with mocking laughter, and in the end she had offered to be his guide the next day, so he could search Skyros for his undutiful, cross-dressing prince.

Now she was in the garden on the highest terrace that opened directly onto the women’s quarters. Damia had asked her to come to bed, and she had said, “In a few minutes. I must think.” But that had been hours ago. The moon was high overhead, and the stars glittered like knifepoints.

Of course Damia would betray her. Her first loyalty had always been to the gods. Even though they were not real, the gods had always exerted a malign influence on Achilles’s life. For a moment she caught herself wishing that they were real, that a divine neck would appear before her hands and she could crush its divine windpipe.

I don't recall reading any evidence that Damia would betray Achilles, so I have no idea whether his apprehensions are unfounded or not. Once again, the son of a goddess is insisting the gods aren't real, but at the same time, they've apparently wrecked his life.

Chapter Two
Once, her violent impulses had horrified her, evidence of a manhood that would inevitably consume everything she loved about herself. But on her journey to Skyros and here on the island, she had met her share of violent women and knew better.

So violence isn't a troon trait?

Chapter Two
Achilles stopped at the edge of the terrace, looking out over the island and the sea. The final betrayal would come from the original traitor, her own body. Odysseus would not dare strip a woman to prove her a boy, but once Damia revealed her, she would no doubt be held down and stripped of her tunic and underclothes, and the miserable dangling appendage that no treatment of herbs could remove would be her undoing. Odysseus’s pleasant ignorance would be more deadly than Kheiron’s cruelty. On the journey to Agamemnon’s army, she would have none of the herbs that had spared her the indignities of manhood, and the process would resume. Hair would sprout on her chest and shoulders and back as it had on Odysseus; a beard would follow; she would lose the fiery curls on her head; she would stink like a bull; her skin would roughen and bulge with veins; it would be worse than death.

And it would be death—the death of her self, the inexorable corrosion of her soul, until even her name was forgotten and nothing was left but the shell of a man she never was.

Or she could leap. From here, it would be far enough. She would bounce on the rocks below, fall into the sea, and be forgotten. Damia would not understand, but Damia was a fool and a traitor.

So Achilles still has his dick. This is the problem with this author and goes back to the first problem I mentioned: I'm constantly having to alter my image of Achilles because of all the new information constantly being introduced pages and even chapters into the story. It would've been helpful to know earlier on how extensive the transformation was so I don't have to keep altering my visual of him.

Also, funny how his first instinct is to 41%.

Chapter Two
Even before she opened her eyes, Achilles knew she was dreaming. It was the quality of the light through her eyelids tha told her she was not in the world of the living: gray light, a gradient from pale silver to deep charcoal that barely altered when she forced her eyelids open. She reeled, twisted, and scrambled upright, her feet unsure against a floor of loose, crumbling tile. Only—

It was not tile. She bent and scooped up a flat white cracked thing from the ground, turning it over in her hands, wondering at its strange triangular shape and unexpected lightness; it looked like stone, but felt like dead, porous wood. There were more beside it; she was standing on a pile of such tiles. Some were linked by twisted knobs to longer, thinner sticks, stalks, or tubes of—

Bone.

She dropped the human scapula and it fell soundlessly away.

Something crunched behind her. She turned.

On a toppled wall—no, on the spine of some primordial monster—sat an owl with gray eyes. The owl tilted her head and regarded Achilles with blank fascination. Shhhrrrrk. Shhhhrrrk. Shhhhrrrk. The sound was talons on bone as the owl sharpened her claws.

Achilles stepped toward her, wary of her footing. She picked her way toward the spine and the owl, bonemeal crunching under her toes and bonedust filling her lungs. The owl never moved, never looked away, and never seemed to grow nearer. The ground sloped downward, so Achilles broke into a run.

It did not occur to her to speak.

Could it be that Deane actually knows Athena is associated with owls? We'll find out later. I've got to run and can't keep reading this retarded book.

 

[AMHOLIO]

What if the author brought in the Hittites to add more brown people?

Also:

Hair would sprout on her chest and shoulders and back as it had on Odysseus; a beard would follow; she would lose the fiery curls on her head; she would stink like a bull; her skin would roughen and bulge with veins; it would be worse than death.

And it would be death—the death of her self, the inexorable corrosion of her soul, until even her name was forgotten and nothing was left but the shell of a man she never was.