All is wrong

In this mind, all is wrong.
The truth is sadness, wrong.	My lie is blind faith, wrong.
This pain is nothing, wrong.	A smile is short-lived, wrong.
To embrace demise, wrong.	To pursue lost love, wrong.
Which wrong will make it right?

11-hour sleep

I went to bed at midnight last night. Woke up nearly at midday! That's to be expected when you stay awake for so long. I actually feel pretty fantastic having done that. It definitely doesn't feel like I went a full day without sleeping! Maybe I should do that more often, who knows? Maybe that was a good choice out of the ones I made the past few days.

It would be pretty radical to choose not to sleep every day. There isn't even a good reason to do it except that I can. Isn't it unhealthy, anyway? I'll think more about it, and I'm not set on staying up tonight. Could go either way. I might be feeling effects after all, because I forgot to put the proper permalink on my last message and some Blogger stupidness won't let me put the right one on this message either. I wish I could automate the permalinking on Blogger as I like it, or have not such a permanent link and be able to change it if I mess up, but that's one of the few things I can't do here.

The dogs were a topic that deserved its own message, but there are other little things that I'd like to share right now. One of those things is that my grandma found a little device the other day. It looks like the quesadilla maker, but its inside is deep and flat and the device is really quite small. Whatever the cooker's intended purpose is, it is great for toasting sandwiches! I put together a sandwich yesterday, popped it in the powered little thing, and closed the lid. After a few minutes, I opened the cooker up to find the bread toasted and the contents nice and warm. And, of course, the sandwich was delicious! Thinking about it makes me want to make another this instant.

However, I have another bread-encased meal in mind. We have been getting bolio loafs lately and I haven't bothered to eat many. It's a bit of a hassle to slice and fill them, and a whole loaf is bigger than what I should be eating anyway. I've been watching an anime named Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and it's got a lot to do with drills. The shape of a drill reminded me of half of a bolio. Half of a bolio reminded me of bread bowls. And thus I came at my next meal idea: cut the bolio in half, push open a cavity in the bolio, and stuff the bolio with whatever! I chose cheese and beans as my filling. I stuck the bolio in the toaster oven, wedging it upright in the grill. It got burnt at the top, but it didn't fall over or spill in any way, it was easy to hold, and it was yummy. I'll use that other half when I'm finished writing here, heat it at a lower temperature, and use shredded cheese instead of string cheese. I feel like I should give this meal a name, to differentiate it from a stuffed full-size bolio.

I was considering calling it Tengen Toppa. That translates to pierce the heavens. I feel like my meal isn't worthy of such a name, though, even if it is in reference to the anime. Could just call it a drill, but is it conical enough to be worthy of such a name? Anyway, I finished watching Gurren Lagann today. It is fantabulous! And now I understand that one of the first jokes made in Lucky Star was a reference to Gurren Lagann. The joke was hilarious on its own, but it's even funnier knowing that the punchline was a reference to an actual anime. The Lucky Star anime is only 7 days older than Gurren Lagann, actually; they aired at the same time. That must have been absolutely hilarious for viewers who watched as the series were first aired! I almost feel like I missed out 8 years ago, but hey, better late than never.

I'll write about Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann tomorrow. This is an anime definitely worth publicly recommending. I would have written about it today, but there were too many other things that I wanted to say. Guess that bit of silence did me some good, made me want to open up again! I'm refreshed and pretty happy. I hope you're feeling well too!

Dog updates

I have three adorable little dogs. That statement is more for my supporters than for you. You know my dogs very well, two boys and a girl. I'm going to keep even them anonymous on here. Anyway, stuff has been up with the dogs lately, and I certainly think you'd like to hear about it.

First of all, our little girl isn't feeling so well. Yesterday her lower jaw was completely matted in gooey saliva. When given a treat, she would take it into her mouth but not chew, dropping it back out of her mouth covered in slobber. I washed her head and cut her chin fur short. The fur on her chin looks better short, but the reason for cutting it was so that it'd be easier to clean the drool off. We had no idea what's keeping the poor girl from keeping her mouth shut and from eating. Today I'm told that she had bled from her mouth while I was asleep. That finally prompted my mom to take her, accompanied by my brother, to the vet.

Apparently a cut on the inside of the doggy's mouth was the cause of all this. We and the vet are hoping that her gums aren't infected, but I think her inability to keep her mouth shut means her gums are inflamed and that's a sign of infection. It's a good sign, though, that she isn't drooling as much today. She isn't eating solids, however. I gave her a bath when she came back from the vet. The boys found their way into the bathroom and started sniffing her, even though I turned the water on their faces. The older one actually jumped in with her, so I gave him a bath too. Silly dog.

Speaking of that dog, look what he did to me this evening.

My stepdad was getting some serious growls when trying to take burrs out of that boy's paw. As I'm more respected by those dogs than anyone else in the house, I decided to give it a try. More growls from the impudent dog, plus teeth-baring, and finally the attack. It's not the first time he's bitten me. Partially out of the knowledge that moving your hand worsens a bite and partly to show him how little his biting affected me, I held my hand still until he let go. My mom and stepdad tried to make some point about leaving the dogs alone, but I was half expecting him to bite me anyway so I didn't care at all.

After sternly delivering reprimanding words to the pup, I left to wash my hands. Then I returned to removing the burrs. This time, he stayed relatively quiet. He didn't give me any more trouble. The reason he thinks he's got a place to growl and attack is because my mom and stepdad give him that place. When he doesn't want to be touched or moved, and he starts to bare his fangs, they just back off. With domesticated animals it seems that you have to stand your ground. They won't respect you if they can scare you. That dog takes effort.

The third dog is doing just fine. The boys are very concerned for our girl, and of course this one's way of showing it is by licking her incessantly. Sometimes she's been in the mood to spook him off though. You should see him when she growls at him. When the other boy growls at him, he approaches slowly and fearlessly, growling back. When the girl growls, he jumps back a foot. He's too concerned to run away but too spooked to get near, so he makes quick hops around interrupted by his intense staring at her. That furball gets so intensely jerked around when he feels two different ways about something. The dog even whines with indecision and fear. Can't blame him, you know how scary the little girl looks when she bares her teeth. Scarier than the boys, to be sure.

Well, that's how they're doing. I'm not horrible myself, just my skin hurts a bit from the bites. I'm sure the puppies would be very happy to see you walk through the door again. Someday you'll let them jump on your legs again, won't you?

Oh woah, state of abnormality

I've been awake for nearly 30 hours straight. I'm not trying to brag or something, just stating the fact. I could go to sleep right now, and I could have at any point in the passed day. I just didn't go to sleep. I didn't care enough to go to sleep. I've just been up, either programming or watching shows. There were some times when I let myself nearly doze off during a show, but I could continue to be up.

Things aren't normal with me, obviously. Maybe it's better to think of normality as less of a single state and more as several states, each with a certain degree of normalcy and comfort, a certain blend and structure of activity. What's different? First off, I'm not going out of my way to help people. I'm hardly even going out of my way to talk to people. Instead, I've been programming pretty intensely. I mostly haven't even been coding with the goal of creating a system or program. I've been coding just to implement concepts, to make very non-specific stuff that has a lot of potential uses. You can call them utilities. For the things that I'm doing that aren't uncommon, I feel like I'm doing them in strange proportions. Programming, watching anime, preparing and eating food, and sleeping are habits that haven't manifested in the correct ratios. Like I said, intense programming and no sleep. Food-making has been less frequent and efforted for me. I'm not iterating through so many episodes of anime in a sitting.

Not all of that immediately appears bad. In many ways, I don't really think any of that is particularly bad. I just don't want to feel lost. I want to stop changing in ways that matter only enough to make life feel different, that don't matter enough to improve living. It's weird to think outside the axis of getting better and getting worse. The easiest way to compare today to a year ago is to say that it's worse, so I expect things to become better again or stay worse. It isn't surprising that the current changes hardly mean anything to me. The surprise to me is that they don't actually do anything to me.

Because of all this, I've decided to revert. No more doing what I feel like. I should regain the structure and composure that I had just a few days ago. Very importantly, that means restoring my writing frequency. I won't try to make up for the posts I've missed. One can't take back time, only use more time to pretend to do it over. This experience isn't worth so little that I would try to cover it up by writing in the stead of what should have been written. Two posts each day again, starting tomorrow.

No all-nighter. I should say hi to my friends. Less programming, more effort into food, a bit more anime-watching, and a good night's sleep. Let's see if I can pull it off, being more normal tonight.

Give in a little

Please excuse me for a while. I don't want to talk. I don't want to talk with anyone, not about anything. I missed yesterday completely, without warning. I'm still here, though. I'm safe.

I know I'm supposed to fight the urge to cut myself off, but I've been feeling the pressure now more than ever. I think it's built up, and I need to let it seep out by indulging a little. I just don't want to force myself to bottle it in any further.

It's been nearly 4 months since I started writing Tell Her Before I Die. I've gained many great supporters and empathizers. I'm glad that they're reading and responding, sure, but I haven't seen a single word from you. I'll keep telling myself that you'll read this and that I should keep writing, but another day.

I'm sorry.

Hey follower, read this

Tell Her Before I Die has over 50 +1s on the main page. Only one person follows it through Blogger, but that's okay because I understand that people who don't blog on Blogger won't care to activate Blogger on their Google accounts. My G+ account is followed by over 720 other accounts. The highest number of +1s one of these messages has gotten is 24, and the lowest is 0. That one with the highest +1s was my Mothers' Day message. I'm sure the reason for this is that I made images in several different languages from that message and shared them on G+ with the link. The message with the highest number of registered page views was The braver, with 34 views.

With that recitation of statistics, you probably think I'm about to complain that the blog should get more attention. No, that's not where I'm going. There's one more statistic that I've left out: every message with no +1s and less than 5 registered page views are ones that I didn't share on Google+. I can make one of two things of this. Either most of my supporters only look at Tell Her Before I Die when they see it appear in their G+ stream, or most of them don't look at the posts individually. I've also noticed that the blog's registered page views appear to decrease drastically when I don't share to G+, so it would seem like the former is true. But that Mothers' Day message has more +1s than registered page views, so obviously the page view count is unreliable.

At first I felt bad about sharing my messages to G+. One of the main reasons I started writing here instead of on G+ was because I didn't want to flood my followers with depressing messages, after all. I still feel a little guilty realizing that sharing may be the only way to get people to look at my messages. It's not so terrible, though. At any rate, I'm satisfied and thankful that people are reading this at all.

Forgetfulness and quesadillas

The quesadillas I make now are always stuffed with goodies. The one I made today had cayenne powder and chopped tomato, onion, celery, and lettuce. It's been hard to keep the quesadilla together when I'm eating with all those things in there with the cheese. One response I've come up with is cutting the quesadilla into thirds. Another that I tried today is adding an extra slice of cheese, since cheese is the glue of a quesadilla. Except it's more healthy and delicious than glue.

Why the heck did I do that? I figured out a while back that two slices of cheese is ideal for the size of tortilla that I use to avoid overflow. Consequently the cheese, and some of the quesadilla's other contents, overflowed while I toasted it. Derp. Seemed like a brilliant idea when I came up with it.

What I'm wondering now is why I forgot the ideal cheese amount. Thanks to depression, there have been many times when I was so wrapped up in sudden sadness or apathy that I forgot how to do what I was doing, or even what I was supposed to be doing. I don't think depression is to blame this time, though. I was feeling fine when I was putting my tortilla sandwich together. I've gotta blame this one on good old-fashioned adventurism and forgetfulness! Tried to break out of habit and forgot why the reason I had that habit in the first place.

That's not so bad of a mistake though. Remember that time you were making a quesadilla for me and you forgot to put the top tortilla on before closing the quesadilla maker? You were so upset when you opened the maker and realized your mistake that you threw the quesadilla - well, open cheese sandwich of tortilla - right into the trash. I still would have eaten it if you hadn't thrown it away, I told you. Waste not was, and to a much lesser extent still is, my food philosophy. Not sure what lead you to that mistake, especially since that wasn't your first use of a quesadilla maker and your previous attempts were perfectly successful. I'm glad you were eventually able to look back at the incident and laugh, especially since I'm immortalizing it on Tell Her Before I Die now.

I still enjoyed the quesadilla that I made. After thoroughly moving the quesadilla and overflow onto a plate, I just ate up the overflow with a fork. From there I was able to enjoy the rest of the quesadilla by hand. I'll have to remember next time that the cheese amount must stay constant. Maybe there's some better way to arrange the ingredients. I'll experiment with that and see what comes of it. At least if I make some grave mistake then I can write it off in the name of science, since stuffing my quesadillas is relatively uncharted territory for me. If I forget one of the tortillas, though, I'll be disappointed in myself.

A hello to our old friend

Today was the birthday of a mutual friend of ours. I called him at the start of the hour to give him my best wishes, and we chatted and caught up for quite a while. It's been months since I last talked to him. I wonder how long it's been for you? He didn't mention that anyone else wished him a happy birthday, but I kinda have doubts that you bothered to do so. You don't really go out of the way to talk to people, though you're better at remembering birthdays than I am.

You always complained about having no real friends. You'd have real friends if you kept up with them, you know. Silly hermit fox, it would only take the occasional text or call to keep some real friends. Inviting someone to go somewhere, even just to the mall, would be a great move too. Considering your regular habit of alienating your friends, I shouldn't be so surprised that you abandoned me when I needed you the most. Yet it's still a shock.

Our friend is currently enjoying his birthday currently with Skyrim. Almost tempts me to play Skyrim again, but I don't have any extra content like you and he do. Perhaps once I've taken my last final for the mod on Wednesday I'll play around with it. Nah, I'll probably be busy with something else. My little brother was discouraged by the first episode of the sixth season of Supernatural, so it'll be a while before we watch that again. In the meantime, I've been working and watching anime. Finally working on that big to-watch list!

I mentioned that he, I, and others we know should all just hang out somewhere sometime. He mentioned that we should chat more often. That's the sort of proactivism that friendship is made of. Those sort of casual suggestions are what can make someone really be a friend to you. Try reconnecting!

Handling regret

I was thinking about the last time I tried to visit you. That scary time. I thought someone horrible had done something to you. I was so panicked and I didn't handle it correctly at all, because I didn't know how to. I ended up as the bad guy, when I was lost and too anxious to change things. It's not something that I particularly want to remember clearly, but I do remember each minute of it. I don't want to talk about it now, but I'll likely make myself write about it another time.

This memory makes me very uncomfortable. I know there was a better way for it to have happened, but I can't blame myself for reacting as I did. I know that, if anything, I should blame that stranger who was at your house, but that's just not how I like to think. I try not to blame other people, because I can't control them. I try to think about how I can take responsibility, how I can handle things moving forward. But that incident is a huge regret and truly resolving this mess is an option unavailable to me. There are times when it's better to defy personal philosophy, but that doesn't make the action feel right.

What I noticed today, though, is that I could handle that memory much better know than when it occupied me in the past. It's usual for me to have physical reactions to those kinds of memories, to deal with the feeling of helplessness. The energy helplessness creates is like a pliable clay streaming to places not quite defined, blurring back through some other unclear edge and creating an exasperating loop around my body. Not so much of that today. I was able to reflect while continuing what I was doing, with not even a troubled facial expression. I'm glad to be at a point where that is possible.

It's a step closer to being the right person again.

Perhaps programming something

So it's past 6AM and I haven't gone to sleep. I could have gotten off a few hours ago when my friend finished with the therapy session, but I have just been so caught up in programming since yesterday. Even though I'd certainly appreciate some shut-eye, a part of me wants to just keep going! That's how hobbies or interests work, I guess, haha.

I think I'm now satisfied with what I've gotten done. There was a lot of, "Let's delete that, it's too complicated," followed by, "Dammit, that's the best way to get it done," and repeat. Once I decided to take on the complication, I had fun seeing it through, and I feel smart for finishing it. Not that I'm finished with my coding. I've got a whole lot more to do.

There's a concept in programming called a singleton. The idea is that there is only one instance of a class throughout runtime. The One Ring could be a good singleton. There is one ring to rule them all, just one in all of existence. Thing is, I don't really see the point of even instantiating a class if there will only ever be one instance. I prefer to make all the fields and most of the methods static, so they can be accessed directly from the class instead of from an instance. The class is the class, no matter what, with no duplicates, and accessible from everywhere, so I think this is the best way of approaching it. Back to the One Ring metaphor, when I mess with the Ring I call it the One Ring, and it is everpresent. Someone who prefers to instantiate would be calling it My Precious, and they may lose it somewhere and have to find it again.

Singletons are just one of the coding concepts I've been employing. I hope the metaphor helped you to get it. Now, I should probably call it a morning. I've got three messages to write today, this one included. Don't worry, I'll keep to it. Time to head to bed...

Programming nothing much

I don't feel that I accomplished enough today. I spent the whole day coding in Java, but I don't feel like what I ended up with is really much. To be sure, it doesn't do anything yet that anyone would care about. I feel like I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out how to solve a tiny little problem. At least I understand how I solved it. I can apply what I've learned in the future, surely.

I've been thinking about my perception of time a lot lately. I've spent months in depression, and most days seem like forever in burden. Looking back is strange. It feels like everything before we broke up was just a snap. Remembering the months after that feels tedious, but that time is also tightly bound by that tedious difficulty I have experienced. Even trying to figure out how I feel about remembering brings me down.

Today was a snap. It didn't feel like more than an hour. One factor could be that absolutely nobody talked to me in any way. Another would be that I had music playing: the Minecraft OST as usual, and the ~ songs on my computer. Many of my ~ songs are anime soundtracks I've gotten from you. They make me smile.

If my words don't seem so composed here, it's because I don't feel like my head is all into English right now. It's still in Java programming mode, haha. I'm going to pull an all-nighter and keep programming. I'll push off the next message for tomorrow. I'll write before I go to sleep. Programming isn't the only reason that I plan to stay up, though. A friend across the world is seeing a therapist for the first time, so I'm staying up to offer support. My friend it quite nervous about it and needs the encouragement.

That's all I have for today. Hope your days have been meaningful. Take care.

192

One hundred and ninety-two is my favorite number between one hundred and one thousand. Those with a bit of computer networking know-how will note that it's a common beginning for local IPv4 addresses. I can appreciate it for that, sure. But did I ever explain how the whole one-nine-two thing started for me?

Toontown. The defunct, turn-based MMORPG by Disney. It was the first subscription-based game I ever played, actually the first MMO I'd ever played if I remember correctly. A friend introduced me to it in 5th grade. When I was making my first username, which was just my first name, the server suggested that I tack 192 onto the end. Sure, why not. I couldn't come up with anything good anyway, so I went with it.

I kept the number with me for quite a while in various ways. My Runescape username was Revolt192. My Vindictus home channel was 192. Heck, I even consider 192 to be a lucky number. And guess how many messages are now on Tell Her Before I Die. 192, so I'm making a little fuss about it. Woohoo~

I wonder if that number still means anything to you. Do you randomly throw it into anything? Does it remind you of me, or is it just a nice number? You also gave me a number to remember, which you took from your sister. I guess it's just a testament to the ability of numbers to be memes. Sometimes numbers stick pretty easily, though I'm sure that's hardly true for everyone.

On one hand, it's sad that I've written this much with no response. On the other, we should be glad that I haven't given up. Numbers, like words, receive the meaning that's given to them, so I'll keep this 192 as a good thing.

I keep browsing for ideas

I often wake up in the morning and think, "Let's write a message for Tell Her Before I Die." These days I haven't often been waking up with a negative thought hounding me. It's not like having those thoughts ever got me sitting down and writing, though. I usually stare at the screen for a few minutes, trying to find something worthwhile to say.

In the mornings, I've got a night's worth of friends' thoughts online to catch up on. After a few seconds of staring at my blank message, I give in to checking on them. Perhaps seeing what they're up to will inspire me, even. Before long, I'm worrying that I haven't eaten breakfast yet, and I go out to make and eat a meal. Usually I'm watching a show while I eat, even though it doesn't take long for me to finish my food. Back to check on G+, hoping for inspiration. I do schoolwork and take care of other responsibilities and needs. Finally it's 10PM and I'm fretting that I haven't written anything, and I don't have anything to write. That's a usual day for me.

It's then that I once again sit and stare, investing time into finding in myself what I'd like to say. There is that moment of temptation to be distracted, but it doesn't hold as much weight at the end of the day. With this concentration, I discover my topic and my words. Heh, that's most writers, isn't it? Goofing off under the pretense of finding inspiration, when all they really had to do was meditate on it. A portion of my messages have been inspired by looking around for triggers, but I think I should just look more often right at myself.

After all, I'm writing about my experience. That should be pretty easy. No need to go out and find new concepts, no need to research and cite sources. Maybe I'm just becoming too concerned about the entertainment value of these messages. Maybe I'm becoming too concerned with writing something impressive. I should just let the impressive things come as they will. I should just reveal what's on my mind, no matter how dumb it may seem. This situation is a stupid one to be in to begin with.

Less about me

Just spent a few hours coding the animation I just published. These things always take much longer than I expect them to. At least I got it within the deadline, though now I have so little time to write up another message. ^.^; To be honest, I was under the illusion that I'd written another message earlier this morning. Not sure where that false memory came from.

Doing that made me realize something, though. All these messages may be for you, but they're all mostly about my thoughts. That animation, though? Yeah, I was thinking about you, but that post is about your thoughts. As I've said, I don't normally get anxious. I know that you have a stressful life, though. Plus the end of your school year is coming up, so you must be dealing with the burden of finals huh? I hope that animation helps.

It occurs to me, too, that my readers know a lot about me but not much about you. I'm not sure if I should be describing you more, especially because anonymity is one of the values of this blog. If anything, I wouldn't be sharing any photos nor social media links of yours. I guess there's an idea for a message when I give myself time. It wouldn't hurt for you to see how I see you. Maybe that's something I should have shared with you more often, even.

I might put it up to a poll, just to see what my readers want. I'll still write whatever I feel. Tell Her Before I Die is what I feel twice each day, after all. Anyway, I hope life is treating you well enough! Be well, love.

For your anxiety

calmness

anxiety

tap above

breathe in

breathe out

Why bother

In the beginning, a plethora dark, torturous thoughts pushed me toward disappearance. In their stead, now, I've found one thought floating around, pushing in a different direction. I will always tell yourself that you will speak to me again. I will keep going forever just on that faith. If you never show up, I'll keep going. If you do show up, you were always satisfied with what I used to be. I've even been trying to accept the possibility that you may never love me enough to be with me again. So why bother improving myself, really?

It's not the urge to disappear anymore. It's not an urge at all, really. This is who I was, too short-sighted, shallow, and indulgent. I usually handled problems just by saying that they aren't problems. I keep thinking that I'm fine as I am, and I know I'm still not. I'm not even just talking depression. This is a normal issue that I can now see.

There's one part where my thought may be wrong, I recognize. I left you alone. We've been without each other. I'm sure you won't accept how I was before. Sometimes, remembering that lets me do what I must. Other times, I admit that I give up. At least I'm still going, though.

Rain today

There have been showers all day today. Interesting how I complained about rain in shows just yesterday, and behold it rains today. Nah, meteorology predicted it, I just didn't realize it. At some points the drops really pounded down. It was pretty fantastic. I'm glad that the only qualm I have about driving in the rain is the over-cautiousness of other drivers. I regret staying inside; this could have been a good opportunity to be touched by the world. It wasn't so bad to only hear the rainfall on my roof, though. I think it's supposed to rain tomorrow, too, so I can admire the weather then.

I saw something peculiar on the roads. In many places, there was a mist upon the wet ground. It hasn't been sunny all day, so the roads haven't been hot, thus it couldn't just be the water evaporating. The fog floated mysteriously along the ground in just certain stretches of road. Maybe this fog wasn't a result of the wet road, but vice verse. Perhaps some of the damp streets were the fault of small, ground-hugging clouds. The answer doesn't actually interest me. I'm just poking at the bewitching images kept in my head of nature.

Surely you saw some of this, too. If you did, I wonder what you thought of it. I wonder what you felt even just about the rain. I hope it didn't catch you too badly while you were walking. I don't think you care as much for the rain as I do.

Tide falls

The tide falls away.
Drenched beach will dry to powder.
Then the sea returns.

Rain in shows

As you know, I love rain. For me, they justify grey skies. So the screen time for rain in shows bothers me. From live-action to cartoons, I feel that too many productions include rain only for a few minutes and only to set a dark, dramatic mood. It's always full-on pouring, too, that picks up within seconds and dies out just the same. Not to mention that, when the rain stops, the clouds instantly part. It's simply cliché.

I don't have anything against shows using precipitation to actually drive the story. While a storm causing conditions too dangerous to travel in is its own cliché, this honestly doesn't bother me as much. My problem is simply that rain is too often just a cheap mood-setter though. Why can't it be treated as a normal event? Why can't it rain for half an hour without some tragedy going on? Why can't it rain multiple times in a single day? Can the rain still fall softly? And how about those beautiful conditions where part of the sky is clear and sunny but it's still raining from the clouds overhead? Precipitation shouldn't be saved solely for clichés!

I'm not about to switch to a career in film or animation to implement these changes. I'm going to keep my wishes in mind for any stories that I write and videogames that I develop, though. That's where I'm headed, so that's where I'll take my ideas.

The braver

Of one who braves death
and one who braves the abuse
who is the braver?