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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.08.06 —When is deus ex machina warranted? 2/2

To be clear, deus ex machina manipulation of plot or character must be an expected element in the storytelling† for the intended audience to be warranted. In modern writing, with the exception of storybooks for children, maybe, unexpected unforeshadowed implausible endings that are a manipulation by the author disrespect the reader††.

=+=+=+=+=+=
† I don't consider parables, fables, or religious pablum to be actual stories, but rather at best teaching tools and at worst indoctrination, where the curated message is more important than any verisimilitude. Such stories are predicated on readers not thinking, being taught to accept what they read, and making reality seem predestined—just like the ending.

†† If the deus ex machina isn't intentional, it a crime against your craft. A beta reader's input is a necessary regardless of your experience.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.08.06 —When is deus ex machina warranted?

While all plot is by definition contrived—even stream of consciousness as the author has an objective in mind—visible, perceptible, deus ex machina is warranted only in fables or religious allegory and apologia.

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#ScribesAndMakers 2025.05.02 — If you paint, do you have “recipes” or tricks for mixing colors, or do you eyeball it?

I paint with light. My two main recipes is to recognize bright colors on a dim background (which will render black in posts) or to recognize contrasting colors that will render a bright foreground (orange, purple, yellow, white) against a contrasting background (usually blue, brown, or green). Though it's a bit harder, I try to imagine the scene as bright against dark, as monochrome. This renders as either painterly (low contrast) or blown out (solarized). I do these things instinctively without having to raise the camera. Lots can be fixed in post.

Technique described in #altText.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2504.28 — International Workers’ Memorial Day! How important is class or caste in your writing?

While I skip using caste in my stories (I have no experience with it), class (as in aristocrat, plutocrat, midde-class, homeless) shows up relatively often. Such distinctions are tools for the characters to get what they want and weapons to protect themselves. Class is a known social contract in society. Class distinctions work solely by agreement of terms by the classist and the classless. Events like the French and Marxist revolutions happen when the agreement breaks down. Class is a great shorthand for me as an author; it allows me tap into the stereotypes the mind of the reader. For example, let's talk about a princess. Princesses, indeed any royalty, are rarely as portrayed by Disney. Having brought up the stereotype, I can place it on a pedestal… and proceed to take a sledgehammer to the marble, or polish it like the brass not gold it is.

I employ class in the background of the devil-girl's various storylines. She's a middle-class girl elevated stratospherically in station at 5 years old, then ruthlessly trained. Not realizing it's an earned thing because of her capabilities, she rebels and runs away when she can be mistaken as adult. She goes through being homeless to using her capabilities to become somebody in her own right, but she gets used a lot (because she is capable) by the highest of the high, the monied, and the oppressed. Class generates story; the structure gives me opportunity to discuss women's issues and gender in a different light.

To be clear, class is only one of many tools.Moreover, the above was an analysis of my writing. I'm not one to plot or plan out these things. I just tell the story of a person who has such attributes and watch to see how it plays out.

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2503.25 12/31 — Echo #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

May Ri pushed everyone away, to cry, her forehead against the soft shroom wall. Everybody but Marisela, whose fist held the leg of her jumpsuit tightly. When May Ri spent herself, and turned on her tormentors, giving them grief about purposely making her misunderstand that they wanted her to return to Earth when she didn't, the suddenly exceedingly cute toddler waggled a finger up at the adults facing her.

"Yeah, that was my idea," Reina admitted without a hint of trepidation. "You were full of resentment when you arrived, but were so earnest trying everything and anything to be useful I decided to befriend you. Still, you reflexively fight changes."

May Ri proved the point by glaring at the 17-year-old.

"We all worried what we could tell you. Were you resigned to fate, Mars-friendly, or Martian in your heart?"

The others nodded, the elder Īto once again on one of vid feeds on Reina's dome wall, saying, "We all concurred with her."

"Sorry," Randolf said, "Even me." Right. He'd been a women's rights advocate on Earth. An HR rep and arbitrator on Mars.

Īto added, "Your engineering design qualification lets you accept jobs from management, and I have special jobs for you. If you were leaving, it wouldn't do to have you saying things on Earth you shouldn't know."

"I shouldn't? What? Know what?"

Silence. Circumspect, but still... May Ri began to seethe, until her daughter began to growl.

Everyone laughed, then Īto asked, "Are you Martian?"

On Earth she'd been an a-theist in a Decath nation, female, a nobody even if a man deigned to marry her to bear his sons. Hopeless. Martian as in a patriot? Maybe not there yet, but, "This is my home, full stop."

"That's a Yes?"

"Absolutely, yes."

Reina embraced her and danced May Ri around. She had to untangle herself, peeling off hands, pushing at her chest.

"Okay! Okay!" Freed, she asked, "What jobs?"

Īto answered, "The creditors' agent on the Faerie King wants two of our remaining makers, and we lost two on the Robinson Crusoe. And other things we can't make on Mars, even with makers. The other directors and I aren't sure which nation is angling to take over the infrastructure we built. The Russian Supremacy is too pat, but who knows? Did you know makers can't make makers? Or NTPU parts? Dozens of other patented things. Weapons?"

"I can understand weapons, but—" May Ri froze where she stood. ... saying things on Earth you shouldn't know. "You want me to make a maker? Th—th—that's crazy. It'll turn all the corporations against me... Us!"

"As if they aren't already against us? EM's bankruptcy may have been forced. It's blood in the water. Reina, that's a shark reference from Earth."

Her daughter looked thoughtful, then nodded. May Ri blinked, breath hitching up. "Can't make a maker."

"Maybe not you, but I like your tenacity. We can, together. We have to!" The other vid feeds lit up. Dozens. Maybe a hundred. All women. Every earthly ethnicity. A handful of nisei, two of which waved at Reina who waved back. All Martian; you could tell by how they moved on screen, how they held their heads against gravity. Three were on Deimosbase based on how they floated. "Meet your peers, May Ri."

The room filled with "Hi" and "Hola" and a few "Bonjours," beside others, dispelling a lingering sense of loneliness her grilling to discover whether she was a Martian had fomented. Some announced their dome locale. Most waved.

I'm not alone, she thought.

Reina said, "This is our echo group. You're our newest participant in engineering, along with me, Telsi, Julie, Saniya, and Rosa." They waved. "Okasan is sensei for that one. The rest in the community listen in to help or discuss the topic we're learning or the problem we're solving. Don't worry, there's some boys, too, some cute like Carlos, but not in engineering!"

Īto added, "There's over a thousand. It's our Martian upper educational system, and with the Faerie King arriving, it became critical that we included you. You see, you have an affinity for..." #RSMarsNeededWomen 12

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2503.21 10/31 — Empower #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

"I'd like to talk to you about your mine car design," Reina's voice said in her ear after a ping, near bedtime for the girls. May Ri's stomach tightened, she even sweated, as if Mr. Cummerbund in high school had called her to his desk. Except the Onēsanue tutor was only 17, eight years younger than her—and brilliant.

Randy gave her a look.

"Tonight?"

"Bring the girls, hubby-doo, too. My private dome."

The first born nisei got her way more so than the imported women, was open about sex and TMI matters that would make any stuck-up Decath shudder, but visiting her home?

Never.

It interested Randy enough that he walked Marisela over, even strapped Manette in the cradle pouch over his chest. When the double spring-doors unlocked, they walked into sculpted fairyland space that displayed Reina's Martian aesthetics. Shroom blocks acted as cabinets, low tables with sunken chairs, multi-level perches upon which a true Martian could squat, pulsating hidden rainbow lighting, piles of artful epoxied regolith, and shelves of real books that May Ri rushed towards.

The exuberant teenager frog-hopped into May Ri's arms, embracing her with arms and legs. She whispered loudly into her ear, "I just learned you graduated!"

"Graduated?" Randy asked, "That's great!" Marisela hugged his leg, turning shy.

"Get off!" May Ri growled, but ended up walking where the clingy teenager pointed, supporting her bottom like a child. On Earth, impossible. On Mars, an exercise in managing inertia.

What looked like a pile of giant children's blocks proved to be mounts for randomly placed vid feeds. An old woman swam into view. Her flexed arms and the languid motion of her long grey hair said low grav.

"Secretary Itō," Randy said instantly, bowing and holding Manette at the same time. The satellite link delay let May Ri deduce she was at Deimosbase, and that the moon was on the opposite side of the planet.

"No, no, none of that, child."

"Okāsan," Reina said, waving.

May Ri summarily dropped the teenager, looking from her to her husband. "What? Am I missing something?"

"My mother," Reina explained. When May Ri asked the reflexive question, she got, "I've many fathers," which meant Itō was a matronym, which left her mother in a precarious situation, especially on Deimos were a Decath minister was in residence.

Her husband of two years Mars looked to the woman, who nodded.

He sighed. "The Itō family sponsored me because I won a woman's rights essay contest when I was 9. I studied relevant law and became a feminist organizer with their financial support out of college, before the North American Block fomented a reactionary backlash, which helped the Decath Republic Party win squeaker elections. I've written lots of articles—"

"He now writes under the byline Dispatches from Mars," the woman put in.

"I got death threats. My wife succumbed to pressure and converted to Decatholicism when we moved to Britain—"

"Wife?" She walked over and snatched up Marisela who looked ready to cry. An excuse. Patting her, she realized she didn't know him well. She felt cold.

"I divorced Cantata when she threw out her contraceptives for religious reasons—not that we'd gotten along well; we hadn't. The recession that followed the Brexit III vote led me to accept Secretary Itō's suggestion that I could help empowering women by going to Mars." Taking a deep breath, he pointed at the teenager. "I was supposed to marry Reina, but it turns out I like aggressive women who know what they want, who I thought wanted me... and I'd not have had to be abstinent for five years." He grinned as Manette woke and yawned widely, but never opened her eyes. She smacked her lips a few times as everyone held their breath for an outburst that never came.

Reina pouted. "I wouldn't have made you wait."

"Why am I hearing about this now?" May Ri asked.

"You never asked?" he tried. "I mean, for those handful of weeks directorate assignments let us spend together yearly, you're very focused on your studies and having fun together?" he asked tentatively.

She averted her gaze, admitting, if only to herself, he was right. He was fun in bed. It also explained why he treated her as an equal. Reina's family had trained him. In her chest, her heart felt like it was growing. She wasn't going to admit anything like love. Her first relationship with Raymond had burnt that to dust, but still... When she looked at him, an aura glowed around him.

That was the rainbow lighting.

"We're going to talk about all your history, and why you were going to marry Reina."

"As well you should," stated Secretary Itō. "Which brings you to why we're here."

(Continued) #RSMarsNeededWomen 10

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2503.15 9/31— Freely #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera, Fictional #journalism

Dispatches from Mars: 16 Psyche Disaster a Software Lock Problem?

When critical mechanical parts on the Robinson Crusoe's NTPU (Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Unit) broke, a crew of 73 that included machinists, metallurgists, mining specialists, three maker specialists, and one mechanical engineer should have been able to fix it.

Not having achieved circular orbit yet, the men of the fourth Martian mission to the massive asteroid had five days to prevent an intercept on the ambitious orbital plan that would prove too trusting of equipment thirty years in service. The intrepid self-reliant men, later tarred as stupid and arrogant by the Green Tractors Corporation, felt they didn't need to contact the Earth for assistance. Following safety regulations and allowing a proper cooldown period, they proceeded with disassembly and isolation of a part for which GTC has never provided schematics, and allegedly didn't even provide the emergency repairability cache required by most national laws. That search despite high radioactivity for the presumably misplaced cache ate up six hours of the crew's time. When their maker machines refused to make the scanned parts, or parts that could be refined in time by lathe work or manual labor to necessary tolerances, the ship's engineer reported it through approved channels.

The lunar deep space network promptly experienced an outage.

Let's unpack what looks like a conspiracy and a subsequent cover-up...

...Because corporations still design without repairability in mind for "cost" reasons, and even make it impossible to fix bugs found in logic, or add an enhancement that could have served as a lifesaving workaround in the Robinson Crusoe's case, disaster can and will happen. Not being able to freely use and repair equipment that the now bankrupt EM Mars Colonizations Corporation purchased, is a travesty of ethics. For a corporation that resides in a deeply Decath nation, it's a moral failure.

And, for what? Profit from costly maintenance and repair services only available in Earth Space? Are the 7,983 Martians, now less 73, not human? Does is their ability to only pay upon achieving profitability in a future decade strip them of their humanity? Why isn't there at least one tech available for Mars Space?

As you know from other coverage, the Robinson Crusoe went down in Panthia crater, hitting 100 meters below the rim ridge. In the end, despite applying boosts from both their landing vehicles and jury-rigged satellite boosters, all their sims had to tell them an hour before that it was hopeless. Worse, even with the cobbled-together low-bandwidth network the Martians got up, none of the all male crew got to send their families a proper goodbye.

All 73 sailors went down with their ship. They leave behind 73 wives on Mars, together with their 125 first generation (Nisei) Martian children, 24 boys and 101 girls, none over 17 Earth years of age.

#RSMarsNeededWomen 09

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Image credit: By NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU - nasa.gov/feature/jpl/how-nasa-, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.

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2503.06 6/31 — Equality #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

Free fall and zero gee felt equally like floating, May Ri thought. She liked floating. She liked flying. Through the sky, and on rare occasions in bed.

An hour after the EM Mars plane last dove from a high altitude to give them 30 seconds of nograv, she still felt the sensation of all her flesh not buoyant but lazily filling the space around her body. No weight on any tendon. Her racing heart pumping her up like a balloon and her inner ear telling her she was falling, though that was the point! She scooted across the tubular padded room, screaming in glee. Her attitude didn't earn her points with the other five applicants, one of whom had vomited.

Now, walking out to the concourse at O'Hare, she looked out multistory metal-framed windows at a blue sky of fluffy clouds and the Chicago arcologies in the distance. She thought of the L line she needed to catch to Lakeshore. A swarthy short man with a mop of black hair wildly waved his arms, dark eyes and lips smiling as she veered his way. Chip put his arm around her shoulders and guided her under the sign that read,

Transportation 🚃 Baggage 🛄

"I got pinged. You passed the cert like you passed last week's spin test."

The centrifuge hadn't been half as much fun, but she'd easily imagined flying catapulted to hypersonic in a suborbital needle, or on a lit candle riding in a silvery starship.

"Earned a Plus Plus," Chip continued. He was a T.A. in Space Engineering 201, affiliated with EM Mars. "You're nearly ranked up!"

He handed her papers, made of real wood fiber not plastic—clearly embossed with an EM Mars triskelion logo—then patted his chest, adding a stylus that emitted ink. EM was archaic about some things.

"What is it?"

"Your space-ops contract. Your ticket to the High Ground— Oops!" He glanced at his book plate. "Gotta another arrival. See you at dinner? Sign, now. Ciao!"

She realized she felt more than fondness as he jogged off. Besides looking delicious in tight pants, he listened to her talk about adjusting to uni out of JC, and about everyday life. He was helping her with her dreams of a EM Mars contract job (with childcare!) that meant she'd not be a housewife because a husband could never prevent her from taking a government-favored corporation job.

He also touched her without hesitation. She felt his equal.

Few were the women in her uni cohort, and those were there for MRS degrees. Most guys worried about graduating a girl and what the Decath propriety police might think. She was graduated, and over Raymond and the mistakes she'd made. She wasn't over her hormones, however, and had a black market connection to make sex safer, if no less illegal.

She wasn't sure Chip got her ESP. Doubly so when she waited an hour alone in an intimate part of the floor 106 cafeteria. He arrived breathless, landing in his chair and almost tilting it over, then forking a piece of her cold truBoeuf ™ stew.

"Hey!"

Chewing, he glanced at the contract on the table. "You haven't signed! If it's the Mars colony option, check that." He was sweating.

"I've been thinking—"

"Don't do that," he snapped.

She froze taking back her fork. His privileged male tone chilled her. She jerked the utensil from his grip.

"It's standard boilerplate. You earned this." His smile didn't reach the rest of his worried face. "Sign it while you—" He swore and rushed off, knocking over the chair, catching the eyes of other patrons.

A black suit with black-tinted glasses walked up, motioning a coworker in Chip's direction, glancing at her, the contract, and her average body. "Huh. Latest socket he's been trying to pry a commission out of?"

"Get's a commission if I sign?"

He nodded.

Her flush wasn't embarrassment, so much as growing anger... at herself and at her earlier thoughts. "Let me guess? Third Floor Casino?"

He chuckled. "Ponyville on 60th." Not the infamous cartoon reboot when she was 11—which got banned by the propriety police as explicit—either. "Do you know where we can meet the nopay?"

May Ri grinned. "Actually, I do..."

It earned her twenty silver—folded plastic green bills not E—as she wasn't going to let her sweet innocent book plate anywhere near his book plate; might catch an ETD.

She bought condoms from her black market guy on the 73 Zocalo, ones the seller admitted he gave his daughter, and bought a lead on contraceptives with the change.

After lots of thought, she went to the EM Mars office and checked off the Mars Colonization box—on a contract that bypassed Chip completely. The hefty commission would pay for her books and dorm.

Having the green, red, and black EM Mars triskelion tattooed on her right forearm proved rather painful, though. #RSMarsNeededWomen 06

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#WordWeavers 2503.05 — What social classes do your MC and antagonist belong to?

I can only answer by analogy. When I mention a race, for example, bear in mind the Reluctance Universe isn't a future derivative of our society. That some people have wings; that makes a difference.

The WIP can be thought of as taking place in 1960s America. There will be a space to the moon, which makes it consistent. One MC is lower class black and the other is middle class white, but she's the child of an immigrant; her mother feels safer living in the black neighborhood. They become lovers.

In answers to challenge games, I often describe the main series antagonist as the President Kennedy of her era, with the black MC being the Marilyn Monroe, but she is classless—as both not having a class and sometimes lacking class. She was born at a time when women were chattel to what would be considered peasants, but she changed all that. What constitutes elite in the modern era is her choice since she's now an absolute ruler, but she rarely puts on the class airs others expect. If being disruptive aids her in accomplishing goals, her behavior will be disruptive. She's at times elegant, even statesman-like, or she can be an exhibitionist. She simply doesn't care... if she doesn't want to.

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2503.04 4/31— Glue #Writever #gender #fiction #SF

The young woman—no, teenage Martian—leapt up from her frog squat, unstrapping her respirator mask and removing thick rust-stained gloves when May Ri entered the dome. The place smelled of chemicals. Filter fans whirled loudly as she said, "I read that you want to build things. Right?" Slightly taller than than the Earther, she reached out a hand, smiling.

"Right." They shook. Warm, firm.

"Didn't get to finish school before the emergency boarding call? I got you assigned to me. I'll be your teacher. Isn't that nice?"

Emergency boarding, May Ri thought. A euphemism for kidnapping. Not this girl's fault.

The woman squatted, like a frog. Her thighs showed muscles, which in 1/3rd gravity spoke volumes. May Ri sat beside her. She saw no EM Mars tattoo anywhere on her body, easy enough since the Martian basically wore skimpy tight underwear despite the temperature being at most 12ºC. Some sort of synth silk that outlined too much, with rubber-soled powder blue knit socks. She displayed serious curves, but only needed the tight black tank top on Mars to contain it. On Earth, scandalous; Decath propriety police would arrest her on the spot.

Pointing, the Martian said, "These cans are myco-epoxy. These bricks are shrooms grown with symbiotic proprietary algae and bacti." The cheerful egghead rambled on, thumping the rubber balloon outer dome membrane to show where the bricks would go.

"What's your name?" May Ri asked.

The girl stopped short, looking shocked as if static electricity had jumped between them. Redheaded, faintly freckled but with Asian eyelids, and very innocently sexy, her grey eyes blinked. "Um. S-sorry. I'm the first nisei—" First generation. "Reina Itō. Most people call me Onēsanue, which is kind of stupid." She continued her mycological construction techniques lecture.

When May Ri held up a hand, Reina interjected, "No fears! I'm teaching you all about martian building techniques and engineering because you missed out. I'm tops in it! I've got all the books."

She looked the age to be growing out of dolls and rebelling against her mother's clothing choices. It said something about Martian society, but May Ri wasn't sure what. "How old are you?"

"Just turned 7." She grinned brightly, holding up a left hand with long fingers. She proved her age by one thing: a barely suppressed squeal as she rotated a rusted-and-waxed steel ring on her fourth finger. It had a pebble texture that might be interpreted as artsy.

May Ri blinked, shook her head unable to not convert in her head: 13 years, 2 months? "The ring?"

Now Reina smiled. "Roger paid for it. He's on the Belt Asteroid Assessment crew. I married him on vid downlink on my birthday. He's a very cute hardworking import, like you, though kind of quiet, your age, and he'll be returning on resupply in half a year for our honeymoon!"

A Martian half-year. Reina bounced in her squatting position with tendons of elastic, but it was low gravity. May Ri thought it fortunate that no men were there to witness the spectacle. The movement caught her like a magnet to steel.

"We are going to be the people-glue that makes Mars strong, my sansei children and I. Can't wait. Sooooo excited...!" #RSMarsNeededWomen 04

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2503.03 3/31 — Housewife #Writever CW: Dystopian

The day May Ri found an advert for the EM Mars Colonization effort wasn't a good one. During school prayer in history class, she moved her mouth with her head down, reading her book plate instead. She hadn't suspected the substitute teacher could read lips.

"Miss Ri, continue alone."

When she did an imitation of a gasping fish, the whole 9th grade history class watching, the teacher asked, "Were you even praying?"

May Ri went from embarrassed to angry in a heart beat. "I'm an a-theist. What do you think?"

That got her a meeting with the public school's Decath minister. Her father had told her to hide it, that the laws made pro forma good enough so long as she didn't hurt the feelings of her classmates—but it depended on the believer you mouthed off to.

When she later told Reverend Peters, "I don't have an invisible friend like you do," the elderly man smiled, turned away, hands behind his back, to look out at Lake Le Salle from their vantage on the 95th floor of the Chicago Lakeshore arcology. After minutes being ignored, she stepped beside him, to examine the expanse of blue water, framed by storm clouds to the north, wondering what caught his gaze.

He said, "Makes you feel small and insignificant, doesn't it? God knows you are. What are you planning on when you grow up?"

"I—I like building things. I can do maths."

"Not happening."

Her face heated up as he added, "You lack the necessary blessings. Let me explain it in a way even a girl can understand—" His lips were pursed as his brown eyes caught her gaze.

Only then did she realize she'd begun to sweat, that the temperature in the room was dropping quickly.

"Learn to keep your mouth shut," he said, counting on his fingers, lifting his forefinger. "Some man will marry you not because you are passably pretty but because you look strong enough to bear healthy sons." Another finger. "Become a housewife, do as he tells you, keep quiet, and allow him to teach the blessing to his children." Another thin finger. "Do so and you may yet live a good life, if undeserving..."

After school, she studied the advert posted outside the admin office, later saving it to her book plate. EM Colonizations paid a premium for women, provided schooling. It was understood in not so many words that she needed to bear children, but all hands male and female were precious so she didn't fear that. She understood also that she'd be able to build things, that she'd be able to put to use any engineering skill she acquired. If she couldn't prove Peters wrong, starting that day she had a plan.

Becoming a revolutionary? That was something you don't plan for. #RSMarsNeededWomen 03

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2503.02 2/31 — Rights #Writever CW: Fictional Violence

Prologue

May Ri clanged the arm of the mining exoskeleton into the wall of the habitat, drawing sparks, blocking the onrushing man, cutting him off when he tried to dodge under—before flipping him backwards back down the corridor. Blood gushed from his nose to match what stained his hands.

"I have the right!" he yelled, arm across his face to stem the flow. "She's my wife!"

May Ri's footsteps clanged as she stomped forward. He slid himself back on the floor as the other women in the Vigilantes caught up. They'd used the ugly word, Vigilante, intentionally; women weren't allowed but needed to police their domes, or risk injury from stronger men who suddenly got ideas.

She said, "Your wife is an import, like me? You left her to give birth alone, to raise her daughter, and now you want to take that daughter away? To sell to your boss? Really? Your right?"

She looked at the harried women, some breathing hard, sweating. Faces gone pale in fear, others with wide eyes trying to process how cruel reality had once again smashed all sense of security. May Ri understood: if they kept the male returnees from the inner belt disaster locked out of the habitat long enough, they'd have to capitulate. However, if she failed to demonstrate now that the Vigilantes could hold firm when a man broke his wife's arm, beating her to have his way—

He yelled back, "Marrying her off to a better life? Yes! Who are you to argue a man's God given right—?"

"Really?" she interrupted. Women had never had reliable rights, if you trusted history hadn't been rewritten. She didn't. She'd read books made of paper, yellowed, that smelled of centuries past! Her five kilogram gauntleted hand already in motion, she screamed, "Mars is not Earth! It never will be!" #RSMarsNeededWomen

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2503.01 1/31 — Women #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

Mars needed women.

(Blurb)

May Ri bought into the hype and the spiel, not realizing it was the last gasp of a long dead oligarch's dream. When the money dried up, nobody would finance the supply missions. Who cared about the ten thousand up there when you could outrage the millions down here with something less expensive? Earthers returned to their petty games of slavery—that wasn't called as such—and empire that ate nations.

On Mars, colonists were pushed to their limits: The terraforming mission, the domes, the spinlauncher and Deimosbase, the raising the first and second generation martians. Men died disproportionately. In the end, a few strongmen attempted to corner the growing "female resource" to their benefit and to the benefit their sons, working to crush the whisper of the half-forgotten promise of democracy that had followed May Ri to the planet of war.

She and her daughters led the way, fighting. Together with "sisters" and with "aunts," they redefined which gender would be considered a "resource."

They found that the blood of the ever-absent fathers spilled on the rusty regolith of Mars blended in nicely.

Earthers were outraged. #RSMarsNeededWomen 01

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#PennedPossibilities, #WordWeavers, and #WritersCoffeeClub participants, I am creating a new daily challenge hashtag game that focuses on gender in fiction tagged #EngenderedWriting. I plan to release it for a minimum of a one month run either in November or December, depending on when I collect 30 (or 31) prompts. Gender fiction addresses gender roles, but also concerns itself with gay and straight, feminist, trans, gender-fluid, enby, and ace topics. Our expression of gender is how we, or our characters, coexist in society. It's about being who you are (unique and special) and maybe fighting for that. Or hiding it.

My problem is that I have my favorite topics; I realize my focus could be broader. Do you have any suggestions for questions that address gender, lgbtqia+ issues, or gender roles together with writing, stories, or being an author? I'd love to round off my list, which is up to 21 as I write this. I'll present any that I like as community submitted questions.

Please reply to this post or use the hashtag #EngenderedWriting.

Thanks a bunch,
R.S.

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#PennedPossibilities 324 — SC POV: If you could relive one day of your life without changing anything that happened, which day would you choose? Tootfic: Reframing the Experience

[When my SC says armor, it's really a weightless magical exoskeleton that melds with her body. It looks like blackened bones, because it is. —R.S.]

Oh, there's plenty of days I'd relive unchanged. Like the day I fledged, when I first flew on my own. Or the day learned the thrill of hauling things through the sky. Both good events in a rather dull and awful childhood that turned to cinders when my parents disapproved of the way I wanted to live my life. Said I aimed for the dirt not the sky. Maybe they weren't so dumb—I ended up badly, flying messages for a crime boss over a dozen years. But, then, there was that day last week...

I've told you a few times how I ended up with the armor and a new job training as a pretorian, you know, having faced down the greatest thaumaturge who ever lived, having nearly killed her. Impressed her.

I thought.

Well, my drill instructor was training me that dawn. I wore the armor. The thaumaturge dove at me, full speed. She's a monster flier, taller, more massive, immortal. I jumped into the sky. Fled.

She followed.

Though the armor let me fly like a sparrow, change direction in a heartbeat, and take a thumping only slightly changing my course, it had been her armor once. She kept appearing before me, striking at my face or heart, sending me into spins toward the ground, stalling me out, almost panicking me into flying into trees or buildings. For all her mass and the inertia that implies, I barely avoided her, half the time with her cackling at my barrel rolls or dives that sent down feathers flying. She had muscle; I tired despite the armor until I thought my heart would burst from my chest, at which point a flyby pitched me into the ground.

I skid across the running track on my belly right up to my instructor. I don't know how I didn't break a wing or my neck. Ok, I do: The Armor.

She landed beside me with a loud thump. She wasn't even winded! She told him, "She lacks stamina. Train her harder."

She leaned down until her face was in my face. I smelled maple syrup on her breath. She said, "You need to use the magic in the armor. There's a class at first bell in the Ivory building, room B7. Shower and be there ON TIME."

I have wings.

I don't do magic.

I showered though, once my legs stopped shaking. I slunk into the class still half-frightened out of my wits. My new friend was there, the curse breaker, a former prizefighter, the one I'd fought beside against Her, that ended up with me getting the armor. It was some sort of advanced special Ed class for mages. I suddenly felt totally inadequate and I cried. Me. At the age of 27, I cried telling her my story, pointing to my purpling bruises, complaining that had She gotten in a good strike She would have caved in my rib cage.

My friend was having none of it. She said, "You're a day angel who just went ten minutes fighting Her. Somehow, you're still alive."

I hadn't thought about it that way. I later learned the word, "Reframing."

The instructor came in with a truckload of tomes and grimoires. She had prepared him for me. He gave me a magic primer. I knew it was a primer because it had PICTURES of youngsters playing. Despite the stares of the other students, I read the book.

Half hour later, I got the armor to glow dull red, like iron out of a forge. Truly. Awesome. Didn't know what it did except look intimidating, but still...

Awesome.

I felt my heart grow large in my chest, and it struck me. Someone (okay, the ruler of the nation) wanted me for who I was and who I could become, and because I was capable. She wanted me to aim for the sky. My new friend supported me and pushed me forward. I liked this, who I was, what I was finding I could be, could become.

And.

Oddly.

I realized, for what it was worth, my parents would approve. (And flap them if they didn't!)

Best. Day. Ever.

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#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 3 Nbr 21 — What things make a good book cover design?

Something that will intrigue readers into buying the book. I'm no designer and suspect I'll seek professional advise if I self-publish. If I conventionally publish, the publisher will consider such a thing advertising and I will consider myself lucky if they ask for suggestions.

Once I was asked. Two main characters got on the cover, a Japanese teenager and a sheepdog/human chimera. What was drawn were a caucasian vogue model and a wookie. The book sold out the printing, so I guess I can't complain.

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