drown

😂 Thank you so much. Hopefully such a hiatus will not happen again. 🤞 💜

YES! 💙 Though “timeways” is a concept they know of because Chronos talked about it and they keep parroting it. We shall see! More to come this week !

Thank you, @chris191070—I’m glad you liked it. He is indeed back! And seemingly a little out of control.

So here goes… Life has given you a potato. What are you going to do with it? Probably just make a potato soup. Soup is easy, nutritious, and you can make lots of it. Which Gay Authors story are you reading currently? Oh… too many? I have had a forced hiatus just recently, so everything’s in the backlog right now. Help me This list is not exhaustive and in no particular order. I read things in wild order, take a break, come back later, all of that. I did link all the stories because I have OCD. The Light at the End of the Tunnel by @kbois (I know I’m late…) Geeks by @CassieQ Desafinado: Slightly Out of Tune by @LJCC (this is the original version of the story, though a rewrite is coming, too) The Searcher by @Mikiesboy Love in the Shadows by @astone2292 Morningstar: The Malaise by @Headstall What singular superpower would you love to possess? Pause time so I can do more things while the world waits for me.

Happy Monday everyone! A picture from the forest, because I like to walk… a lot.

@Patch1 😃😁🙂 Thank you!!!! Now back to editing for me :3 Story has to go on.

One could very well consider that very welcome after such a long abstinence. 😁 True. I could’ve split this in two chapters with some filler, but it just ended up this way. Never had I rewritten and edited as much as I did in this chapter. At one point, it just felt right. Remember, Edna knew Clara from waaaaaaaay back. Clara is an old one. The Contructs might have oversold their power and position—at least the ones we have met so far—and I hope the fun moment in the forest when Edna comes and goes up in a teleportation tells us a lot more about them than what’s on the surface. There’s infighting, discourse, planning and machinations over centuries or millenia. The Triad is an upset, and it is doubtful that the Constructs will just sit by and do nothing. If we are to believe Chronos, the Constructs had already tried to keep the Triad from forming but manipulating things on earth. Now think about the fact that Edna was on earth for all that time. Did she intervene? Did she not? Why was she here? Was it special that she “could” be here for all this time? All things I hope to answer in time. Help. Mark’s return had several different iterations but this story is about friendship and love and in the end it felt more right for him to be called back by his love than a weird ritual that someone made up drawing Mark back deus ex machina style. Mark returned because the man he loves tethered him to our realm of existence, and he’s powerful enough to travel on his own. 🙂 The only hint I can leave here is: The words the characters use may be misleading. Gods are not the kind of gods we think of, though with the new revelations, the power imbalance between “Constructs” and the “Triad” is reshuffled. And in this particular case: The “timeways” might be neither “time” nor “ways” or “pathways”. “He is scattered among timeways” is something Chronos said, his point of reference might be time. Chronos is not the answer to all there is though, and now—if we believe we have the right information—Mark, Grey, and Dave might actually have the power to understand things better than Chronos himself. A revelation of where Mark was is coming very very soon. It will be surprising because duh. I have to admit, the story is at times confusing but to me more in a way that it is challenging—and I like challenging stories. drown said somewhere, the story will be around 70 chapters (correct me if I'm wrong), so it comes as no surprise that we don't see the grand scheme yet. However, as I said earlier, I do see a huge potential in drown's writing and therefore, I trust him to do the story justice. Thank you. The feedback is very important to me still. At times I feel like I can’t keep all the threads right in my head, so if I make a mistake, it will just be confusion under the guise of being a challenge. Your trust means a lot, but it does build a lot of pressure. lol I originally planned 50 chapters. Many things have upset that plan, but the estimate still stands—for the original story. Yes, I did realize that. She commanded the room in the Haven and Eldarwood, but now is more of an observer. I am dropping a hint now, because it’s something that was in there and people forgot about it Here goes: Chapter 14: Aten “I called the cavalry, by the way,” Clara said, her gaze on me now. “Ok?” I said. “This room allowed me to reach out to the forest at least. And I think someone or something is going to pass the message along. See all those windows up there? I thought we were going deeper and deeper into the labyrinth, but I can see the moonlight. So…” “So… druidic telegraph?” “Sort of.” Chapter 14 was September 24, 2023, late in the afternoon. Chapter 23 (this chapter) is the night of September 25, 2023. Just as a point of reference. Do those dates matter? Yes. They do. Oh god, they do. Has it really been just a day since the labyrinth? Yup. I just write a lot <.<

Thank you for taking the time to leave honest feedback. It means a lot and is very important to me. 💙 The long delay was completely on me. As my first story ever to be published, I decided this to be the best way of publishing—but with running the risk of delays IRL to also interrupt the cadence of publishing chapters in a timely fashion. No one ever plans for such delays to happen, but they did. I’m sorry. I can promise you that the story is not going to end without resolution. There is a grand arc I had planned since the beginning, and stringing along people is the result of what I intended in the first place: A journey from the mundane to the utmost fantastical, seeing how deep the rabbit hole may go. The first few chapters in the bar were meant as glimpses of what is to come. Grey and Dave on the porch swirling with otherworldly energy… And yet, Grey is as confused as you are, and now here they are with cosmic consequences to all that is happening, yet utterly unable to control their powers in any meaningful fashion. The whole thing is going to come full circle. The characters you have met will all be back, as they play important roles in resolving the conflict. And ultimately, I am trying to explain a story to you—and my intentions with it—when one thing is clear: I have not struck a balance with you as a reader. You are more frustrated than entertained, and for this I apologize. I can’t retroactively fix this. But if you’re still along for the ride, I appreciate it. If not, I appreciate your readership up to this point. Feedback like this is very important. It makes me reconsider things, learn and be better. Thank you.

Thank you, @JohnnyC! Let’s see if Chronos survives this. 😬 I do agree that I belong here. Writing for all of you is very fun and rewarding. 🥰

Remember that Mark departed before the group even knew something like a Construct existed. Everything he has learned was after that, not in our reality. You’ll have to wait a bit to find out what his view on things is. Grey and Dave seem to be way too secure in their place in life right now. Their stoicism and forgiveness is a tiny bit annoying. But can’t help it, the characters write themselves. 😬 One thing was for sure, the Belcore brothers had to reunite. We now know that Mark unknowingly had a particularly useful gift for those blighted inside the Belcore pack. He did save Sebastian, and he saved his adoptive parents. Now Sebastian has a lot of thinking to do… why did he remain an asshole to everyone and especially his brother, when he was no longer affected by the curse. More apologies to follow? One can hope! 💜

Can’t wait to tell you what’s next! 😁 And I’m glad he’s back. I know in the story not a lot of time has passed since Chapter 1, but it felt like an eternity to me. Might have to do with the long gestation period of this particular chapter, too. Ha. 💙

Thank you. 😁 It’s time for them to figure out where their alliances lie. Or what ultimately led to the birth of the Triad. What did the Constructs do????! ❤️

Thank you, @andrewj — it means so much! 🙂

If anyone can find the horrible mistake I corrected 20 minutes after posting, you will receive a reward. 🤪

“Hey.” The voice seemed to reach out from somewhere distant, a call through a fog. Who was that? “Hey!” Something was squeezing my hand. “Hey! Grey, are you ok?” Dave. “I’m sorry, what?” I said, feeling disoriented. “You seemed lost there for a moment, like you drifted off somewhere far away. Where did you go?” Indeed, where had I gone? As my eyes roamed over the faces gathered around the table, everyone looked both familiar and eerily unfamiliar, as if I

What a nice message to get in a period of intense weirdness in my life. Thank you, @Bdamdifino! 🙂 Sorry to hear about your phone… I know I kind of promised a new chapter earlier already, but I’m 99% confident I can continue posting this weekend at the latest. The words (and me) are in a good shape right now. Hope everyone is doing fine.

I am. Taking care of myself and others. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. Getting some writing done today, too. Sending 💙 out into the world to you, my writer friends.

I have made myself pretty sparse around here. I hope everyone is doing ok. 💙

You have spiders! 🕷️ I can confirm that an exploration of this topic was not part of chapter 23. So far. I'm close to scrapping the next 14,000 words and rewriting it yet again. The emotional rollercoaster is here with me, right now. 😅 Thank you, everyone. 💚

😁

Deserved. So much. 💙🐾

See and now that I’ve said it, we’ve reached Sunday evening and I’m really unhappy with the current state of the chapter. 😅 But know that I’m working on it, hard…

Yes!

That is extremely nice of you to say, thank you for your comment, @Phredd2 😁💙 Looking forward to your continued readership then! This story is far from over. 🙂

I’m currently reading Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series because it was recommended to me a long time ago.