lawfulneutralmage

Please, please, please do! This is how democracies die!

One of the reasons why I do not read In Progress stories...

But Sir! What would my husband think?

4:39 ... I hope that this is due to your time zone and not lack of sleep...

So, BDSM is Badly Designed Social Media?

I feel so with both of them. Well done!

Tim, this is fantastic. I am speechless. I am very sad about the situation yet very happy about their love. They are so real, as if we were present. I started reading this story as an example in 1st person pov technique, however, this is so much more. I find myself humbled that you take the time to look at my stuff. So far, I have been reading mostly scifi and fantasy stories. I feel now that was limiting, because I would have never found this on my own.

I love that channel!

This is an excellent discussion, people! This is indeed a good community. As the first time author in question, please let me say that, first, the story was published as part of the Secret Author contest, so no reviewer could have known it was my first one, and also, I was cheeky there, because till the author reveal, I did not have the "Author" attribute either, so people could not even have guessed that I even might have participated. Going into a challenge, I was ready for feedback, also given the, let's say not uncontroversial, content. I am actually very pleased that it did so well! I was prepared for outrage. The issue that threw me was that there was no further detail on feedback. I asked for details, and @Hero provided something I can work with. Thanks again! Some time ago, I asked on the writer's blog what would make a good review. I think we should have this discussion. I must admit that Hero's observation of the "All or no stars" reviews is more or less correct. I am "guilty" of that as well. I rather do not give a "bad" review i.e. low stars, mostly because I read this site on the phone, and the commenting mechanism on the phone seems broken for me. Maybe I need to put some time aside for that like I do right now. Time, precious time... to where do you run off? On the other hand, there is the aspect of the community. This is a great place, because one is not "ripped apart" for a first time effort by people who have authored successfully for umteen years. As stated by others before, not everyone wants to be come a professional author. I have no such plans, but I have (hopefully) indicated that I am interested in constructive feedback. Also, feedback should distinguish between story content and crafting skill. Good stories can be badly written and vice versa.

Yes, I have already 86 pages for a story which friends described as very Games-of-Thrones-y. However, I do not want to publish unfinished stuff. The last three months, I have not had much time to write. If it was published, I would feel pressure to finish and that I get enough at work.

I thank you all for reading and commenting. Please feel free to drop me a PM if you want to discuss this non-publicly or have other feedback.

Thank you! High praise indeed.

Thank you! I annoyed a lot of people to proof-read it.

Thank you!

Yep, what more can I say?

Thank you!

Thank you! Yes, I would like to stir the discussion about whether that was right or wrong. How much does one have to take before striking back? Shall one strike back? etc.

The story came to me as part of preparation for a role-playing game in the West, and I had a name for the character (Dashel Artois), but how to explain a French name in the US? So, upon researching French settlers in America, I stumbled on the interesting history of Louisiana. I even watched accent videos, and I did not find it that bad sorry for describing it as "Southern drawl"!

So, I know this was kind of unfair, participating as non-author till then. Would you now like to share your comments?

Thank you! Hate is usually the result of fear which stems from not understanding. In most cases, it is the not wanting to even try to understand others/differences. Yes, he did what was done to him. As for much worse, that is probably years of canned up aggression being let out.

Thank you! Yes, if people could let other people just be...

Yes, same problem. Had to switch to a computer.

Yes, same concern. Also adding comments. I did not do that later on.

I wish somebody had told that to Hemingway... Thx for the clarification!

Account hacking is awful! Security is not only the responsibility of the user, but also of the service provider. And there are MANY black sheep. Doing security correctly is complex and thus expensive... So, we users can only do so much i.e. dealing with our passwords. The number of possible combinations of the characters in a password is expressed as: (number of potential characters than can be used)^(number of characters in the password) So, in shorter passwords, it is good to have many potential characters including special characters i.e. not alphanumeric, but generally, the number gets much bigger much quicker if the password is longer. So, make a pass"word" a pass"phrase" like "Darius1of2Persia3was4drunk5like6HELL7". Capitals, lower case, numbers, long and still memorable. Use special characters only if forced to, rather make the password longer. Use a different password for each service. NEVER recycle passwords. Use a password manager like KeePass to store and generate passwords. Always make them as long as the service permits. Some passwords, like those required as basis for communication and identity e.g. email service, should not be cryptic. Those passwords must be long, but memorable! As described, use two-factor authentication wherever reasonably (!) possible. Such a 2FA service is reasonable if it allows to store recovery keys! Otherwise, if the phone is gone for whatever reason, the account will be inaccessible! It is possible to export the 2FA keys from the 2FA app on the phone, but only if the app allows that like Aegis. The usually advertised big ones do not (at least a year ago when I chose Aegis to be able to back up the 2FA keys). Also, if possible, add a second 2FA phone number to the service, if possible and if allowed. Generally and unfortunately, the more pain you experience, the more secure it is