Fuck it, I got a lot done, this chapter is short and stupid, I need to feed the brainworms:
The first thing I notice when I wake up is pain, but I feel good. My side is complaining loudly, and when I feel around, I notice my whole flank is a little swollen and there’s a spot near the bottom of my ribs that really does not like being pushed on. Purple bruises mottle the skin all up and down my side. I don’t really understand how I did what I did last night. I wish the other Dreadnoughts were here. There’s so much I need to ask them. That thing with the lattice worked, but I hurt myself. Last night made it obvious I don’t understand my limits at all, or how I can get around them. Once I’m healed up, I’m going to need to do a lot of experimenting.
Oh yeah, saving the plane with tactile telekinesis took a lot out of Danny physically. It's kind of annoying for my purposes that Daniels sticks most of the importantish plot points in the most boring parts. Also, yes, Danny, I wish the other Dreadnoughts were here too, or described at all in any detail. Anyway, Danny's in the papers:
UNKNOWN SUPERHERO SAVES PASSENGER JET
Not really related, but this makes me wonder, if Kiwi Farms exists in any of the big shared superhero universe, do we cover like, supervillains and some of the more... bovine superheroes?
I want to cheer, but I can’t let anyone hear me.
Why not?
I guess I could go talk to the Legion but—but hey, screw the Legion! I’m still pissed off at them for what happened last time I showed up there.
Doc, Chlorophyll, Valkyrja, and Magma all welcomed you with open arms, and Carapace was clearly more spectrum and probably grief-stricken than hateful towards you. They all sided with you against Graywytch. What more do you want?
Again, it's hard to have conflict about living under a bigot's roof or figuring out your way as a superhero when there's at least four people who'd gladly make you their Robin.
My mood is so good, even Dad sneering at me on the way out the door when he sees me with my backpack at the breakfast table doesn’t bring me down. Mentally, I kick myself for forgetting to leave the bag upstairs until I’m ready to go.
But all he says is, “You don’t have the sense God gave a tapeworm, letting people see you this way. It’s disgusting, parading around like that when they all know you’re really a boy.”
I play it smart though, and just stare into my cereal.
No, playing it smart would involve lifting the fucking table over your head one-handed and telling your dad to shove of. Later, at school, because God forbid this superhero book be about cool shit:
“You know, it really upsets me how girls are always so quick to jump up and down on me.”
I stop chewing for a moment, and a little choir of dread starts singing in the back of my mind. “Like how so?” I hear myself ask.
“Like, they’re always sneering at me. It’s not fair.”
“Yeah, uh, that…that sucks man.” David strikes out a lot, so this isn’t the first time he’s talked about this, but it seems like I’m hearing him more clearly than I used to. I take a long sip from my cup of diet soda to cover this new disquiet. My memories of him batting off the advances from a girl named Shelly last year are still pretty vivid. She’s about as chubby as he is, so he wasn’t interested. But I don’t want another fight, so I don’t mention it.
Who wants to bet whether Danny's love interest (because of course there's one of those) is a weird skinny dude with greasy long hair and striped knee-socks, a human fridge with a septum ring whose "feminine presentation" amounts to a pink singlet and sometimes remembering to shave, or a smoking hot, bisexual superheroine?
Also, again with this weird trans Nuremberg defense. "I was just following the script for boys when I ignored my best mate being a sexist prick! But my inner experience was still exactly the same as any other little girl!"
“Oh good, I’m glad you still understand!” he says with visible relief. Still understand, he says. This conversation feels like I’m missing some really important context. “So, I was thinking. I’ve been your friend for, like, ever. You know I’m a nice guy, but I never get a fair chance. Well, this is my chance.”
“Your chance?” Oh no.
This is the most 2017 book ever written. Is David going to start talking about lobsters and cleaning his room?
“I mean, uh, you and me.” Oh no no no. “We could, you know, date now.” Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.
No.
After an empty moment I say, “You know I’m gay, right?”
News to me, Dan.
“So that works then!”
“Um, no?”
Accidentally Based David.
But he doesn’t even hear me, just talks right through me. “I’ve been lonely a long time. I guess I’m ready to settle.” He says this like he’s making an intimate, painful, and somehow brave confession. There’s a seriousness in his face that is begging me to be impressed.
A reminder to all you good readers that this is literally the second time David has met with Danny since he randomly transformed into a girl, and he's already formulated and decided to prosecute a cartoon-incel plan to make him his boy-bride like a somehow less demented Nero and Sporus. And he does this while dropping Then-Current-Year buzzwords like "nice guy."
Does that sound... likely to any of you? Organic? It's yet another symptom of one of
Dreadnought's biggest problems: all the characters are creatures of pure function. Doc Impossible exists purely to affirm Danny and explain how nobody could ever tell Danny wasn't born a girl. Graywytch is there to be the token TERF, because for some reason troons seem to fear and hate them more than the people who actually (very occasionally) beat them up in real life. Danny's parents are just a framework for misery porn. Even Danny himself doesn't have much of a personality beyond "feels euphoria when bra, is sad people say not girl." David's purpose meanwhile is to be the mandatory example of "toxic masculinity." Daniels clearly made no effort to imagine how these characters would've interacted outside the events of the story, and how this might impact the story itself.
“Ready to settle?” Oh how big of him. He’s willing to settle. For the most beautiful girl in school who, OH YEAH, HAS FREAKING SUPERPOWERS.
I'd actually expect a trans-identifying-male's "ideal female body" to fall squarely into the uncanny valley. And have severe issues with its centre of gravity. Also, I'm pretty much certain at this point that Daniels decided to have Danny keep quiet about his superpowers because he realised that everyone in universe and out would be much more interested in that than him growing a pair of anime-girl tits.
“Well, what I mean is it’s not ideal, I guess,” says David quickly, perhaps dimly sensing danger. Oh, this should be good. “Like, it might be awkward at first, but we could make this work. I mean, you look good enough that I don’t even really care that you’re kind of a dude inside.”
Why the fuck would David say that? Remember when he got caught checking out Danny's rack? He immediately assured Danny he wasn't gay. It's clearly not a label he wants to be associated with. So why would he be implying Danny's a boy in any way? Surely he'd be giving Vaush esque speeches about how trans women are in fact biological female too, and it's totally straight to be attracted to lady-dick and dolphin testicles. I think Daniels wants David to be a stand-in for chasers, but chasers are into trans-women specifically because they're male, whereas David wants to get with Danny because he passes impossibly well. It just doesn't work.
Side-note, the idea that your average teenage boy in a 2010s American high-school wouldn't be chomping at the bit to claim some kind of "queer" status is very "I still think it's 2005."
I set down my fork. “I am not, and I never have been, a ‘dude inside.’
Nah, you were just genetically, anatomically, and romantically identical to every heterosexual boy on the planet.
“I don’t like boys, any boys.
"Why, I even played
FemShep in
Mass Effect!"
“This is unbelievable,” he mutters, and I don’t know why, but that sets me off more than anything else he’s said so far.
“Get up and walk away right now,” I snarl. “Stay away, and maybe I won’t tell everybody about that birth mark you showed me when we were eight.”
“Woah!” His eyes are wide with shock. He leans in and whispers, his voice tight with fury, “That’s not cool!”
If this was a proper comic-book world that birthmark would be an authorisation mark for an ancient alien suit of power-armour.
“Try me. See what happens.”
David gets up and leaves, but as he goes, he says things to me that make me understand we will never be friends again.
Funny story. As I mentioned, I first experienced
Dreadnought as an audiobook. I must've been distracted when this part happened, because when Danny goes on to tell us what David said later on, I assumed I'd missed something. Actually, taken together with what some of you fine Kiwis have pointed out, it's interesting Daniels chose to summarise both this scene
and Roger's verbal abuse. From what I remember, it's a trend that will continue. Given this is obviously aimed at a very SJW crowd, I wonder if Daniels is worried about "triggering" readers by directly depicting negative shit like that. If so, I'm reminded a bit of
Remake, which is an evangelical Christian snuff-thriller. If you're wondering what that looks like, put it like this, if your religion forbids you from showing a thing on screen, you probably shouldn't make a movie about it. Same goes for TRA gospel.
However, given Daniels appears perfectly willing to actually write out Graywytch's dialogue, I think there's another, more plausible explanation: he's a stupid, lazy hack. You know how the various "crowning moment" pages on tv-tropes are some of the cringiest shit on there? Especially the stuff involving badass speeches and the like? The thing is, a lot of those bits are legimitately excellent writing, they just lack the power they should because they're divorced from their proper context. All the work the author put in establishing atmosphere and tension is stripped out. Daniels clearly doesn't have the talent to say, put us in the shoes of an abused child being yelled at by their father, so instead he just has Danny
say it was horrible and traumatising after the fact.
Not because I wouldn’t forgive him; because he will always be too proud to let himself be forgiven.
This sentence is technically gender-affirming surgery, because I'm pretty sure Daniels ripped his cock off writing it. Also, Danny, David just said he was willing to go prison-gay, I don't think he's too proud for
anything.
The next couple of chapters are short and pretty low on content, so let's cover them here:
My final period is study hall, but I sign out from the classroom to take it in the library instead and then leave school early. It will probably get caught and counted as an absence, and there’s a real chance I’ll catch Saturday school for this, but I don’t have much of a choice.
I mean, you do. Literally no force on Earth except other superhumans could hope to restrain you, and trust me, the Transhuman Earth Guardians are way too busy to play truant officer.
My super suit is banged up from last night, mostly in the boots, which were almost scraped apart against the airport tarmac, and I need to see about getting some repairs. The heels are barely hanging on, and the soles have been rubbed away until they look like sediment layers in rock formations. New ones might be pretty expensive, so my first crack at replacing them is going to see if I can get more from the Legion.
Ah, so it was Danny who organised the
Hogwarts Legacy boycott.
The problem is that I’m grounded more or less forever now, so if I’m going to be somewhere that’s not school or home I have to do it in a way that my parents won’t hear about it. Flying makes that easier, but I still want to finish this up before they expect me home.
Again, what are they going to do if you're late home? Can Roger sap your powers by reciting YWNBAW at you?
I get lucky with a city bus and manage to get home in just a few minutes. After taking a quick look around to make sure nobody is nearby, I risk a super speed dash down the alley and fly up to my bedroom window. Just a minute or two later, I’ve got the suit on and am leaving, going straight up just under the speed of sound.
Wouldn't it save more time to just go to the tower directly? They know Danny's real name, I'm sure they'd buzz him up.
Legion Tower has spotlights walking back and forth across the sky from its apex twenty-four hours a day, every day. From above, I realize that’s so flying heroes can find it even when the clouds are thick over the city.
Nah, it's so they can blind airplane pilots for practice.
The thick glass doors open as I approach, and an elevator is waiting for me. As I step inside, an intercom clicks on. It’s Doc Impossible.
“Hi Danny. We’re on the common level, that’s 37. Come on down.”
“Um, when you say ‘we’, who are you referring to?” No freaking way I’m going to talk to Graywytch today. Or hopefully ever again. In fact, maybe I can get replacement boots somewhere else.
That might be less pathetic if this wasn't how people like Danny treated women who weren't all-powerful sorceresses.
“You want some cocoa? Mugs are over there.” Doc Impossible gestures to some cabinets along the kitchen wall. I fill one from a hot chocolate and cappuccino dispenser, and then I’m sitting and having hot chocolate with a pair of friggin’ superheroes like it’s something I do all the time.
I feel like that would be an observation worth making in the 1950s or something before Marvel introduced the world to superheroes bickering about the phone bill. Doc and Valkyrja compliment Danny on saving the plane, with the latter suggesting that maybe next time he does something like that, it could be with proper superhero colours. Doc is pissed.
Doc Impossible sets down her mug. “She is fifteen, Val.”
“As was I, when first I picked up a sword.”
“This is the 21st century,” snaps Doc. “We don’t do that to children anymore.”
"This is a comment that totally makes sense with me knowing how you actually work, Val!"
Danny explains his telekinesis trick with the plane:
“Uh, I guess, it’s like I could see the momentum and I sorta… tugged it in another direction?” I say. “Does that make sense?”
Doc Impossible and Valkyrja trade a look of confusion. “I confess it does not,” says Valkyrja.
“Okay, uh, how to put this. I guess I can sorta see what’s…well, not ‘see’ exactly, but I have this sense of a lattice that seems behind and under reality. Did Dreadnought ever talk about his powers or say anything like this?”
“Not that I recall,” says Doc Impossible. “He kept his powers pretty close to the vest to prevent his enemies from learning his limits.”
I hope we're meant to assume the first three Dreadnoughts were just canny and not that Danny somehow discovered a novel use of their powers the first time he used them for something other than crying in orbit. Doc wants to examine Danny's injuries:
The elevator ride is long, and starting to get a little strained.
Doc Impossible takes a drag on her cigarette. “She likes men.”
Can one of my superpowers please be melting through the floor, disappearing forever, and having everyone who ever met me forget that I exist? Please? But I’m supposed to be an invincible badass now, so all I say is, “That’s disappointing.”
I'm sure Danny could figure out a way to make straight chicks not wanting to sleep with him transphobic if you gave him a mo.
“Oh.” Somehow, I would have expected that to be a lot more painful.
“They’ve set themselves—which is amazing, by the way; most people’s bodies don’t do that—and on anyone else I’d say they’d be about one week into healing, but even that is a little slower than how Dreadnought normally healed.”
Are we meant to assume Danny's regenerative powers are slower because they're preoccupied making him seem female? Because that's hilarious. Danny's suit and boots can actually regenerate themselves over time, but Danny decides to get a new set, because you know, consoom. Doc also offers to make Danny some civilian clothes, which leads to... this:
A few minutes later, I’m sitting curled in the corner with my new clothes bunched in my lap. Those old instincts to hide and clutch things furtively are still with me, it seems. That’s what safety feels like. I rest my head against the wall and enjoy the feel of my new stockings against the skin of my legs. I feel relaxed and happy and free. So wonderfully, gloriously free.
"Constricting clothes, I'm freeeeeee!""
“Do you know how to claim your colors?” she [Valkyrja] asks.
“Uh, I thought I would just ask for a different suit.”
Valkyrja shakes her head. “The one you wear is the one you will fight in. Examine the inside of your left wrist. There you will find the toggle to change your colors.”
That's a fun feature, I will admit.
Now that I know to look for it I notice there is a small blister there, a circle slightly raised from the material around it. I push on it, and it snaps down while another blister pops up next to it. The suit’s gray camoflauge begins to run and fade, and brighter colors push themselves up through the material until my suit is navy blue with a white cape, mantle, and cowl. The first Dreadnought was an officer in the US Army Air Force, and wearing naval-themed colors really pissed his superior officers off. One wonders if he enjoyed tweaking their noses.
Okay, now we know more about the first Dreadnought--a guy who died more than fifty years ago--than the guy who literally died in front of Danny.
“Why didn’t anybody tell me about this?” A little prick of disappointment pokes me. Doc Impossible likes to talk about how she wants me to have all the information, but then she conveniently forgets to mention I could take Dreadnought’s colors any time I want.
“It is in the handbooks we gave you, is it not?”
“Oh, uh.” And now I feel like a jerk. Good job, dumbass. “I’ve had a lot of homework to catch up on.”
A trans person realising they were overreacting to a perceived slight? Someone alert the presses!
“Indeed,” says Valkyrja, and she either doesn’t notice my embarrassment or pretends not to. “If you choose not to carry Dreadnought’s banner, you can command your suit to display heraldry of your own design. There is a small lead on your suit, near the belt line.” I look down and after a few moments searching find it. The cord is kind of springy, and retracts back into the suit automatically when I let it go. “To access your suit’s advanced functions, insert it into the port of USB on your telephone cellular.”
I look up at her, suspicious. My telephone cellular, she says. “You’re just screwing with me now, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you refer to.” Valkyrja’s smile is too wide not to be in on the joke. “Would you like my address for mail electronic?”
Okay, this is a little cute. See, Daniels, I'm not that hard to charm.
“Danny, why did you lie to us?” she asks. She doesn’t sound mad, and she doesn’t sound curious. She sounds like she already knows the answer and wants me to confirm it.
My whole body tightens. “What? I didn’t lie—”
“This body was born in 1979, but I am the sum of my mother, and all my mother’s mothers; my years number nine and twelve hundred. I have heard every lie tongues can speak. Scant few can deceive me, and you are not among them. You were not practicing flying. Yet, you were there. Why were you there, and why did you not tell us of it?”
That sounds absolutely horrifying, and much more interesting than Danny thinking he was a girl because he held his books the wrong way. But why the fuck would anyone ever need a reason to go
flying if they could?
Her voice is soft and kind. “Danny, do you feel safe at home?”
Are we talking actual "safe" or Twitter "safe"?
No.
There it is. I don’t feel safe at home. I open my mouth to say something, and as I do I realize that like my mother, I can’t give it its name. Not out loud. Not even to Valkyrja. Because if I admit it, if I call it what it is, then I can’t hide from it anymore either. It becomes real in a way I am not ready for. Might never be ready for. There will be no illusions of safety, no peaceful times alone in my room.
Unless your dad can cough up nukes, I think you'll be fine. Seriously, why not make Roger physically abusive? It's easier to write than verbal or emotional abuse, and unlike real life, Roger can't contradict Danny's account.
There will only be times when he’s not hurting me.
Like literally every moment of the rest of your life.
She puts her hand on my shoulder. “I can arrange for you to have quarters here. You need not return there.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’m fine.” I’m struggling not to hyperventilate.
“Sometimes it requires great strength and courage to ask for help.”
My throat is tight, and I can’t look at her. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“Danielle—”
There is literally no reason for Danny to turn this down. He has displayed no lingering affection for either of his parents. There's no way the government wouldn't side with the fucking superheroes if they tried taking them to court. Even taking Graywytch into account, trust me, having a virtual stranger slag you off is always preferable to having it be your own flesh and blood. This conflict is completely artificial, and the stakes non-existent.
It’ll be fine. Dad had his blowup, and now he’ll start to get over it. The more time he has to think about it and grow used to the idea, the better it will get. He’ll start to understand this is permanent, and though he may not ever like it, and I probably still will need to leave the house on my eighteenth birthday, I don’t think there is going to be another night like last night again any time soon. As long as I stay out of his way, and don’t do anything really femme around him, things will be okay.
The justifications, the optimistic scenarios, come naturally to me.
Because it’s a skill set.
And I’ve had practice.
I love how none of these "optimistic scenarios" take into account Danny's godlike powers. For all TRAs talk about how resilient and brave they are, they can't help but construct worlds where shouty dudes are stronger than them, even when they can catch falling planes.
Dinner is quiet and strained, the way it normally is for a day or so after a big blowup, but aside from some grumbling and some snide remarks, we get through it fine.
Okay, I want to know
who was making the snide remarks. Because if Danny was getting in jabs of his own without it turning into a nuclear conflagration, this sounds less like an abusive household and more... one with a teenager in it.
All the homework I didn’t get to yesterday is still waiting for me, and TV is one of the things I’m not allowed to do anymore (I haven’t been foolish enough to ask how long I am grounded for) so I hit the books straight away and stay with them until the sun goes down.
Is homework one of Daniels' fetishes?
Conjugation in French is a special kind of horror, on par with the sort of things you’d need to do to call up the Old Ones when the stars are right.
Tv-tropes arse line right there.
I’m doing my best to get through this exercise on gerunds when I hear a tap on my window. There’s nobody there when I look, and I almost start to believe I didn’t hear anything after all. The Legion has my phone number, so they’re not going to do the knocking-on-windows thing again, right?
I still want to know why the Legion haven't talked to Danny's parents. Especially if they suspect there's abuse.
Just to be sure, I get up and open the window. The moment it’s open enough to clear a body, Calamity swings down from the roof and into my room in a single liquid motion. She looks around curiously, and then turns back to me. She tips her hat.
“Howdy, Dreadnought.”
April Daniels: Ugh, they want me to write about dumb capeshit stuff again.
Next time, dumb capeshit stuff!
