Dear Loyal Watchers, Interested Visitors, and Confused Passersby:

Hey! You guys all know my Ravenswriter emblem, avatar, user pic... raven, crow, corbid, birdy... thing, right?

That's the one! Yeah!

You probably remember how he got all dressed up last year. I really liked that pic!

They come runnin' just as fast as they can, 'cause every girl's crazy about a sharp dressed corvid!

Oh, and ya remember how I asked folks to dress up their avatar for Christmas? My raven was the first to volunteer of course!

At the highest magnification, you can see that I put the hat over the eyes. No wonder he always looks a little grumpy!

We've seen him in other guises as well, such as on the cover of my Fever Dreams.

I shoulda just released these all as their own fics, but... meh.

He's even got Real Life counterparts that I got from the Earth Mother in The House of Blackbirds and Wintergreen...

Still freaks me out!

I've often wondered if I should have taken a pony avatar. Ya know, one that actually looks like one of these pastel denizens of an alternate reality that I write about. In the end, I'm glad that I've stuck it out with the Ravenswriter, and I'm glad that people seem to have enjoyed him.

That being said, perhaps it's time for an upgrade? I am now deep into my third year in this fandom, and I think that sprucing up would be in order, hmm?

So, here's my challenge to you, my dear friends! It's time to remodel my avatar! Yup, we're gonna decorate and stylize my raven!

Your task? Well, friends, warm up your photo editing software! It's time to see what you can do! Anything (tasteful) goes! Are an actual artist? Feel free to draw me a new raven, based on this one! Not an artist but wanna try anywho! Go ahead!

If you need ideas... well, you know what I like! And, if ya don't, I'll tell ya! Trains, Ocean Liners, The Civil War, History... write me if ya need some ideas.

Okay! Great! I look forward to seeing what you all come up with!

Stay Awesome,

-T.D.

Dear Loyal Watchers, Interested Visitors, and Confused Passersby:

So, Equestria Girls is a thing.

I generally don't like commenting about the show itself. You noticed, I hope, that I didn't say much about how the last season developed. I learned a long time ago that the only thing that comes from complaining about events inside popular media is an upset stomach. As such, I have a lot of things that I'd like to say, but they'd undoubtedly come across as the ranting, raving dribble of a demented mind, and I'm not ready for you all to realize that about me yet.

Anywho, Equestria Girls is a thing. As such, I'd like to just pass along these three little tidbits of my thoughts and an incidence of speculation. I fully understand that we haven't even see the movie yet, and that it could still be spectacular. I make no judgement call on it yet, as "complaining about things I haven't seen" is a classic dick move, one I hope to avoid at all times.

That being said...

1.) Those Who Are Writing Threatening Messages to the Hasbro/DHX Staff: Stop it. Morons.

2.) Based on What I've Seen So Far, I Don't Like that Spike is a Dog: I can see a scenario where he jumps in after Twilight, not wanting her to be alone, but just turning him into a non-human does reflect on his station in our canon. It is demeaning on some levels. Even if he does talk, even if he is articulate, he's still just a dog. With the CMC and Snips and Snails in the trailer, the idea that he couldn't be a kid in the other world doesn't quite work. All I can think of is that they made him a dog so that he doesn't interfere with the next bit.

3.) Twilight Sparkle Loves Brad More Than She Loves You: You will never receive a flying hug from the Princess of Harmony. She'll never run to you with anticipation in her eyes. She'll never look up to you tenderly.

When you stop crying, we'll continue.

In reality, we don't actually know what her "relationship" with this character will be. We don't even know if his name is Brad. Some in the fandom have come to calling him Jimmy (as in Rustling, showing what a class act we are as a fandom). Still, there's a little more than a simply "thank you for some unspecified act" in those eyes.

I point this out because we have to question our earlier belief that Equestria Girls will not affect the canon of FIM. There's simply too much going on, and the admission by the creative staff that this "will affect the destiny of both worlds" only leads me to the conclusion that the canon will overlap.

So, what I'm saying is, I am going to speculate that we'll be seeing Brad in FIM.

Yup, that's my guess, that at some point in the series Brad (Jimmy... whatever) will appear in the show as a pony. If he does turn out to have a developing relationship with Twilight, then that's too much to simply leave behind... it's too big a piece of character development on her part for the staff to abandon. At some point, I care to guess, she'll encounter a stallion with Brad's mark, and where we go from there will the subject of much wailing and drama in the fandom.

I just want to get you ready for this now, rather than have it surprise you later. You know, like coming home from school one day to find a strange man in your house. Your mother introduces him as "Uncle Brad", and tells you that he'll be spending the night. You spend the next few hours watching a stranger flirt with your mommy, and spend the night covering your ears with your pillow, trying to block out the sounds coming from the bedroom.

Remember how I said that my guess is that they turned Spike into a dog to keep his ability to interfere with the plot development to a minimum? One of the things that I dislike about shipping stories in this fandom is how they treat Spike when Twilight begins dating. It's as though most authors here treat him like some kind of "living chastity belt", one that must be dealt with before they can continue with the story. I've seen this range from harmless examples where they send him out on tasks while the principal characters begin a make-out session, or presenting him as "being off in Canterlot". More harshly, others have made Twilight send him to the basement, or even throw him out the window. The worst examples make him apologize for being "immature" about wanting the best for his surrogate mother/sister/best friend. It's as though some authors can't believe that Twilight would simply have a discussion with him about her life is changing, and how she realizes that affects them both.

The unhappy thought going through my head is that the staff of the show just did the same thing to Spike, reducing his role to a point where Twilight and the viewers can ignore him as she develops her relationship with "Brad".

I hope I'm wrong about that. I really do.

The fact of the matter though, is that Twilight is of dating age. I personally work with teenagers, and I know what role that plays in their lives. Spike isn't stupid, and he knows she'll eventually want to have a relationship. AnneHairball and I have been working on a project with that exact theme, and I hope it's done before the season begins... and before the appearance of a certain stallion renders it moot.

If I'm right, and Brad does end up having a counterpart in Equestria, I hope he turns out to be a great guy. I hope he earned this two-armed hug, something that she hasn't even given Spike. I hope he turns out to be the type of male who supports Twilight, and who wants the best for her... and who actually grows to love her. I hope that he, or more accurately, the staff, remember that Twilight already has a great little guy in her life... one who will affected by bringing somepony into their home, too.

If I'm right, I hope Spike likes Brad. I hope Brad likes Spike.

We don't know what any of this means, and all of the above is simply speculation on my part as I wait to see what is going to happen with the rest of my day. It is the inane ramblings of a fan fiction writer with ample time on his hands, nothing more. But, like Alicorn Twilight, we still don't know what to take away from Equestria Girls, and I'm going to suggest that we won't until Season 4 begins. Twilight can't fly, apparently, even though we saw her do so at the end of the last episode of Season 3... so, what do we know? The only thing we can do is trust to the staff.

And don't be surprised if the last thing Twilight does before leaving the "human world" is kiss Brad. Just, ya know... prepare yourself. Mommy will still make you breakfast and have your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle lunchbox waiting for you the next morning.

Stay Awesome,

-T.D.

Dear Loyal Watchers, Interested Visitors, and Confused Passersby:

So, I'm sitting here at the 40,000th word of Zenith, and in the middle of the eighth chapter. My career is careening down the toilet, so I have today off, so I'm just, well... sitting and writing.

Hey, why not take the time to drop me some questions? I've got the notification beep turned on, and I should be here writing away for most of the rest of the day. C'mon, shoot me some questions about my personal fanon, my writing, your writing, our conflicting views on politics, the media, God, life and the living of life. Anything really... I'm really stuck on this chapter and will need most of the day just to get through it.

Why not pick my brain? It might not be very big, but it's quite shiny!

Stay Awesome,

-T.D.

Dear Loyal Watchers, Interested Visitors, and Confused Passersby:

It was eighteen degrees fahrenheit when I slipped into the car, the coldest it's ever been when I've done this.

Winter still sits heavily around my house, seeping in where the frames of doors that are older than myself by decades sag, sitting on my porch where it flew in before I cold rescue the artifacts of the last summer.

Ice sits around the Baby Jesus of my large, plastic nativity, having frozen my polymer savior to the hard earth of my garden. Christmas decorations still sit glazed in ice upon my roof, around my doors, and to my mailbox, the tokens of a birth held there fast even as the remembrance of a death and resurrection quickly approaches.

My cats stare out windows, yellow eyes staring out over my yard, their noses leaving vapor as they wonder if winter will ever leave... if there will ever be rays of summer sun to lie in again. My breath freezes in my beard I wait for the car to warm, and I share their concerns.

The trees, however, know better.

I head south, away from the periphery of the sprawl that has consumed the farms where I grew up. I head south, farther and farther from chain stores, parking lots, and tract housing. I head to places where life returns to the mythological rural image I have of my childhood, places where old barns stand beside the road, where I flash through villages with five or six affable old buildings that lean forward, as though trying to proclaim the words that sit upon them. "Masonic Lodge", "Grange", "Co-Op", they announce, each one trying to gather attention to itself.

I make a right, and there the old sign of the return of spring sits ready, announcing that winter cannot last, that it has already begun to die as the sunlight grows each day and the temperature sneaks above freezing for a few precious hours...

... that the trees know better.

It is maple sugar time again, and the birds that sit in the bushes sing as they eat the old berries, announcing their joy at the growing days. The old silvery bucket sits there, the last of its kind as nearby blue lines of plastic bring the sap down from the sugar bush.

I open the lid, expecting to find the bucket somewhat full of the offering of the maple tree. Instead, it is frozen solid, the tap glistening in its coat of ice, as though embarrassed.

It was only eighteen degrees fahrenheit, the coldest it's ever been when I've done this.

I wonder if there might not be enough syrup yet for this tradition, if there had not been enough sap gathered this year yet, if I might have come south just to be turned away.

Behind me there is a blast of warm air, and the door to the structure comes open. Happy voices fall out, and my worries are put away.

The trees know better.

I slide inside, and at once the familiar warmth and smell overtake me.

The counter man greats me, tells me to sit anywhere that I want, just as he always has. From the look in his eyes I know that he remembers me from the last half-decade that I've been coming here... but he's never asked me my name. I've never asked his, so I sit, that little exchange having passed for another year.

I find a single spot, crammed as it was between two families, two groups of strangers that struggle to ignore one another in the close, intimate confines of the sugar house. It is a good spot, located between the two wood stoves that heat the building, inside the zone where the two wavering thermal layers compete.

There are at least thirty people in the sugar house, eating at picnic tables crammed inside. The instant I sit they ask me what I wish to drink (Milk, please.), if I'd like sausages or bacon (Sausages, please.), and how many pancakes I'd like to start (As many as God deemed possible to fit on a plate, Ma'am).

I say my breakfast grace silently, looking down over the tall stack of the golden goodness, a child in the family on my left looking at me with an arched eyebrow. I reach for a bottle of syrup. Even through the bottle, I know that it is warm, perhaps just off the evaporator that sits behind us all. I grin a wide grin as it flows out, melting the butter on contact, the amber color soon holding immutable dominion across the paper plate.

Hot pancakes, warmer syrup, cold milk. Sometimes my life is more perfect than I have the right to ask it to be.

I slice my pancakes the way my grandfather had, the way I had watched him do as I sat at a counter for the first time. Wide swipes of the knife across the bunched up piece. I slowly eat, tasting the perfect, real, honest syrup as long as I can.

To my right a group of older men talk about their lives in the navy, one speaking about a typhoon when he was stationed on the Essex. My breakfast is interrupted by the summer of 1962, and F-8 Crusaders go crashing across the aircraft carrier's deck into the sea while the ship comes perilously close to going "flat stacks under" as I finish my milk.

I wipe my face, horrified that there may be syrup in my beard.

The family on my left leaves, and their place is quickly reset, and once again I get the uncomfortable feeling that I, a single man, am somehow in the way. I try some conversation with the young man across from me, but it goes poorly. His children look around in wonder, and I share their enthusiasm at the old signs advertising farm equipment and ancient syrup tins that line the space. I race through my second, and third helping of pancakes, and then take a warm cup of tea to walk around with, leaving my space to more newcomers.

I look the evaporator over as I drink my tea, studying it as the sap boils away to syrup as it has for the last half-of-a-decade that I've been coming to the farm, to this sugar house by the side of the road.

I buy my annual treats. A pint of syrup, some sugar candy, and some maple cotton candy to give to my Sunday School kids... another tradition that I alone know to remember and observe.

I step out into the cold. It's still only eighteen degree, the coldest it's ever been when I've done this.

My feet crack the ice of the fields as I stumble towards the sugar bush. There the sugar maples await, the taps deep in their heartwood, offering up their essence to be made into syrup, the ancient partnership between man and nature going on as it ever has.

As I march I wonder why I've come just to eat alone among strangers. I can eat alone at home.

Still, the only "maple syrup" in my house is only flavored as such with corn syrup, and does not come off of a boiling evaporator. It is not served to me fresh by a family who communes with nature as a part of their daily lives. It is not placed across pancakes given to me by a nice little woman who calls me "darling", by her family who call each other "aunt" and "cousin" over the din of strangers enjoying the gifts of a waking earth.

I stand in the sugar bush, great blue lines of tubing snaking around me. Around me chickadees and cardinals congratulate themselves on surviving another winter. I put aside the question of whether or not I will be back next year.

The trees know better.

Stay Awesome,

-T.D.

Dear Loyal Watchers, Interested Visitors, and Confused Passersby:

I've kinda had a bad few days in the fandom, and a few unhappy weeks and in real life. This time of year always hits me hard, and this weekend of the time change especially. My writing has slowed down considerably, and after tearing through two chapters and 11,000 words of Zenith in three days, I suddenly found myself unable to write the critical third chapter, the one that sets up all of the other action. This is bad, mostly because I have the man who made Certain Advantages possible, Future, one of the best readers in the fandom, RainbowDash47, and his companion FillyBlanks awaiting the next chapter for editing purposes.

*Sigh*

So, what is there to do to get over these late-winter blues?

Why, revel in the admiration of strangers, of course!

For those of you who don't know, another one of the best readers in the fandom, Chris, runs the "One Man's Pony Ramblings" blog. His focus is on the fan-fiction writers (as well it should be) and the stories we produce. He even let me write an article about "Show vs. Tell" for the blog once. It kinda went over like a bowl of fetid, moldy cream cheese crashing into a sidewalk after being thrown from a passing Boeing 737 and he hasn't talked to me since but, still, yeah...

Anywho, this last month Chris posed the following question...

... to which several people chose to answer in the following way...

Cue Descy walking around with his chest puffed out for a few long minutes. Really? Me? Mentioned in the same breath as a contender for this honor alongside Cold in Gardez and Thanqol? Really? Really?!

All I can say is the following:

1.) Bullshit! I have no idea what I'm doing! I didn't two years ago when I started writing Pony works, and I still have no more idea so than twelve years years ago when I was writing Hey Arnold! crap!

2.) I love ya for thinking that I do have some kind of idea. Honestly, I love ya guys to death for saying so. After these last few days in the fandom, where I question the impact I've had, to be able to look here and say "these folks believe in me"... just, wow. I love ya all to death. To. Death.

3.) Thanks to Guitar Fan for pointing this out to me. He's one of those long-time readers who I could never have gotten as far as I have without their support.

So, that being said, back to slaving over a hot word-processor in hopes of fighting my way to the heart-breaking scenes of Zenith!

Stay Awesome!

-T.D.

Dear Loyal Watchers, Interested Visitors, and Confused Passersby:

This is it, here we go. This is either my best story ever or nothing. I can only hope that I can write as well as Lysok can draw...

Heh, who am I kidding, those are just the pre-production sketches that Lysok came up with, and I'll be trying my hardest to reach for those!

I still have two other stories (my art trade of a humanized fic for AnneHairball, and my work on Of Purple Proses with Dag) that I'll be tending to, but if you've wondered where I've gone over the next two months, then the answer will be that I'm using my Pony time to craft what looks like it is gonna be a 100,000 word, 21 chapter monolith of everything I know about writing.

Alicorn Twilight turned out to be a blessing in disguise, allowing me a legitimate way to pull off an important plot point that has vexed me for months. Lysok has been more than patient, waiting since September for word from me. But, now I'm ready. Now it begins.

This is it then, let's do this thing. I'm all in... here I go.

*Open a new Microsoft Word blank document.*

Stay Awesome,

-T.D.

Dear Loyal Watchers, Interested Visitors, and Confused Passersby:

I broke one of my own rules last night. My rule is that I never watch a new episode until I can watch it on my 60'' T.V. Otherwise, why did I even buy the thing if I can just spend even more time sitting at my computer and using the Internet to watch stuff? I spend way too much time on the Internet as it is. I even decided to only visit my Pony sites once a day as part of my Lenten vows...

... which I'm now breaking. God damn it.

Anywho, I watched. Alicornification is now a thing.

Too bad it won't leave me alone.

Here I sit, supposedly getting ready to tend to people's spiritual needs this Sunday morning, and instead I have an aspect of the episode beating at my head. I've always been an advocate. I'm a member of many different social groups, activist organizations, and conservation movements. When I have a question or something that I feel needs an answer, I have a very, very hard time "letting go" until I feel that I've done something about it. Most of the time it involves me writing letters. My senators and representatives must know me by name by now. Sometimes it involves going to meetings, or lifting things that others aren't lifting... like downed trees or soup ladles.

The problem I have today, and that kept me from falling asleep last night for a good long while, is that I'm powerless to address my concern about the episode. It's hardly on the same tier as world hunger or social injustice, but still... I was tossing and turnin'.

Does anybody know of ways to contact Mr. M.A. Larson and Mrs. Meaghan McCarthy? I doubt that they have posted mailbox addresses.

I have a Tumblr, but don't bother asking about it. I only ever used it to post stories for Thirty Minute Pony Stories, something I haven't done for months.

What I do know is that they have Twitter accounts... something I don't, and have no interest in having.

In the name of helping your lovable old T.D. sleep at night, would anybody be willing to post a Twitter message for me? I can assure you that it will be polite, but direct. The topic? My "pet" issue, the one I'm probably well known for by this point... the treatment of a certain character.

You can probably guess where I'm going.  If you would consider posting a "tweet" (that's what they are called, right) from your account, please send me a P.M., and will discuss terms.

Nothing deeper than that, sorry that it wasn't the in-depth articles you usually expect from me. Here's G3 Spike being deep to help cleanse your palate...

Stay Awesome,

-T.D.

Dear Loyal Watchers, Interested Visitors, and Confused Passersby:

The deckhand leaps across, the last guideline in his hand.

He lands on the deck of the Atlantic Hawk with the practiced grace that only men of the sea know. As he does his crew mates heave on the line, and the last conection between the two ships is severed. The Atlantic Hawk shifts slightly, the mass of the great red boat becoming surprisingly mobile, and their legs shift to take their mass as the Atlantic batters the boat. Their bodies adjust quickly, as those who go down to the sea know to do.

The deckhand lifts his head to the bridge overhead, the white superstructure standing in stark contrast to the grey skies of the wintery Atlantic around them. He watches as the officer of the watch lifts his binoculars. As the covers wobble beneath the deckhand follows the gaze of the officer, and it settles on the ship he had just left... the ship that he was the last soul to step aboard.

Behind them, the power of the Atlantic Hawk sets the other ship adrift. Soon the distance between them grows, the other ship bobbling along on the waves, no smoke from her stack, no hustle along her decks. The ship simple ploughs through each wave, turning on the wind.

Soon the Atlantic closes in around her... around the little ship, its blue hull melding with the waters, its white superstructure growing indistinct in the grey fog that always hangs  over the Northern Ocean in the winter months. Soon the crew goes about their business, slowly breaking up their congregation as though they had witnessed a wake of an associate that none knew well.

Only the deckhand remains, watching as the M.V. Lyubov Orlava disappears into the mists. She'd been cut free... Transport Canada said to cut her free. There are no souls aboard, no reason for the ship to exist, no want or wish to mess around with international law, or fines, or dock space for a ship that had been nothing but trouble...

... just cut it free, Transport Canada had said, and so they had.

The deckhand watches intently, peering out into the mist. Her outline is just barely visible. As the Atlantic Hawk turns he slowly walks from port to starboard, his hands in his pockets and shuddering against the cold. There are a few more anchor points to check on, but soon they will return to St. John's, this odd day's work becoming just another one in the log.

He lifts his head to the waters, searching the sea beyond. There is a hint of the bow, a small wake... and then the Lyubov Orlava is gone.

The deckhand makes his way back to the superstructure.

As he does, he ponders.

Let them know what has happened. Let the world know that there is still something of a mystery about the sea. Let the Lyubov Orlava sail on and on and on. That, he thinks, is proper.

In an age of cell phones, the Internet, the instant communication of millions, the seeming shrinking of the earth... let there be ghost ships.

Let her sail. Let her go on for weeks. Let her suddenly appear off the coast of Greenland, Norway, Ireland, or Spain. Let her face storms, creaking and moaning in the waves, no one there to hear her battles with the ocean.

Let her find the Atlantic gyre, let her simply slip through the mists for years to come... a rumor, a shape picked up by observant eyes, a blip on the radars of tankers and cargo ships. Let her tread the ocean. Let her sink tomorrow. Let her just be rumor. Let her never end.

In this age, this age where we think we know everything, he dares ponder, let us have a reason to think about such things. Let there still be ghost ships... journeying on and on and on without berth or port, crew or comfort... ships that simply sail...

... with no souls aboard.

Stay Awesome,

-T.D.

Dear Loyal Watchers, Interested Visitors, and Confused Passersby:

I used to love comics.

When I was in Junior High and High School, I was the stereotypical comic book nerd. I followed the most popular titles, I can't claim to be have been a connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination. X-Men and Tales of the Dark Night were my principal poisons. My prized possession was a copy of The Killing Joke, one of the very best Batman books ever printed. I remember smuggling it back into the house, terrified that my parents might discover the scenes where The Joker cripples Barbara Gordon.

Now, my tastes have changed, but I still consider comics to be a "real media". I'm a fan of the blending of mediums. I was (technically still am, not that I go there anymore) a co-founder of a group on D.A. that encouraged writers and artists to work together to create comics of value, but it came to naught... to this day Brony Comics Guild languishes while writers sit on ideas that would work better as comics, and artists release comics with spelling and grammar errors and underdeveloped plots.

So it goes...

Anywho, I am aware of the IDW comics being done of our wonderful pseudo-equines. To my own surprise I can't really get behind them. Oh, I'm not opposed to them by any stretch of the imagination... but I just can't get excited about them, sadly.

Today, though, I saw some images that came out of one of them (at least if the images are real, and not faked... I honestly wouldn't know) that made me rather happy. They are shared here for your enjoyment.

Spike: "Heh, I'm submitting this to EqD for her..."

The idea that Twilight Sparkle would be writing Fan Fiction of herself as an O.O.C. Sailor Moon-ish character is so charming that I just sat there with a big smile on my face. That Spike is there reading with his own malicious grin, despite it clearly being labelled as being beyond his rights to peruse, makes it that much better. Since we know that fan fiction is canon (Thanks, Dash!), one could write an entire series based on what the principal cast is writing about, and what canon they are writing for. Lurks no More actually gave me an idea for a story called The Plot Chickens! based on a similar premise with Scootaloo.

Though that would involve me writing for Scootaloo, who's just as impossible to write for as Dash. Damn non-Fluttershy pegasi.

All of this made me happy until I realized that it meant that both the show and IDW both recognized the existence of fan fiction... and joined in on the "It's horrible!" bandwagon.

Twilight Sparkle chews on her own mane when she's nervous. In related news, T.D.'s heart melted.

Comics once again show us that they have the advantage of being a hybrid medium. Reading about Twilight chewing on her mane would be adorable to read, seeing a picture of her doing it also. But when the two are put together and put into a context of a large situation, one we can move through fluidly, then it's all win.

I'd like to think that Twilight has other foibles that allow her to express her self-doubt other than going pleasantly insane, as we've seen her do in the show. I'd love to see her doing something so foal-like, as I can't really ever bring myself to see our main cast as being adults... more like young adults or teens. That Spike (who's image here I'm not a fan of), her lifelong confidant and closest friend, can spot these nervous habits just adds to the "Win" of the scene.

I still don't consider the comics canon, but there are always things that we can take from other mediums and enjoy. There are stories that would work better as comics, and I have a few that I've possessed for awhile. AnneHairball has agreed to an art trade with me which will result in my first written comic (I hope). I just need to figure out what the world will look like after next weekend first. My half of the trade will be my first "humanized" fic... so, pray for me.

Anywho, just wanted to share those with ya'!

Stay Awesome,

-T.D.

Dear... well, Loyal Watchers!

Well, wow... I... I just want to say to you... all of you... hey...

... thanks. Thanks so much. I don't think I can say anything else that doesn't devolve into overblown emotionalism... heh, though that's why some of you read my stories. So, wow, all I can say is thank you... and promise that I'll keep trying to deserve all of these.

Stay Awesome,

-T.D.