Two Essays on April Daniels' Dreadnought

[Cadis]

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As an aside, this is the response you get when you try to publish this essay on pastebin:

Pastebin's SMART filters have detected potentially offensive or questionable content in your paste.
The content you are trying to publish has been deemed potentially offensive or questionable by our filters, because of this you're receiving this warning.
This paste can only be published with the visibility set to "Private".

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Which is a pretty glaring example of how biased and unreliable content moderation algorithms are.

 

[Gargulec]

I am actually curious to find what it is exactly that trips those content filters - I'd assume it's all the references to sex, which is a pretty funny thing to consider.

 

[Nolrai]

I found Dreadnought unreadably depressing. Here's someone given something I desperately want for free, and frankly their life sucks. I wouldn't trade my super awesome friends and family for a woman's body. Add in how ..staged everything felt. How very concerned with making a point it felt. And yeah. Just wasn't fun, or interesting.

Then again I am much more not a guy then I am a woman.

 

[TaliesinSkye]

It's also on Kindle Unlimited

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Unfortunately, April's had a very difficult time getting her publisher to pay her any royalties. The whole thing was a pretty awful 'publisher screws new author' story.

 

[Karyis]

Unfortunately, April's had a very difficult time getting her publisher to pay her any royalties. The whole thing was a pretty awful 'publisher screws new author' story.

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I did some mild internet sleuthing and found an article by Writer Beware that discusses this. April's not the only one to have had this problem, looks like. They seem to have shaped up somewhat, but it's still suspicious as hell.

Also, re: the essay—I've only read the first one currently and will go back to read the second here in a bit, but I will say the first essay was very informative to me. I don't recall feeling like it was invalidating other trans experiences, but rather providing a history of how trans healthcare has been in the past and how that might influence the actions of doctors in this day and age, especially in regards to this scene. I checked back just now and the essay actually ends inconclusively as to whether or not the scene could play out differently or if it could happen as-is, which doesn't feel like invalidation to me.

I understand if someone read it differently, but as Garg said any implications of invalidation where wholly unintentional as no trans experience is universal.

 

[Triggerhappy]

Edit: Anyway, I mostly thought Dreadnaught just wasn't very well-written, but the essay is interesting and thought-provoking and kinda helped me retrospectively put together why several many conversations I've had with cis friends about the book were kinda unsatisfying.

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Speaking as a cis dude, it does feel both rather paint by the numbers and kind of like it's doubling down on the trauma as if it's trying to compensate for being wish fulfillment.

I found the essays to be very informative as they, and the comments, have articulated some of my own concerns with writing trans characters in a fantasy setting.

 

[Shane_357]

I also found the essays informative, I find it hard to penetrate most material despite being nb, and appreciate stuff written in this style because it makes sense.

 

[elenchus]

The essays were definitely well-written and very thoughtful, and it introduced me to a lot of stuff I hadn't articulated in that way before. I'd say that at least I'm happier having read it.