@9ccf7b7d This seems to be the paradigm of the me generation gravitating to the political pole that would allow such mis-behavior, then wanting mommy to fix it when the burn down the house. [Pun intended.]
#PennedPossibilities 91 — How does your MC / SC display affection?
For this devil-girl, affection is strictly a work-in-progress. From the age of four she was raised by a guardian who was also her decorum-minded butler. That she'll protect you in a fight or take responsibility for your mistakes is a good indicator. That she'll do way more than you ask of her can also be a sign of affection, or that you're making her life interesting. She's as likely to use a kiss or sex as a way to dominate either gender as to mean it. Since she's a woman you don't want to f— with, if she starts teasing you, you'd better be suspicious.
When her roommate stole her research project, making it her own, blackmailing her with insinuations of ethical issues about experimenting on people without their consent (her roommate), my MC kissed and hugged her, twirling her around. She whipped up breakfast on the balcony of the ivory tower, promising her roommate she'd make her ruler of everything she could see. My MC wanted the results, lacked funding, and her roommate provided it all for the price of something so piddling as /credit. The MC's affection was genuine—she would have done anything asked in that moment, /anything./ The display was as unexpected as it was off-putting, to say the least.
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@77e70c0a Food? We could all afford to lose a little weight, right? Seriously, a day job is good, so congrats. I'm about to retire, so I have a different perspective on these things. Anyway, stability makes it oh so much more easy to write! Expect a burst of creativity.
@ad951bfd@796af16b@a7912c6a Yeah, as a way to point out it isn't so hard to use. However, I have fielded some complaints and had a hard time myself in the beginning, but for a good buddy that pretty much held my hand. It's funny, though, having used it for almost a year now, it's actually really easy! Thanks for the article.
@17cb16ac Well said. Every innovation has a dark side. I've been seeing the warnings to the abused a lot recently, even in the hashtags we both participate in. I'd certainly like to know if I'd turned off the setting I cited it would have mute this "boss monster" of alerts. If the FTC made a requirement that muting was possible and easy (I don't know, maybe it did), I'm sure manufacturers would lobby against it and conspiracy theorists would mute it and miss the very emergencies they are hoping to take advantage of...
@9f39971d Sadly, it seems I picked the new UI up at some point. Fortunately you can hide things like the side bar on the left. I now remember doing so. Ridiculous, agreed. I'd love it if'n they'd just fix things like a modal dialog box that pops up when you press Get Message to tell you it is already getting messages. That's what the twirly (which isn't running always during get messages) and the status bar are for. Every so often I try to report these things, but the information requirements for registering for bug reporting for TB always dissuade me from signing up to do it. You can customize some of the excess away, and I've done so.
@17cb16ac When I heard that sound todayI thought, "How many unfortunate people are about to get the hell beat out of them."
The biggest issue I've read centers around it alerting abusers that the abused has a secret cellphone they use for their own safety. I know my iPhone has setting to turn off Amber alerts, as well as emergency alerts or turn off the sound on the same. Not sure if that disables the national alert. Don't know if the setting is available on the cheapest phone.
#emergencyalert #nationalalert
#Writever 4 — Crime
I stood under the cover of the glass bus kiosk roof, watching on a cloudy, drizzly day. Traffic splashed through puddles in the street. My breath condensed and warmed my cheek. Yes! I saw a man in a black macintosh without a hat rushing toward the new stand. I walked out behind him, my footsteps slapping wetly. He caught the attention of the grizzle guy running the place.
"The short one's sell the best. You can drop it in a pocket..."
Keeping my back to the pair, I passed by the long stand on my left, lifted a copy of /The Inquisitor/ off the top of the stack, and stuffed it under my right arm. I raised my left hand in a lackadaisical wave that wouldn't be seen by the proprietor, but would make me seem a regular with a tab to anybody watching.
I hummed a tune, wondering if someone might leave a to-go cup of coffee or tea unattended. Three cafés in this block alone...
A large form stepped in front of me from the doorway of a tailor. I dodged left to go around him, but the living wall sidled in front. Blinking, trying to look like any businessman rushing to the office, I looked up into the constable's face. He wore a blue cap. I could not miss the brass buttons or the copper badge. Only the dampness of the day hid that I suddenly sweat. My hands, especially. My heart raced.
I asked, "Um. Yes, officer?" Innocently. At least my voice didn't betray me.
He held out a beefy hand. His eyes were dark, maybe brown? They were shadowed. His breath looked like smoke as it curled from his open mouth.
I handed over the paper.
"Thank you," he said, grinning. His 6 o'clock shadow blackened his jaw even though it wasn't 9 AM, yet. He stepped around me and I turned to follow his path.
I saw him immediately pull out the sports section. He tossed the remainder into the wire-mesh rubbish bin he passed. He asked the newsstand proprietor, "Business good today?"
The man behind the 'zines nodded grimly.
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#Writever 1 — Justice
I. Could not. /Believe./ What I was seeing! As I pulled the wheels of my chair furiously to get to my van, risking the cracked and warped pavement of the sidewalk, I started shouting. "What are you doing!? What are you doing!?"
The woman in a white uniform and a cap pressed a button. A white sheet like the tape on a adding machine ticked and jerked as it rolled out of her handheld ticket machine. Her eyebrow went up as she looked at me. She ripped it off and looked for a windshield wiper to tuck it into. I'd lost mine last winter. As I rolled up, she pealed off the backing and pasted it onto my windshield.
In the middle. Where it would interfere with me driving. At least she didn't start to write me up for an equipment violation.
"My handicapped sticker is up! What the f—"
She shook her head, unintimidated, knowing I couldn't reach her stuck in my chair. She retreated to her shiny enclosed tricycle that stood there idling, white like her uniform, plastic like her smile. "You can't park in a red zone."
"My van's broken down! It's not like I wanted—"
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse," she said. The motorcycle engine sounded derisive as she rumbled off.
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#Writever 4 — Crime
I stood under the cover of the glass bus kiosk roof, watching on a cloudy, drizzly day. Traffic splashed through puddles in the street. My breath condensed and warmed my cheek. Yes! I saw a man in a black macintosh without a hat rushing toward the new stand. I walked out behind him, my footsteps slapping wetly. He caught the attention of the grizzle guy running the place.
"The short one's sell the best. You can drop it in a pocket..."
Keeping my back to the pair, I passed by the long stand on my left, lifted a copy of /The Inquisitor/ off the top of the stack, and stuffed it under my right arm. I raised my left hand in a lackadaisical wave that wouldn't be seen by the proprietor, but would make me seem a regular with a tab to anybody watching.
I hummed a tune, wondering if someone might leave a to-go cup of coffee or tea unattended. Three cafés in this block alone...
A large form stepped in front of me from the doorway of a tailor. I dodged left to go around him, but the living wall sidled in front. Blinking, trying to look like any businessman rushing to the office, I looked up into the constable's face. He wore a blue cap. I could not miss the brass buttons or the copper badge. Only the dampness of the day hid that I suddenly sweat. My hands, especially. My heart raced.
I asked, "Um. Yes, officer?" Innocently. At least my voice didn't betray me.
He held out a beefy hand. His eyes were dark, maybe brown? They were shadowed. His breath looked like smoke as it curled from his open mouth.
I handed over the paper.
"Thank you," he said, grinning. His 6 o'clock shadow blackened his jaw even though it wasn't 9 AM, yet. He stepped around me and I turned to follow his path.
I saw him immediately pull out the sports section. He tossed the remainder into the wire-mesh rubbish bin he passed. He asked the newsstand proprietor, "Business good today?"
The man behind the 'zines nodded grimly.
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@689949c6 Thank you. I did. I wrote:
"As a voter in your electoral district, please reject and publicly oppose the Kids Online Safety Act. (KOSA). It damages children's right to know and learn by forcing search providers to restrict everything they think anyone might object to avoid litigation. The resulting censorship will be extreme. The unintended consequences of this legislation far outweigh its laudable goals."
@534afeaa I did something about it. I wrote to my representatives the following:
"As a voter in your electoral district, please reject and publicly oppose the Kids Online Safety Act. (KOSA). It damages children's right to know and learn by forcing search providers to restrict everything they think anyone might object to avoid litigation. The resulting censorship will be extreme. The unintended consequences of this legislation far outweigh its laudable goals."
#WordWeavers 10.4 — Character development, world-building, plot - how much attention do you pay to each?
A lot. They're all important, however I typically start with a treatment that includes the beginning, the ending, the idea, and what motivates the character(s) to do what they are initiating. I'm a pantser. Unless the worldbuilding or characters come pre-defined from a presequel or a series, the rest is strictly build-as-I-go. I iterate back through story, backfilling all my discoveries.
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#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 2 #4 — How do you write the time? In text or numbers? Both? Why?
Numbers, rarely text. I probably should use "five" instead of "5" when characters are talking about approximate time, but thinking about it makes me pretty sure I just like to be consistent in representation.
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#PennedPossibilities 91 — How do your characters want to be seen by others? What image do they wish to portray?
Her first choice is invisible, not seen, not notice by others. Mostly, she wants to be left alone to study her books and perform the ever better miracles she seeks out and learns about.
Since she isn't left alone, she tries to portray herself as competent (and typically is), but as someone you don't what to f— with (and you don't), the paradigm of a pejorative devil-girl.
How she really wants in her heart to be seen by others is as /exceptional./ Praiseworthy. Praise her for something she's earned and her smile may blind you.
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@50227b99@f183b624
I'd would recommend a few more hashtags of interest, to wit...
Continuing content:
#pennedpossibilities #writerscoffeeclub #writever
Other writer gather here:
#writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon
To be heard generically by authors:
#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author
#Writever 10.3 — Vengeance
I drummed my fingers on the table beside her open grimoires. Not facing the bully, I turned my eyes toward the blonde, taking in her arrogant smile. She gotten me to do what she wanted. She held her wand steady, and the tip glowed like hot iron. "And that's all I need to do? I can't believe you're helping me like this after all we've been through..."
The bucket-full of water and me being hit by said bucket falling off the shelf above the door. The vanishing ink pen I used on a test. The worms in my box lunch. Other things. But I was also a T.A. Some responsibilities where inescapable.
I did volunteer to help Jill.
I wanted to laugh at the "we" in that last sentence, but sighed instead. She was predictable. Very predictable. "The mnemonic, the equations, the visualization. Spot on. It balances and your wand indicates that."
"So all I have to do is say what I want to conjure?"
Predictable. I didn't grin. Instead I switched to French, hopeful. "/Tu m'emmerdes avec tes questions!/"†
She blinked. "Merde? Isn't that French for—"
With magic you really need to be specific about where to target a spell affect and what you're asking for. She'd been specific about neither.
Where your wand is pointing is the default. Her's pointed above her head.
The spell understood what she wanted enough that the closest source proved to be the horse stables. I could see it out the dorm room window. The spell mucked every stall.
A load of small round spheres crashed down around her, bouncing off her head and bounding around the room. I squealed reflexively and jumped away.
I doubled over leaning against the door, laughing despite the smell. For her part, the bully sat stunned. Her expression wanted to be a smile. She had succeeded, after all. She also knew she'd been made the fool.
Exiting out the door was the better part of valor. I grabbed the nob.
"/Amélie/," came a growl.
=-=-=-=-=
† "You're so annoying with your questions!" Literally: "You're shitting on me with your questions."
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#Writever 4 — Crime
I stood under the cover of the glass bus kiosk roof, watching on a cloudy, drizzly day. Traffic splashed through puddles in the street. My breath condensed and warmed my cheek. Yes! I saw a man in a black macintosh without a hat rushing toward the new stand. I walked out behind him, my footsteps slapping wetly. He caught the attention of the grizzle guy running the place.
"The short one's sell the best. You can drop it in a pocket..."
Keeping my back to the pair, I passed by the long stand on my left, lifted a copy of /The Inquisitor/ off the top of the stack, and stuffed it under my right arm. I raised my left hand in a lackadaisical wave that wouldn't be seen by the proprietor, but would make me seem a regular with a tab to anybody watching.
I hummed a tune, wondering if someone might leave a to-go cup of coffee or tea unattended. Three cafés in this block alone...
A large form stepped in front of me from the doorway of a tailor. I dodged left to go around him, but the living wall sidled in front. Blinking, trying to look like any businessman rushing to the office, I looked up into the constable's face. He wore a blue cap. I could not miss the brass buttons or the copper badge. Only the dampness of the day hid that I suddenly sweat. My hands, especially. My heart raced.
I asked, "Um. Yes, officer?" Innocently. At least my voice didn't betray me.
He held out a beefy hand. His eyes were dark, maybe brown? They were shadowed. His breath looked like smoke as it curled from his open mouth.
I handed over the paper.
"Thank you," he said, grinning. His 6 o'clock shadow blackened his jaw even though it wasn't 9 AM, yet. He stepped around me and I turned to follow his path.
I saw him immediately pull out the sports section. He tossed the remainder into the wire-mesh rubbish bin he passed. He asked the newsstand proprietor, "Business good today?"
The man behind the 'zines nodded grimly.
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@568cb1e6 There is an amazing variance even amongst cultures. I've been watching Korean drama recently, and they have a completely unique half-smile Americans to convey a nuance we never do. Learning Japanese, I've gotten a book on gestures you need to learn to be fully understood speaking there. In one of my stories, the aliens gesture with facial feathers and can't make certain human sounds, so the humans learn their language and use their fingers held near their cheeks to speak "alien", which I modeled after Bahasa Indonesian (another language, a pidgin originally trading language, I partially learned when I lived there for awhile).
@2c35244d
"No[, a writer should not have a face shot on their book]. Because [the] book isn’t about author and cover should represent what the [b]ook contains." [#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 2 #3 ]
Interesting. Your reply made me think, so thank you for that. I support you going with what you think is right for your books.
I won't put my image in the book for the subtextual reasons I stated. Furthermore, I would ask a publisher not to require a portrait, even though they consider the cover advertising that is solely theirs to allocate in order to sell more copies. An author-portrait is an attempt by them to make me as an author into a publishing asset; it isn't wrong, either.
However...
I disagree that a book isn't about an author, and especially disagree if the book is fiction. At its root, a book is a fragment chipped painfully off of the author's soul. An author stuffs their a book full with their feelings, emotions, and all the messages they wish to communicate to the world. A story is brought to life by avatars of the author's personality, the good, the evil, the ugly, and the godly—all children of the author's mind: /their characters./ The choice of words, the abuse of grammar, the slang and the elocution, and all the rest map the way the author thinks, or reveal the masks the author wears to hide what they wish to censor but nonetheless lets free subconsciously. A book is a snapshot of the author's deepest thoughts, fears, and hopes at a moment in time, frozen on the page as surely as an image is captured on film or an digital imager. Thus a book is about the author because is a distillation of an author's desire to communicate something to others, and it does.
A picture is appropriate to include, if that is part of what the author wishes to communicate.
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@ae1a0ada Yay! It's definitely in the watchlist now.
I recently finished watching /Ayakashi Triangle/, which also had interesting gender themes and innuendo satire (you'll see if you watch it). In the end what could have been delightful F/F acceptance, where the love of person inside mattered far more than the out, it copped out. The story was so compelling and humorous and so strongly spoke about friendship despite what's outside, that I still recommend it.
RS is also a semi-professional #photographer, having done #photography at weddings and a parties. I also do #fineart photography. I've changed my profile header today. It's a #stereogram, one of my hobbies. Check it out. It should render correctly in most clients, but may be cut off in a multicolumn advanced web interface. Enjoy!
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@ae1a0ada Taking your recommendation. I'm in Love with the Villainess seems like a different take on the concept in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom, but it is indeed fun. I hope the F/F match-up is real, not frivolous. Thanks! The only problem is that it just started on Crunchyroll, which means I have to wait a week between episodes. 😢
@7ed8b959 Jump and warp? The first is more SF. Star Trek almost seems to have the latter trademarked. I've seen overdrive used before, but I suggest you just come up with something that goes with the vernacular of your characters. Like, "We'll be taking the fast one to Tau Ceti" or "Riding the beam." The weird thing about made up words in a story, if you don't over do it, by the end of the story they feel natural to the reader. Think of all the made up words used for things like cars. We do it all the time. Novels are better for made-up words, tho, because of their length...
#WordWeavers 10.3 — How do you convey your characters' emotions?
Oddly enough, I consider that I write slice of life stories interspersed with bad things happening. My characters react pretty much like humans do in real life. They smile, frown, put an arm over your shoulder, laugh, chuckle, tell a bad joke, sweat, fail to meet your eyes, shout, preen, shrug, mist up, say the wrong thing, glare, interrupt themselves, execute a /bras d'honneur/, get stoney faced, walk out, tell you you're flapping crazy, throw up their hands in disgust, fake spitting on the floor... One time my MC found herself doing "marriage counseling" between a pair whose separation impacted her team's performance. When the guy made a pass at her as a joke in front of his "wife", my MC bloodied his nose. She's normally very controlled, but she's also rather physical, and certain things really piss her off—like someone being intentionally hurtful.
Oh, almost forgot: Day angels and night angels might flutter their wings. Other types of human display other types of unconscious body language based on body parts.
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#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 2 #3 — Should a writer have a face shot on their book cover or within their book
As a reader, I appreciate such things, even when they are decades out of date. Mine would be only a decade out of date.
As an author, I won't include mine, sorry. I write gender fiction and my gender identity potentially and irrevocably adds a subtext to everything I write. In the months of email exchanged between all the authors attending Clarion in my year, I adopted this pen name and carefully used gender neutral pronouns. Most had guessed wrong, despite my neutrality. If a reader is determined to find out this information, they can, but I want it to be their choice. Should you decide to find out, I ask only that you please take a moment to see how your context changes. And, /please/, don't share.
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#PennedPossibilities 90 — Do any of your characters have disabilities? Can you relate to them on some level?
During a fight as a bodyguard, a throw against a bookshelf shattered the bone in my MC's left leg. 61 pieces. After they revived her from blood loss, they replaced it with something completely artificial. That didn't prevent nerve damage. She was told she'd never be able to more than walk. Parts of her foot are numb; she could cut herself an not know it. It took months of arduous physical therapy for her to walk, then be able to fight again. She wears an orthotic and has to think when she moves lest she trip herself up. When another character played the victim card on her because of another disability, she played this one back. I relate to her condition as I've endured physical therapy for various inherited structural instabilities (how's that for a euphemism?)
My MC is somewhat #autistic. The brother of my main antagonist was severely autistic, but he protected his sister fiercely. While much of the world considers being autistic a disability—and some consider it a reason to defenestrate all common sense when it comes to vaccination—I consider it a blessing myself. I mask well. The trait grants me a superpower that allows me to observe people carefully and inconspicuously, letting me correctly deduce their future behavior so that I can rehearse my interactions. That rehearsal skill has made me the author I am today. (If I do this, they'll say this, then the other person will do that...) The trait also helps me concentrate to the point that I block out everything. They don't call me a space cadet fer nothin'! Startle me while I'm concentrating and books and pencils may go flying. My shriek may break an eardrum.
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#Writever — Nuit (Night)
Lest Night Fall ou À la Tombée de la Nuit
I asked, "Do I look like the woman you accuse me of being?" I actually wanted to know. I wasn't the Sunny that Raven Caw had named me, and even this encounter didn't spark memories.
The two day angels floated midair, gravity disturbance crackling and sparking around their wings. They wore plate armor that weighed as much as they did. They looked unimpressed, and pushed their spears closer. "Aye, you're a monster, but your face—"
Raven wasn't taking chances. My night angel pushed his sunglasses up on his nose dismissively, then waved a similarly sparking quarter arc of folded gravity between us and them, teeth clenched. I smelled ozone mixed in the corruption on the breeze.
I added, "Were she on the battlefield, she'd be dead." I waved my arms expansively, at how bright daylight had settled into the four cardinal directions and left the zenith deep dusk blue. "The old order is broken, just like the sky. Would they leave our world like this, otherwise? Would they not let night fall after all these days of constant light?"
The day angels looked at different horizons. Surprised, it took me a few moments to notice the four shadows of the fire-blasted trees beside me begin to circle about, lengthening, deepening. As my heart stuttered in my chest, it seemed every nearby tree pointed at my face.
Scattered cirrus became strands of sparkling orange crystal, turning purple before they dimmed as daylight vanished below the horizon. The sky went from hazy blue to midnight blue, before a bluer, dimmer, colder light rose in the cardinal directions.
I shivered. Night had fallen.
What an unfortunate coincidence, considering the trash I'd just talked about the old order to a pair of its last soldiers. Rebels apparently. Not good.
[Author retains copyright.]
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#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 2 #2 — How often do you write in a typical week? How do you find the time?
How often? It depends on how you define "write." See below.
Finding the time? Often f— everything, I'm writing this. Characters can be relentless. Sleep? What's that? Story or character revelation is a major cause of my insomnia. Otherwise, I write while I'm on my treadmill or walking. If it isn't enough time, I'll sit down and continue. I listen to chapters read to me while doing floor exercises or doing weights, interrupting to make corrections.
As for definitions of writing... Recently, because of hashtags on Mastodon, I find myself writing posts daily. This usually ends with me writing short fiction, 500-750 words in character POV, on average weekly, and posts playing with story elements I'd mostly not thought through thoroughly almost daily. [Alliteration not intentional.]
I have a serial currently in final revision, and when I'm healthy (I'm still recovering from COVID), I work on that more or less daily (on the treadmill, naturally).
When I'm strongly into composing a story, I end up authoring in bursts. I'll do so daily until I hit something that requires thought, usually subliminal, stops me. It may be days or weeks until I work it out, and then daily once again. I have an epilogue that's stymied me for over six months, but if I find a way to foreshadow something specific during revision, I'm sure I'll author the epilogue in about an hour.
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#WordWeavers 10.2 — Who is your most intriguing character? Why?
Who? My overall series antagonist.
My near term writing goal is to establish the series with the main protagonist who is a fun non-conformist ascetic miracle worker (thaumaturge), but also an unfortunate trouble magnet. In all stories prior to the two meeting up (see #WordWeavers 10.1 https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/111164297800442997), my antagonist is a MacGuffin, the ultimate reason why the protagonist takes steps that arguably make her life worse.
That said, the antagonist is a very sympathetic character herself, who acts for non-selfish reasons and tries to make the world better. Her reasons for destroying the last evidence of our civilization (about 500 years in our future) stem from her innocently wanting to get her autistic brother a job but being thwarted. That's a series of novels in itself! Through thaumaturgical technological means, she makes herself immortal, forever 24 years old, though not invulnerable. The aftermath of her being killed but revived is the start of another story arc (see #WordWeavers 9.1 https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/110993252771253246).
Did I mention that she's evil?
She's also kept humanity from going extinct.
By the time the protagonist makes it on the scene, most of humanity is distantly related to her. She is female, after all.
Why is she intriguing? She will make the readers think about everything they hold true. That's why.
[Author retains copyright.]
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@ffaa9094
[Picture of spider about to eat the moon.]
/And, like that, the moon suddenly shriveled, going from a grape to a raisin over a span of hours. From thence on, Earth had only a large asteroid orbiting it. The tides were not the only thing affected as the star spider drifted toward the outer planets.../
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#WordWeavers 10.1 — Introduce your MC from the perspective of the antagonist. CW: Spoilers for a certain set of readers.
[I will let my antagonist speak for herself. This is in antagonist POV:]
"Director! Your Highness! Are you hurt?"
My vision swam, filled with blue and purple phosphenes; my head pounded as if it were split open. Maybe it was. I looked up, seeing armor, feeling a hand on my shoulder where I lay having slid into the gutter, trying to focus on a concerned expression on the praetorian's face. The implosion pop of an out-jump echoed in my ears, or was it in my short term memory?
"I said—" I shouted, regretting it instantly with a groan. "I said no guards helping me! This daemon is my quarry, mine alone!"
The crimson-feathered day angel fluttered back, causing the crowd on the street to retreat at the same time.
I barely levered myself up, gingerly touching my head. The back of my hand came back spotted with blood. Not only had I been struck with my crown, I'd been thrown head over heals by a combination of thaumaturgy and brute strength. This teenager, like most of my people, was half my height and a fifth my mass... but then I'd had my fingers in seeing her trained and educated, given titles and responsibility to match the potential her mother had brought to my attention.
She'd run away from it all.
I'd found her hiding under my nose, enrolled in my academy and sleeping with my adopted daughter, as her roommate. A roommate whom she'd rescued yesterday from blackmail and addiction by coordinating a sting operation to capture a crime boss. I'd not discovered her but for an act of friendship and courage.
I couldn't be more proud her training had stuck.
Yet, this student, a worker of impossible miracles accomplished beyond my greatest expectation, was not interested in further training. Why? She'd deduced my secret, and spat in my face. So shocked was I, I'd let her escape.
I'd locked down the city. Found her. I had needed to convince her.
So, what did she have the temerity to say when I cornered her on the street?
/"What don't you understand? I couldn't have been clearer! 'No' means no!"/
Then attacked. Nobody ever thought of attacking me, even when not surrounded by guards. Calculated to stun and flee, she threw me. That sent my crown flying. She'd caught it in a gravity bubble and looped it around at my skull. She ensured I'd temporarily be unable to read the vectors of her out jump from her halo. Like that, /bang!/. Gone.
I reached for the heavy gold circlet that lay in a noisome puddle. She had to be within a two block radius. As my vision cleared, I sensed something uncommonly miraculous...
I triangulated, turned. My eyes lifted to the News Building. That way. So wonderful to be young, powerful, and lacking experience. But not stupid. She knew if she jumped again, I'd follow. She deduced how long I'd been stunned.
Magnificent! She was magnificent. I smiled despite my pain, despite the awe projected by the muttering crowd who had seen a fight that would be all over the papers, perhaps talked about for years.
Of all my many students, I might yet have found someone who could save the world before I was driven to destroy it.
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#WordWeavers 10.2 — Who is your most intriguing character? Why?
Who? My overall series antagonist.
My near term writing goal is to establish the series with the main protagonist who is a fun non-conformist ascetic miracle worker (thaumaturge), but also an unfortunate trouble magnet. In all stories prior to the two meeting up (see #WordWeavers 10.1 https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/111164297800442997), my antagonist is a MacGuffin, the ultimate reason why the protagonist takes steps that arguably make her life worse.
That said, the antagonist is a very sympathetic character herself, who acts for non-selfish reasons and tries to make the world better. Her reasons for destroying the last evidence of our civilization (about 500 years in our future) stem from her innocently wanting to get her autistic brother a job but being thwarted. That's a series of novels in itself! Through thaumaturgical technological means, she makes herself immortal, forever 24 years old, though not invulnerable. The aftermath of her being killed but revived is the start of another story arc (see #WordWeavers 9.1 https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/110993252771253246).
Did I mention that she's evil?
She's also kept humanity from going extinct.
By the time the protagonist makes it on the scene, most of humanity is distantly related to her. She is female, after all.
Why is she intriguing? She will make the readers think about everything they hold true. That's why.
[Author retains copyright.]
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@f59b840b To counteract that tendency and the wondering-why, I got me a bike desk and just wrote a long Masto-post on it. Sadly, the desk is big enough for snacks.
😋
@da5013b0 I'd like to recommend an #anime to watch as an author of gender role fiction: /Ayakashi Triangle/. It does a surprisingly good job of mixing conceptions of gender and what it means to love a person for who they are, not what. In the end, I think the script misses getting this perfect, but it comes darn close. I wrote a #writever piece as a reaction to me wanting to capture that ideal: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/111122888641242687
Anyway, it was a fun and interesting. I recommend it.
#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 2 A Haunting in Oxford #1
Intro: Shameless self-promotion
I'm R.S. and I author gender fiction; as such, I am a feminist. My writing tends to shatter preconceptions about gender roles and focuses on how society weaponizes sex to control the individual. I want to make you see the world through different eyes. I consider myself a science fiction author, but don't limit myself to the effects of technology on society. I'm leaning toward characterizing myself a science fiction fantasy author (SFF not SF&F). Magic, strange speculative physics, or the supernatural can be treated as science, and any practical society would do so. This means limits perceptible to the reader, which means both mystery and thriller elements. I write the type of stories where the protagonist needs to fight for what they want because people won't let them have something or do something they are capable of earning just like others, yet in the end they also want to make the world a better place. I do write bittersweet stories.
Read more about me in my profile, and pinned to it. You'll also find writing samples there.
What's your WIP?
Working title: /Reluctant Accomplice/ Genre: SFF
What's it about?
Currently going by the name Nightmare, she has a troubling reputation for working impossible miracles, and for getting badly used. When she ran away again, she didn't expect be followed by a friend or to get sucked into a scheme that could start an interstellar war. Unfortunately for everyone, including herself, she's a devil-girl with a skewed view of reality and how to get the job done.
[Author retains copyright.]
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@242c62a0 I have yet to write an program that a beta tester didn't break. Considering the demographics of programmers, I'm surprised the thing recognizes women.
#PennedPossibilities 88 — Are your characters in good health?
A bit of a spoiler, though incidental to the plot, if you know me under a different alias, but I probably leaked this anyway. The MC suffered wound sepsis and septic shock that practically killed her. The end of the story takes place in a hospital bed and from a wheelchair.
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#WordWeavers 9.30 — How educated is your MC?
She dropped out of grade school, but was tutored pretty much 24/7/365 to the age of about 15. (Yes, 24 hours a day. She often dreamt about things she'd be tested on.) Discounting math, because she can do equations in her head, her education prowess runs from ignoramus in history, to high school level in defense and in the sciences, to graduate level in physics, thaumaturgy, and street smarts. Below average in /personal/ relationships because she learned not to trust them.
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#PennedPossibilities 87 — Is your MC or SC a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kind of person?
Glass-half-empty. Everything in her life has taught her she has to earn her way—even though she technically owns and would govern and collect tax from a province the size of Rhode Island is she accepted the responsibility. From the age of four, she was was tutored and tested for this task, pretty much 24/7. Later, when she ran away, she had to earn her place and it was through hard work, and dealing with people who'd take advantage if she let them. She cynical and not an optimist. That doesn't mean she's depressed or apathetic, it's just that she never expects success will be handed to her. Given an untenable situation, she'll tackle it anyway with the thought, "If I don't win, I'll learn something about myself." She's an ascetic and somewhat of a nihilist, while occasionally being a hedonist (which brings up issues of whether she deserves being happy).
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#WordWeavers 9.29 — Who in your story gives the most pep talks?
The MC. It's that she always ends up being the leader through no intention of her own, mostly inertia and her need for efficiency; people see she's capable and let her. To get the job done, she'll do what's necessary, including holding her nose and giving silly pep talks.
One particular time, the mob boss assigns to her bodyguard team a man and a woman she'd dealt with separately, the man having hit on her once at a bar in a restaurant. Turns out they're secretly what passes as "married" in this world, currently separated, and /kinda/ hate each other over expectations of fidelity. It falls upon her to convince the woman that she didn't murder someone—that she put him atop a building doesn't mean it's her fault that he fell off. Then the MC has to convince her to get back with her guy. A number of pep talks with both spouses follow. It's incidental that she ends up punching the guy in the nose during one of the pep talks.
[Author retains copyright.]
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#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 1 #30 — What dumb things do people say when you tell them you're a writer?
Um.
I think I shared in a number of toots that I am shy.
/Horribly shy./
I'd /never/ volunteer that information any more than I would walk up to random people and initiate a conversation. Even when I'm attending a convention—unless I'm on a panel, in a green room, or end up chatting with other authors (because I feel I have permission to do so)—would I say something so forward.
That said, my spouse is the polar opposite of me. Must have been a priest in a previous life. People walk up and confess their life story, including TMI. My spouse /always/ volunteers I'm a writer. I tend to then sidle behind like a toddler hiding behind her mother's legs, nod a lot, mumble a little, listen to my heart racing in my ears, and try to telepathically tell my spouse to engage in my stead.
Now, if you look at the stories I write (specifically what I've posted the last few days on Mastodon), you'd never guess this, would you?
Therefore, I have nothing to answer for this question.
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@9f39971d
It's fairly unremarkable, but pitching a young, ambitious, and female officer against serial sex pest Riker and making him the good guy in it gives me the heeby-jeebies.
Considering that the episode was prime time in 1990 and it gives you (as it would me) the "herby-jeebies" /is/ worth remarking upon. What was standard or possibly humorous /changes over time/, and I think it is progress that we see certain interactions differently and negatively now. As such the story serves to make something the otherwise "progressive" Star Trek writers and production staff didn't see during their time.
Thanks for pointing this out.
#WordWeavers 9.29 — How do you format scene breaks in your writing?
One or two centered hashtag/pound symbols, depending on how big the break is.
For example: (I'm including a snap shot of the manuscript form because Masto web formatting will munge this.)
Melony took the file from Greg, exasperated, and dropped it on her desk. "Look pretty for a few minutes while I crunch the numbers..."
#
Greg was beaming. "I explained to Rose what you found in last week's receipts. She's gonna be real appreciative in tomorrows meeting."
"You what?"
"I'm appreciative. Lunch? My treat."
##
Rose rushed up into the hospital waiting room and Melony startled, her copy of People fluttering to the floor. "Did you find the emergency contact for Greg?"
"No. It's like he has no family. Is he going to be okay?"
Melony shook her head noncommittally and sighed. "I told him not to eat them. The snails just didn't look right."
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https://eldritchcafe.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/111/150/104/518/223/755/original/718da30b154ca398.png
@5862bfff Yep. A real tell was when I took a mythology class and I never got an answer wrong. I even got all the extra-credit answers right. I think I'm just a sucker for good and strange stories. So I graduated and became a programmer for my day job. Actually, started as a tech writer. Showing a published novel does give you a certain panache. The degree did help. I excel at creating alien cultures (both human and ET).
Did you stick with things related to your major, or take a detour like I did?
@5862bfff
My day job includes running tech support (at least until I retire soon). I am glad I could help! Now I know the feature exists and I can use it, too. Win-win!
@5862bfff
There's a way to fix this, however, according to the #Scrivener manual.
Go to theHelp menu
Select Scrivener Manual
Type short into the search box top left.
The first item will be the table of contents; click link to section named "Menus and Keyboard Shortcuts"
This section claims to tell you how to change shortcuts using built-in Mac method. Tell me if it worked!
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