April Daniels's Blog

I was going to track the horror post by post as it crept towards me, but I simply couldn’t do it. I was collecting links to share of other, braver women’s work to share on this subject, and I couldn’t do that either. The fear was suffocating. I guess I found the limits of my literary courage. The massive escalation of anti-trans venom out of Republican circles in late September broke something in me, and I haven’t until just now been able to return to writing about the subject.

Also, the ethnic cleansing and genocide of immigrant communities continues, but I’m not competent to track that horror, either. It felt more and more absurd to whine about the winching tighter of bureaucratic cruelties while masked thugs tore families apart in public. It’s not that the Administration’s actions targeting my community do not fit the criteria of an incipient genocide; it’s that there’s a separate, active genocide happening to my neighbors right now. Therefore, I am putting this series of posts on indefinite hiatus and returning my blogging efforts to something that doesn’t make me want to kill myself.

Buy a whistle, or print one up, and keep it with you. If you see ICE coming, blow your whistle to warn your neighbors. We must protect each other. It is the only way we get through this.

And when we do get through this, I want all of you reading this to pledge you will have no truck with anyone preaching reconciliation. We must remember what they have done. We must remember, and punish them.

The regime’s monsters must learn what fear tastes like.

Link roundup: https://www.newsweek.com/ice-detention-louisiana-transgender-detainees-abuse-complaint-10483607

https://autonomy.substack.com/p/do-trans-people-have-a-right-to-exist

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/09/gop-rep-says-we-need-to-remove-all-trans-people-from-streets-the-internet/

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/republicans-push-fbi-to-designate

https://transitics.substack.com/p/this-week-theres-been-a-massive-escalation

The question authors hate more than any other is “Where do you get all your ideas?”

And the reason we hate it is because our problem is not finding ideas. Our problem is figuring out which ideas are worth developing into a project. Every author I know has more ideas than hours in which to write.

If you struggle to find your own ideas, I have some advice.

Give up on being original. Go all in on being yourself. Write a book that’s just nothing but the shit YOU adore, and don’t worry if it’s been seen a thousand times before. Don’t worry if you only think you’ve seen it a thousand times before. Write something formulaic and derivative. Write something that looks like this:

The Coolest Protagonist In The Universe has a Big Problem. While she (my Coolest People in the Universe are always women but yours might not be) grapples with this, she encounters The Hottest Love Interest In History. They are instantly attracted to each other. However, the Big Problem she’s grappling with prevents The Coolest Protagonist In the Universe from getting with the Hottest Love Interest until about halfway through the story, at which time they have The Best Sex.

At that point, the Big Problem becomes either much more urgent, but now solvable through cooperation that was not possible before The Best Sex, or the Big Problem is revealed to not be much of a problem anymore, because of a new perspective on life brought about by the experience of the Best Sex. Either way, the Best Sex is the highlight of the story, the climax, if you will, of the narrative arc.

Then they live happily ever after, or they split up, or everyone dies. Just end it how it feels right to you for the story to end. Once you have done this, you’ll have a complete story, and once you have a complete story, you’ll have unlocked that part of yourself that understands what making a beginning, a middle, and an end looks like. This part of you is the key to developing new ideas and once you have understood it, ideas will be everywhere. You’ll have so many ideas you won’t have time to write them all down. The ideas will never stop. The flow will never cease.

Then you too will be cursed.

Conservatives in the government want to strip us of our ability to defend ourselves. Reporters covering the issue have heard Justice Department officials call us trannies, and say that on principle we should be disarmed. In my previous post I asserted that should the preferred method of shoving us into the gutter not be fast enough in eliminating us, that stronger measures might be pursued. It seems like at least some actors in the Justice Department want to pave the way for those stronger measures.

Regimes with genocidal intent do not simply flip the switch on the murder machine to on, they have to prepare the way to achieve their goal, just like the implementation of any other policy.

Cis people refused to believe us about who we are for a very long time; now there are some who are so desperate to go back to the days when the social consensus was that we didn’t truly exist, that they will seek to return us there by force. Please do not repeat the mistake of disbelieving us now–this is real, this is happening, they want us disappeared by any means necessary.

There are two phrases you need to understand in order to properly see the genocide against trans people that is now underway in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The first, is epistemicide. Defined here, it means

… the killing, silencing, annihilation, or devaluing of a knowledge system. We argue epistemicide happens when epistemic injustices are persistent and systematic and collectively work as a structured and systemic oppression of particular ways of knowing.

–Dr. Beth Patin

The second, is social murder, from Engels, which Wikipedia has as

an unnatural death that is believed to occur due to social, political, or economic oppression, instead of direct violence.

Any story you see about trans people needs to be red in light of these two concepts. First they want to erase us, and then they’re going to push us into the gutter and ignore us while we die. They want us to disappear.

They are already seeking to erase us, to erase any suggestion that we can exist. This program is advancing in parallel with their efforts to eliminate our health care and make it legal to discriminate against us. All of these efforts will, combined the preexisting brutality of American life, lead to increased mortality among trans people. It is social murder as a policy goal, and they will pursue ever more aggressive policies in this regard until they are satisfied we no longer exist in any meaningful way.

When you see announcements like this, understand they are part of a strategy of genocide. It doesn’t look like bombs or gas chambers or machetes, but the intent is the same. For now the tools are gentler and more indirect, but they’re trying to build consensus for stronger measures as well. They want us to kill ourselves, or to starve, or to freeze–and when that doesn’t work on all of us, I have no doubt they will select more active tactics. They want us to disappear, and for the new generations to grow up understanding that their survival depends on not being trans so they’d better stay in the closet.

This is why they want to blame us all for the actions of a mass shooter. They want to make as many people as possible okay with disposing of us. They want this to continue indefinitely.

More trans people are born every week, which means this program can have no end. If they have their way, a standing policy of destruction will be levied against all trans people, living and yet to be born, enforced by an ever-tightening winch of discrimination against those who transgress ever-more brittle gender norms.

The alternative is to accept that trans people exist, that we are who we say we are, and that we are worth fighting for. There cannot be a middle ground on this. Any compromise with people who want to dissolve our public presence and flush us down a drain will only lead to further attacks.

This problem is everyone’s problem. If you think it isn’t, try this: Think of all the times you’ve seen American conservatives freak out about something trivial. Rage is what gets them up in the morning. Without somebody to hate, they don’t know who they are. Today the Trump regime targets immigrants and trans people. Do you really believe that, once finished with us, they won’t eventually come after you?

Rep. Bonamici,

We are in a bleak time, but I think there is still hope. Several times in my lifetime, power has passed between the parties during a Presidential election, only to be passed back during a subsequent midterm. I believe that is the opportunity Democrats must be seeking starting today.

Two years of unified Republican rule will bring many hardships to our country, but it will also bring outcry. By the time you and your colleagues head back out to the campaign trail, the country will be ready to listen to alternatives.

You must provide them those alternatives. I still believe that Secretary Clinton would have been a fantastic President, but she never managed to crystallize a strong idea of what she was for, only what she was against. That’s not enough. We MUST have a strong Democratic platform, as if 2018 were another Presidential election. You, and the other Democratic members of the House, must come together and form a clear, unambiguous statement of intent–one not pre-hobbled by the realities of passing legislation past a hostile White House, but rather one that is aspirational, hopeful, and honest.

First and foremost, I would argue, the Democrats need to be the party of democracy. Re-instating the Voting Rights Act, or a modern equivalent, must be priority one, but that can’t be the limit of it. Anywhere and everywhere, Democrats should be pushing to make registration and voting easier than ever. We must forcefully push back against claims of voter fraud with a counter-narrative (that happens to be true) of Republican voter suppression and gerrymandering. In two years time, the GOP will have sold off as much of the country to their rich friends as they can. Use that as a weapon–THEY are the party of fat cats and WE are the party of ordinary voters.

Second, we must take a stand against racism and police violence. Every summer now we see clashes between protesters and militarized riot cops. In 2018, those clashes will likely take place during the campaign itself. Democrats must be the party that stands against police overreach. Yes, that may turn off some white law-and-order types, but we must come to accept that Democrats who would demotivate their minority supporters in favor of chasing fickle white voters are ceding victory for no good reason.

Third, we must strongly argue in favor of mandatory financial transparency on the part of all government officials in high office. The senior administration officials, the secretaries of the departments, everyone. The GOP will be neck-deep in crony dealing by the time the next election comes; let’s force them to defend that.

I’m sure you and your experts can see this as well as I can. I hope that you join with your fellow Democratic Caucus members in formulating a unified message and strategy that will help us go big into 2018 and nullify the final two years of Donald Trump’s administration.

We must resist. We must fight. Every inch. Every issue. We cannot allow these kleptocrats to destroy our great nation.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing of the battles you wil fight.

– April Daniels

Okay, I’ve got thinks more or less cleaned up, with a snazzy new theme and a snazzy new preorder button for DREADNOUGHT. (Hint, hint.)

My old hosting company is moving out of the US and I didn’t want to follow them for legal reasons, so I set up a new host somewhere else and started the process of migrating the blog.

Long story short: the XML file I thought was a full backup of my blog was not. I’ve lost all the media I put in my posts, plus the theme, the plugins, the customization. This is foolish on my part and a good lesson for you all–a full backup is a FULL BACKUP, not just the export file.

Also, Filezilla can fucking suck me. One goddamn mistyped key and it completely deleted the main folder for my site when I was trying to get that aforementioned full backup. There was, of course, no undo button.

This means that the site’s going to be ugly for a few days as I put it back together. Such is life.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

People like to say that Batman’s Rogue‘s Gallery is iconic because they’re all dark reflections of himself. This is bullshit, and I’ll tell ya why–it’s because they’re actually all dark reflections of American culture writ large.

Killer Croc has nothing to say about an old money white boy with parental abandonment and rage issues. He’s got everything to do with America’s fear of backwoods people. Similarly, Poison Ivy is about when militant ecofeminism gets real, Two Face is about the arbitrary and unjust nature of the American justice system, and Clayface is about the hollowness of celebrity culture. Harley Quinn is not the most popular female character in comics because she’s a twisted echo of something inside Batman; she’s popular because lots of women identify with being in an abusive relationship–notice how she’s become steadily more sympathetic as the writers embraced the implications of her backstory. And it keeps going. Scarecrow? Drugs. Mad Hatter? Date rape. The Joker? He’s about the most fundamental American fear of all. The fear of unbridled chaos, a problem that basically never exists, but which all white Americans are taught from birth to fear, and what White America fears sets the national agenda.

Admit it: nobody really gives a shit about Calendar Man. Nobody gives a shit about Man-Bat. Hush got boring fast. Why? Because none of these characters have anything to say about America. This is not to say that the scores and scores of creators who have worked on Batman-related titles over the decades were setting out to do a long-form collaborative deconstruction of the American id, far from it. I’m simply pointing out that the villains who have staying power, who matter at all to people outside the hardcore fans who love trivia? These villains all have something in common: very obvious symbolism about the American condition. Often, characters don’t pick up this extra layer until they’ve made multiple appearances and developed an extended motif, but you’ll notice that the villains who keep coming back decade after decade become less and less like people, and more and more like symbols.

Now if only I could figure out what the hell Mr. Freeze is supposed to be.

Hahaha, you get it? You get it? Because combined arms is a term for a kind of military action where many different sorts of weapons systems contribute, and brothers in arms is a term for an army, but because I’m me all the NPCs and squaddies are going to be women? Ya get it? Tell me I’m funny. Please.

Anyhow, I want a mech strategy game. We’re getting one, which is awesome, but as much as I love the BattleTech world, their focus has always been on the big stompy robots (They’re not robots! They’re mechs! Fake geek girl! Faaaaake!) to the virtual exclusion of all else, at least in the video game incarnations of the series. Tabletop BT was a little different, with lots of options for infantry, artillery, and tank support, but mainly it was about four to twelve battlemechs on a side slugging it out with each other until the mission was over. That’s fine. They’re great games, I love ’em to death.

But I want a mech combat game where the other combat arms aren’t window dressing and canon fodder. Where you take control of a company sized formation that includes all sorts of units, and each one of those units has a vital purpose. Sure, the mechs may be the stars of the show, but they’re not omnipotent and unassailable.

Here’s what I imagine: You’ve got your mech platoon, your tank platoon, and your infantry platoon. The mechs get the main work done. The tanks are nearly as powerful, and you get more of them besides, but they’re not as versatile and are not as good at spotting the enemy. Infantry are the only unit that can capture and hold objectives, and when they’re dug and have a good line of fire for their rockets, are nearly as powerful as tanks or mechs.

There’s no rock paper scissors in this game–any one of these unit types can be dangerous. But there is a consideration for using the right tool for the job. You don’t let your infantry lead an attack. You don’t let your tanks stray into rough terrain without recon to back them up. You don’t send your rock stars, your mecha, out on a sideshow errand.

Instead of going for a turn based game, I think it’d be fun to make this game real time tactics instead. But real time at a variable pace that can be paused, slowed down, or sped up at any time. You should never feel rushed playing.

Now, I said that I want combined arms, and I stick by that, but come on, giant robots are wicked sick, so the mechs would be the main part of the game. They’re the one platoon you can directly control. The other platoons under you are indirectly controlled by giving orders to the officers in charge. They accomplish the mission as best as they can, though since they were trained to fight as part of a company they will get anxious if you send them away from the main body of the company.

The art style for this should be cartoony, I think. This isn’t a grim macho game for grim macho grognards. People who are scared of bright colors should not play. Your subordinate officers have pop-up portraits when they acknowledge or react to your orders. Through these portraits and their voice acting, you get a sense of their morale, though you can check for yourself at any time as well. As you complete missions, they improve their skills and become more adept at accomplishing the tasks you set them.

The mechanics would aim for being quick to learn, tough to master. Realism–whatever that means once you’ve got giant robots in play–is eschewed in favor of clearly presented information and interesting choices. In real life, you don’t know if you’re well hidden until the enemy either spots you or fails to do so. For example, in this game, once you hide your guys in a copse of trees, they go all shadowy and dark. Lines of fire and lines of sight are clearly and easily displayed, without an overlay feature if possible. You get a preview of what your LOS will be if you move to a given position before you move there. I don’t ever want the player to regret a move on the basis that she didn’t know she wouldn’t be able to see or do what she wanted to do from that new position.

Everything about this game should be geared towards welcoming newbies into the fold, and then building them up to the level where they can be competitive in multiplayer, if that’s where they wish to go. If they choose to stay with the single player campaign and skirmish mode, that’s cool, too. To that end, the campaign should start with a very clear, very simple set of tools at hand, and then gradually up the complexity. Upping the complexity is NOT the same as bumping the difficulty, by the way. The game should start moderately difficult, and then end a bit more difficult. I don’t like single player strategy campaigns that are boring to start and a chore to finish, so that’s not going to happen here.

The single player campaign shouldn’t be too long, either. A big thing that scares newbies away from strategy games is their boasting about how long it takes to complete. I want this game to feel like a satisfying experience in 12 to 15 hours, with robust NG+, multiplayer, and skirmish mode options giving you extended replay options. If you want to put 200 hours into the game, that’s wonderful, but it shouldn’t be required just to finish it or feel like you’ve explored what the game has to offer.

I think a skirmish campaign feature might also be cool. You link a number of skirmish missions together into a dynamically generated (if, by necessity, narratively flat) mini-campaign that can be played in an afternoon. That way the strategic layer remains a relevant gameplay consideration over the long haul.

As for the story? I think that with the cartoonish art style and the nerdy affection for combined arms warfare, a project like this would greatly lend itself to goofy dark humor that doesn’t take the proceedings very seriously.

This isn’t the most cogent thing I’ve ever written. I just put 1500 words into my manuscript and my brain is kind of fried. But I wanted to get this up here.

For you

Because I care.