Second day back and it feels like I've been there for too long. take me home.

Hoenstly life feels s little bleak friendship wise. Like I've just got so much work that I have to do and its starting to stress me out. Like, its just a lot. But I guess I've also been realising that I really need to knuckle down. Parent teacher interviews weren't great so there's just been...a lot.

Also decided I WILL NO LONGER LIKE MY CRUSH. I WILL TRY MY HARDEST

RLLY HARD. YUP.

Also also, I've really realised that I'm sort of running out of time. I only have about a year and a half left of high school which is scary asf

The abandoned factory's silence was like the calm after a storm, yet the lingering peculiarity in the air pulled taut at Lin Xiaoxia's nerves like an invisible string.Li Mingzhe's disappearance seemed to have drawn a conclusion to everything, but the aftershocks of tampered time quietly rippled through their world.

Lin Xiaoxia and Xu Yuan returned to their cozy home, yet subtle shifts lurked like specters in the shadows, emerging now and then to remind her—something was different.

Xu Yuan could no longer recall the name of the café where they first met. He remembered the place, the scene, but when Lin Xiaoxia mentioned its name, his expression clouded with confusion.

The potted plant they had raised together—originally a gift from Lin Xiaoxia on their first anniversary—was now something Xu Yuan insisted he had bought on a whim at the flower market. His tone was natural, without a trace of doubt, yet Lin Xiaoxia felt an inexplicable pang of loss.

What unsettled her more were the moments she caught Xu Yuan lost in thought, his face etched with a melancholy she had never seen before. When she asked, he would only shake his head, murmuring that he didn’t know what weighed on him—just a hollow sense of having forgotten something important.

Lin Xiaoxia knew. These were the remnants of a rewritten timeline. Li Mingzhe’s attempt to alter the past, the collision of the two pocket watches—it hadn’t just consumed him. It had tangled the threads of time around them, leaving memories displaced, frayed.

The image of her future self surfaced in her mind, blurred yet clear in voice: "The timeline mends itself, but small changes are inevitable. What matters is that the core thread of fate remains unbroken."

The core thread of fate.Lin Xiaoxia clutched the now-dull pocket watch, straining to recall every word her future self had spoken. Would Xu Yuan still meet that accident? And what of their love—where would it lead?

Despite the gaps in his memory, Xu Yuan’s love for her hadn’t wavered. He was still tender, still fumblingly prepared surprises, still held her close in the depths of night.

Lin Xiaoxia adjusted to these small fractures. She retold their past to Xu Yuan again and again, as if her words could pierce the fog obscuring his recollections. She believed—had to believe—that true love could bridge the rifts in time.

Yet, beneath it all, a whisper of unease coiled in her chest.

Had Li Mingzhe truly vanished? Or was he biding his time, a serpent in the dark?

And as the timeline stitched itself back together—

Where would it take them?

Bölüm Başlangıcı: BÖLüM MÜZİĞİMİZ: Dedublüman x Can Kazaz - Bunca Yıl

"Hassas olmak, zayıflık değil; insan kalabilmenin son kanıtıdır."

İçimde kırık dökük bir dünya var,Kimse bakmaz, kimse anlamaz.Ama ben hâlâ sessizce savaşırım,Yalnız olsam da...

Ben kendimi çoğu zaman hüzünlü ve çoğu zaman yorgun buluyorum. Çünkü bir günüm sabahtan akşama kadar beni çıldırtan kaygılar, beni yoran düşüncelerle geçiyor. Kalbimizin kırıklığı yüzümüze yansımasın diye çok uğraşmak nasıl bir histir?

Ben çok saf bir insanım. İnsanlar benim saflığımı, iyiliğimi mallık olarak anlamayı çok iyi başarıyor. Ben hayatımda hep ikinci plana atılan peçete gibi kullanılıp fırlatıldım. Kimse benim ne hissettiğimi, nasıl bir durumda olduğumu sormadan vurdu geçti.

Sonra küçücük bir olay olsun mutsuzluğum belli olursa bana ''Sen çok hassassın'' diyip geçtiler. Şimdi soruyorum: ''Ben mi çok hassasım, yoksa siz mi çok kabasınız?''

Bir olay olduğunda hiç arkanda biri durdu mu? Seni sonuna kadar savunan, seni avutan, kalbindeki kırıklığı azaltmak için çaba gösteren biri oldu mu hayatınızda?

Ben kendi cevabımı vereyim. OLMADI...

Ben bu hayatla savaş vermekten, bu lanet dünyada mutsuz olmaktan o kadar sıkıldım ki... Arkamda hiç kimse yok benim. Ben sevgisizlik ve buna ihtiyaç duyan paramparça kalbi olan biriyim.

Beni çok kolay kırabilirsiniz. Çünkü her şeyden önce ben kendimi kırmayı çok kolay başarıyorum. Nasıl mı? Çok basit. İnsanlar ne der, insanlar bunu der şunu demez diye her gün içimde olan gerçek beni ezerek sürekli kırıyorum.

Bir de güzellik takıntısı var tabi. O aynada ne yapsan bile kendini güzel bulamayıp, kendinden bir gram bile memnun olmadan sürekli söylenmek tüm günümüzü yıpratıyor.

Ne anlatsam bile insanların bizi ciddiye almayıp ve dinlememesi, olmayan hevesimizi gerisingeriye içeriye kapatıyor. Neden mi? Biz çok ''Hassasız''.

Ya ben hassas değilim sadece bir gram ya bir gram düşünce istiyorum. Bizi ne olarak görüyor bu insanlar? Taş? Çöp? Oyuncak? Ne! Ben bunu sorgulamaktan o kadar sıkıldım ki hala adını koyamadığım, hala benim canımı acıtan o kadar çok şey var ki hayatımda...

Kendimi aşıp yaptığım her şeyin sonunda gelen pişmanlık hissi ve oluşan kaygı kalbimi ve vücudumu titreşime alıp korkmama sebep oluyor. Şimdi tekrardan soruyorum bu kadar kaygı, bu kadar hassaslık neden?

Merak etme arkadaşım bu durumları yaşayan tek sen değilsin. Sana şunu yap bunu yap demeyeceğim. Çünkü ben biliyorum bu düşünceler öyle yok olmuyor. Git terapi al demeyeceğim. Gerek duyuyorsan al ama ilk önce her şeyden daha önemli püf noktayı söyleyeceğim.

''KENDİNİ SEVMEK'' var ya bu varsa merak etme çok yakında kendin için yeni şeyler yapıp bu durumdan kurtulursun ama bu yoksa benim gibi uzun yıllar bu düşüncelerle başa çıkamayıp artık depresyonun dibini sıyırmaktan bıkarsın.

Aynanın karşısına geçtiğinde kendi suratına odaklanmanı istiyorum. Kendine kimsenin yapmadığı şevkati göstererek tebrik etmeni istiyorum.

''Çok iyi savaştın, Sen çok güçlüsün.'' demeni ve ardından akan o gözyaşlarını silip gülümseye çalışmanı istiyorum.

Çünkü kendin için bir şey yap dostum. Bak kimse seni umursamıyor, sevmiyor. Bu beden ve bu ruh bu kadar acıyı ve yalnızlığı nasıl kaldırsın? Yok kaldıramaz. O yüzden sen kendine iyi ol en azından...

Bölüm Sonu Kapanış Cümlesi:

"Ve hatırla: Sen kırılınca dünya durmaz, ama kendin için iyileşirsen dünya yeniden yeşerir."

apparently i have tonsils :)

My father taught me: "If you want something, reach for it; if you love something, protect it." If you love flowers, don't pick them but water them; if you love butterflies, don't chase them but let them come to you. And if you're unsure whether you desire something or love something, just ask yourself this: "Are you happy keeping them in your heart or do you feel the need to keep them in your hands? Your hands can only hold on to so much whereas the heart is limitless."

Well, he forgot to mention that the heart is connected to your brain and if you don't have the ability to memorize them, your heart is kind of useless...

So, this is just me trying to write down things I love that I want to remember from my daily life. If I can't think of anything from today, I will just go back the memory-lane and think of something that I loved and somehow still remember from the past. Maybe then, I won't be so eager to leave this place that my father used to love.

Artwork Title: Village Tarot Collection - Where Is 12?

It was important that I created this before the first piece of the project. This is a collection of all of the village gods and uh... residents? There is obviously one missing, and that is number 12. I know very little about 12, and so I chose to exclude them for the time being.

This is a remake of the major arcana, some stayed the same, while most have changed completely. I wanted to try to limit my color choices this time, just to challenge myself, and it turned out wonderful.

Let me know which one you like the most in comments.

Hey everybody, Alexander here with an update that would take too many tweets or just a long wall of text in an image and uh- I am too lazy for that. So without wasting time, I'm just going to come out and say that it's over; but before everyone who sees that I run through projects like the devil through a corn field just abandoning WIP after WIP can react- allow me to explain!!

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Soul Fall as you may know has the following origin- it's the 3rd "act" of a community-driven-story that's been going since 2008-ish. The story I always give: "10 friends who did some stuff on PS Home, managed to get the community up to several hundred, home died, we revamped on Facebook, some of us split, and we've spent years toiling with a revival and now here we are to tell more stories."

And with Soul Fall, our 3rd installment, we were going to really open things up to the public and put on some shows for people that like edgy fantasy writing, DND, gaming, all that noise.

Well, suffice to say the last year or 2 or however long it's been that Soul Fall has been getting tossed around, it's been Hell. Trying to sync up, trying to communicate, trying to kick shtuffz into gear. It just hasn't been happening and the project has been delayed several times. As of the last couple months it's been deadlocked again and, well, I've decided to pull out.

.

So what does this mean?

Well it means that I'm done with the group. What happens to Soul Fall, the server, not my problem anymore tbh. If anything I might go back to that old Facebook group cuz I hear that a revival is pending over there. That's the simple sweet answer cuz we just can't get our shit together.

And with me looking to move soon, me HOPING to get Ravenlight launched this year, I just can't with this anymore.

The group is dead, the community aspect is dead. Now- what about "Soul Fall: Veil of the Lost" you might be asking? Easy answer- it's going to continue.

Veil of the Lost focuses on my characters & stories, some of the characters & stories I've inherited, sometimes a cameo or 2 from past members of the community, and the continued legacy of what has been the last nearly 20 years of the lives of some. I'm not going to let that go because there's no reason to.

Veil of the Lost will continue as planned with chapters here and there at random as I feel motivated to make them. Aside from that my focus is going to be on Ravenlight and maybe a couple other projects that might FINALLY take root now that Soul Fall itself is dead.

All of this said, I should mention that I "MIGHT" maybe rebrand my Soul Fall content. I've always referred to this long as heck lore as 'Hollowverse' like uh, say the DCU or the Marvel U. That kind of verse, Hollowverse. So maybe what I'll end up doing is dropping Soul Fall and going to "Hollowverse- Veil of the Lost".

Time will tell with that one cuz I can be lazy.

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So I'm sorry, I know I had a couple DMs from people interested in joining Soul Fall as players looking to interact with the world & other RPers; BUT it is what it is. BUT HEY uh... this might not be the end, ya know, might open up something else down the line.

Veil of the Lost is likely going to go on a mini break and the World Anvil is likely to change a bit as I start replanning certain things. If I do join that Facebook Group I will naturally be using Hollowverse there- as such VotL will continue to be side stories I choose to not include in the main group. And some of the SF assets (like Waconia with its map and all) I might want to preserve for something else (AKA that other thing I am teasing that could/might happen).

Other than that my only other news to share is uh, I'm going to be releasing a mini-arc here at some point that I've been actively writing. It's a culmination of years of a particular lore I want to wrap up in a final battle. Given the changes with- well, everything though, not sure how that will impact the outcome of this arc. Hoping to get a few things figured out while I'm still in the middle of the fight cuz it might determine who lives and who dies.

Also the discussions would help impact what I end up doing like... take Aegis who got his own intro chapter. He's a relatively new character to the canon and uh, maybe I opt to hold him back for a different project ya know?

So we'll see where this all goes.

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Anyways, that's your Soul Fall news for now. I don't have anything else to share that's worth noting. Again, just gonna be some time till I figure things out now with this separation. Maybe rejoining the one group, maybe starting some new stuff, deciding what stays and what gets vaulted for later. And yeah- Veil of the Lost continuing.

So stay tuned for that!!

And as for Ravenlight and other projects well, that'll be another update for the future cuz things have been kinda chaotic lately and I don't have anything to share for that so... anyways, thank you guys for reading.

Follow me on Bluesky or Twitter for more consistent updates and whatever else. All links for all socials, my mains and official update accounts, available on my website under connections.

https://froststormproductions.com/connections/

And with that out of the way, I suppose we'll meet again next time.

Ciao~

Ok so currently I am in grade 12, everything seems to be normal, fine and I have a bf who loves me the most, he is just so caring and perfect but when I look back when I was in grade 10 things were just...

It all started back in 9th grade — that’s when I first started liking him, it was love at first sight. I never told anyone, and I definitely never thought he’d like me back. It just felt like one of those quiet crushes that stay one-sided forever. But then, in 10th grade, something unexpected happened — he proposedto me. I can’t even describe how happy I was in that moment. It felt surreal. It just felt so unreal.

But even in that happiness, I remember telling him, “We shouldn’t rush into a relationship. Let’s start as friends first, get to know each other better.” I really wanted things to be meaningful, not just a label.(I DIDNT WANTED TO LOOK DESPERATE)

The first three months were beautiful. It felt like a dream. It was his birthday during that time, and I put so much love and effort into a handmade DIY gift for him. I was so excited — maybe too excited — and I hoped he’d react in a way that showed he really appreciated it. But… his reaction just didn’t match what I imagined. Still, I held on to the good moments — like how we used to go home together. I really treasured those little routines. I even gave him some handwritten letters coz I am too shy to express my feelings face to face and he told me that no one has ever wrote him something this pretty, but things changed...brutally

But after those few months, things started to change. Slowly, and then all at once. He started to feel distant. Colder. And then I found out… he liked someone else.

I don’t think I’ve ever cried like that in my life. It broke something inside me. I tried so hard to keep us together, to talk to him, to understand what went wrong. But he kept blocking me, pushing me away. Then, sometimes, just when I was starting to accept the truth, he’d come back — say sweet things, act like he cared — only to block me again later. It was like being on an emotional rollercoaster I didn’t ask to be on.

My academics suffered. I was drowning in emotions, trying to find pieces of myself that he had taken with him. And then one day, I found out he had a girlfriend. A real, official relationship with someone else and he was with her since 1-2 year.(tbh I felt bad for his gf like he was cheating on her like imagine you are with a guy since 1-2 year and he propsed someone else and claiming to be single, he literally propsed 2-3 girls while being in a relationship)

That was the moment I truly broke but what broke me even more was when I got to know that he was with me only for my body...

I gave up — not just on him, but on holding on to something that was already gone. It hurt so much, but I guess I had to go through it to understand how strong I really am.

but thanks to my current bf, he too helped me alot. He made me move on from that cheater and now I am happy then ever.

IF YA'LL HAVE EXPERIENCED THE SAME SHIT, YOU CAN OPEN UP WITH ME, safe place 💋💋

I plan to write the next chapter for Of Ice and Snowtomorrow, but I'm not allowed to publish it on Wattpad until the contest host gives me permission to do so. Not sure when that will happen. But I have a 10k word count limit, and I always write as close to the maximum as I can, so I have more room to play, and it occurred to me I may need to think about splitting these chapters up (it's a multiple round contest, and I intend to follow the prompts to the end, even if I'm eliminated).

And that got me thinking about the longer chapters I already have. I've seen guidelines from other writing platforms suggesting readers prefer 1.5k-2.5k word chapters (Dreame: 1.5k-2k, Inkitt: 1.9k-2.5k), and since I'm wordy, I've made it a rule to shoot for 1.9k-2.5k (although 2k looks like the sweet spot). I have six chapters over 2.5k words right now.

So, I'm going to try splitting those chapters into multiple parts and see how that goes. If anybody has any feedback, ideas, suggestions, whatever, just let me know. I'm all ears. :)

Side note: I'm undecided about publishing the next chapter here on Penana when I finish it. I think it's best if I don't, since I should abide by the contest rules... But this prompt is very, very different from what I've had in the past, and I can tell you guys this will be a wild ride when I do decide to publish it here. Think soap opera. With plane crashes and errant flocks of dragons. ;)

If an eagle eats another bird, isn't that cannibalism?

London is a city I love deeply. It is home, memory, and mosaic—a layered place stitched together by centuries of culture, contradiction, and character. But if there is one ritual of London life I’ve never quite warmed to, it is catching the Tube.

To visitors, the Underground may seem an emblem of British efficiency, a whirring marvel of steel and signal that keeps the city’s pulse alive. But for those of us who’ve grown up here—whether or not we ride it daily—the Tube is something altogether less romantic. I never took it that often, even when I was young. But whenever I did, I found it annoying in a way that defied explanation. And as I’ve grown older, that feeling has only hardened into aversion.

Some days it’s the man pacing in circles and muttering slurs under his breath. Other days, it’s the young woman filming herself singing aloud to her phone, oblivious to the fact that her stage is not, in fact, the Central line. Sometimes it’s a middle-class gent who insists on reading the Daily Mailout loud, complete with commentary. Or worse, the seemingly sane person whose mind, without warning, fractures mid-journey, turning the carriage into a theatre of chaos. The point is not to mock, nor to pass judgment, but to admit this: I do not board the Tube with a sense of calm. I board it with bracing anticipation—for someone, somewhere, always, all at once.

London’s trains have become a curious reflection of the city’s anxieties. Mental health struggles unravel in public, racial tensions simmer just beneath the surface, and self-expression sometimes strays too far into provocation. There are days I feel as though the carriages are pressure cookers, where everyone is one missed stop away from boiling over. I miss the idea of commuting as quiet. Of slipping into a seat, eyes closed, letting the rhythm of the journey hush the mind. These days, it’s as if silence itself has become suspicious.

And so, I find myself doing something increasingly un-London: I drive. Yes, I know. It’s slow. It’s expensive. It’s environmentally sinful. But it’s mine. My own seat. My own space. My own music. No one huffing and puffing beside me, no unsolicited sermons, no strangers insisting on conversation when all I want is quiet. Driving gives me back something the Tube has long since taken—autonomy.

In my car, I can think. I can breathe. I can linger at traffic lights and feel no one’s breath on my neck. I can retreat, which for someone like me—a person who often feels the world a little too much—is not indulgence, but necessity.

I often wonder what this says about our city, that something as simple as wanting to be left alone now feels like a radical act. That silence is no longer default, but luxury. Perhaps I’m growing older. Or perhaps I’ve simply grown tired.

London will always be my city. But the Tube? I leave that to braver souls. Give me the road, the quiet hum of the engine, the solitude of stop-and-go. At least in the car, when I’m surrounded by madness, I can keep the windows rolled up.