I'm nothing it not on time. I actually posted this to my twitter account on N7 Day, but just never got around to doing it here. So... to all Mass Effect fans, enjoy:
Imagine being a Sovereign but were outcast because you had a "defect". By accident you landed on earth and the Avengers, especially Natasha, took you in. Loki, being taken prisoner and gravely wounded, was supposed to die but you took pity on him and saved his life. When he asked you why, you answer is because he reminded you of yourself.
So I just read of all of Sovereign yesterday (book two in the nemesis series by April Daniels) and the best line by far??? Danny deciding to call the big bad Dingus, immediately after the big bad says he should be called Sovereign. And then Danny's narration of the fight calls him Dingus. Anyway that book is great, read it y'all and read the first one first.
Because I just read two books (essentially back to back) that I need to express so much about.
Okay, so this is the Nemesis series... which I essentially just call Dreadnought.
[Warning: This post contains spoilers, lots of feeling sharing, talk of abuse, and rambling]
ANYWAY.
This is the story of Danielle Tozer, a transgirl who just really wants to live her life. The issues though, man: she’s 15, her family’s very clearly not supportive when they find out, she has superpowers.
Oh right, missed a step. In the world of Dreadnought, superpowers are increasingly common. And... it’s kinda to the point that seeing a superhero fight is mundane.
“Oh. Great. A superhero fight. Just friggen’ wonderful.”
She happens to come across a dying hero (Dreadnought), who is basically the All Might of this world, who grants her all of his superpowers. One of those superpowers? Making you your ideal self. And from here, Danny becomes a Victoria Secret model.
...no, really:
“No. I mean, why I look this way. Mom took me to a fancy bra store the other day, and there were posters everywhere of these women that, well, nobody looks like that in real life, right?”
“Except you, and a few genetic lottery winners.”
“Yeah. So my ideal self—” Doc Impossible chuckles. “Is a photoshopped underwear model, I see.”
And you know what? I get that. I absolutely agree, I fucking wish I was that attractive. ...but I digress. Honestly? No. I'm not digressing. In fact, this is literally why I’m writing this psuedo-essay/rant nonsense.
More on that later.
...
So right, Danny is a transgender superhero that’s... a fucking lesbian, really attractive, and a complete badass:
"My palms light up with scalding agony, but what hurts for me is torture for him, his whole body convulsing as the energy is reflected back into his skull."
[2] Danny Tozer can’t fucking catch a break for more than two god damn seconds.
Directly out of her getting her body magically slapped into alignment, she has to return home since it’s late-o-clock. What do we know about Danny’s home life at this point? Well, she’s not out to her parents.
"Obviously I can’t tell anyone about this. If it got back to Dad, he’d kill me.
He’s obsessed with “making a good man” out of me. “You’re a man now,” he says as his justification for friggin’ everything."
So, not a great picture of what might happen next-- Danny arrives home finally, and has to convince her parents she is… well, the same person. (allegories, there ye be)
"My father’s eyes get wide. His face goes the color of spoiled milk. “What did you do?” he asks, quietly enough to scare me."
And this, this right here cemented my interest in this story.
Danny’s scared of her Dad. Earlier, she expressed concern, specifically: ”If [my dad] found out I might be a girl... well, I don’t really want to think about what might happen”. At this point, she’s more scared than she’s ever been in her life. Her greatest fear is happening right now, and all she can do is twist the narrative into an unsaid apology. Danny wants to keep the peace, it’s what she’s done for seven years of her life. So she hides that she’s happy like this. And dad starts pushing to find a solution to this. And mom starts being a little supportive from time to time. Etc, etc, clearly they get their shit together and bang, happy ending.
lol jk this is DREADNOUGHT people, nope, that is not what happens.
Yes: great, her mom does start to seem supportive. She buys Danny some bras, cute flats, and even starts to bond with her daughter. It’s some heart-warming, regular shit we’ve all dreamed of getting to do. (but it never did, did it?)
Her Dad forbids her from going to school since he wants to hide the whole.. “my son turned into a girl” thing. So, like any good kid, Danny goes the fuck to school. And there… she loses a friend.
So her best friend, David, turns out to be the shining example of a “nice guy”. Danny’s a pretty girl now, why can’t she just date him? He just wants to try. All he does is stare at her tits, but wow, doesn’t he deserve a shot?
Yeah, fuck you David. He gets rejected and calls Danny a “stuck-up bitch”. Real great guy.
Straight out of realizing her ‘best friend’ was a sniveling incel, Danny outs herself to her parents. And then her Dad goes... nuclear.
(you may not want to read the next section if you’ve had abusive parents)
"He tells me I’m stupid. That I’m not thinking big picture. That nobody will respect me while I look like a freak. That he only wants what is best for me but I’m screwing it all up.
He says I’ve damaged my reputation, that nobody will take me seriously now.
He demands to know why I don’t have the good sense to be ashamed of what happened to me, but doesn’t wait for an answer before saying I’ve embarrassed them all. He says I’m pathetic, that I’m delusional, that I’m sick.
He suggests I might be a pervert, and that he—generous, caring, and steadfast as he is—might have to fight to keep me off the sex offender list for using the girls’ bathroom.
He tells me I’m disloyal, that I’m a bad son, that I’m selfish and disgusting. He tells me I’m weak, and gross, and that I have no moral fiber.
He says he’s never been so ashamed of me, and then he goes on to emphasize how low that is, given all the other times I’ve shamed him. He says all of this at a volume to shake the rafters.
When I start to cry he calls me a sniveling pussy and says he’s glad his father is dead so he never had to see what a failure I am.
I suck it up fast, force the tears back as quick as I can, because I know the longer I cry the worse it will get."
Yes, I felt it was necessary to make you read this huge chunk of screen real-estate.
This, this is something that I know all too well of.
Danny’s father is a selfish, unloving cunt. Full stop.
And her mom? God, her mom doesn’t even watch. We know that this kind of talk isn’t the first of its kind. And then Danny... just takes it. It all gets to her, every single word. She thinks of herself as “a worthless, stupid, disgusting little freak”. She’s straight up sobbing in her bed after all of this, trying to keep quiet so her dad doesn’t yell again.
She (effectively) loses everyone who she thought cared for her in one day. Damn.
Yeah, your typical superhero origin story. Totally.
Have I mentioned I relate to Danny so fucking hard?
Now, honestly? I had to put the book down at this point. It hit in all the sore spots, those points of trauma that’ll probably be here for the rest of my life.
What’s described here is the visceral reality of having abusive parents. The scars it leaves, the feeling of helplessness... enough to bring you back to it. And this, this particular flavor of helplessness, is something I have not seen in media before.
I don’t want to spoil much further, these are all thoughts from the first book, and I encourage you to read it yourself. If you thought any of this was interesting or resonated with you, pick up a copy of Dreadnought and give it a good look over.
(i might write more about this book eventually, might even touch upon the superhero parts :p)
