#rsdiscussion — Public Fediverse posts
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#PennedPossibilities 1120: Saturday Word Edition: Share something from your WIP pertaining to the word “entertainment.”
Bolt is acting as the photographer for her friend Shugh as he interviews a male diva actor for a magazine similar to The New Yorker. Hers is a woman-centric society. The scene in this #excerpt hints that Bolt can be sexist as the actor being interviewed needles her.
Upstairs, Shugh hit it off with Morning Glory. Both men sought careers not often occupied by men. The actor-playwright became more animated as the magazine interview progressed, allowing me with my camera to fade into the background of the plush upper lounge of the theatre. By the time the long-legged delicate man started pacing as he told his life story, I had gleaned that his tale was glorified and larger-than life, like the man, his persona, his masks. His elegant pacing allowed me to move with my Flicka4, steadying myself using the back of a gilt divan, a bamboo formed-steel torchere lamp (one of pair), and then a black marble tea table to as I composed pictures of a celebrity, but a man, lost in thoughts about inflating the image he presented the world, finally dropping his actor's mask. I caught the sparkle in his eye. I caught flamboyant hands thrown wide, later framing his face as he sang a note. I caught an absentminded sneer aimed at an unnamed actress who'd worked to derail his entertainment career.
"I'm changing the way women perceive men," he declared. He sat abruptly on a hanger chair, one of those short shallow chairs built with a bench seat of a single plank of wood, finely finished glowing golden oak but uncushioned; it barely supported his thighs in deference to his hips, forcing the man to crouch. Also called a man's chair because a man looked really adorable hanging there when unclothed in a certain way. (It totally did Morning Glory.) That it made men shorter than any women in a room seemed like a plus, but then I was female. These days, especially in the city, I'd seen men leave a room in disgust if they saw one. Not Morning Glory! Probably furnished it here himself, stage managing, to spike the drama. Legs wide, crouching—his hands above his knees, framing his crotch—eyes narrowed and on me, his body language firmed up my perception of him.
Performatively male, sure of his good looks.
Aggressive.
Dominant.
He addressed Shugh still meeting my gaze. "Steamed Milk and Sugar—can I call you Milk? How does it feel working as her protégé? Do we live in progressive times?"
Hint, hint! I am a #gender #fiction #writer. If you think a hanger chair in this Basic Instincts scene is peculiar, realize that it is a male-oriented gender domination device analogous to what stiletto heels achieve physically with women in our society. Like many women today, Morning Glory is "owning" it (trying anyway) and changing the device's meaning.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
#PennedPossibilities 1120: Saturday Word Edition: Share something from your WIP pertaining to the word “entertainment.”
Bolt is acting as the photographer for her friend Shugh as he interviews a male diva actor for a magazine similar to The New Yorker. Hers is a woman-centric society. The scene in this #excerpt hints that Bolt can be sexist as the actor being interviewed needles her.
Upstairs, Shugh hit it off with Morning Glory. Both men sought careers not often occupied by men. The actor-playwright became more animated as the magazine interview progressed, allowing me with my camera to fade into the background of the plush upper lounge of the theatre. By the time the long-legged delicate man started pacing as he told his life story, I had gleaned that his tale was glorified and larger-than life, like the man, his persona, his masks. His elegant pacing allowed me to move with my Flicka4, steadying myself using the back of a gilt divan, a bamboo formed-steel torchere lamp (one of pair), and then a black marble tea table to as I composed pictures of a celebrity, but a man, lost in thoughts about inflating the image he presented the world, finally dropping his actor's mask. I caught the sparkle in his eye. I caught flamboyant hands thrown wide, later framing his face as he sang a note. I caught an absentminded sneer aimed at an unnamed actress who'd worked to derail his entertainment career.
"I'm changing the way women perceive men," he declared. He sat abruptly on a hanger chair, one of those short shallow chairs built with a bench seat of a single plank of wood, finely finished glowing golden oak but uncushioned; it barely supported his thighs in deference to his hips, forcing the man to crouch. Also called a man's chair because a man looked really adorable hanging there when unclothed in a certain way. (It totally did Morning Glory.) That it made men shorter than any women in a room seemed like a plus, but then I was female. These days, especially in the city, I'd seen men leave a room in disgust if they saw one. Not Morning Glory! Probably furnished it here himself, stage managing, to spike the drama. Legs wide, crouching—his hands above his knees, framing his crotch—eyes narrowed and on me, his body language firmed up my perception of him.
Performatively male, sure of his good looks.
Aggressive.
Dominant.
He addressed Shugh still meeting my gaze. "Steamed Milk and Sugar—can I call you Milk? How does it feel working as her protégé? Do we live in progressive times?"
Hint, hint! I am a #gender #fiction #writer. If you think a hanger chair in this Basic Instincts scene is peculiar, realize that it is a male-oriented gender domination device analogous to what stiletto heels achieve physically with women in our society. Like many women today, Morning Glory is "owning" it (trying anyway) and changing the device's meaning.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
#PennedPossibilities 1120: Saturday Word Edition: Share something from your WIP pertaining to the word “entertainment.”
Bolt is acting as the photographer for her friend Shugh as he interviews a male diva actor for a magazine similar to The New Yorker. Hers is a woman-centric society. The scene in this #excerpt hints that Bolt can be sexist as the actor being interviewed needles her.
Upstairs, Shugh hit it off with Morning Glory. Both men sought careers not often occupied by men. The actor-playwright became more animated as the magazine interview progressed, allowing me with my camera to fade into the background of the plush upper lounge of the theatre. By the time the long-legged delicate man started pacing as he told his life story, I had gleaned that his tale was glorified and larger-than life, like the man, his persona, his masks. His elegant pacing allowed me to move with my Flicka4, steadying myself using the back of a gilt divan, a bamboo formed-steel torchere lamp (one of pair), and then a black marble tea table to as I composed pictures of a celebrity, but a man, lost in thoughts about inflating the image he presented the world, finally dropping his actor's mask. I caught the sparkle in his eye. I caught flamboyant hands thrown wide, later framing his face as he sang a note. I caught an absentminded sneer aimed at an unnamed actress who'd worked to derail his entertainment career.
"I'm changing the way women perceive men," he declared. He sat abruptly on a hanger chair, one of those short shallow chairs built with a bench seat of a single plank of wood, finely finished glowing golden oak but uncushioned; it barely supported his thighs in deference to his hips, forcing the man to crouch. Also called a man's chair because a man looked really adorable hanging there when unclothed in a certain way. (It totally did Morning Glory.) That it made men shorter than any women in a room seemed like a plus, but then I was female. These days, especially in the city, I'd seen men leave a room in disgust if they saw one. Not Morning Glory! Probably furnished it here himself, stage managing, to spike the drama. Legs wide, crouching—his hands above his knees, framing his crotch—eyes narrowed and on me, his body language firmed up my perception of him.
Performatively male, sure of his good looks.
Aggressive.
Dominant.
He addressed Shugh still meeting my gaze. "Steamed Milk and Sugar—can I call you Milk? How does it feel working as her protégé? Do we live in progressive times?"
Hint, hint! I am a #gender #fiction #writer. If you think a hanger chair in this Basic Instincts scene is peculiar, realize that it is a male-oriented gender domination device analogous to what stiletto heels achieve physically with women in our society. Like many women today, Morning Glory is "owning" it (trying anyway) and changing the device's meaning.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
#PennedPossibilities 1120: Saturday Word Edition: Share something from your WIP pertaining to the word “entertainment.”
Bolt is acting as the photographer for her friend Shugh as he interviews a male diva actor for a magazine similar to The New Yorker. Hers is a woman-centric society. The scene in this #excerpt hints that Bolt can be sexist as the actor being interviewed needles her.
Upstairs, Shugh hit it off with Morning Glory. Both men sought careers not often occupied by men. The actor-playwright became more animated as the magazine interview progressed, allowing me with my camera to fade into the background of the plush upper lounge of the theatre. By the time the long-legged delicate man started pacing as he told his life story, I had gleaned that his tale was glorified and larger-than life, like the man, his persona, his masks. His elegant pacing allowed me to move with my Flicka4, steadying myself using the back of a gilt divan, a bamboo formed-steel torchere lamp (one of pair), and then a black marble tea table to as I composed pictures of a celebrity, but a man, lost in thoughts about inflating the image he presented the world, finally dropping his actor's mask. I caught the sparkle in his eye. I caught flamboyant hands thrown wide, later framing his face as he sang a note. I caught an absentminded sneer aimed at an unnamed actress who'd worked to derail his entertainment career.
"I'm changing the way women perceive men," he declared. He sat abruptly on a hanger chair, one of those short shallow chairs built with a bench seat of a single plank of wood, finely finished glowing golden oak but uncushioned; it barely supported his thighs in deference to his hips, forcing the man to crouch. Also called a man's chair because a man looked really adorable hanging there when unclothed in a certain way. (It totally did Morning Glory.) That it made men shorter than any women in a room seemed like a plus, but then I was female. These days, especially in the city, I'd seen men leave a room in disgust if they saw one. Not Morning Glory! Probably furnished it here himself, stage managing, to spike the drama. Legs wide, crouching—his hands above his knees, framing his crotch—eyes narrowed and on me, his body language firmed up my perception of him.
Performatively male, sure of his good looks.
Aggressive.
Dominant.
He addressed Shugh still meeting my gaze. "Steamed Milk and Sugar—can I call you Milk? How does it feel working as her protégé? Do we live in progressive times?"
Hint, hint! I am a #gender #fiction #writer. If you think a hanger chair in this Basic Instincts scene is peculiar, realize that it is a male-oriented gender domination device analogous to what stiletto heels achieve physically with women in our society. Like many women today, Morning Glory is "owning" it (trying anyway) and changing the device's meaning.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
#PennedPossibilities 1120: Saturday Word Edition: Share something from your WIP pertaining to the word “entertainment.”
Bolt is acting as the photographer for her friend Shugh as he interviews a male diva actor for a magazine similar to The New Yorker. Hers is a woman-centric society. The scene in this #excerpt hints that Bolt can be sexist as the actor being interviewed needles her.
Upstairs, Shugh hit it off with Morning Glory. Both men sought careers not often occupied by men. The actor-playwright became more animated as the magazine interview progressed, allowing me with my camera to fade into the background of the plush upper lounge of the theatre. By the time the long-legged delicate man started pacing as he told his life story, I had gleaned that his tale was glorified and larger-than life, like the man, his persona, his masks. His elegant pacing allowed me to move with my Flicka4, steadying myself using the back of a gilt divan, a bamboo formed-steel torchere lamp (one of pair), and then a black marble tea table to as I composed pictures of a celebrity, but a man, lost in thoughts about inflating the image he presented the world, finally dropping his actor's mask. I caught the sparkle in his eye. I caught flamboyant hands thrown wide, later framing his face as he sang a note. I caught an absentminded sneer aimed at an unnamed actress who'd worked to derail his entertainment career.
"I'm changing the way women perceive men," he declared. He sat abruptly on a hanger chair, one of those short shallow chairs built with a bench seat of a single plank of wood, finely finished glowing golden oak but uncushioned; it barely supported his thighs in deference to his hips, forcing the man to crouch. Also called a man's chair because a man looked really adorable hanging there when unclothed in a certain way. (It totally did Morning Glory.) That it made men shorter than any women in a room seemed like a plus, but then I was female. These days, especially in the city, I'd seen men leave a room in disgust if they saw one. Not Morning Glory! Probably furnished it here himself, stage managing, to spike the drama. Legs wide, crouching—his hands above his knees, framing his crotch—eyes narrowed and on me, his body language firmed up my perception of him.
Performatively male, sure of his good looks.
Aggressive.
Dominant.
He addressed Shugh still meeting my gaze. "Steamed Milk and Sugar—can I call you Milk? How does it feel working as her protégé? Do we live in progressive times?"
Hint, hint! I am a #gender #fiction #writer. If you think a hanger chair in this Basic Instincts scene is peculiar, realize that it is a male-oriented gender domination device analogous to what stiletto heels achieve physically with women in our society. Like many women today, Morning Glory is "owning" it (trying anyway) and changing the device's meaning.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
RE: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/112497915608418589
#PennedPossibilities 1119: MC POV: How did you learn your most valuable skill? Who taught you, and why is it so important?
[I will keep Bolt SFW, promise! Tl;dr tootfic follows, nevertheless.—RS]
A surprising number of my skills are self-taught. I must be a genius, even if'n I've done a lot of stupid things. My most valuable skill is flying, naturally being as I'm a day angel, but flight kindergarten failed me epically. Everybody fledged but me by 3. Despite the incentive of being picked on by all the girls in school (boys knew better), it took being shoved off a cliff at 10 before I flew, and then but for Mom and Uncle teaching me to land, I taught myself everything else. Turned out live'n in the world 3D is—My Stars!— flapping awesome, not at all frightening as I'd wound up myself into thinking. Flew into my share of lamp posts, but still, flap'n it! Spending more time a-wing than walking, I became an athlete, captaining the flight and field team, learning stunt flying, flight dance, and tandem. None of it more valuable than walking and running for the flightless in the long run, except, I guess, tandem.
They teach you never to fly close to anybody. I remember distancing from flight kindergarten. It was reiterated by every PE teacher there after. Knock it into your head, they do. A "primary feather length at wing tip; your height above." Feather fields will tangle if'n you're too close. You'll lose lift, they say, maybe crash, but that never made sense to me having learnt to fly late.
I experimented with all sort of crazy, consider'n that I skated out of most of the knocking of "flight stuff into my head" for the seven years everybody else was flying and I wasn't. I dove hard into precision flying, which meant warping my flight feathers hard, sometimes twisting the up and down fields to push away from or get sucked toward things like cliff walls or between tree trunks in a dense forest. Called decompensating. Dangerous? For you, unadventurous noob, maybe! I finally could get a finger length close to things—close enough to suck your hair and feathers against bark, rockface, and occasional stupid people who do their deer in the lantern light imitation seeing you, they think, flying into them—so why not boys? (Girls thought me a masculine muscle nerd! Their loss.)
While I found victims volunteers to fly near me in middle school, it was that first semester in high school that I perfected my awareness of my wings in space, and theirs, close up, and got boys to understand what I'd learnt. It helped that in high school, finally, the boys were less shy (especially the seniors) and dangling flying with us touching really helped incentivize them. Me, too, actually. I got better. They got better, caught the tandem fever, though we got chewed out by Coach when she saw, before she stopped noticing since we didn't kill ourselves. Our team morale soared. We started winning. I became captain of an otherwise male team. I got my string of ponies (stallions only).
Good times.
Valuable? Actually, valuable?
Well, a dozen years and lots of stupid decisions later, I have a friend, Blue, who is a praetorian training to protect Rainy Days. We encountered her in the sky, and I ended up flying stunts around the guy with her mirroring and challenging my agility, pushing me harder, apparently to test my limits, and to piss me off. I'm too competitive for my own good! She correctly figured out it was me who taught Blue flying tandem; it was the definitive skill that got him a job that was very unlikely for a guy to get.
Rainy Days praised me. She's far better at tandem techniques than me. Still. The Director of Home and the Nine Outer worlds praised me. My Stars!!!
Valuable? Flap yes!
Yet. Even considering when she left with Blue, the stress of me stupidly challenging the most important woman ever shot me out of the sky. I nearly crashed trying to land, then puked so hard, I thought some of my liver came up.
I still would challenge her again, given the chance. [Big words, Bolt! Read the quoted story for the second round. —RS]
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
RE: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/112497915608418589
#PennedPossibilities 1119: MC POV: How did you learn your most valuable skill? Who taught you, and why is it so important?
[I will keep Bolt SFW, promise! Tl;dr tootfic follows, nevertheless.—RS]
A surprising number of my skills are self-taught. I must be a genius, even if'n I've done a lot of stupid things. My most valuable skill is flying, naturally being as I'm a day angel, but flight kindergarten failed me epically. Everybody fledged but me by 3. Despite the incentive of being picked on by all the girls in school (boys knew better), it took being shoved off a cliff at 10 before I flew, and then but for Mom and Uncle teaching me to land, I taught myself everything else. Turned out live'n in the world 3D is—My Stars!— flapping awesome, not at all frightening as I'd wound up myself into thinking. Flew into my share of lamp posts, but still, flap'n it! Spending more time a-wing than walking, I became an athlete, captaining the flight and field team, learning stunt flying, flight dance, and tandem. None of it more valuable than walking and running for the flightless in the long run, except, I guess, tandem.
They teach you never to fly close to anybody. I remember distancing from flight kindergarten. It was reiterated by every PE teacher there after. Knock it into your head, they do. A "primary feather length at wing tip; your height above." Feather fields will tangle if'n you're too close. You'll lose lift, they say, maybe crash, but that never made sense to me having learnt to fly late.
I experimented with all sort of crazy, consider'n that I skated out of most of the knocking of "flight stuff into my head" for the seven years everybody else was flying and I wasn't. I dove hard into precision flying, which meant warping my flight feathers hard, sometimes twisting the up and down fields to push away from or get sucked toward things like cliff walls or between tree trunks in a dense forest. Called decompensating. Dangerous? For you, unadventurous noob, maybe! I finally could get a finger length close to things—close enough to suck your hair and feathers against bark, rockface, and occasional stupid people who do their deer in the lantern light imitation seeing you, they think, flying into them—so why not boys? (Girls thought me a masculine muscle nerd! Their loss.)
While I found victims volunteers to fly near me in middle school, it was that first semester in high school that I perfected my awareness of my wings in space, and theirs, close up, and got boys to understand what I'd learnt. It helped that in high school, finally, the boys were less shy (especially the seniors) and dangling flying with us touching really helped incentivize them. Me, too, actually. I got better. They got better, caught the tandem fever, though we got chewed out by Coach when she saw, before she stopped noticing since we didn't kill ourselves. Our team morale soared. We started winning. I became captain of an otherwise male team. I got my string of ponies (stallions only).
Good times.
Valuable? Actually, valuable?
Well, a dozen years and lots of stupid decisions later, I have a friend, Blue, who is a praetorian training to protect Rainy Days. We encountered her in the sky, and I ended up flying stunts around the guy with her mirroring and challenging my agility, pushing me harder, apparently to test my limits, and to piss me off. I'm too competitive for my own good! She correctly figured out it was me who taught Blue flying tandem; it was the definitive skill that got him a job that was very unlikely for a guy to get.
Rainy Days praised me. She's far better at tandem techniques than me. Still. The Director of Home and the Nine Outer worlds praised me. My Stars!!!
Valuable? Flap yes!
Yet. Even considering when she left with Blue, the stress of me stupidly challenging the most important woman ever shot me out of the sky. I nearly crashed trying to land, then puked so hard, I thought some of my liver came up.
I still would challenge her again, given the chance. [Big words, Bolt! Read the quoted story for the second round. —RS]
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
RE: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/112497915608418589
#PennedPossibilities 1119: MC POV: How did you learn your most valuable skill? Who taught you, and why is it so important?
[I will keep Bolt SFW, promise! Tl;dr tootfic follows, nevertheless.—RS]
A surprising number of my skills are self-taught. I must be a genius, even if'n I've done a lot of stupid things. My most valuable skill is flying, naturally being as I'm a day angel, but flight kindergarten failed me epically. Everybody fledged but me by 3. Despite the incentive of being picked on by all the girls in school (boys knew better), it took being shoved off a cliff at 10 before I flew, and then but for Mom and Uncle teaching me to land, I taught myself everything else. Turned out live'n in the world 3D is—My Stars!— flapping awesome, not at all frightening as I'd wound up myself into thinking. Flew into my share of lamp posts, but still, flap'n it! Spending more time a-wing than walking, I became an athlete, captaining the flight and field team, learning stunt flying, flight dance, and tandem. None of it more valuable than walking and running for the flightless in the long run, except, I guess, tandem.
They teach you never to fly close to anybody. I remember distancing from flight kindergarten. It was reiterated by every PE teacher there after. Knock it into your head, they do. A "primary feather length at wing tip; your height above." Feather fields will tangle if'n you're too close. You'll lose lift, they say, maybe crash, but that never made sense to me having learnt to fly late.
I experimented with all sort of crazy, consider'n that I skated out of most of the knocking of "flight stuff into my head" for the seven years everybody else was flying and I wasn't. I dove hard into precision flying, which meant warping my flight feathers hard, sometimes twisting the up and down fields to push away from or get sucked toward things like cliff walls or between tree trunks in a dense forest. Called decompensating. Dangerous? For you, unadventurous noob, maybe! I finally could get a finger length close to things—close enough to suck your hair and feathers against bark, rockface, and occasional stupid people who do their deer in the lantern light imitation seeing you, they think, flying into them—so why not boys? (Girls thought me a masculine muscle nerd! Their loss.)
While I found victims volunteers to fly near me in middle school, it was that first semester in high school that I perfected my awareness of my wings in space, and theirs, close up, and got boys to understand what I'd learnt. It helped that in high school, finally, the boys were less shy (especially the seniors) and dangling flying with us touching really helped incentivize them. Me, too, actually. I got better. They got better, caught the tandem fever, though we got chewed out by Coach when she saw, before she stopped noticing since we didn't kill ourselves. Our team morale soared. We started winning. I became captain of an otherwise male team. I got my string of ponies (stallions only).
Good times.
Valuable? Actually, valuable?
Well, a dozen years and lots of stupid decisions later, I have a friend, Blue, who is a praetorian training to protect Rainy Days. We encountered her in the sky, and I ended up flying stunts around the guy with her mirroring and challenging my agility, pushing me harder, apparently to test my limits, and to piss me off. I'm too competitive for my own good! She correctly figured out it was me who taught Blue flying tandem; it was the definitive skill that got him a job that was very unlikely for a guy to get.
Rainy Days praised me. She's far better at tandem techniques than me. Still. The Director of Home and the Nine Outer worlds praised me. My Stars!!!
Valuable? Flap yes!
Yet. Even considering when she left with Blue, the stress of me stupidly challenging the most important woman ever shot me out of the sky. I nearly crashed trying to land, then puked so hard, I thought some of my liver came up.
I still would challenge her again, given the chance. [Big words, Bolt! Read the quoted story for the second round. —RS]
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
RE: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/112497915608418589
#PennedPossibilities 1119: MC POV: How did you learn your most valuable skill? Who taught you, and why is it so important?
[I will keep Bolt SFW, promise! Tl;dr tootfic follows, nevertheless.—RS]
A surprising number of my skills are self-taught. I must be a genius, even if'n I've done a lot of stupid things. My most valuable skill is flying, naturally being as I'm a day angel, but flight kindergarten failed me epically. Everybody fledged but me by 3. Despite the incentive of being picked on by all the girls in school (boys knew better), it took being shoved off a cliff at 10 before I flew, and then but for Mom and Uncle teaching me to land, I taught myself everything else. Turned out live'n in the world 3D is—My Stars!— flapping awesome, not at all frightening as I'd wound up myself into thinking. Flew into my share of lamp posts, but still, flap'n it! Spending more time a-wing than walking, I became an athlete, captaining the flight and field team, learning stunt flying, flight dance, and tandem. None of it more valuable than walking and running for the flightless in the long run, except, I guess, tandem.
They teach you never to fly close to anybody. I remember distancing from flight kindergarten. It was reiterated by every PE teacher there after. Knock it into your head, they do. A "primary feather length at wing tip; your height above." Feather fields will tangle if'n you're too close. You'll lose lift, they say, maybe crash, but that never made sense to me having learnt to fly late.
I experimented with all sort of crazy, consider'n that I skated out of most of the knocking of "flight stuff into my head" for the seven years everybody else was flying and I wasn't. I dove hard into precision flying, which meant warping my flight feathers hard, sometimes twisting the up and down fields to push away from or get sucked toward things like cliff walls or between tree trunks in a dense forest. Called decompensating. Dangerous? For you, unadventurous noob, maybe! I finally could get a finger length close to things—close enough to suck your hair and feathers against bark, rockface, and occasional stupid people who do their deer in the lantern light imitation seeing you, they think, flying into them—so why not boys? (Girls thought me a masculine muscle nerd! Their loss.)
While I found victims volunteers to fly near me in middle school, it was that first semester in high school that I perfected my awareness of my wings in space, and theirs, close up, and got boys to understand what I'd learnt. It helped that in high school, finally, the boys were less shy (especially the seniors) and dangling flying with us touching really helped incentivize them. Me, too, actually. I got better. They got better, caught the tandem fever, though we got chewed out by Coach when she saw, before she stopped noticing since we didn't kill ourselves. Our team morale soared. We started winning. I became captain of an otherwise male team. I got my string of ponies (stallions only).
Good times.
Valuable? Actually, valuable?
Well, a dozen years and lots of stupid decisions later, I have a friend, Blue, who is a praetorian training to protect Rainy Days. We encountered her in the sky, and I ended up flying stunts around the guy with her mirroring and challenging my agility, pushing me harder, apparently to test my limits, and to piss me off. I'm too competitive for my own good! She correctly figured out it was me who taught Blue flying tandem; it was the definitive skill that got him a job that was very unlikely for a guy to get.
Rainy Days praised me. She's far better at tandem techniques than me. Still. The Director of Home and the Nine Outer worlds praised me. My Stars!!!
Valuable? Flap yes!
Yet. Even considering when she left with Blue, the stress of me stupidly challenging the most important woman ever shot me out of the sky. I nearly crashed trying to land, then puked so hard, I thought some of my liver came up.
I still would challenge her again, given the chance. [Big words, Bolt! Read the quoted story for the second round. —RS]
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
RE: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/112497915608418589
#PennedPossibilities 1119: MC POV: How did you learn your most valuable skill? Who taught you, and why is it so important?
[I will keep Bolt SFW, promise! Tl;dr tootfic follows, nevertheless.—RS]
A surprising number of my skills are self-taught. I must be a genius, even if'n I've done a lot of stupid things. My most valuable skill is flying, naturally being as I'm a day angel, but flight kindergarten failed me epically. Everybody fledged but me by 3. Despite the incentive of being picked on by all the girls in school (boys knew better), it took being shoved off a cliff at 10 before I flew, and then but for Mom and Uncle teaching me to land, I taught myself everything else. Turned out live'n in the world 3D is—My Stars!— flapping awesome, not at all frightening as I'd wound up myself into thinking. Flew into my share of lamp posts, but still, flap'n it! Spending more time a-wing than walking, I became an athlete, captaining the flight and field team, learning stunt flying, flight dance, and tandem. None of it more valuable than walking and running for the flightless in the long run, except, I guess, tandem.
They teach you never to fly close to anybody. I remember distancing from flight kindergarten. It was reiterated by every PE teacher there after. Knock it into your head, they do. A "primary feather length at wing tip; your height above." Feather fields will tangle if'n you're too close. You'll lose lift, they say, maybe crash, but that never made sense to me having learnt to fly late.
I experimented with all sort of crazy, consider'n that I skated out of most of the knocking of "flight stuff into my head" for the seven years everybody else was flying and I wasn't. I dove hard into precision flying, which meant warping my flight feathers hard, sometimes twisting the up and down fields to push away from or get sucked toward things like cliff walls or between tree trunks in a dense forest. Called decompensating. Dangerous? For you, unadventurous noob, maybe! I finally could get a finger length close to things—close enough to suck your hair and feathers against bark, rockface, and occasional stupid people who do their deer in the lantern light imitation seeing you, they think, flying into them—so why not boys? (Girls thought me a masculine muscle nerd! Their loss.)
While I found victims volunteers to fly near me in middle school, it was that first semester in high school that I perfected my awareness of my wings in space, and theirs, close up, and got boys to understand what I'd learnt. It helped that in high school, finally, the boys were less shy (especially the seniors) and dangling flying with us touching really helped incentivize them. Me, too, actually. I got better. They got better, caught the tandem fever, though we got chewed out by Coach when she saw, before she stopped noticing since we didn't kill ourselves. Our team morale soared. We started winning. I became captain of an otherwise male team. I got my string of ponies (stallions only).
Good times.
Valuable? Actually, valuable?
Well, a dozen years and lots of stupid decisions later, I have a friend, Blue, who is a praetorian training to protect Rainy Days. We encountered her in the sky, and I ended up flying stunts around the guy with her mirroring and challenging my agility, pushing me harder, apparently to test my limits, and to piss me off. I'm too competitive for my own good! She correctly figured out it was me who taught Blue flying tandem; it was the definitive skill that got him a job that was very unlikely for a guy to get.
Rainy Days praised me. She's far better at tandem techniques than me. Still. The Director of Home and the Nine Outer worlds praised me. My Stars!!!
Valuable? Flap yes!
Yet. Even considering when she left with Blue, the stress of me stupidly challenging the most important woman ever shot me out of the sky. I nearly crashed trying to land, then puked so hard, I thought some of my liver came up.
I still would challenge her again, given the chance. [Big words, Bolt! Read the quoted story for the second round. —RS]
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.05 — ~From a purely aesthetic standpoint, what is your favorite color of ice cream?
Flamboyant. Pictured, one take on unicorn ice cream. Ask my friends, I have a thing for unicorns.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
photographer chef cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.04 — ~Reverse of last month's question: if e-books stopped being produced, how much would you miss them?
I have grown to like not filling shelves with dust collectors. A physical library isn't a status symbol for me anymore. I also like having my iPhone read books to me, which means ePub with or without DRM. Last, old eyes. I'd rather pinch to zoom instead of hold a magnifying glass or squint through bifocals.
I'd miss 'em.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
photographer chef cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.04 — ~Reverse of last month's question: if e-books stopped being produced, how much would you miss them?
I have grown to like not filling shelves with dust collectors. A physical library isn't a status symbol for me anymore. I also like having my iPhone read books to me, which means ePub with or without DRM. Last, old eyes. I'd rather pinch to zoom instead of hold a magnifying glass or squint through bifocals.
I'd miss 'em.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
photographer chef cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.04 — ~Reverse of last month's question: if e-books stopped being produced, how much would you miss them?
I have grown to like not filling shelves with dust collectors. A physical library isn't a status symbol for me anymore. I also like having my iPhone read books to me, which means ePub with or without DRM. Last, old eyes. I'd rather pinch to zoom instead of hold a magnifying glass or squint through bifocals.
I'd miss 'em.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
photographer chef cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.04 — ~Reverse of last month's question: if e-books stopped being produced, how much would you miss them?
I have grown to like not filling shelves with dust collectors. A physical library isn't a status symbol for me anymore. I also like having my iPhone read books to me, which means ePub with or without DRM. Last, old eyes. I'd rather pinch to zoom instead of hold a magnifying glass or squint through bifocals.
I'd miss 'em.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
photographer chef cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.04 — ~Reverse of last month's question: if e-books stopped being produced, how much would you miss them?
I have grown to like not filling shelves with dust collectors. A physical library isn't a status symbol for me anymore. I also like having my iPhone read books to me, which means ePub with or without DRM. Last, old eyes. I'd rather pinch to zoom instead of hold a magnifying glass or squint through bifocals.
I'd miss 'em.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
photographer chef cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.03 — ˜Which ebook reader do you use?
I realize this has become a political question, but I hopped on the bandwagon over a decade ago. A Kindle. The corpses of previous generations litter the house, but the one that lives is a Scribe. Mostly, however, I enjoy books on my iPhone because I can have it read to me with the Alex voice. I try to buy ePubs when I can. I've already lost digital comics due to Dark Horse having shutdown their gen-1 service.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
photographer chef cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.03 — ˜Which ebook reader do you use?
I realize this has become a political question, but I hopped on the bandwagon over a decade ago. A Kindle. The corpses of previous generations litter the house, but the one that lives is a Scribe. Mostly, however, I enjoy books on my iPhone because I can have it read to me with the Alex voice. I try to buy ePubs when I can. I've already lost digital comics due to Dark Horse having shutdown their gen-1 service.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
photographer chef cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.03 — ˜Which ebook reader do you use?
I realize this has become a political question, but I hopped on the bandwagon over a decade ago. A Kindle. The corpses of previous generations litter the house, but the one that lives is a Scribe. Mostly, however, I enjoy books on my iPhone because I can have it read to me with the Alex voice. I try to buy ePubs when I can. I've already lost digital comics due to Dark Horse having shutdown their gen-1 service.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
photographer chef cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.03 — ˜Which ebook reader do you use?
I realize this has become a political question, but I hopped on the bandwagon over a decade ago. A Kindle. The corpses of previous generations litter the house, but the one that lives is a Scribe. Mostly, however, I enjoy books on my iPhone because I can have it read to me with the Alex voice. I try to buy ePubs when I can. I've already lost digital comics due to Dark Horse having shutdown their gen-1 service.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
photographer chef cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.03 — ˜Which ebook reader do you use?
I realize this has become a political question, but I hopped on the bandwagon over a decade ago. A Kindle. The corpses of previous generations litter the house, but the one that lives is a Scribe. Mostly, however, I enjoy books on my iPhone because I can have it read to me with the Alex voice. I try to buy ePubs when I can. I've already lost digital comics due to Dark Horse having shutdown their gen-1 service.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
photographer chef cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#PennedPossibilities 1117. MC POV: If I looked in your fridge or pantry right now, what would I find?
[Bolt:] "A bag of crumbs." [She gives you a strange look, shakes her head, and walks away.]
Wait! Let me explain. Bolt discusses it in her narrative and rummages through her returnable muslin bag (they don't have plastic). She even gets nagged about it by a SC. Crumbs are day or days old food grocers or restaurants bag up and sell for cheap. Regulations ensure it's mostly balanced nutritionally.
The bag Bolt buys typically contains bruised or browning pomel or home tree fruit, beans, algal yeast paste (think Vegemite/Marmite), floof, and raw no-cook veg like carrots or cabbage. Because she's a day angel, the bags also contain seafood protein: dried squid—which Bolt 🎶adores🎵—and occasionally either shrimp crisps or dented or lost-label tinned fish.
Having persisted on this diet for a dodecade—augmented when she has the coin with fast food day angel style, often spicy fish and squid ramen—she's not entirely willing to stock her pantry with actual groceries she'd have to shop for. Crumbs can be eaten as is with water, or reconstituted by adding some water.
Quick. Simple.
She doesn't look forward to spending the extra coin from her photography sales then having to cook, too! Worse, her boarding house situation charges extra to use the kitchen. Bad enough there's no rain room (i.e., shower) and she has to pay to use the bathhouse down the street!
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#PennedPossibilities 1117. MC POV: If I looked in your fridge or pantry right now, what would I find?
[Bolt:] "A bag of crumbs." [She gives you a strange look, shakes her head, and walks away.]
Wait! Let me explain. Bolt discusses it in her narrative and rummages through her returnable muslin bag (they don't have plastic). She even gets nagged about it by a SC. Crumbs are day or days old food grocers or restaurants bag up and sell for cheap. Regulations ensure it's mostly balanced nutritionally.
The bag Bolt buys typically contains bruised or browning pomel or home tree fruit, beans, algal yeast paste (think Vegemite/Marmite), floof, and raw no-cook veg like carrots or cabbage. Because she's a day angel, the bags also contain seafood protein: dried squid—which Bolt 🎶adores🎵—and occasionally either shrimp crisps or dented or lost-label tinned fish.
Having persisted on this diet for a dodecade—augmented when she has the coin with fast food day angel style, often spicy fish and squid ramen—she's not entirely willing to stock her pantry with actual groceries she'd have to shop for. Crumbs can be eaten as is with water, or reconstituted by adding some water.
Quick. Simple.
She doesn't look forward to spending the extra coin from her photography sales then having to cook, too! Worse, her boarding house situation charges extra to use the kitchen. Bad enough there's no rain room (i.e., shower) and she has to pay to use the bathhouse down the street!
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#PennedPossibilities 1117. MC POV: If I looked in your fridge or pantry right now, what would I find?
[Bolt:] "A bag of crumbs." [She gives you a strange look, shakes her head, and walks away.]
Wait! Let me explain. Bolt discusses it in her narrative and rummages through her returnable muslin bag (they don't have plastic). She even gets nagged about it by a SC. Crumbs are day or days old food grocers or restaurants bag up and sell for cheap. Regulations ensure it's mostly balanced nutritionally.
The bag Bolt buys typically contains bruised or browning pomel or home tree fruit, beans, algal yeast paste (think Vegemite/Marmite), floof, and raw no-cook veg like carrots or cabbage. Because she's a day angel, the bags also contain seafood protein: dried squid—which Bolt 🎶adores🎵—and occasionally either shrimp crisps or dented or lost-label tinned fish.
Having persisted on this diet for a dodecade—augmented when she has the coin with fast food day angel style, often spicy fish and squid ramen—she's not entirely willing to stock her pantry with actual groceries she'd have to shop for. Crumbs can be eaten as is with water, or reconstituted by adding some water.
Quick. Simple.
She doesn't look forward to spending the extra coin from her photography sales then having to cook, too! Worse, her boarding house situation charges extra to use the kitchen. Bad enough there's no rain room (i.e., shower) and she has to pay to use the bathhouse down the street!
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#PennedPossibilities 1117. MC POV: If I looked in your fridge or pantry right now, what would I find?
[Bolt:] "A bag of crumbs." [She gives you a strange look, shakes her head, and walks away.]
Wait! Let me explain. Bolt discusses it in her narrative and rummages through her returnable muslin bag (they don't have plastic). She even gets nagged about it by a SC. Crumbs are day or days old food grocers or restaurants bag up and sell for cheap. Regulations ensure it's mostly balanced nutritionally.
The bag Bolt buys typically contains bruised or browning pomel or home tree fruit, beans, algal yeast paste (think Vegemite/Marmite), floof, and raw no-cook veg like carrots or cabbage. Because she's a day angel, the bags also contain seafood protein: dried squid—which Bolt 🎶adores🎵—and occasionally either shrimp crisps or dented or lost-label tinned fish.
Having persisted on this diet for a dodecade—augmented when she has the coin with fast food day angel style, often spicy fish and squid ramen—she's not entirely willing to stock her pantry with actual groceries she'd have to shop for. Crumbs can be eaten as is with water, or reconstituted by adding some water.
Quick. Simple.
She doesn't look forward to spending the extra coin from her photography sales then having to cook, too! Worse, her boarding house situation charges extra to use the kitchen. Bad enough there's no rain room (i.e., shower) and she has to pay to use the bathhouse down the street!
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#PennedPossibilities 1117. MC POV: If I looked in your fridge or pantry right now, what would I find?
[Bolt:] "A bag of crumbs." [She gives you a strange look, shakes her head, and walks away.]
Wait! Let me explain. Bolt discusses it in her narrative and rummages through her returnable muslin bag (they don't have plastic). She even gets nagged about it by a SC. Crumbs are day or days old food grocers or restaurants bag up and sell for cheap. Regulations ensure it's mostly balanced nutritionally.
The bag Bolt buys typically contains bruised or browning pomel or home tree fruit, beans, algal yeast paste (think Vegemite/Marmite), floof, and raw no-cook veg like carrots or cabbage. Because she's a day angel, the bags also contain seafood protein: dried squid—which Bolt 🎶adores🎵—and occasionally either shrimp crisps or dented or lost-label tinned fish.
Having persisted on this diet for a dodecade—augmented when she has the coin with fast food day angel style, often spicy fish and squid ramen—she's not entirely willing to stock her pantry with actual groceries she'd have to shop for. Crumbs can be eaten as is with water, or reconstituted by adding some water.
Quick. Simple.
She doesn't look forward to spending the extra coin from her photography sales then having to cook, too! Worse, her boarding house situation charges extra to use the kitchen. Bad enough there's no rain room (i.e., shower) and she has to pay to use the bathhouse down the street!
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#PennedPossibilities 1118: Name a catastrophic event that occurred in your world / universe.
[Some deep background, not necessarily yet canon. —RS]
Our civilization passed through the "singularity" and was (apparently) destroyed. With scant few people surviving a population bottleneck, with books and print long obsolete before the singularity, no readable technological information or history survived in the ruins. A character (a spoiler number of years later) in the series worked to destroy whatever archaeological clues existed, for reasons that are spoilers, through means that are spoilers, devastating major swaths of the planet (twice as it turns out, which is kind of spoilery) causing what is also spoilers, but she could do nothing about a planetary megastructure that remains a mystery millennia later. The multiple cataclysms and the fall of intermediate civilizations that followed is contributing to the decline in current days of the human population for reasons also spoilers such that humanity, even as an interstellar civilization, is likely to go extinct. And that's a catastrophe in the making!
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#PennedPossibilities 1118: Name a catastrophic event that occurred in your world / universe.
[Some deep background, not necessarily yet canon. —RS]
Our civilization passed through the "singularity" and was (apparently) destroyed. With scant few people surviving a population bottleneck, with books and print long obsolete before the singularity, no readable technological information or history survived in the ruins. A character (a spoiler number of years later) in the series worked to destroy whatever archaeological clues existed, for reasons that are spoilers, through means that are spoilers, devastating major swaths of the planet (twice as it turns out, which is kind of spoilery) causing what is also spoilers, but she could do nothing about a planetary megastructure that remains a mystery millennia later. The multiple cataclysms and the fall of intermediate civilizations that followed is contributing to the decline in current days of the human population for reasons also spoilers such that humanity, even as an interstellar civilization, is likely to go extinct. And that's a catastrophe in the making!
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#PennedPossibilities 1118: Name a catastrophic event that occurred in your world / universe.
[Some deep background, not necessarily yet canon. —RS]
Our civilization passed through the "singularity" and was (apparently) destroyed. With scant few people surviving a population bottleneck, with books and print long obsolete before the singularity, no readable technological information or history survived in the ruins. A character (a spoiler number of years later) in the series worked to destroy whatever archaeological clues existed, for reasons that are spoilers, through means that are spoilers, devastating major swaths of the planet (twice as it turns out, which is kind of spoilery) causing what is also spoilers, but she could do nothing about a planetary megastructure that remains a mystery millennia later. The multiple cataclysms and the fall of intermediate civilizations that followed is contributing to the decline in current days of the human population for reasons also spoilers such that humanity, even as an interstellar civilization, is likely to go extinct. And that's a catastrophe in the making!
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#PennedPossibilities 1118: Name a catastrophic event that occurred in your world / universe.
[Some deep background, not necessarily yet canon. —RS]
Our civilization passed through the "singularity" and was (apparently) destroyed. With scant few people surviving a population bottleneck, with books and print long obsolete before the singularity, no readable technological information or history survived in the ruins. A character (a spoiler number of years later) in the series worked to destroy whatever archaeological clues existed, for reasons that are spoilers, through means that are spoilers, devastating major swaths of the planet (twice as it turns out, which is kind of spoilery) causing what is also spoilers, but she could do nothing about a planetary megastructure that remains a mystery millennia later. The multiple cataclysms and the fall of intermediate civilizations that followed is contributing to the decline in current days of the human population for reasons also spoilers such that humanity, even as an interstellar civilization, is likely to go extinct. And that's a catastrophe in the making!
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#PennedPossibilities 1118: Name a catastrophic event that occurred in your world / universe.
[Some deep background, not necessarily yet canon. —RS]
Our civilization passed through the "singularity" and was (apparently) destroyed. With scant few people surviving a population bottleneck, with books and print long obsolete before the singularity, no readable technological information or history survived in the ruins. A character (a spoiler number of years later) in the series worked to destroy whatever archaeological clues existed, for reasons that are spoilers, through means that are spoilers, devastating major swaths of the planet (twice as it turns out, which is kind of spoilery) causing what is also spoilers, but she could do nothing about a planetary megastructure that remains a mystery millennia later. The multiple cataclysms and the fall of intermediate civilizations that followed is contributing to the decline in current days of the human population for reasons also spoilers such that humanity, even as an interstellar civilization, is likely to go extinct. And that's a catastrophe in the making!
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.09.01 — What are your writing goals for this month?
All I'm gonna write on this topic is this little mantra from my pinned profile introduction post:
I am not telepathic.
Repeat that: I am not telepathic.
Louder: I AM NOT TELEPATHIC!
I DON'T know what the reader is going to expect.
I DON'T know if the current scene is going to frighten, trigger, or be too explicit for my audience...
Because I DON'T have anyone looking over my shoulder, clicking their tongue, and saying, "Tch, tch, tch!"
I am going to take a deeeeeeep breath, now,
clear my mind,
and write the flapping scene—
full stop.[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.09.02 — What was the last thing to interrupt you while writing?
The bathroom. 😊🤪
I had to answer this post now to write that. But seriously, the spouse is post-surgery, so caretaking. I'm not phoning a friend. That's my final answer.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion -
#WordWeavers 2026.09.02 — What would your MC notice first upon entering a crowded room?
Bolt is a courier for the mob (it's in the novel's title). She delivers orders and missives between mob lieutenants, but also delivers insurance bills to customers that are late (protection rackets) and collection notices to clients who aren't paying their (loan shark) loans. It is no joke that her clients sometimes try to kill the messenger. Once beaten up was enough for her.
The first thing she notices upon entering a crowded room is whether there are any clients; she'll leave. It's not much better if there are any mob affiliates there, either. She ascribes to the army axiom about volunteering, as in, Don't. She pretends to be uninterested and bored before leaving as quickly and decorously as she can, so as not to be noticed or to give offense.
Beyond that, she IS going to notice the cute guys. She's sort of a connoisseur, preferring the strong beefy types since she's somewhat of a jock herself.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#Cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.02 — How do you think where you live affects your creative work?
I live in a big city. With freeways. Traffic. Constant noise, bustle. No wonder why I tend to write gritty and occasionally urbane urban and suburban stories. University, office, street, and apartment settings abound. Writing what I know. I like to think I am providing a familiar modern backdrop for stories that will lull readers into expecting the story world is like their own until the story escorts them into an uncanny valley, a world that is merely convergent—like fish and dolphins look the same but are different.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
photographer chef cooking
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#ScribesAndMakers 2026.09.01 — List 7 things about your creativity (accomplishments, goals, etc.)
On demand auto-biography, Go!
- I am #actuallyAutistic. It's my superpower for concentration and observation. My crippling shyness does help with me having become stealthy! I am an avid people watcher. Such strange creatures!
- Was a C- English student in high school but I taught myself writing by reading all my favorite SF authors, copying parts of their stories, then emulating their style.
- My first work was a 25,000 word novella, which I wrote over Christmas vacation, overflowing with creativity after an analytic geometry test I studied furiously for turned out to be both open book and too easy.
- I write feminist (and gender) SF and Fantasy.
- I sold the third novel I wrote two weeks after I signed with my agent, which was two weeks after I mailed it to him. (Okay, it was a year after I showed him my second novel at a paid-for writer's event and he told me to send him my next novel.)
- I burnt out as an author in 2001. I found it wasn't a space odyssey when I needed to communicate with my writing and my inventory of finished works was backing up, unsold. I rehabilitated myself starting in 2015 by writing fan fiction. Eventually that tallied to the equivalent of nine novels.
- Beyond publishing again, my goal is to at least shortlist for the Otherwise Award. I'm currently working on novels I think will accomplish that goal.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#WordWeavers 2026.09.01 — What is something your MC desperately wants but would never admit to wanting?
As the story ends, she is discovering she has a crush on a female coworker. It's physical. Guess why she would never admit it. Fuel for the sequel.
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#PennedPossibilities 1116: What does your antagonist fear?
The human species is going extinct and she fears she isn't enough to prevent it.
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#PennedPossibilities 1115: What sounds or smells remind your MC of their childhood?
When I think of childhood, I think of all those years prior to adulthood, but there is also a nuance of life in the single digits. Bolt is a day angel, which means a human with wings, which means using those wings to fly. Yet, she did not learn to fly until 10 despite most children fledging by 3, and to the horror of some mothers, before 1. As such, she learned to Climb. The small city she lived in was built into the sides of coastal cliffs and in the canopies of Home trees (think the rugged Oregon coast). Because climbing what is essentially the side of buildings takes time, the scent of salt air accompanied by the sounds of waves crashing and rock clacking, as well as the sounds of branches and leaves rustling, would constitute major portions of her memory, especially those times she got stranded or exhausted before climbing fully to her destination.
However, she lives in Home City now (think Denver), with no cliffs or sea nearby, and no Home Trees except in less wealthy suburbs she has no call to visit. Nothing will remind her of those preteen years.
Allowing for her teens, that's a different story. Once Bolt started flying, it became her obsession. The strength and stamina she gained climbing jumpstarted her athleticism. She would become the prototypical jock high schooler, easily earning a varsity letter, the admiration of her team mates, and adoration of the opposite sex. In her case, her team mates were entirely male, which coincidentally is the opposite sex. She talks about riding her "string of ponies" from when she was 17, and we know what that means.
What reminds her of those times? Gym smells, mostly. Familiar locker room and PE shower smells, you know: sweat, used socks, chlorine, mold, disinfectant. Sounds? Lockers slamming, cheers after a win, towel fights. At 30, she visits the gym whenever she can afford it, and she budgets it as a priority. I've caught her in the story reminiscing when there. It's first person narrative, after all.
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#EroticMusings 2026.08.30 — Week 66 (August 30 - September 5) Culture: How would your characters feel about the way eroticism is perceived in your own culture?
Sad? Appalled?
People in their culture might ask of us, "You potty train your children, you socialize them, you teach them to feed themselves, talk, and read, yet you don't teach them sex and contraception?"
They'd see this as a type of starvation. They would analyze it as a type of cruel deprivation practiced to guarantee knowledge of who fathered a child to inherit property patrilineally, resulting in a type of mental illness based on the transference of sexual cues from the innately human ones to objects (fetishes, as a noun) or behaviors that become what we'd label Palovian conditioning.
Not saying the characters don't have their own repression and transference going on; they are human, after all. Dramatic events change our focus, our memories, our sexual cues. In their society sex, having it, or expecting you've had it, is the norm for any gender—so long as it's consensual. Sex is taught in school. It appears in art, theatre, in regular magazines and newspapers often as self-help but also because it is fun, and sometimes in public (though depending where, it might be considered crass or demonstrative). It just is. Their "hang-ups" are uniquely theirs, but they'd be saddened by the way eroticism is perceived in our culture.
To be clear, the detail I've revealed is mostly peripheral to the stories in the series, but can be gleaned from reading them carefully. Mostly, the characters consider these things to be so prosaic and commonplace as to rarely comment on them. This is why Bolt, the MC of the current WIP, doesn't think it shameful or unseemly that she's taking photos of men and women (by implication, mostly nude) for a pin-up calendar, and many people (almost all of them women) are looking forward to buying it. These people celebrate the human body and their physicality. Their kinks lie elsewhere.
In any case, I feel this layer will add extra interest to the story to readers in our culture, to the extent they perceive it.
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#ScribesAndMakers »2026.08.31 — Choose an adverb to sum up how your month went.
Banally.
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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.08.31 — How did this month go for you, writing-wise?
Essays ↑ Fiction ↓
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#WordWeavers 2026.08.31 — What's one thing you hope readers remember long after they finish your story?
A woman got away with doing something they're not allowed. It worked out.
…Why would I think it wouldn't have? 🤔
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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.08.30 — What has your writing taught you this month?
I will write the essay about writing before writing the fiction†. My essay writing skill is leveling up dramatically. Not what I'm trying for—but writing them essays feels sooo good.
Some major cogitation is necessary. Obviously. 😭
I'll write about my results. 🤪
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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@golgaloth The society doesn't have the words for belief, luck, fortune, the supernatural, or religion or anything of that nature. When something happens rather unexpectedly, characters between themselves or of themselves ask, "Chance or skill?" Often starts a spirited pride filled debate (and "spiritual" isn't in their language, either). Never do people rely on something like luck, but that doesn't mean they're well prepared! So: Skill=NO.
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#PennedPossibilities 1114 1/2: On average, how long are your writing sessions?
Until I can't continue due to interruptions, having to leave for an appointment, finishing what is pending, needing to eat, needing to sleep, or total exhaustion. No average or median time accounting is possible.
Frequency is another issue altogether. 😇
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#WordWeavers 2026.08.30 — If you could interview one of your characters over coffee, what would be the first question you asked?
Imagine for a moment interviewing a reasonably attractive lady-killer ex-jock with a good reputation for being fun, if never long term. Bolt, my MC, is a female version of this, which—for reasons I won't explain—is perfectly acceptable in the woman-centric culture she lives in, as long as it is consensual. I'm preparing to write a part of a scene where Bolt is put on the spot by an SC, so I'd definitely ask first, "How many?"
Okay, maybe a little prurient interest here, since her society is way different from ours in these matters.
She could answer quantitatively since women routinely track such things due to governmental regulations. She will approximate because she is estranged from her family and doesn't have her registry books from her teens.
My second question would be an easter egg for those that read my posts: "How did you discover flying tandem and teach it to yourself?"
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#PennedPossibilities 974 — Does your MC become jealous? If so, to what degree? How does their jealousy manifest?
Jealousy is something taught in our society.
Read that again.
Nobody ever teaches that jealousy is in any wise good in Bolt's society. It's mentioned as a pathology in Men's Studies, and men taught to recognize that pathology will send people to Health Services if they recognize it.
Bolt has felt envy, when she's seen a woman get a man she was eying.
She's not entirely happy in one scene in Reluctant Courier (for the Mob) when she finds her friend Blue entertaining a pair of women. It's too hard to explain the nuances here, but it's a normal occurrence related to what people in their world call a "man's duty." Calling Blue a part-time geisha hints at the situation, but is not really close. He, however, recognizes that's Bolt has had a bad day (she has them fairly often, working for the mob) and really needs friendly (and also intimate) consoling. She's not up to sharing right then. Blue pawns off the two women on another guy in the association he lives at.
Bolt isn't jealous. That's not the emotion. There is no anger, simply disappointment. Bolt and Blue are completely human, but the society is subtly, but sometimes in your face, alien in ways we can't grasp thanks to our enculturation and gender roles.
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