I very rarely post about 'real life' issues, but for some reason I just needed to... I'm going to give the ‘numbered’ version of the day’s events.

1. My step-dad takes my daughter (and her friend to school) as we no longer get a school bus service in town.

2. I go lay back down to sleep for a little bit this was about 7:50am – ish

3. I hear voices in the backyard. First, I thought it was next door, then realized no it was my back yard. I specifically heard the word  'reach.'

4. Look at small window at end of bed, see two guys.

 
5. Crawl off bed onto floor grab cell phone, going to head up front. Instead, hear back door knob try to turn – it was locked. Dog barks. *THANKFULLY*

6. Get to front, see police car and person next to car. Feel better *sorta* call step dad to stop back by, still scared from person trying to get in.

7. Open door ask person smoking next to running police car what is up, Him: I just rode with my friend.  Me: With the police? Him: No, waiting for my ride to return. (Please, note my husband has rode before with his friend in NC with CSU, with pre-approval, this is what I thought) Then he starts kinda looking weird pacing in circle. Crap not cop, not anyone good, one of the guys cops are looking for...

Okay, these are questions for people who read/write fanfiction:

1. How many people in ‘real life’ know what you do?
2. Do any of them read your work?
3. If you wrote something as a total joke and a family member saw it, thought this is the ONLY type of thing you write, and kept teasing you about it, is it okay to whack him in the head with a rolly-polly fish head? (Yes, I have been listening to Dr. Demento thankyouverymuch) 

Woo hoo! Carrie showed me a site to make your on LOLcats! I had to try. Not to creative, didn't have much time to think about captions. Here is kitten!Jazz in a GI JOE tank. Sorry, I'm so pathetic, I had to share. ;)



Okay, not sure how well it's showing so try this.

Made another one... Jazz fell in a huge box. Did we help him out? No, we got the camera.





 

Hey, I have a question does anybody on here know canon of FFX fairly well? I found an old story I wrote as part of a "Three Knight" series. Cleaning my files I found the old FFX one. The problem is, basically everything I remember about FFX is well... gone.  I can remember characters (From both X & X-2) but as far as the details go - I'm a huge blank. 

I went ahead and posted it - its ridiculously short, about 450 words or something (short for me, I should say!) but if anyone knows FFX, can they tell me if I messed any thing up? It's rather a useless, um...strange piece. If anyone gets a chance can they check? Here is the link: Immovable.

 Okay after all the plagiarism and tl;dr things lately -  I  need your help. ;)

Does anybody out there create any icons? I desperately need some for my ffnet bio and my skills are about as good as... Well, they are not good. I can crop. Wow. Go me! I will give credit on my bio. I have lots of pictures from Dōjinshi I own of Rinoa and Squall. Again, I can scan and I can crop, but that's as far as my mad skillz go. ~_^

All right, there is that, and also if you have any LOLcats (or anything else funny!), please post them. I so need something funny right now. I know I could look around (and have somewhat but kid vs. computer time), I also like referencing back to my LJ when I need a smile, which I kinda do often. ;)

Let me know and post anything you have!

Kris

EDIT: Here is a link of various doujinshi that I own. :) If you want to try to use any for icons feel free, I figure actual in-game-screen shots are pretty much everywhere. I do have more, but I will have to scan them. http://photobucket.com/ashes_and_wings_icons?albumview=slideshow

I'm pretty good about not getting upset...but seriously someone plagiarized the same fic for the third time, why? I mean, it's not a great story (First Contact) but still, three times that I know of... You know, First Contact, After the Fall, Knight of Sunset, and Castles in the Sky have all been copied at some point. (And now Crimson Lies...is that just about everything?)
 
It turns out that this offender is not the same person as last time. The last one had done it twice and still has an active account at ffnet. She did it in both 2005 and 2008, so time has taught her nothing on morality issues. It just makes you think, why? Why am I doing this? I'm not angry, more disappointed in people's actions. I (again) put it up at stop_plagiarism.  (*Edit: she has four stories up. Thanks for everyone who helped me find them - two are from FFVIII and one from FFX.)

It seriously makes you just question the fun of the hobby. I should lock this post like last time, but really, I'm getting to the point of not caring.

The profile is here, if your fic is there please contact  ff.net. I haven’t yet, I’m just too disgusted.  "Almost In" is "First Contact" just in the Bleach fandom.

*Sigh* I'm just so tired of this... I never meant to sound like I was giving up on writing, I won't. I still write because I love the creation process. I write for my enjoyment and the fact that anyone likes it is merely a bonus. However, it does take some of the fun out of the hobby when people seem so disrespectful. To be inspired by something is wonderful, to copy it word for word is not.

*Edit: Dear god, the one story on there is Crimson Lies...I mean, really? Good luck with that. It's under Shattered Pretenses, which was actually the story name of another author, Ironic Ending.  Also, Zombii's FFVIII story "Tenth floor" and Rhainna Aurora's FFX  "The Guardian" are the other ones.  

*Son of the edit: As of 4/21/09 the stories have been removed. The account, however, is still active.

I kinda forget sometimes that I have this journal, which I really wish I didn't do. I think it would seriously help me vent/rant/complain/scream/yell and well, you get the idea. Not that I'm angry or anything, just a great way to get things off my mind. (Insert joke here about me actually having a mind - yes way too much time around husband lately)

First, I have the internet back, at least until the first of March, which is subsequently when I turn 37... Dear god, I am old. Not that the two have anything to do with one another, just you know, me saying I'm really, really old. Hopefully things will pick up around here. Yes, the economy is horrible; it is everywhere. We just seemed to get it worse, in fact our area has the highest unemployment rate in the country! Woo hoo...and we get Obama here too, it was first trip outside Washington D.C. as President.  Actually, he's been here three times in the last year, which is odd – as I would avoid this place if I could! No joke, when he was running for President he was one block over. Yeah, I can see me opening the door and wham...Obama. Thankfully he was saved from seeing me in my sweat pants and more than likely mis-matched socks. ;) However he did play basketball with the neighborhood kids. Which was cool, it's a better story now that he is President.

So yeah, basically everyone I know is either laid off or cut down in hours. I was laid off, my husband is only working 28-30 hours. Since I was part time, I can't get unemployment, which is fine, we will survive just have to make cuts - like the internet and cable. I want to keep my children in their sports, so that has to come first. It's bad, but we'll survive. (Great now the song I Will Survive is in my head)

Anyway, enough depressing stuff. How about fanfiction? Well, I posted a chapter of Endless Waltz, and then ff.net died. Really no surprise, pretty much sums up my life. I do have the next chapter of After the Fall done...which I am really, really nervous about. Why? Well, after 25 chapters of not saying outright what happened and why Rinoa left …I say! Shocking, isn't it? I am finally telling! Actually, I did say it once, but I don't think anyone caught it. It was a Squall/Zell conversation and yeah... I'm nervous about it. After I post it Thursday I will go more into the reason why and how I came up with it, and hopefully see if I handled it all right.

Okay I have rambled enough, hope all is well with everyone. Sorry about being out of touch, it was not that I wanted to be, just circumstance.
Love ya,
Kris

Okay, I've been threatening this forever, and sadly, it has come to light!  Warning: this is (bad) humor and rather out-of-character displays, but Squall and Rinoa are fun characters. Does that count a little? No action figures were harmed in the making of this, though cannot say the same about the pride of either Wayward Tempest or Ashbear.  This is by far not the most embarrassing thing we have done, but comes darn close.  

Back story: Simple really...Squall quit Garden and moved to Timber with Rinoa. These are letters that Rinoa will be sending Selphie with updates on their new (non-SeeD) life as a couple! 

First, Dancing in Time is complete! Okay, I know technically I posted the last chapter eight days ago, but after five years, I'm just glad it's done. *Happy Dance* 

This leads me to the next thing. As I'd mentioned in my earlier posts, I wanted everyone to have a say in the continuation of DIT. Mainly, because I'm absolutely horrible at coming up with titles. I received many suggestions, so I did a poll at fanficion.net the link to my profile is here: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/66639/  Hopefully the poll will show up. It hasn't as of when I was writing this, though I did click the choice of 'put in profile.' But you know, it's fanficiton.net... it may take a little while! Anyway, for those who don't have an account there and want to give vote, please feel free to reply here.  I believe to vote in a poll you have to be a ff.net member, so this way I'll get everyone's opinion. Hopefully!

Now to one of the main questions I get... about the progress of Somewhere in Between. Well, I do believe Nicole will try to write again. I just don't think it's the same without her, the last parts were hard to do alone. I think we work off each other best, and somehow that comes through in the story. I just hope everyone can give it a little more time. It will be finished, though again, I would rather not do it alone. We started it together, I want to finish it together. Until then, I'll just work on After the Fall and the continuation of Dancing in Time; it will at least be something for now.

Lastly, on here I'm going to post a kinda silly on-going series, "Letters to Selphie." Yes, basically it comes from the fact that Nicole and I had taken our Squall and Rinoa figures with us many places. I wanted to tie them into a really unique plotline. So basically, it will be Rinoa writing Selphie, on what is going on in their lives... Yes, it will have 'pictures' because, well, Nicole and I are strange. There is some odd humor about posing action figures in our own house and even around the country! 

Trust me, you will be scared!

Edit: The Borg vs. FF8 - Really bad  humor by Ashbear and Refugee. Click at your own risk!  ;)

It's four in the morning. I can't sleep and there is a mega-ton of ice outside (well that might be 'slightly' embellished there, but there is a lot). So I'm redoing my Live Journal. I find it easy to read on this monitor with darker colors for some reason.  I can't find anything I like... Sadly there are no Final Fantasy or Egyptian themes already designed, darn it!

Plus, LJ changed everything on making layouts, I'm old... change scares me.  So did fanfiction.net, well not layouts, but even it's log in. I managed to get a document in the holder; that was scary enough. This change thing is scary!!! Its late, did I mention that? Right now it is: four in the morning, freezing inside, freezing outside, did I mention four in the morning?  I should be sleeping, but this is the only quiet time I get between annoying kids and screaming husbands. (It should be reversed, ironically it's not. ~_^)

I may post a real message later that makes sense, or if I read this one tomorrow I might cry wondering why I wrote it, I vote the latter!

It's over, it's over! 

Okay, not sure if I sounded happy, but I am. I had to plan a party for around 200 preteens and children.  Whoever said, "Let's have a High School Musical 2 Party' a day after it airs on cable..." I need to have a word with them. Most of the kids had already watched the night before, some had seen it up to four times (a specific group I talked to.) Then some of the others - well the second movie just didn't hold there attention as much as the original. I have never wanted to have a movie over so much in my life.  I didn't get a chance to watch it myself, as I was too busy running around and yelling at kids. Though there was pizza, and kids love pizza. But that really only keeps them quiet for so long... then we run out pizza. *sigh* But like I said - it's over!

I actually do want to watch it. I'm sure I'll have a chance on The Disney Channel - like every day for the next year. I only saw the first one last week. My husband actually left the room when it came to the 'singing basketball players.' Yes, that draws the line at any musical with an adult male.  I didn't know this, but now I do. Apparently signing cats (Cats), lions (The Lion King), and strangers in a trailer park (Some Elvis movie he was watching when people came out of trailers and started singing while Elvis played guitar) well - those things are perfectly natural. Basketball players singing (and dancing) while bouncing a ball - just crosses the line of reality.  This portion of my LJ has been a public service announcement - the more you know!

Hopefully I shall be around LJ again, as I don't have anything until September. Woo hoo! 

Also, I wanted to mention if anyone is reading this (and not dead from boredom) that Wayward Tempest and I did update "Somewhere in Between" on August 14th (I think?) I know some people didn't get chapter update alerts for it, so I was just mentioning it on here.  "Dancing in Time" was updated about three days before, but I know ff.net was being wonky again. Not sure if 'wonky' is the proper word, but we will use it to describe ff.net servers. 

Also, yes, I did change my layout! The world needs more penguins on the internet. I want to do my part. Penguins rule!

Kristine (Ashbear)