Fading, Wilting, Broken Summer Flowers – Is This The End Of The World Of Light?

Also known as, "Take back those hurtful words and please say you're sorry".

What, thought the previous episode in this series was bad? Eh, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. It gets worse as West continues to hurt East.

“Take it back, Cherry,” East says in response to West’s words in the previous post. Those amethyst eyes were filled with pain as they looked at the flowers scattered all over the floor alongside the remains of the shattered glass vase and crystal table.

Those flowers had actually been a present from West. They were grown in the gardens of West’s Summer Castle. They always reminded East of the summer season and the western Superhero with their vibrancy, beauty, light and sunny look.

They were magical, so it took a long while before they would wither and fade and they always appeared as if they’d just been freshly-picked. But they were wilting now, their light and beauty slowly disappearing.

“I advise you to take back your words now.” East looks at West when those purple eyes are now flashing and blazing with anger and fury. The Superhero punches at the wall beside him. It cracked under the sheer force and power and part of it crumbled into rock and dust as the rest of the debris fell to the floor.

*Notes:
- This is part 44 of The Adventures Of The World’s Superheroes series, a story told in several short posts
- Part 43
- Image is Witch of Cherries, Poppy from the Cardfight!! Vanguard TCG card game from Amazon.com
- Pic is meant to represent the Cherry nickname that East calls West

What Is The Price You Must Pay In Order To Live?

“I can’t do this. I just can’t,” she says with a sad sigh, shaking her head. “There has to be another way. A better way. A way that- that doesn’t involve doing something like this.”

A harsh, mocking laugh greets her words. She turns around to see a man dressed all in black leaning against a wall, looking steadily at her with dark, dark eyes. There was a look in them that she couldn’t quite comprehend.

“You,” she exclaims. “What do you want? Stop laughing at me.”

“I can’t help it,” the man responds. “You are much too amusing. Really, saying things like that. There is no other way. I should think you’d know that by now.”

“No.” She shakes her head again. “It can’t be. I mean, is that really all that I can do? Is that really what I should do? You want me to just lie and pretend that I like what’s going on?

"You want me to do these things just to be accepted, just to be popular, just to stop being so invisible and insignificant? But I just can’t do it. I can’t compromise my ideals like that or the things that I believe in. I have much higher standards than that.”

The man laughs again, though it is somehow less mocking this time. “I told you, you don’t have a choice, not if you want to be popular and accepted, not if you want people to like you and love you, not if you want fame, fortune, power. To get all those things and more, this is what you must do. Nothing else will help you.”

She bit her lip, suddenly looking defiant. Her eyes blaze with a passion that draws the man to look at her again. “No,” she says with much conviction. “You’re wrong. Humans, people aren’t like that. Not all of them, anyway. There are nice ones with integrity and ideals and standards and beliefs similar to mine. There are those that are noble and good and kind.”

The man sighs and refrains from laughing. “What fantasy world do you live in?” His words sound harsh, but his tone is gentle. “None of what you say exists. Listen to me, this is the truth: everyone thinks only of themselves. If you can’t conform to what everyone thinks is right, to the standards that everyone else adheres to, then you will lose. You will undoubtedly suffer and you will get nothing. So, it’s better to just do as the others do. Don’t think about it too much. Soon, you’ll get used to all this.”

She looks down, hair falling across her face, hiding it from the world. Her eyes glisten with unshed tears that she refuses to let fall. “Doesn’t anyone feel guilty about what they’re doing?” she asks in a quiet voice, sounding so weary and defeated.

“Guilt? What is that? People don’t know the meaning of that word. Guilt means nothing at all.” In a lighter tone, he adds, “Look, people just want to live. They just want to survive. Can you blame them for that? You understand, don’t you? You want to live too.”

“Yes. I do want to live.”

“Then you know what you must do.”

She frowns, hesitating, deliberating until she finally makes a choice. The man smiles sadly, the strange look in his eyes intensifying and she thinks she finally understands what that look is supposed to be and what it means.

*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki (CC:BY-SA) based on the image by CoDLia (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt
- The 2 figures in this image are meant to represent the 2 characters in this short story
- YouTube video features a song entitled “Invisible” by Hunter Hayes and it speaks of people who are different, who don’t conform to the standards

I Hate You, But I Really Didn’t Mean To Say That

Previously, West hurts East with the choice of words and accusations that had been uttered. Unfortunately for the eastern Superhero, West is not done and continues to speak and hurt the other.

“The Spades King started all this,” West declares. “His actions are wrong and mean and bad.”

“He’s like a terrorist, an enemy, stealing what doesn’t belong to him and trying to start a World War. And you are helping him.” West points an accusing finger at East.

“You’re horrible, East, absolutely, totally, super mean. And for the last time, stop calling me those nicknames,” West shouts, eyes blazing.

A hand reaches for the vase, filled with flowers, that was on a nearby table. West threw the vase to the floor with such force that the broken pieces scattered all over the room. The table met the same fate.

“I hate you, East,” West screams before immediately looking away. They looked like they wanted to apologize and take back the words, but they don't. Regret filled those blue eyes before anger hid it away.

*Notes:
- This is part 43 of The Adventures Of The World’s Superheroes series, a story told in several short posts
- Part 42
- Image is a peony floral painting (paint by numbers kit) from Amazon.com
- Pic is meant to represent the vase full of flowers that West ends up breaking

What Should You Do If You Feel Invisible And Insignificant?

Also known as "Who cares about this silent despair?"

It begins with a sigh and a frown.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” she asks. She looks genuinely and sincerely concerned.

“Nothing.” You shake your head, unwilling to believe that anyone would actually care about you and what you feel.

“You shouldn’t lie, you know, not when it’s so obvious. I can see right through you,” she responds, smiling slightly.

“Does it matter?”

“Why shouldn’t it?” she asks with a frown as if she can’t understand why you’re being like this.

“Who cares anyway?”

She sighs. “Look, you-”

You shake your head, sighing as well. “Don’t. Just, drop it, okay? It doesn’t matter.”

She refuses to leave though. “Hey, you know, someone does care.”

Your surprise knows no bounds with how noticeable it is. “Yeah, who?” You refuse to acknowledge the hopeful tone in your voice.

She smiles. “Me.”

You stare in disbelief. Then, you laugh, unable to comprehend this, thinking it’s nothing but a joke. You shake your head. “You shouldn’t lie, you know.”

She raises an eyebrow as her words are thrown right back at her. “I do care.”

“No, you don’t. No one does. My words, my voice, they all flow and fly away like the water and the wind because I’m invisible and no one sees me. No one listens or hears no matter how loud I speak.”

She sighs yet again. “So, you don’t want to do this anymore?”

“No.” You pause, biting your lip and then hurriedly say, “I’m scared. To let go. I’m afraid. What’s on the other side?”

She smiles then shrugs. “Who knows?” She stretches out a hand towards you. “Do you want to come with me?”

You frown, hesitating. “I- I don’t know...”

She shrugs again. “Well, it’s your choice.”

You deliberate for what seems like an eternity. “I- it doesn’t matter, right? Because no one cares, right?” Even you don’t know what you’re looking for or what you’re asking and the uncertainty is visible in your eyes. “I speak and I write and I am, here but no one sees, listens, hears or understands. There is nothing but darkness and silence and despair.”

“Hmm. Then, you will come?”

“Why not? Who will stop me?” You take hold of her hand.

She smiles at you, holding your hand tightly, not letting go and pulling you towards her until it feels like you’re falling.

It ends with yet another sigh and a smile, frozen on your lips.

*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki (CC:BY-SA) based on the image by hayashinomura (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt
- Image of figure with outstretched hand is meant to represent the woman in the story who also held out her hand to the other character
- YouTube video features a song entitled “Invisible” by Hunter Hayes

The Painful Truth

Also known as, "The truth is that it hurts. You hurt me, but I can't let you see that".

Previously, West hurled a lot of accusations and said a lot of hurtful words at East as the two continued to talk with each other. Understandably, East is hurt by those words.

The Superhero’s eyes flash with pain, but it’s quickly hidden away and masked with an angry look and glare. East refuses to let West see how the hurtful words might have affected the Superhero.

East growls, obviously furious. “That is supposed to be my line, Vanilla. You should really be more attentive about these things.”

The Superhero tries to remain calm, but it wasn’t working all that well considering the clenched fists that seem to want to punch something or someone.

Lurking just behind the fury present in those amethyst eyes, there was still that hurt and pain that East was trying to hide, but was still being a bother.

“Insulting me now, huh?” West retorts, glaring right back at East. “You should learn to be able to tell when someone is completely wrong and totally lying.”

*Notes:
- This is part 42 of The Adventures Of The World’s Superheroes series, a story told in several short posts
- Part 41
- Image is Battle Sister, Vanilla from the Cardfight!! Vanguard TCG card game from Amazon.com
- Pic is meant to symbolize the 'Vanilla' nickname that East calls West

6 Reasons To Love Being Allowed To Edit Articles

Do you love being able to edit the articles that you write and post or publish, whether online or otherwise? Why does it matter if you are allowed to edit your previously-published or old articles? What’s so important about editing and proofreading your work?

Of course, when you initially publish an article, you want it to be as perfect as possible. You edit and proofread it profusely, looking intently for any possible mistakes or errors and swiftly correcting the ones that you find. But we’re only human. We can’t always catch every single mistake on our work. As some have rightfully said, “There is always room for improvement,” so let’s take a look at some of the reasons why we should love being allowed to edit our articles:

1. Fix grammatical errors and mistakes

If you take a look at some of your older articles, you might notice some grammatical, spelling or other such mistakes, which you might have missed the last time you proofread and edited it. In this case, you’d naturally want to fix these errors.

2. Interlink related articles

If you write articles on different aspects of the same topic, then you’d want to interlink them, so those who are interested can find and read these related posts. For example, I write a lot about Tumblr (microblogging platform and social networking site) and the Harry Potter series (fantasy books about magic and wizards written by J.K. Rowling),  so I interlink the related posts together. If we weren’t allowed to edit our articles, then how can we add these helpful, useful and relevant URL links?

3. SEO purposes

You can also choose to edit your old articles for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes. For example, when the WordPress SEO by Yoast feature was added to Daily Two Cents and Writedge (writing sites that used to pay per view, but have since changed their payment model, unfortunately where you can earn some passive or residual income), I had already written several articles on both websites.

So, I started to go back to those old posts to make use of this plugin. I added the Focus Keyword and Meta Description and addressed any problems mentioned in the Page Analysis tab. If we weren’t allowed to edit, then we would only have been able to use the WordPress SEO by Yoast on our newer articles.

4. Readability purposes

Make your articles more readable by adding spaces between paragraphs and breaking up huge blocks of text. You can also choose to add headers or headings to your posts, so those who want to skim-read can easily do so. While huge blocks of text can turn off potential readers, the same can happen if your post has way too many spaces.

This is why it’s important to find the perfect balance to ensure that your article is easy to read while not hurting anyone’s eyes. Being able to edit your posts will allow you to add or remove headings, spaces and paragraphs depending on what is needed.

5. Change titles

Usually, the first thing that a potential reader will see when they come across your article will be its title. If the title catches their eye and piques their curiosity, then they might be inclined to check it out and read it. For this reason, it’s important to have great, interesting and appealing titles. If your titles are boring or uninteresting, then who would want to read them?

Imagine if you can’t edit your article titles. You’ll be forced to be stuck with a lousy title or with one that you don’t like. And you can’t do anything about this unless you delete and republish your post (this time with the title that you want). You can also choose to publish it elsewhere (read: on a site which actually allows you to edit and improve your writing or your very own blog where you have complete control over your content).

6. Add media

If your article consists of nothing more than text and more text, it might come across as boring to some readers especially if said post is really quite long. Adding media like polls, videos, pictures and more can help add color to your posts. These things can encourage interaction and participation from your potential visitors and readers. These can also help make your article seem more interesting and appealing.

Who doesn’t love editing their articles?

Don’t you just love being able to edit your old articles for all these reasons? Imagine not being allowed to edit anything at all because the site where you published your articles has disabled the editing option, forbidding you from making improvements and changes to your posts. What a horrible thought, right?

This is why you can really appreciate writing sites like Writedge, Daily Two Cents and HubPages (even Persona Paper lets you edit your posts unless it’s a poll post in which case you’re out of luck) since they freely let you use the edit button anytime or whenever you want to.

*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki based on the image by kropekk_pl (Public Domain) from Pixabay
- Image is meant to symbolize someone editing their articles by using the laptop
- YouTube video features the writing dashboard on Writedge and Daily Two Cents; this is where you can edit your articles

Why The Spades King Is A Bully And A Terrorist?

It’s West’s turn to talk since East hogged all the screen time in the last post. Needless to say, West wasn’t pleased about that and has demanded to be able to speak and to speak right now. So, let’s end this preamble and get straight to the point.

The first words out of West’s mouth are, “Don’t call me 'Vermilion.'” The superhero growls, eyes flashing in anger, fists clenched in frustration. “Uff, what part of ‘the kingdoms on my side of the world are involved too’ don’t you get, East?” Of course, West put an emphasis on ‘my side’.

“I’m not interfering. I’m helping and I have every right to do so,” West corrected. “Anyway, you should just leave this to me.

"You’re the one who shouldn’t interfere ‘cause you’re totally just messing things up. There’s more trouble ‘cause of you helping the Spades King.

“That guy is really, completely terrorizing the Diamonds Kingdom and bothering and bullying all the people there. You know what he did. He should just quit it and return what doesn’t belong to him.

“If you wanna help, then help the Diamonds, Clubs and Hearts rulers and those in the other neighboring kingdoms near the Visible Demarcation Line.

"You’re totally helping the wrong guy and that’s so not ‘super special awesome’ at all. You’re just being totally, horribly mean, East.”

*Notes:
- This is part 41 of The Adventures Of The World’s Superheroes series, a story told in several short posts
- Part 40
- Image is Queen of Heart from the Cardfight!! Vanguard TCG card game from Amazon.com
- Pic is meant to represent the rulers of the Spades, Diamonds, Clubs and Hearts Kingdoms

What Is Missing In Some Review Articles?

What are some of the things that you look for when you read review articles? What do you think is missing in some review articles?

Introduction for review articles

What some review articles don’t have or may have forgotten or neglected to include is an introduction. When I say introduction, I don’t mean an introduction to the article,  but an introduction to whatever the author is reviewing. Many articles just get straight to the review as if all its potential readers know exactly what they’re talking about.

Importance of having an introduction to your review articles

But what if you get a reader that doesn’t know anything about whatever you’re reviewing? What if that person isn’t familiar with the show, series, product, or service that you’re reviewing?

That person would want to know even just a little something about whatever you’re talking about and this is where the introduction comes in. Introductions are important, so you can say a little something about what you’re reviewing.

Provide a short summary / explanation

For example, if you’re reviewing a series or movie, you can give a short summary of the story so people can at least know the basic plot and so they won’t get confused about the article they’re reading.

Add a warning for possible spoilers

If a review is going to include spoilers, it’s definitely important to state this somewhere at the top of your article. Some people don’t mind reading spoilers, but many do and they’d be upset if they end up reading spoilers, even though they had no intentions of doing so, because the article they saw didn’t give a proper warning.

These are the kinds of reviews that I like to read, which is why I do the same on my own review articles. I always put a short introduction on my reviews so even those who may be unfamiliar with what I’m talking about will have an idea of what the review is all about. When I mention a character, I also give a little description and I also add a warning for possible spoilers at the very top of the article if said article will include spoilers.

What about you? What kinds of review articles do you like reading? Do you want review articles to have a short introduction on what the product or service or story is all about or do you want the review to get straight to the point without any explanations?

*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki (CC:BY-SA) based on the image by hayashinomura (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt
- Image is meant to represent someone writing a review article using the PCs
- YouTube video shows you how to write introductions for your articles

What's So Hard To Understand About ‘Do Not Interfere’?

This is also known as "What part of ‘do not interfere’ and ‘this does not concern you’ do you not understand and are unable to comprehend?"

The tension is rising between the two Superheroes, but you knew that already, didn’t you? They're both getting angrier and more furious with each other.

“Of course, I did not forget, Vermilion,” East says in response to West’s words in the previous post. “You, on the other hand,” East adds, “Cannot seem to comprehend that the only kingdoms involved in this matter are the Spades Kingdom and the Diamonds Kingdom.”

“Both those kingdoms belong to my-” East emphasizes ‘my’ again. “Side of The World, so you have no right to interfere.”

“How many times must I say this, Vermilion?” East sounds agitated and frustrated at West’s inability to understand the words being uttered.

“This has nothing to do with you. Do. Not. Interfere.” East enunciates the last sentence carefully, hoping that it will finally get through to West. The eastern Superhero’s eyes are flashing with suppressed fury.

*Notes:
- This is part 40 of The Adventures Of The World’s Superheroes series, a story told in several short posts
- Part 39
- Image is from the Jeanne D'Arc game for the Sony PSP from Amazon.com
- The angry, mad expression on the pic is meant to represent East's fury at West as the eastern Superhero tells the Western one not to interfere

Which Part Of ‘My Side’ Do You Not Understand?

Previously, in this series, West and East are still having their talk about the problems going on in The World, whatever those problems may be. West is trying to say something in the previous post, but East interrupted. What does the eastern Superhero have to say?

“This is between my people on the eastern side of The World.” East put an emphasis on ‘my’ and used a firm tone of voice that brooked no argument. “You must leave it to me and stop interfering, Vermilion.”

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that West has no intentions of listening. East’s words are practically ignored and forgotten as West gives a reply.

“No way. It concerns my people too, those on the western side of The World.” West also put an emphasis on ‘my’.

“What, forgot that the Kingdoms near the Visible Demarcation Line aren’t just from the eastern side?” West asks.

“There are Kingdoms there from all sides of The World, including my side.” West emphasizes ‘my’ again. “So, of course, this involves me too,” West declares.

*Notes:
- This is part 39 of The Adventures Of The World’s Superheroes series, a story told in several short posts
- Part 38
- Image is from the Norn9: Var Commons game for the PlayStation Vita from Amazon.com
- Pic is meant to represent some of the people from the kingdoms near the Visible Demarcation line. The differences in their looks are meant to indicate that some are West's people while others are East's.