#WordWeavers #western #horror

4/14. Who is your kindest character and how do they show it?

Mr Ross. In spite of having been enslaved, he has a charitable disposition. And — maybe — a deeper understanding that he’s never going to escape from the shackles he was born into.

#WordWeavers 2504.13 — How dangerous is your MC? CW: Definite Background Spoilers.

The Reluctance Series stories MCs by danger score least to most:

• 0: Devil-girl — Give her a book and leave her alone.
• 1: Streak — He's a sweetie. He'll have your back if you are mobbed by bullies. His danger score is multiplied by Thorn's as he's protective of her. He did charm the pants off of Rainy Days, so there's that wild card.
• 2: Thorn Rose — She's capable, just not very antagonistic. Pushed into a corner, watch out. Her danger score is divided by Streak's because she realizes he has more common sense than she does and listens to him when he's around to advise her. She loves him.
• 3: Rainy Days — She's a lot less capable then most people think, but she has experience. Her inclination is to fight for others. First it was family, then it was for women. After millennia of bearing children, all of humanity is related to her—except the dragons. She's very sweet, caring, supportive, and she'll teach you lessons if she thinks you'll benefit from it. You don't want to cross her, however. She's lived through the fall of two civilizations, and ended up being rebuilt from parts at the end of the last fall. She's technologically immortal and always 24 years old.
• 4: Devil-girl — Told you to give her a book and leave her alone, didn't I? Nobody listens! She's very capable (unlike Rainy Days) and self-taught. People keep using her as their sharp tool. She'll try the dangerous, impossible, and taboo things anyway because, Well, that's Interesting! The character was conceived as a study in how evil isn't born but is created through interaction with others and their environment. Each story is, Which side of the knife edge will she tumble? Will she end up saving people or suddenly be so frustrated she ceases to give a damn? Recently she discovered love, and got that used against her—not by her lovers, thank goodness! Well, we'll see.

BTW: Streak and Thorn live 200 years before the Devil-girl. Roughly 1960 vs 2160.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

#WordWeavers #western #horror

4/13. How dangerous is your MC?

Lethal. Absolutely murderous. Diane — on book I — is not a well person. But she’s trying.

#Wordweavers 12 April: Name 3 dangers that exist in your world. How do you protect yourself from them?

1. Infection without antibiotics. Avoid miasma and injury.

2. Dangerous creatures like drakones, flesh-eating mares, or the chimaera. Get a hero to kill them.

3. Wrath of the gods. Perform the rituals and hope for the best.

#WordWeavers 2504.12 — MC POV: Name 3 dangers that exist in your world. How do you protect yourself from them?

[Thorn Rose speaks. She's a bit of an egghead.] The heat of day time is very dangerous, but nobody really thinks about this. Buildings big and small are designed to use convection to cool the interior. Since daemons, like me, are fairly common, you can pay for more efficient miraculous recirculation. Mostly, when the day shine is bright, most people sleep.

People are dangerous. Not just the prejudiced people who might gang up on you because they think you don't have a right to exist, or at least walk in their neighborhoods. I got the pleasure (NOT) to witness what the dragons did in their autonomous region; that type of thing skews your whole idea of humanity. Of course, there is also the armistice with the Wild, and even Rainy Day's does her best to tread quietly around them.

Last, the sky is falling. Literally.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

#WordWeavers #western #horror

4/12. MC POV: Name 3 dangers that exist in your world. How do you protect yourself from them?

1. Dysentery. Know what’s upstream or boil the water before drinking it.
2. Uncanny events during the new moon. Avoid places where the veil is thin.
3. Getting shot by Diane. Be respectful, avoid sudden movements, and keep your hands to yourself.

#WordWeavers #western #horror

4/11. Could your SC do your job?

Not many of the SCs have the inclination toward being a writer. I may add an SC who’s a dime novelist.

My previous job as computer programmer didn’t really exist in the 1840’s. Ada Lovelace was just beginning to explore the math behind the Analytical Engine.

#WordWeavers 2504.11 — Could your SC do your job?

I'm retired. Pretty much any of them could do that. To the extent that the main series antagonist is also a secondary character, getting to be retired is the WHOLE POINT of her existence from her point of view!

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

#WordWeavers #western #horror

4/10. Antagonist POV: How do you feel about the government?

Government? Bah. An institution is only a group of people. People need to be bent and shaped to understand the uncanny and the importance of my ambitions for them.

They can have their governments and their religions but they must respect my over-arching law.

#WordWeavers 2504.10 — Antagonist POV: How do you feel about the government?

[Rainy Days gives Thorn Rose a big hug for asking such an insightful question! Even after the pressure Rainy Days put the young woman under to test her mettle and the hell she'd force her to deal with (20K words), she had hoped she'd finally ask, but hadn't been holding her breath…]

The government is a work in progress, pretty much like always. These days I keep the central population under tight regulation. Instead, I perform my social experiments in the autonomous regions. It rather irked me, however, when their leaders took their freedom to choose and chose to enslave people by criminalizing them. The dragon lords were unhappy when I told them to knock it off, then outraged when I started this war to assert my authority? In what way is an autonomous region actually sovereign? Come on!

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

#WordWeavers #western #horror

4/9. What’s the most prevalent form of communication in your world besides talking face-to-face?

The US West in the 1840’s depended on the postal system. For a time letters were the only choice.

Later, in 1861 there will be some transcontinental telegraph capability. It seems like the completion of the Pacific Railroad in 1869 would be required to make it truly useful.

#WordWeavers 2504.09 — What’s the most prevalent form of communication in your world besides talking face-to-face?

Messengering and post. This is true in the moonshot era as it is in the Interstellar era. The people have no use for electricity, which begs the question as to how in the moonshot era the fastest method, telegraphy, works. In the interstellar era, it boils down to walking the post one direction and then walking it a different direction. It would be spoilers to explain that trick in more detail.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

#WordWeavers 2504.08 — MC POV: What are the 3 most important things you always take with you when traveling (besides money, ID and keys if applicable)?

I don't care much for things. Oh, I'll use them, and properly value them, earn them when needs be, but only knowledge and people have real value. I wasn't born into wealth, but upon my parent's death, when I was five, the powerful decided I was somehow special. Wealth, training, and responsibility followed. I don't know exactly when I stopped being a kid who nerded out on magic† with her childhood friend, when I morphed into someone else's sharp tool. When I grew old enough to pass as an adult, with great precision, calculation, and planning, I ran away never to be found. My elite life wasn't what I wanted, what I needed.

Since then nothing, no thing, describes what I want or desire, other than simply my freedom to study and learn. When you don't have a place to return to, or a place to live, they call you homeless. I gave my former life up, and when I find a new situation that sours, I can give everything up again. Snap, like that. Being home-free is a freedom from being made to do what I dislike, or what's wrong. I've traveled across the continent on foot. I've lived in homeless encampments. The three things I take with me are a tarp, a bedroll, and my book of magic.

Those are things, of course. I take my skills, my common sense, and a sharp tongue, also. They keep me safe.

————
† Magic is a simplification of a physically quantifiable repeatable phenomenon.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory

#WordWeavers #western #horror

4/8. MC POV: What are the 3 most important things you always take with you when traveling (besides money, ID and keys if applicable)?

In book I Diane has her favorite gun, The Beast, her plain bowler hat, and — just in case — another gun.

Amy carried the money. They don’t have anything that locks. In the American west of the 1840’s there was no state-mandated ID.

#WordWeavers 2504.07 — Does your MC have a secret? Can you give us a hint?

Yes. I wrote May Ri's story in 3rd person so her last few chapters present a mysterious secret. Hint: It's a high tech version of very low tech.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

#WordWeavers #western #horror

4/7. Does your MC have a secret? Can you give us a hint?

A significant portion of the character arcs are uncovering their own secrets. Horrors and uncanny events can get cloaked in shame or fear. Details are slippery because what’s happening doesn’t mesh with the character’s previous conception of the world. Until they know the truth, it’s an involuntary secret.

#WordWeavers #western #horror

4/6. SC POV: Are you capable of killing a person?

Most of the SCs are not blood-thirsty monsters. Some of them are. A few teeter on the fence.

For example, Mueller the mercenary certainly is capable of killing and looking at killing both Amy and Diane. Diane sees this all too clearly. Things don’t go well for him.

#WordWeavers 2504.06 — SC POV: Are you capable of killing a person? CW: Spoilers

[The Onēsanue, Reina Īto from Mars Needed Women:]

These men were threatening women's lives and terrorizing them and their children. Why? Because of some biblical rights that may have been applicable centuries ago on Earth, but on Mars? Then they were going to take over the space station in an effort to destroy all the progress we'd made as women on Mars. If you mean, could I kill someone like a samurai with a sword were I trained? Probably not. I did ask my friend to see if she could repurpose some technology to knock a shuttle out of the sky. That would have washed my hands of it—but when she said she couldn't do that, I reprogrammed some flight software. I guess the answer is yes.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeedsWomen