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358 results for “rsears”
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Fascinerad av att sticka med så här grovt garn och rundsticka nr 9. Det går ju så fort!
Och i slätstickning blir det ett så tjockt stadigt tyg och töjbart även utan att sticka resår. Varför har man alltid blivit itutad att man ska krångla med avigor och räta? Stickat blir ju töjigt ändå.
Funderar på det här med att vara lärd det hårda Lutherska; det ska vara rätt tunt garn för att se fint ut, det ska resårstickas och hållas på.
Viktigast är att det blir något alls.
#knitting #stickning -
When #TeamPierre aka #PpForPM start slinging Republican rhetoric like “The anti-energy, anti-business, woke, Liberal-NDP coalition is running full speed ahead to seize control of Cdn industry and insert themselves into every aspect of Canadians’ day to day lives.” you know #Cons have gone over to the US dark side. Racist vulgar white male supremacy rears its toxic ugliness and tries to proclaim itself king. #CdnMedia oh look, belly lint. #Postmedia oh look, US saviours.
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I'm celebrating the return of Spring with a new Honda CBR650R! (Album)
After selling my Ninja 1000SX because I realized that it wasn't the right bike, I did a test ride on this exact bike at The Brothers Powersports in Bremerton on a stormy day a couple weeks back, then later that night I put a deposit on it. I had the shop put some comfort mods on the bike (heated grips, quickshifter, top case rack, frame sliders) over the past week and then took the bus and ferry last Friday to pick it up, which took forever because I had to wait an hour for the ferry! I did have to ride home with a backpack on, which wasn't fun, but I got it safely home and then spent all of Saturday started putting more mods on it (GPS charging mount and adjustable rearsets because my long legs were cramped). It was kind of a bummer missing out on the nice weather Saturday, but with the bike all buttoned up, I'll be able to any upcoming warm weather! Even better is that I bought it out of pocket and don't have to deal with financing!
On the ferry ride home Friday, I ran into the same lady I saw when I headed home from Bremerton after test riding the bike. Her name was Loki and she was headed with her partner Isaac from her home on the Olympic Peninsula to Seattle to teach circus performers.
(I realize my eyes were closed in the photos. Bummer!)
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Victorian poultry banned by overseas markets, 400,000 birds euthanased At least eight countries have banned Victorian poultry products. Some of the 400,000 animals euthanased due to the state's bird flu outbreak include 2,000 baby emus. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-28/overseas-markets-ban-victorian-poultry-bird-flu/12606420 #Pests,DiseasesandControlMethods #Quarantine-ControlMethods #PoultryandEggProduction #Quarantine-Agricultural #VeterinaryMedicine #LivestockWelfare #Trade
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Efter at have læst, at Nørresundby Gymnasium og Forsvaret opretter særlig linje, har fredsforsker Jan Øberg skrevet dette åbne brev til rektor Søren Hindsholm. Efter en indledning følger det åbne brev samt en brevveksling mellem de to.
#uddpol #dkpol #militær #forsvar #fred #dkforsk #dkmedier #Arbejderen
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Efter at have læst, at Nørresundby Gymnasium og Forsvaret opretter særlig linje, har fredsforsker Jan Øberg skrevet dette åbne brev til rektor Søren Hindsholm. Efter en indledning følger det åbne brev samt en brevveksling mellem de to.
#uddpol #dkpol #militær #forsvar #fred #dkforsk #dkmedier #Arbejderen
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Tucker Carlson is an agent of the Kremlin. He's not stupid, so he can't be classified as a useful idiot. He is knowingly and willfully acting as an apologist for Russia, and Vladimir Putin. And he doesn't have any problem with employing vicious antisemitism in service to his agenda to discredit and defame Ukraine. The man is a disgrace, and we should point that out every time he rears his bigoted head.
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Today in boat repair: got the drive shaft aligned and bolted to the transmission. Installed and adjusted the shifter linkage.
Something that really helped speed up the alignment was measuring the height of each of the old motor mounts prior to removing them. Measuring the fronts was especially important, since the rears could be adjusted and the gauges checked without having to crawl around so much.
I tested the transmission/shifter linkage using the compression release: shifted to forward, turned the motor over by hand and the gear engaged/shaft turned. Shifted to reverse, same thing (only, opposite direction). Shifted to neutral, turned the motor over, the output shaft doesn't spin. Woo woo, I might have done this all correctly.
I was a bit nervous because these transmissions are weird. If you turn the shifter lever on the transmission 'all the way' into forward or reverse, then try to turn the transmission input shaft, the transmission will totally seize up. Like you can't even shift it back to neutral. I guess you're only supposed to move the shift lever ~10-15 degrees, instead of the full ~40 degrees that the lever will turn. The shifter in the cockpit is designed to only pull the lever ~15 degrees.
I still have to repack the stuffing box and connect the fuel cutoff, but those are easy peasy jobs.
I might actually take the boat out for a sail in ~2 or 3 weeks. I guess I need to actually pay for the registration this year, after all...
Best parts of today: 1) remembering to wear nitrile gloves, so my hands are okay and 2) doing all of the work from the port side (starboard side has a huge wooden control box that I just can't help but wack my head against any time time I'm working from that side).
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#pennedpossibilities 633 — How did you choose the title for your story, and what significance does it hold for you?
Mars Needs Women was a 1968 schlock female-exploitation film. The title has had staying power (pun intended) even if the film didn't. My feminist SF short novel (now in revision) is about a woman from an endpoint technological religio-fascist society (2024 thru the 2100s) that takes biblical patriarchy seriously and leaves women few options but to be exploited. I wanted to show how women might run a society differently if they could get their chance.
The title came to me quickly, with the verb set instead to the past tense: Mars Needed Women. This is because women were contracted for colonization purposes, to have children. It's from a recruitment poster early in the story. When the colonization effort goes bankrupt and men die disproportionately compared to the imported women, the dynamics of power change. Over the 25 year span of the story, women and their predominately female native Martian children take over the jobs and then governing. When the women declare themselves an independent matriarchal nation, Earth's patriarchy slanders (ring a bell about modern time?) Mars' women so as to have an excuse to put down the "rebellion."
However, women don't fight like men. War isn't a game when you are keeping your children alive… This is why Mars needed women to survive.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion #PennedPossiblities
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
Its Sunday and I sing praises to my one of my favorite neighbors, the marvelous
# Coyote Bush (#Baccharis pilularis,) native to ca coastal chapparal habitats.
Coyote Bush, the house on the block where everyone's welcome and everyone hangs out. A warm hearted Grandma and Grandpa that takes care of everyone. A reliable babysitter. A favored safe place for deer, to take a nap, give birth, leave fawns while mama has lunch. Quail do the same. Favorite place for small birds to build nests. Coyote Bush harbors and rears young hardwoods. An acorn or madrone berry, who lands under a coyote bush has a good chance of becoming a full grown tree. Coyote bush blooms in late fall, and winter, is an important food source for insects, at a time of year when food is scarce.
Coyote Bush cares for the soil too. She is one of the best erosion control plants in existence. The upslope, dry ground, equivalent of Willow.
She holds her ground,
on a landslide,
the one part that doesn't slide has Coyote Bush.
Coyote Bush can be propagated by cuttings. 18" long, thumb sized canes can be planted directly in the ground during the rainy season, leaving 4 -6 " above ground. Happily grows in poor soil, on bare bank road cuts, and landslides.
Coyote Bush is one of my preferred bioengineering resource plants, excellent for constructing brush dams and branch packing, to stabilize gullies caused by culverts, and class 3 watercourses.
Coyote Bush has a fire resistant waxy resin on the leaves. A great drought tolerant landscaping plant, that can easily be pruned into a hedge. Coyote Bush has male and female plants.
# ErosionControl
# bioengineering #DroughtRestistant
# BrushDams #BranchPacking
# fall/winterBlooming
# CaNativePlants
# CoyoteBush #BaccharisPilularis
# ErosionControlPlants
# Chaparral
# Landscaping
# NativePlantLandscaping
#landslides -
#AlienSongPoemOrLimerick
#HashTagGames @hashtaggames(This will take a couple posts, sorry!)
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“Stopping by Crop Circles on a Snowy Evening” (or “Ode to Betty and Barnie Hill”)
Whose fields these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though.
He does not see the circles here
That have appeared in his corn row.My little car, it bucks and rears
As power fades to wheels and gears.
I look above and start to shake,
As from the sky a bright light nears. -
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.07.08 — Have you ever received feedback on a piece that completely missed the mark?
Yes. One reader, who thought themself a feminist, found they were only a feminist to the extent that women mostly conformed to gender roles (were "feminine"). I discarded that feedback as women acting with sexual agency was one of the points of the story. Another completely mis-categorized the book based on a blurb-like chapter I had since removed from the book, and refused to read further.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.06.18 — The eye of the duck: Share a ‘nonessential’ scene in one of your works that ties the piece together. CW: Uncomfortable fictional discussion about women being oppressed.
I didn't know I do this Eye of the Duck thing, but apparently I do. A lot, apparently.
The Eye of the Duck is a scene - often flashy or surreal - which is NOT essential to the general action or plot of the film, but which reveals a key theme or element of the film more succinctly than the actual plot. —https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/4m3vii/the_eye_of_the_duck_david_lynch/
This is a great question for assessing the texture of a novel.
This surreal scene is from Mars Needed Women. As the narrator puts it, "Five sols later, Stan's wife, Gwen, and May Ri got to talk. Somehow it turned into an interview." The whole chapter is an interview, the same way another chapter is an op-ed. Sometimes different formats better express major themes in a story. If the reader hadn't gotten that the story is about women fighting oppression, learned what oppression is often disguised as, and what it makes women do, this sequence ought clear up that misunderstanding. May Ri is the protagonist. Gwen, 45, is married to Ezekiel Stan, the in-person villain in the story. There are other villains, but none this in-your-face. I added gloss in brackets for outrages established at the top of the scene.
May Ri: You're a first contract colonist. What made you sign-up?
Gwen (sighs): Naïve? Heard Mars "needed women" in a sermon about brave men. I'd be 14 in two weeks, but rushed out into the fields to record an application. I tugged up peanuts setting flowers in the ground, got sweaty under the sun, got mud on my big sister's flimsy top and shorts and paid hell for that. The shoulder kept sliding off, and I kept pulling it back "barely" in time. I giggled. I made sure the wind pressed the cotton against my chest. The shorts rode up into the crack of my butt when I bent over. I smiled and wriggled it.
Father served an elite niche farm-fresh clientele; I got to be retro-exotic! I lied about my age.
Ezekiel liked them young.
(Waves a thumb at the 16-year-old nisei [1st generation Martian] co-wives behind her [both pregnant].)
Our town's minister okayed my EM Corp. contract when I promised to pay for church repairs. I also paid off father's mortgage. Nine months later I landed at Elysium. Nine months later I bore Gabriel.
Good enough?
Now tell me, how did you meet Ezekiel?
May Ri: He tried to rape me.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #feminist #writer #author
#sf #s ff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#WordWeavers 2025.06.11 — What color do you associate with your current story?
I would choose Dark Red for Mars Needed Women. It's a dystopian novel where the fight for women's self-agency takes place mostly on Mars and in near Earth space, including on the Moon. Red is the color of Mars and of blood, which has plenty of connotations for women. In that context, dark is a necessary adjective.
FYI: I don't normally associate a color with a story, but this was fun.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.06.08 — Talk about something you wrote and later removed, and why.
It surprised me upon reflection that I sometimes remove tracts. I looked and found examples.
- I removed a scene between the praetorian Cyanic and Thorn. It wasn't that it showed her acting sexist (it's established as a facet of the gender reversals in the story), but it was totally gratuitous. I saved the scrap for her mentioning the best details to Streak to wheedle him.
- I removed a large one paragraph epigraph that essentially explained the background for the Reluctance Series in Rainy Day's POV. There are too many stories I could generate from that infodump, and Rainy Day's origin story is just one of them!
- I jettisoned the "Jacket Blurb" chapter from Mars Needed Women. Even though it was half a page, it read like… wait for it… a jacket blurb. It set the wrong tone for the story. The actual jacket blurb on the actual cover art is copied from an inner chapter and is far catchier.
- I cut a Ramen-eating food court scene because I'd written it in Streak's POV. I wrote it again from scratch in Thorn's POV because her mildly sexist salacious talk comes across better with her POV thoughts backing them.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen #RSReluctanceStory -
#WordWeavers 2025.06.05 — What would your first chapter smell like?
The primary scent would be more of a taint that would likely manifest as a taste, also: Rust.
The story takes place on Mars. The scene in question (the chapter has only one) takes place in an underground construction tunnel between habitat domes that was bored out from the bedrock, is rough looking, and is colored orange and dark red. Perchlorate (scentless) on Mars makes the surface dust toxic to breathe, so no chance is taken that some has leaked or seeped underground. Every surface is sprayed with a myco-epoxy (derived from fungus) which makes everything look wet. If the tunnel is new (never stated) it would have a funky chemical scent also.
The secondary smell, however, would be human sweat; in a more a refined sense, fear. A man tried to kidnap his daughter and beat his wife to do so. A vigilante group of women being led by the main character, a woman engineer wearing an exoskeleton, has cornered him. He is not happy.
That rust sent might be blood.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#WordWeavers 2025.06.04 — Describe the mood of the opening paragraph of your story using 3 adjectives.
Intense, bloody, infuriating.
Because of feedback from the beta readers, this prompt is both a timely and useful exercise. I may have to add it to my bag of tricks for during revision. What was in my mind included angry and outraged, but rereading the paragraph, the MC strikes me as detached. I might even characterize it as her acting like a superhero. I need to fix that for the v3 beta reader…
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.06.03 — Have you ever done a writing challenge? How did it go?
In March, I took a monthly long set of 31 writing prompts as a writing challenge. I completed a novel: Mars Needed Women.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#WordWeavers 2025.05.28 — Would your story still work in a vastly different location? Why or why not?
Reluctant Moon: The story is nominally about a moonshot and the lives of the two astronauts (friends and then lovers). In a sense it is an allegory for 1960s America with the prejudice, racism, and sexism; it even has a JFK character (if you squint). It would not work because my world allows me to scramble gender roles throughly and allows the story to be appropriately racy.
Mars Needed Women: Takes place on Mars. It must because the E.M. in EM Mars Colonization Corp is the basis for the satire of the times we are living in and changing that would lose impact and the story's raison d' être.
The Reluctance Series stories featuring the devil-girl are conceptual rewrites, as in the basic plot and character-building is somewhat preserved, but the universe is totally changed to create SF stories the earlier "location" could not support.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#WordWeavers 2025.05.23 — Have you made up any swears or unique sayings for your characters? CW: Crude Language, duh.
There is almost never an opportunity to use conventional or "modern" foul-mouthed language in any of my stories because there is no connection to 19th-21st century Earth. In Mars Needed Women, one character just uses the word asshole; his using it comes off as very quaint since he's a rough character now in his early fifties (but still sexy), talking about how awful he was when young. There are plenty of other made up or repurposed words, but no defined martian "swears." Instead, here is May Ri listening to her daughter:
The teenager, her green eyes sparkling with the same fire her father's eyes often evidenced, explained what she meant in great unvarnished detail. The words "hypocrites" and "misogynists" featured along side martian swear words that made May Ri's ears burn. Mari had studied her father's "situational" rhetoric thoroughly.
In the Reluctance Series, I make up "words." But first, for those who have followed me long enough to have learned about the devil girl, she's funny in that if someone is about to swear, she warns, "Language!" In most contexts (mob, prizefighter, "princess"), whomever she says this to abides, or regrets it if they don't.
The following words may seem like cheats, but give them a moment to sink in before you conclude that. It's amazing how quickly a reader can get used to even nonsense when it has a definite context.
While these are day angel slang, Thorn Rose uses them without much situational awareness (she's a daemon). Day angels have feathered wings and control surfaces, double-shoulders and extra joints to make it work, and use reluctant forces to let them fly. There's also night angels—too many spoilers there—but day angels so far are portrayed as lower class. These "swears" come from them; bear in mind, these people are very human.
Flap v. as in, "Are you flapping crazy?" or intr. "Flap it all!" Not a synonym for sexual intercourse, but it does imply getting hit up side the head with a feathered wing. It serves the purpose.
I originally used in a teen-rated YA!
Flap and fluff n., NSFW originally involving wings and someone male, but you can use it generally for what's implied. Yes, the novel is "racy."
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen #RSReluctanceStory -
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.05.21 — Are there facets of your work best understood in the context of when you wrote it?
I think Mars Needed Women will stand the test of time because the struggle for women's rights and self-agency is likely to continue as long as patriarchy survives, sadly. However, it is a novel inspired by this very year despite taking place 110 through 145 years from now. There is plenty of background satire, starting with what the E. M. in EM Mars Colonization Corp stands for, the States becoming a theocracy, and there being Co-presidents and appointed Members of Congress— all of it starting in 2025. Thirty years from now the story may either remind people of a quaint last reactionary gasp of anti-democracy, or discussion of the same warning signs noticed-but-ignored before Hitler destroyed his homeland. I hope the former and fear the latter.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#WordWeavers 2025.05.16 — Antagonist POV: What do you like the most about yourself? CW: Zealotry
Ezekiel Stan managed to get a number of townships to form a coalition with him, even though that got them isolated from the rest of the planet. Turns out he got interviewed once and answered that question.
"I stood up. I will do the hard thing, like I did building the first settlements on Mars. When the colonization company went bankrupt, I recognized the opportunity to fashion Mars into a perfect Kingdom of God and took that opportunity despite pushback from the other directors. The ungodly are easy to intimidate because they fear death, especially if you back up your words with action, when you get the job done and ask permission later, if then needed at all. I found men that were able to take up the good cause, to fight—modern Zealots willing to shred the bounds of our corrupt society, to whip the misguided until they see the light or cower, to gag the voices of the harlots and perverted, so that we can raise generations of children protected from hearing other than the Good Word, never sullied by the temptations and demonic ways of the unfortunates left behind on Earth. What I do is noble and shows the worth of a man."
BTW: He's the villain.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#PennedPossibilities 668 2/2 — Tell us how self and socially aware some of your [supporting characters] are. Are these two things connected in any way for them?
Ezekiel Stan is a villain, no mistaking this. He is very self-aware. He knows what he is doing, and understands he is both tyrannical and hypocritical—but he thinks he is carrying out God's will, is willing to accept judgment for his methods when he faces eternity. When EM Mars Corp. goes bankrupt, is cut off from Earth, and EM corporate governance continues on auto-pilot, Ezekiel, one of the seven Martian in situ board of directors, sees an opportunity to turn Mars into a religious utopia. He wants to fight the liberalism imported by contract colonial women who helped settle Mars after he helped complete the original settlements. He sees no role for women other than to support the men in their lives, to bear children, and to obey. He assumes the people he rules through intimidation and swift retribution share his values; he corrects those who don't. He corrected his son's girly-ness by breaking his arm when he found him helping out with women's work. His lack of social awareness when it comes to educated and martian-born women is an epic blindspot. He doesn't care what they think, or think that they can. Reina and May Ri (the MC) take advantage of this when he works to thwart progressive change.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#PennedPossibilities 668 1/2 — Tell us how self and socially aware some of your [supporting characters] are. Are these two things connected in any way for them?
Reina Īto gives off an air of not being very self-aware, a sometimes sexy sometimes silly ingénue, but this isn't the case. It's an illusion she projects because she's very socially aware, empathizing with people and generally understanding what motivates them well. She often modifies her behavior to defuse situations or to scramble the preconceptions of others, to get them to think instead of react. Most people like her. She takes her position as the first child born on Mars, as the Big Sis of all those born after her, very seriously. Sometimes brusk, sometimes silly, and at least a few times coming off bloodthirsty, the O-nēsan-ue [it's Japanese] of Mars is treated as the de facto royalty of Mars. She often sets policy when older.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#WordWeavers 2025.05.08 — Would your MC agree with the SC’s (May 7th) description of them?
For review: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/114473765155346073
May Ri would scoff. People keep mischaracterizing her, even her daughters.
She knows that she's selfish and arrogant, prone to acting out of temper. She sees herself as self-centered, and has made all sort of bad decisions that frankly, she doesn't understand how she survived. She does love her daughters, but Mars with the crèche system has meant she didn't always have to be raising them, not at all like motherhood on Earth where women do it alone without any schooling. She's surprised and somewhat guilty the five turned out so well, but then they are nisei, the first generation born on Mars, with their own developing communal society—and very alien in that; she tries not to worry about the ramifications because they're always happy. She loves all five of them intensely.
She'll accept that she's a good engineering designer, but it's her teams and her self-centered love of taking things apart and putting them back together in working order that has gotten her to where she's at.
That "Princess of Mars," thing. Ugh. She earned that one because her husband and her first lover didn't realize they were talking about her on an open line on deep space network across the solar system when they discussed her being an animal in bed. Soooo embarrassing!
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#WordWeavers 2025.05.07 — Let your SC describe your MC.
My mother is like a beaten down alpha wolf. Each battle lost only makes her stronger for the next. When the religious men talk about Job in idealistic terms, they do not mean to describe her. Her life? Bad things, over and over, until she shows her outrage at the unfairness of having been born on Earth—a man's world shaped by men, controlled by men, power jealously guarded by men—and demonstrates her temper, making snap decisions often for the benefit of others, for the benefit of Mars. She forgets at times she's on Mars, that her generation's children offer a way out, thanks to her work, her engineering brilliance, and the fights she's picked. When they call her the princess of Mars and she gets all It's really just a joke gone wrong, not a title! she misses the whole point. People look up to her. She'd rather be working on her projects. I get that. She hums when she works, happy. Her happy is best. Though she can fight well, so she can hum all the time she needs protecting. My four sisters and I all agree on this, which is why we all watch out for her in our own way.
—Marisela about May Ri
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen -
#WordWeavers 2025.05.06 — Describe the way your MC walks.
I have two disabled people in the novel. Because of shifting POV in 3rd person, one such SC gets promoted to an MC by the end of the story.
She was born on Mars. Like other native Martians, her hip has grown differently angled than those in higher gravity. It's evident when she's wearing the minimal clothing typically worn. Additionally, her legs are bowed (like the other natives) because of the ease of squatting in the lower gravity, primarily due to habitually moving in a squatting position in lower gravity. Children are referred to as frog-hoppers, and as pre-teens they seem truly frog-like. The condition is far less pronounced in adults but, compared to Earth imports, their gait and leg placement is instantly recognizable.
This MC is an amputee. The lower part of one of her legs is replaced by a wearable prosthetic. She wears prosthetic feet on both legs. The advanced cybernetic gear is built of spring steel and powered by a radioisotope battery. She's undergoing intense therapy, and is determined to walk, run, dance, jump, and climb on Earth when she is done. Her right hand is prosthetic also. When she walks, it is clear she's dragging and compensating, and that moving takes effort and thought. In weightlessness, it's less evident.
Another character is paralyzed. He wears braces (a partial lightweight cybernetic exoskeleton). If it weren't for the bulk of the gear over his clothes, you would never know he was so paralyzed that he otherwise requires crutches, even in Mars gravity.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author #disability #disabled
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.05.05 — Have you ever worked through a bad experience by writing fiction?
As a feminist writer, much of what I write is what I feel for others, or the experiences I've garnered from listening and being the shoulder to cry upon. As a shy person, I've been pretty successful navigating conflict.
My latest novel (which I should be EDITING right now), is me working through a bad experience, watching the world falling apart. I was brought up in a time where they actually taught civics in high school. I learned how government was supposed to work, about civil rights legislation, about the theoretic "American Way." I also took history and learned about slavery and the devil's compromise it represented, the Civil War, the Guilded Age, Roosevelt and Trust busting, about petty aristocratic squabbles starting the First World War, fascists starting the Second World War, and the civil and women's rights movements.
Do they teach these things any more? Or is it an elective!? You shouldn't be allowed to graduate without passing these subjects.
Mars Needed Women is me working through wanting to cry when I read the news today, even the non-clickbait-y kind. Money corrupts some people. Even if it is a microscopic number of folks that become megalomaniacs, the power money lets them wield is outsized and scary. Didn't we learn why that doesn't work with the nazis? Like, maybe 85 years ago?
It. Makes. Me. CRAZY.
And yes, Mars Needed Women is a takedown of the fatal idiocy of fascism (i.e., loyalty being more important than capability) and a certain over-the-top a&&hole with a fascination for Mars.
I feel marginally better having written it.
Marginally.
Still crying when I read the news.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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En av uppdragen som #Försvarsmakten kan hjälpa #polisen med är tydligen it-forensik. Det blir ju superbra!
Snabbutbilda ett gäng it-nerdar med en powerpoint i rättssäkerhet och beviskedjor och rättegångsbalken och polislagen och brottsbalken. Det blir kanon! Ja just det, det ska snabbändras lagar också...
https://omni.se/live-regeringen-ger-forsvarsmakten-i-uppdrag-att-stotta-polisen/a/zEJkzv
#Sverige #Svpol #Krimpol #Moderaterna #Sverigedemokraterna #Lagen #Gäng
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En av uppdragen som #Försvarsmakten kan hjälpa #polisen med är tydligen it-forensik. Det blir ju superbra!
Snabbutbilda ett gäng it-nerdar med en powerpoint i rättssäkerhet och beviskedjor och rättegångsbalken och polislagen och brottsbalken. Det blir kanon! Ja just det, det ska snabbändras lagar också...
https://omni.se/live-regeringen-ger-forsvarsmakten-i-uppdrag-att-stotta-polisen/a/zEJkzv
#Sverige #Svpol #Krimpol #Moderaterna #Sverigedemokraterna #Lagen #Gäng