#*cheers you on from the sidelines in any and all artistic pursuits*

[casualhedonists]

My girlfriend (ohstardew) started gushing about this story one day and I asked for the link because I was curious, and I can’t tell the amount of times we’ve chatted about it since as I’ve read through it to catch up. I wanted to share my thoughts in a comment so:

— Your writing is stellar. I can’t say this enough, it’s full of tension and drive, well-paced and with dialogue that feels like it is covering two layers at once. You embody need and lust with such a deft hand. — The power play in part 3 leading into their heated exchange, my god, the tension between them, the back and forth. You get the emotional beats down so well in this, this slow build heightening towards what we inevitably want to happen (even though I was biting my hand expecting it) — The start of part 4 with Snow was excellent hook to get me jumping into the story with bated breath and excitement. The way the reader raises the stakes, never easing up on the barbs and jabs and little daggers thrown his way, riling him up, oh it’s so good. — “Because I think you like chasing me.” This hits so hard and it’s such a good thematic statement of their dynamic. — The scene where she’s in his room showering and using his cologne… It’s such a small thing but it definitely is up there in my favorite parts of this whole story. — ok wait sorry for the full quote but “You faltered, if only for a few moments. Your pride wavering as you heard the want drip from his voice, still getting used to his eyes skating across your skin” (and its entire paragraph) is such good prose. I re-read it several times to savour it fully. The toxic jealousy that begins running at full steam ahead from this scene too, how it draws them closer into this messy spiral! Delicious. — It’d be remiss to not talk about the sex but the rising tension and climax it’s so good my brain kind of short-circuits. Getting Snow to snap and do it was such a deliciously long tease, the excitement paying off in the long run. (Sidebar but the warnings are good, thank you.) — The world-building and details you infuse into this makes it come alive so well. I cannot overstate how much it adds to the story, and how vividly it jumps off the screen because of that. It makes the reader-character feel more fleshed out and realized as an actual character anchored in the world, and had me hooked from the first chapter. There’s something to her that makes me root for her to get the one-up on Snow at times, even though I KNOW. That’s the power of your writing! — When she finds the drawer.. It felt like everything fell out from underneath her, in the most tantalizing and thrilling way possible. The heel turn in his treatment, the fury and rage and power oozing from him as he becomes so mean and nasty, it’s amazing. The sheer humiliation of how he treats her and yet she reacts the way she does!!!! (I think you did great navigating that dubcon scene fwiw. Really well balanced.) — You navigate smut and all its physical intricacies, the shame and want, the lust and filth, with pinpoint precision. I was re-reading trying to pick out a specific moment I liked the most, and really, all of it is so good it’s hard to choose. But the way you write Snow paying so much attention to the clit is top-tier. I keep lingering on that detail each time I read a scene, because it’s so perfect. It hits in all the right ways.

Finally, I appreciate all you do with this story. I could wait months if necessary, as long as you get the time you need to comfortably write. Thank you so much for sharing this.

best. ask. EVER.

oh my god. i absolutely was squealing reading this, i was so excited for your comment (your gf told me you were reading the fic despite it not being your usual go to pairing and so i was equally nervous and excited!! i know you’re a fellow writer too so i was anticipating your thoughts all the more) what an utter delight to wake up to.

i’m so beyond happy you enjoyed the fic so much, honestly can’t begin to describe how happy it made me reading through your thoughts!! and pls don’t apologise for quoting me back bc that’s my absolute favorite thing to see, best feedback imo is seeing which parts stuck out to people!! esp when the coincide with the parts i myself really loved writing.

chapter three is probably my favorite i can’t lie. she’s my little baby, i’m so proud of the dialogue there bc it’s something i used to struggle a lot with in the past so it was a benchmark of sorts! i’m so happy you enjoyed the prose as well as the little details. i love world building and sometimes wonder if it’s too much so i’m extra glad i stuck to my guns here.

hearing encouragement on the smut aspect too is like. THE best compliment, bc this is my first time posting smut, let alone a whole series full. so i love hearing what you enjoyed and i’ll absolutely be taking that into account going forward as i navigate the final chapter!! also so happy you liked the dubcon scene, your gf might have mentioned i was anxious as all hell working my way around that but ultimately im v happy with how it turned out.

again, thank you so so much for such a fleshed out comment, it means more than you could possibly know. as i’m sure you know being a fellow writer the process can really tire you out leaving you sort of numb to the content you’ve written, at a certain point while editing i start to question if any of it is even Good, but comments like yours really cement in why i do this and why i stick it out 🤍🤍🤍🤍

[newstfionline]

Headlines: Monday, October 5, 2020

Workers Face Permanent Job Losses as the Virus Persists (NYT) The United States economy is facing a tidal wave of long-term unemployment as millions of people who lost jobs early in the pandemic remain out of work six months later and job losses increasingly turn permanent. The Labor Department said on Friday that 2.4 million people had been out of work for 27 weeks or more, the threshold it uses to define long-term joblessness. An even bigger surge is on the way: Nearly five million people are approaching long-term joblessness over the next two months. The same report showed that even as temporary layoffs were on the decline, permanent job losses were rising sharply. Those two problems—rising long-term unemployment and permanent job losses—are separate but intertwined and, together, could foreshadow a period of prolonged economic damage and financial pain for American families. Companies that are limping along below capacity this far into the crisis may be increasingly unlikely to ever recall their employees. History also suggests the longer that people are out of work, the harder it is for them to get back into a job.

Of presidents and health, history replete with secrecy, lies (AP) Throughout American history, an uncomfortable truth has been evident: Presidents have lied about their health. In some cases, the issues were minor, in others quite grave. And sometimes it took decades for the public to learn the truth. President Grover Cleveland, fearing poor health would be a political weakness, underwent secret oral surgery late at night in a private yacht in Long Island Sound. The cancerous lesion taken from his mouth was displayed in 2000 in an exhibit by the College of Physicians, a Philadelphia-based medical society. President Lyndon B. Johnson secretly underwent surgery for removal of a skin lesion on his hand in 1967. After leading the nation through a decade of war and depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt was diagnosed early in 1944 as suffering from high blood pressure, hypertensive heart disease, cardiac failure and acute bronchitis. The problems also betrayed an underlying arteriosclerosis—hardening of the arteries. Roosevelt was put on a low-salt diet and ordered to cut down on smoking. But with an election coming on, Roosevelt and the White House staff issued a statement saying the problem was far less serious. According to historian Robert Dallek, President John F. Kennedy suffered more pain and illness than most people knew and took as many as eight medications a day, including painkillers, stimulants, sleeping pills and hormones to keep him alive.

One month out, battered Trump campaign faces big challenges (AP) President Donald Trump’s long-hidden tax returns leaked out. His first debate performance ignited a firestorm over white supremacy. He was hospitalized for COVID-19 after months of playing down the threat of a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans. And that was just this past week. Trump’s reelection team, battered on all sides, now enters the final month of the campaign grappling with deficits in the polls, a shortage of cash and a candidate who is at least temporarily sidelined. A blockbuster story raised questions over whether he privately belittled members of the military. And even the first lady was captured on tape expressing disdain for having to decorate the White House for Christmas. The challenges facing the reelection team are enormous. Both heads of Trump’s political apparatus — campaign manager Bill Stepien and Republican National Committee head Ronna McDaniel — tested positive for COVID-19 this week. Also infected: several outside advisers who had been involved in the president’s debate preparations last week, including former White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Nicaragua introduces legislation to clamp down on foreign, national media (Washington Post) Nicaragua’s congress is considering legislation that could cripple independent journalism here, press advocates say, the latest step in a crackdown on opposition voices launched by President Daniel Ortega following nationwide protests in 2018. One bill would require journalists who work for international media to register with the government as foreign agents and to refrain from “intervening in questions, activities or matters of internal politics.” A second bill would establish jail terms of up to four years for those who used a computer to spread “false and/or misrepresented information which causes alarm.” Critics say the proposed Special Law on Cybercrimes could be used to target journalists or social-media users writing anything unfavorable to the government. Ortega’s Sandinista party holds a majority in congress, and can easily pass the legislation. A vote could come as soon as this week. Concern is rising for the free press in Central America. More than 500 journalists, writers and artists signed a recent letter to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights protesting attacks on the media in El Salvador. In Honduras, the government suspended the right to free expression at the start of the covid-19 pandemic, then backtracked after a public outcry. Two journalists have been shot and killed in the country this year; another died in prison after being convicted of defamation. The bills introduced in Nicaragua in the past two weeks are the latest in a barrage of measures to curtail independent media.

Many in migrant caravan bused back to Honduran border (AP) Hundreds of U.S.-bound Honduran migrants who had entered Guatemala this week without registering were being bused back to their country’s border Saturday by authorities who met them with a large roadblock. By 5 a.m. Saturday, none of 1,000 or so migrants who had been stalled by police and soldiers remained along a stretch of rural highway remained. Police said that hours earlier, migrants had boarded buses and army trucks to be taken back to the border. Seldom since 2018 had the prospects for a migrant caravan been so discouraging. Guatemala’s president saw them as a contagion risk amid the coronavirus pandemic and vowed to deport them. Mexico’s president speculated that the caravan was a plot to influence the U.S. elections. And newly formed Tropical Storm Gamma threatened to dump torrential rain on their planned route through southern Mexico.

Make-or-break time for Britain-EU trade agreement (NYT) Britain and the E.U. entered a make-or-break phase for a long-term trade agreement. Negotiations for the final piece of Britain’s lengthy divorce proceedings from the E.U. have ground on inconclusively for months and will now intensify as the two sides scramble to meet a deadline that would allow a deal to be in place on Dec. 31. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the president of the European Commission agreed that the two sides shared enough common ground to aim for a final settlement. The outcome will have profound implications for Britain’s future relationship with the E.U. The risk of a rupture is as big as it was this time last year, when negotiations on the withdrawal agreement hit a similar moment of truth.

Tens of thousands people rally in Minsk, police use water cannon (Reuters) Tens of thousands of people marched through the centre of the Belarusian capital Minsk on Sunday to demand that authorities free political prisoners, prompting police to turn water cannon on them.

Azerbaijan says Armenian forces shell second city in escalation of week-long conflict (Reuters) Azerbaijan said on Sunday that Armenian forces had shelled its second city of Ganja in an escalation of the war in the South Caucasus that broke out one week ago. Armenia denied that it had directed fire “of any kind” towards Azerbaijan, but the leader of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan, said his forces had destroyed a military airbase in Ganja. The escalation carries the risk of a full-scale war between the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia that could drag in other powers. Azerbaijan is supported by Turkey, while Armenia has a defence pact with Russia.

In Wake of Recent India-China Conflict, U.S. Sees Opportunity (NYT) Weeks after India and China engaged in their deadliest border clash in decades, the sight of an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier entering the Bay of Bengal drew attention across the region. The carrier, Nimitz, and its strike group deployed to the area in mid-July to conduct an exercise with the Indian Navy in pursuit of a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” according to a statement by the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, whose headquarters are in Japan. But as tensions soar between India and China, two nuclear-armed neighbors, the joint operation took on a greater significance. “It was symbolic,” said Tanvi Madan, the director of the India Project at the Brookings Institution. “It’s also signaling to China and others that the U.S. is standing by India.” As the rivalry between India and China intensifies, the United States and India have taken their shared anger toward Beijing and forged stronger diplomatic and military ties that could alter the balance of power in the region. Officials note that while that friendship has been on an upswing over the past two decades, the border dispute with China has accelerated relations between the countries. But social justice advocates worry that the Trump administration is turning a blind eye to India’s rights abuses against Muslims under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, prioritizing military and geopolitical alliances over all else.

China’s mealtime appeal amid food supply worries: Don’t take more than you can eat (Washington Post) On the surface, China’s campaign to encourage mealtime thrift has been a cheerful affair: with soldiers, factory workers and schoolchildren shown polishing off their plates clean of food. But behind the drive is a harsh reality. China does not have enough fresh food to go around—and neither does much of the world. The pandemic and extreme weather have disrupted agricultural supply chains, leaving food prices sharply higher in countries as diverse as Yemen, Sudan, Mexico and South Korea. The United Nations warned in June that the world is on the brink of its worst food crisis in 50 years. “It’s scary and it’s overwhelming,” Arif Husain, chief economist of the United Nations World Food Program, said in an interview. “I don’t think we have seen anything like this ever.” In China, the two foods in the tightest spots are pork and corn, with the nation’s pigs hit hard by African swine fever and much of the year’s corn crop ruined by floods. But fresh foods of all stripes are in short supply, too, due to the coronavirus pandemic and flooding—from eggs, to seafood, to leafy green vegetables. Beijing has declared it is not in a food crisis, and says it has enough reserve wheat to help feed its people for a year. Still, China’s leadership has watched uneasily as pork prices soared 135 percent in February, and floods washed away vegetable crops.

Israelis persist in rallies against PM despite lockdown (AP) Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in hundreds of locations across Israel against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pressing ahead with their campaign against the Israeli leader on Saturday night after the government banned large, centralized demonstrations as part of a new coronavirus lockdown. The protesters have been gathering outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem each week for over three months, demanding his resignation. After imposing a second nationwide lockdown to halt a raging coronavirus outbreak, the government last week passed a rule allowing people to protest only within one kilometer (0.6 miles) of their home. While Netanyahu has said the restrictions are driven by safety concerns, the protesters accuse him of tightening the lockdown to muzzle their movement. The protesters say Netanyahu should not serve as prime minister when he is on trial on corruption charges and accuse him of bungling the country’s coronavirus crisis, which has ravaged the economy. Many of the protesters are young Israelis who have lost their jobs.

Pope: Market capitalism has failed in pandemic, needs reform (AP) Pope Francis says the coronavirus pandemic has proven that the “magic theories” of market capitalism have failed and that the world needs a new type of politics that promotes dialogue and solidarity and rejects war at all costs. Francis on Sunday laid out his vision for a post-COVID world by uniting the core elements of his social teachings into a new encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti” (Brothers All), which was released on the feast day of his namesake, the peace-loving St. Francis of Assisi. The document draws its inspiration from the teachings of St. Francis and the pope’s previous preaching on the injustices of the global economy and its destruction of the planet and pairs them with his call for greater human solidarity to address today’s problems. In the encyclical, Francis rejected even the Catholic Church’s own doctrine justifying war as a means of legitimate defense, saying it had been too broadly applied over the centuries and was no longer viable. “It is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war,’” Francis wrote in the most controversial new element of the encyclical. Francis had started writing the encyclical, the third of his pontificate, before the coronavirus struck and upended everything from the global economy to everyday life. He said the pandemic, however, had confirmed his belief that current political and economic institutions must be reformed to address the legitimate needs of the people most harmed by the coronavirus. “Aside from the differing ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident,” Francis wrote. “Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learned was the need to improve what we were already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality.”