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A review by marthmuffins
Welcome to Dorley Hall by Alyson Greaves
4.0
Welcome to Dorley Hall - 4/5
Look, gender is real fucky. It's gets all weird and tangled up in expression, perception, expectation, and prescription that I'm honestly shocked anyone anywhere can even claim they have such a handle on their own that they can enforce gender "norms" on themselves and others. But isn't that, in the end, what Dorley Hall kind of does? The Sisters who come out of Dorley after their unwilling transitions are prescribed a very rigid view of femininity by Aunt Bea, forced to act and behave and dress in specific ways that fit what Bea believes validates their change from shitty little cis men into reformed women who can be let back into society. Yes, most of the Sisters are, in the end, happy with their transition, or at least content enough with the changes that when they finally escape the walls of Dorley they don't "become men" again, instead embracing a myriad of gender outside of that. But how much of that is because of the trauma of Dorley? Of being locked in a basement for a year, of another year forced into a new box of "correct feminine behaviour" in the Hall itself, and a third year perfecting that behaviour of learning to enforce it on yourself? How would being subjected to forced feminisation perfected over decades remove the concept of masculinity in your brains as anything approaching acceptable?
I should say, I have an extremely negative view of, and very unhealthy relationship with, masculinity, and if I learned of somewhere like Dorley and was given the choice Stef was I would skip into that basement and lock myself in for as long as it took to change me, whatever the other consequences. But is Dorley any less restrictive in its enforcement of gender? Or is it just a literalised encapsulation of how gender is enforced in reality; that to be the woman the programme deems acceptable you must conform to this very narrow and prescribed view of what "woman" is to finally graduate? Most of the Sisters aren't, or weren't, trans women when they woke up in that basement but they are made into women nevertheless, women the programme deems acceptable to allow out into the world, even if they move away from that label once they are free.
I don't know, I don't have much else to say about how gender is discussed without getting into spoilers and gender theory so I'll leave it at that, but I do think that there is some interesting shit here which is very y'know, Internet Trans/Tumblr/A03 (of course) coded, but in a way that examines and deconstructs and reconstructs those tropes which have existed in fandom and internet queer spaces for a good while now in honestly engaging ways for someone who's been in out of those spaces on and off over the years.
And I also like the fun Sapphic dates and cute shit and yeah, maybe that is tonally discordant with the forcefem and the trauma talks and all of that but I like the contrast, I like the humour of the coffee mugs with their boomer humour forcefem jokes and the fun and ironic little bits and lines and whatever. I like the dates and the Sapphic Yuri stuff, and it adds so much for me that the dark content is contrasted with the happiness which yes, is still filled with fear and confusion, but in different ways.
Sure, this might fuck the pace up, but it's a webnovel and I don't think any author on A03 has ever heard of the concept of pacing, plus the "book" does just kinda end because it wasn't written to be divided into two like it is for print publication (I believe what makes up book 3 was released later and 4 is currently being released chapter by chapter rn) but eh. Shit will happen for as long as it does and its honestly kind of freeing that so much can just be fun relationship "fluff" and hangout vibes without needing to drive shit forward necessarily. Idk, it's been a while since I really read anything on A03 or a webnovel generally but it's nice to come back after so much in my life has changed lol. I think the last webnovel actually I read was the first couple chapters of this back when it first released in 2022 and I was entering my peak regression/repression phase around my gender, which in retrospect is wild and kinda fun despite how shitty that time was for me ("Give a trans woman an inch and she'll steal 10 years from herself" etc).
Anyway, ramble over. I liked this a lot basically.
Read here on A03, idk if the printed version has any changes.
Look, gender is real fucky. It's gets all weird and tangled up in expression, perception, expectation, and prescription that I'm honestly shocked anyone anywhere can even claim they have such a handle on their own that they can enforce gender "norms" on themselves and others. But isn't that, in the end, what Dorley Hall kind of does? The Sisters who come out of Dorley after their unwilling transitions are prescribed a very rigid view of femininity by Aunt Bea, forced to act and behave and dress in specific ways that fit what Bea believes validates their change from shitty little cis men into reformed women who can be let back into society. Yes, most of the Sisters are, in the end, happy with their transition, or at least content enough with the changes that when they finally escape the walls of Dorley they don't "become men" again, instead embracing a myriad of gender outside of that. But how much of that is because of the trauma of Dorley? Of being locked in a basement for a year, of another year forced into a new box of "correct feminine behaviour" in the Hall itself, and a third year perfecting that behaviour of learning to enforce it on yourself? How would being subjected to forced feminisation perfected over decades remove the concept of masculinity in your brains as anything approaching acceptable?
I should say, I have an extremely negative view of, and very unhealthy relationship with, masculinity, and if I learned of somewhere like Dorley and was given the choice Stef was I would skip into that basement and lock myself in for as long as it took to change me, whatever the other consequences. But is Dorley any less restrictive in its enforcement of gender? Or is it just a literalised encapsulation of how gender is enforced in reality; that to be the woman the programme deems acceptable you must conform to this very narrow and prescribed view of what "woman" is to finally graduate? Most of the Sisters aren't, or weren't, trans women when they woke up in that basement but they are made into women nevertheless, women the programme deems acceptable to allow out into the world, even if they move away from that label once they are free.
I don't know, I don't have much else to say about how gender is discussed without getting into spoilers and gender theory so I'll leave it at that, but I do think that there is some interesting shit here which is very y'know, Internet Trans/Tumblr/A03 (of course) coded, but in a way that examines and deconstructs and reconstructs those tropes which have existed in fandom and internet queer spaces for a good while now in honestly engaging ways for someone who's been in out of those spaces on and off over the years.
And I also like the fun Sapphic dates and cute shit and yeah, maybe that is tonally discordant with the forcefem and the trauma talks and all of that but I like the contrast, I like the humour of the coffee mugs with their boomer humour forcefem jokes and the fun and ironic little bits and lines and whatever. I like the dates and the Sapphic Yuri stuff, and it adds so much for me that the dark content is contrasted with the happiness which yes, is still filled with fear and confusion, but in different ways.
Sure, this might fuck the pace up, but it's a webnovel and I don't think any author on A03 has ever heard of the concept of pacing, plus the "book" does just kinda end because it wasn't written to be divided into two like it is for print publication (I believe what makes up book 3 was released later and 4 is currently being released chapter by chapter rn) but eh. Shit will happen for as long as it does and its honestly kind of freeing that so much can just be fun relationship "fluff" and hangout vibes without needing to drive shit forward necessarily. Idk, it's been a while since I really read anything on A03 or a webnovel generally but it's nice to come back after so much in my life has changed lol. I think the last webnovel actually I read was the first couple chapters of this back when it first released in 2022 and I was entering my peak regression/repression phase around my gender, which in retrospect is wild and kinda fun despite how shitty that time was for me ("Give a trans woman an inch and she'll steal 10 years from herself" etc).
Anyway, ramble over. I liked this a lot basically.
Read here on A03, idk if the printed version has any changes.