A missing story

I’ve been driving myself crazy for the past year trying to find a story I 100% remember reading while I was in college. It was back in the days when I was really in to Dragonball Z fanfiction and it was absolutely amazing! I am sure it was called “In The Rain” or something like that and was a story about Bulma loosing her memory after being attacked in the street when it was raining. Vegeta tore himself apart knowing that he had not known anything of the attack untill she had been found and then the whole story revolves around Bulma finding her feeling for Vegeta again.

I’ve never been able to find it again! I am an expert googler but I have never been able to find it! I guess I shall have to resign myself to my fate.

 

Abracadabra!

It’s all purty!

I have no idea what this actually is, I know there is a pink dye in the card of the tree itself as I used something to splash the water up the trunk of the tree slightly and now that has a pretty little white crystallisation thing going (You can just about see it in the bottom right of the photo). There is nothing about the chemical processed on the box and the declaration of ‘Magic’ is weighing heavily on my science!

Still… colour me impressed!

 

A little bit of magic

This is the poor naked Sakura tree my brother got me for Christmas. All primed, soaked and ready to go! It is supposed to grow ‘Sakura Blossoms’ after a few hours so I’ve set it up and now I’m sat staring at it in anticipation.

 

Happy (insert chosen celebration here)

I had a customer at work yesterday who commented on the automated switchboard recording we have set up on the pone lines. You know the ones, “Thank you for calling whoever we are, press one for sales, press two for returns or press three simply because all numbers take you to the same people”. Well, on ours we have one of the girls record a message to say that we are closed on Christmas day and boxing day. In this message she says “All of us here wish you a Merry Christmas.”

Someone complained.

I realise that Christmas, at it’s very core, is a religious holiday but it is celebrated by so many people in so many different ways that this really has become irrelevant. I am in no way shape or form religious. If I ever did choose a religion it would probably be some form of Budhism, not really sure why, it just speaks to more than the other religions. But yes, I celebrate Christmas, or at least I take advantage of it.

I love buying presents for other people, even if the don’t buy me one! I don’t subscribe to the idea that you need to exchange presents. It is the act of giving that makes this day great and by jingo it feels good to watch someone open up a gift and beam a grin down at whatever it is that was encased in shiny paper.

Yes it may be materialistic and I like getting presents as much as the next girl (Soap and Glory delux bag thank you very much) but it is a day that everyone can stop, even if some people only stop because every one else has. Every one has the opportunity to smile at someone and say “Merry Christmas” simply because that is something you say!

But some old Scrooge called up, wanting simply to place an order, and instead lectured me for 10 minutes (there goes my average call time) about how saying “Merry Christmas” is incredibly insulting to people of other faiths and is as good as direct racism. I told him he was more than welcome to write a letter of complain and address it to the company owners (who happen to be Jewish)

 

Vive La Resolution!

At this time of year I get some strange urges, the urge to organise my life, the urge to change something about myself, the urge to get myself properly on track. I always make new year resolutions and they never get very much further than the self satisfaction of actually making them. It’s like an alcoholic deciding to stop drinking and congratulating himself with a nice stiff drink.

This year I am determined to make a difference to my life. Over the past few years I have been struck with random bouts of depression of varying degrees of severity. While I am over most of it I do have some demons lurking around inside my head and they seriously need to fly the nest for good!

Someone who has not gone through a stage of depression cannot possibly understand how helpless a person can be against it. I swear if one more person tells me to pull myself together I’m gonna go all old-school Power Rangers on ’em!

“Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent” ~ Marylin Vos

So this year my resolution is going to be to kick this things butt once and (hopefully) for all.

Now I know I can’t do this alone and thankfully I don’t have to. I have a fantastic network of friends who are so supportive and helpful it is unreal! I even have people I consider friends who I have never met and probably never will meet! The internet is a fantastic place and given half the chance I would go all Serial Experiments Lain and abandon this carbon based life of mine for something more silicone. But then that is not really much of a good thing is it?

So, how am I going to get myself out of this rut? Well, I’m going to post here more often, even if that means writing something completely pointless. A friend showed me a fun little website called Mystery Seeker, a bizarre form of Google, and suggested that I type in my predominant emotion at that time and then write a bit about whatever that comes up with.

Another thing I am going to do is a funky little self confidence booster that another online friend put me on to. I’m going to get myself a pretty little glass jar and every time something good, fun or downright amazing happens I am going to write it down on a scrap bit of paper and put it into the jar. Then whenever I am feeling low I can open up my little jar of amazing and see just how many great things really do happen.

It is human nature to focus on the bad things. I see it all the time at work with every email that comes in being about a problem that a customer is having. If you have a bad experience you tend to tell a whole bunch of people about it yet a good experience never gets passed on. You only have to look at a newspaper to realise this. So I’m going to focus on the good things and tell everyone I can about this. Even if it does mean that my twitter page things I’ve gone completely mad.

/)*(\

 

To complete a project!

Blimey does it feel good to actually finish something! Complicated simplicity is so close to being posted in all it’s glory over on FF.net so watch this space. 13 pages for the final chapter! So many ends being tied off and a whole load more being left wide open for the follow up! The AU has grown wider and wider so I need to re write “Whatever you are” first.

Just the spell check and final read through to go and then the biggest epic I have ever written will be FINISHED!!!!

 

Found: missing muse

It has been… 4 months (maybe) since I last worked on any of my fanfiction (not counting my entry into the competition at BUCK). But now, the mue is back therefore my fingers have been flying! The final chapter of Complicated Simplicity is nearly finished and is at the moment at about 11 pages. It is not the end of the story, but it is the end of this particular tale.

After CS is done I’m going to do a re-write on “Whatever you are, be a good one”. I’m going to put that more into Logan’s POV, maybe even 1st person. He is a major player in the story and has been very neglected so he needs some air time.

My head is so all over the place at the moment it is nice to get back into a world that I can control. I like playing God with my characters, even if I don’t really own them… I only own this version of them… kind of.

Click on the ‘Fanfiction’ tab if you don’t have a clue what I am talking about. Complicated Simplicity is 18 and over only I’m afraid. 😉

 

The age of annonymity

The internet is an amazing place thanks to the fact that it can allow anyone to become whoever they want. This of course can lead potentially to a lot of problems however for a majority of people it allows them to express themselves with more freedom than normal life allows. This is why I have created this on line persona of myself which is a whole load of batshit crazy that I don’t normally allow myself to be out in the real world.

So what happens when the line between them begins o blue? Meeting people whom I only know by user names is something that I have very much enjoyed over recent months but then I realised something. These people only know me as Orange Afterglow, and now they meet the real me. The real me is someone very different and quite possible a sufferer of a mild case of multiple personalities.

It is the thought of people knowing the human behind the pixels hat concerns me. I find myself hesitating on twitter, which not a lot of people do. What if someone sees my post and thinks it is about them? I don’t want to offend people but I have opinions and I would like an outlet for them. If I want to go on line and completely blow my top at a frustrating situation, I don’t want it to be a personal thing.

I don’t eve know what I am saying at the moment! I hate being conflicted!

 

Go Go Gadget Paitbrush!

I have finally got my DA page up and running properly and I have also opened an MLP commission thread on the UK of Equestria website. And now I have my first Commission! And it happens to be best pony too!

APPLEJACK!!!

I am so excited and it is going to be a brilliant challenge! I have done loads of full colour art before but nothing this size. Gonna take it slow and steady. Just need to find the perfect shade of orange, can’t have her turning out all David Dickinson now can we?

 

How to win friends and then gross them out!

I once again stepped out of my comfort zone and headed out into the centre of Manchester to meet up with what turned out to be a massive bunch of near perfect strangers who I only know over the internet! In all the years I have considered myself a Browncoat and an Otaku I have never done this before. Only in Bronydom!

Now going to an actual organised convention is one thing and boy-howdy was BUCK ever a thing! But going to a general gathering in the city? yikes. But I put my best hoof forwards and strutted on out to meet a load of new people.

There were one or two familiar faces here and there and after a while I managed to loosen up a bit. And by ‘after a while’ I obviously mean ‘after a few ciders’. The day went rally well just chillin’ in the park as it were, then we headed to a pub and the real fun began.

Now if there is one thing that my friends know about me it;’s that I’m a chatty drunk! I will say anything to anybody regardless of relevance to the topic being discussed at the time. The medical term is Verbal Diarrhoea and I tend to develop a very acute case of this quite quickly. I also tend to turn into a walking, talking chiche which I vaguely remember doing that night. Spouting something about how I had the year from hell (true) and ponies helped me to get through it. No idea where that one came from!!

What normally happens to me when I drink is that I get sleepy. When I start to nod off, time to go home. It seems that now the game has changed. I completely bypassed the sleepy stage and stayed on hyper and disorientated mode for quite a while until the inevitable happened. 7 pints (WOW!) of cider after I started and it starts making my acquaintance again. My problem is I cant remember anything about 15 minutes or so leading up to that point. All I remember is the act, and it’s like I’m remembering it with my eyes closed.

I have no idea who was around me at the time or who was in range. I remember being taken out of the club and sitting down on some steps outside and turning down every offer for a taxi that was thrown my way. I had a tram ticket and I was damn well gonna use it! One of my boys, as they are now being known as following a few hours of erratic swaying and very bad singing, walked/carried/supported me to the tram station and put me on the tram. I was fairly coherent at the time, well, enough so that I would operate my touch screen phone to call for a lift and not end up with 30 anchovy pizzas.

I am rather ashamed of myself. I have always been super critical of people who go out and binge drink and now that is exactly what I have done. People have been telling me that I shouldn’t apologise but I’m sure they are just being polite. I mate a complete fool out of myself in front of a whole bunch of new people I really like and I’m supposed to me 27!!!

Ok, yes! I’m a 27 year old who watches My Little Pony, I know what you are thinking, real mature. Well I happen to think it is! So there! Nanny-nanny boo-boo stick your head in doo-doo!

I am very very thankful that this group of strangers has turned out to be a bunch of people that I could rely on when in a very vulnerable state. I even made it home with my brand new Dr Whooves plushie still in my bag!