7.27.2008
Photoshop Sigs 01





I love my little Photoshop, and experimenting with it is awesome. I used a few pointers from the website www.pixel2life.com , and I think these are the best sigs I've ever made... so far. XD. I'm really getting back into photo-retouching and special effects. :D SO, without further preamble(and before my power goes out again) I present thee my latest sigs! --In answer to the question going around in your mind, yes, I am hyper today.

(EDIT: Ack, okay, the images should be on the top, now. I don't know how to make them go to the bottom. It won't let me copy/paste. Sorries if you can't see them.)

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posted by Ashton @ 4:16 PM   0 comments
7.22.2008
Chapter 2 - Preview
Unknown

Auron lay very still, knowing that if she moved, Saren would see her. She could feel the fires of Citadel Tower licking its tongue on her arm, her chest, and her entire face. The pain of it was searing, but it was dwarfed by the throbbing between her shoulder blades and stomach. Auron did not look for Saren. She lay with her eyes closed, using all of her strength to not cry out, or the effort would be for nothing. Her body began to shake. Almost as suddenly as they came, the fires died. At first, it was some sort of heaven, but then a terrible cold set over her, chilling her bones and freezing the sweat on her skin. Noveria. Cold, empty, lifeless. If anything, the cold was worse than the fire. She screamed.

Auron struggled to sit up, opening her eyes. She was in a room of some familiarity, laying on a bed right beside a desk. The walls were blue, and weak light from the artificial ones from above almost blinded her. Her hand reached for the pistil on her thigh, but there was none. Her heart skipped a beat, and she glanced around, wild-eyed, for Saren. Sweat dripped down from her forehead and stung her eyes.

There was no turian. No evil wannabe overlord coming to kill her. Her throat was as dry as sandpaper, and sharp, stabbing pains ran themselves through her stomach.

“Dreaming,” she said, aloud. The trembling grew worse. Her body, clothed in a light medical gown, was soaked with sweat, and the air from the above vent felt like a winter blizzard. She curled up on her side in an effort to negate the stomachache by some degree, but the pain only flared sickenly. She had the presence of mind to at least edge her head over the side of the bed before she choked up her last meal, whenever that had been.

“Red?”

Somebody was in the room with her. She blinked her eyes, trying to clear away the fog that had descended, to no avail. Somebody was touching her now, somebody whose hands burned worse than the fire had. She shuddered so violently that the grip slackened, just a bit, but the man continued to push her back down into a laying position. She could offer no resistance, and the man wrapped more blankets around her. The warmth grew. And grew. Sweat bathed her features and dripped from her face.

She saw again the batarian raiders on Mindoir, raiding their home and butchering her family as she hid in a tree half a mile away, and the sight of old Commander Garbold, her mentor and best friend, torn in three separate pieces on the Akuze mission.

Saren returned. This time Auron looked at him, uncaring and unafraid. “Trying to intimidate me, Saren?” she whispered.

“She’s delirious,” Saren said.

“Her fever’s spiked,” said another voice.

Auron drifted into strange dreams. She was floating on a clear lake, on water so cool it soothed the fiery, throbbing pain, save for where the sun beat down on her face and arms. She tried to lower herself further into the sweet liquid, but it was impossible. Aunt Kalandra was there, sitting in a worn-down, creaky metal chair. She realized she was not in a lake at all, but a shallow bath. “I can’t believe you,” Kalandra said. “You told Michael you’d be back five hours ago.”

“Sorry, Kal,” Auron replied. “Dunno where I’ve been… Keep having dreams. About Saren.”

“Is she going to die?” somebody asked Kalandra. Auron couldn’t see the speaker.

Kalandra didn’t answer. She was upgrading her armor. Only it wasn’t armor. It was fire. A ball of fire. “I’m worried, Auron. Michael said your kinetic barriers failed during a raid yesterday but you haven’t fixed them yet. Then you go off on your own, we’re worried sick...” She twitched the ball of fire, and she realized it was supposed to be her armor.

“I don’t want it,” she said, shaking her head fiercely.

“Over your dead body,” Kalandra snapped. “I just finished coating it was some hardening residue. Here, touch.” Kalandra rubbed the fire against her stomach, and she screamed.

Darkness swamped her. When light came again, she found herself looking at the strangest sight. A woman was hovering over her, dark gray hair and a matching jumpsuit, but floating above the old lady’s shoulders were two curious faces. One was a light blue, with wide, slanted cerulean eyes. The other was Caucasian, dark hair with his brow furrowed in what she could only suppose was anger. Both faces shimmered, as if shown over a faulty communication channel. The woman seemed oblivious to the people behind her. “Can you hear me, Commander?”

The face was familiar, but she could not place it in her memory. As she watched, the others’ face twisted into an angry snarl, and her eyes turned red with the indoctrination effect. Auron grit her teeth, fighting a sob. “I killed you,” she moaned. “I killed you!” It had to have been Sovereign. She had thought it was all over when she had fired that final shot in the Citadel Tower, and Saren had erupted in flames. But he was back, with a new, stronger woman at his side. She struggled to get up, curling one hand into a fist and striking out with a feeble biotic attempt to throw her into the wall. She merely stumbled.

One of the faces detached itself from behind her and rushed over. It was the man with the pale skin. “You’re fine, Red, it’s okay,” he whispered, taking her head into his chest. Auron screamed, arms and legs flailing in an attempt to get him off of her.

Her cries were muffled in his chest, but they were heard anyway. She heard a door open somewhere in front of her and to the right. “What’s going on?” She knew this voice. Or at least, she thought she did. It rose in alarm. “What’s happening?” Joker! she tried to yell.

The man smothering her answered. “She can’t recognize us! Stay back, she just tried to hit Chakwas!” His reply was lost with the ringing in her head, something louder than any scream she could possibly make. She struggled for air, but it was like breathing underwater. She stopped flailing her limbs, focusing on getting air to her oxygen-deprived lungs. The man released her, and she could breath again, choking and coughing air back into her bloodstream. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” he apologized.

Her limbs slumped in exhaustion, and she drifted off into more dreams.

--

End of preview. YES, it will be longer. Trust me!

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posted by Ashton @ 10:29 AM   0 comments
7.16.2008
A Second Hello
Ack, I don't really think my first message explained everything, especially since it's overlapped by my fic. :P So, here I go again in an effort to keep at least some semblance of organization.

Hi, my name is Abby. I prefer to be called Auron, Ashton, FF, SWC, or Tracyn. I know, long list, right? :P I finally figured out how to post new templates on teh blog, and the one I'm using now is my favorite. ^^ Blogger's been real awesome so far, and I think the only complication is me actually writing on my mind and then directing people to the blog. XD

I've taken Karate for five years, and I'm almost to my black belt. I hope to get it by December or so. My Karate teacher, Ms Hetchka, wants me to move on quickly because we might be moving a bit further down south. three HOURS away from my house. *dies* Karate's been awesome so far, I really love it. I'm the only girl there, though, so sometimes there's a bit too many 'dumb blonde' jokes or other things when I screw something up. (for the record, I'm not that blonde anymore. It's gone darker, thank-you-very-much!)

And the most exciting thing happened two days ago: I PASSED OUT! :D It was a bit scary at first, because I'd never done it before, but in hindsight it's really awesome. The only other blackbelt, Michael, is only two years older than I am, with a mouth like you wouldn't believe. He also likes going hard on me after I mocked him about being too scared to hit a girl (which is true, BTW. I don't think I count as a girl in his books anymore.) So he's doing a combination on me, putting me in a chokehold. It's really tight, but I can still breath a little it, but I don't because I'm afraid he'll go tighter if I do. The last thing I hear is Michael saying: "Let's wait until she has to breath again." Last thing I see is my face in the mirrors. I have no idea I'm about to pass out, but I think something's wrong when my face is completely white.

You know in dreams where you're really really disoriented and can't tell where the hell you are? Can't even remember how you got there? That's what it felt like when I came to. Nobody even noticed what happened, which was the scariest part, I think. Michael and my best friend Jake have my arm and they're trying to pull me up. My brain was real sluggish and slow to respond, and it all just looked like a slow-moving dream to me. I can hear them laughing, and then part of me remembers' hey, wasn't I in Karate a few seconds ago?' Then I realize that I'd better get up, and I do. Ms Hetchka is watching me from the sides. I'm asking Michael "What happened? What'd you do to me?" and he says he did 15 combination. And then I realized that I passed out, and THEN it got real scary. If you haven't passed out before, it feels like you're waking up from a deep, deep sleep. Something I haven't had since I was in 2nd grade. :P The only people who know now are Jake, my dad, another adult in the class, and my cousin Ian.

I didn't mean to go on and on about that. Sorries! But it was pretty fun afterwords. XD. I'd like to think of it as 'writing experiance.' At least now I can't screw up when I write about the main character blacking out.

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posted by Ashton @ 11:03 AM   0 comments
7.14.2008
ME2 - Prologue
The italics and stuff aren't there due to formatting errors on the blog. Sorries!

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

--Robert Frost

.01 - FROM THE WRECKAGE

----


Citadel Tower

Auron Shepard stood in what should have been a triumphant moment, staring down at the blackened grass where the avatar of Sovereign had gone up in flames not a foot away. Breathing heavily, a SpectreStock pistil humming faintly in her hand alongside a rather large shotgun, she focused on the tiny rivulets of sweat running lightly down her face and finding their way down her back, the throbbing pain in her left shoulder, the cauterized wound on the same arm, the way her leg seemed to pulse with her heartbeat. Anything and everything other than the spectacle before her.

She imagined she could still see Saren’s mutilated body there, meatless bones reaching for her ankle as if he could bring her down to the abyss with him. As if he could forcibly make her rot in hell with him.

Shepard had seen death by multitudes in her life, but the sight of Saren’s--Sovereign’s--corpse unnerved her for reasons she didn’t even want to consider. Hands trembling, she collapsed the pistil and hung it in its holster, where it would stay, conceivably, for the next five minutes until the geth led a suicidal follow-up attack. She wondered if she’d even have the strength to fight back. The room was swimming.

A curious wave of emotions washed over her, tangling themselves around her in a web. Relief, regret, anger, sorrow... pity? Saren had been her nemesis, enemy, antagonist. Manipulator. A normal person, she reflected distantly, would’ve been happy for the death of somebody like that, but since when did she ever have normal human reactions? She was only beginning to fully grasp the fear, indecision, and pain the turian must’ve been going through during their tireless hunt. He’d fallen for the Reaper’s indoctrination like everybody else in his army. Like the salarians at Virmire. Only now did she understand that she didn’t hate Saren the person--she’d never known the person--but that she hated Saren the tool. She hated his weakness. His lack of strength. If he’d held out, if he’d known... maybe Ashley would still be alive. Maybe a lot of people would still be alive.

Two days ago, if somebody had asked her who she wanted to kill more, she wouldn’t have hesitated. But now... Somehow, she’d never imagined the turian to be somebody who would kill himself to save the galaxy. It was... scary. Very, very scary. And it forced her to take a look back to see just exactly how much Saren might’ve cared. After Sovereign and Saren found each other... maybe Saren was misguided at first, but Anderson had told her how cruel he had been even as a Spectre, so it was a misguided hope. But hate and savagery were easy enough to control once the manipulator knew the trigger points. The humans had been a strong one.

‘Together we can stop Sovereign!’ Shepard had said, a lifetime ago, on Virmire. ‘We don’t have to submit to the Reapers--we can beat them!’

‘I no longer believe that Shepard,’ he’d replied. ‘The visions cannot be denied. The Reapers are too powerful. The only hope of survival is to join with them. Sovereign is a machine. It thinks like a machine. If I can prove my value, I become a resource, worth maintaining. There is no other logical conclusion.’

Anger. She remembered the ice cold anger freezing the blood in her veins as she spat, ‘You were a Spectre. You swore to protect the galaxy. Then you broke that vow to save yourself.’ Disgust.

‘I'm not doing this for myself. Don't you see, Sovereign will succeed. It is inevitable. My way is the only way any of us will survive. I'm forging an alliance between us and the Reapers, between organics and machines, and in doing so, I will save more lives than have ever existed. But you would undo my work. You would doom our entire civilization to complete annihilation, and for that, you must die.’

She reached down and brushed her fingers over the charred, blackened grass. You can sleep now, Saren. Thank you. Drawing a long, shaky breath, she stood and hooked the pistil on her side, and swapped the shotgun to her right hand.

...save more lives than have ever existed...

The ache returned, twisting oddly in her chest, accompanied by an unwanted vision in her mind. Wrex. She found him, bloodied and mutilated, literally shredded to pieces by a grenade he’d stood too close to. He was barely recognizable, but still alive when she had gone to him. Her mind had been unable to process the sight at first - I told him to fan left! - but the reddish-yellow hue of his skin set him apart from the other krogan mercs.

Immediately she had taken out her MediGel, pooling it together with Garrus’ stock to smear it all over his wounds. She had begged, pleaded for him to hang on. ‘If you die I can’t bring you Saren’s head’, she’d said, trying to keep her voice level and calm. She wanted to scream. He hadn’t responded, which was the most worrying of all. Could krogans fall unconscious? Finally, she ordered Vakarian to take him to Doctor Chloe Michelle’s office in the Wards. She still remembered the incredulous expression on his face, but he had taken one look at the fire smouldering in her eyes and had complied without question. Perhaps he knew that she would forsake the mission in order to save the krogan’s life. She’d certainly never leave him when there was a good chance he’d survive.

If I left him to die when there was a chance to save him... what would that make me? She didn’t know.

‘If I die,’ she told Garrus firmly, not bothering to add that she probably wouldn’t make it anyway, ‘then I need you to carry on the search. Don’t let the Reapers through.’

‘I won’t,’ he’d promised. ‘Commander...’

‘Take care of him!’ She had already been running, determined to double Wrex’s marks on Saren’s worthless turian hide.

And then finally finding Saren. The epiphany as she realized how pathetically far he had come. All for nothing. She’d talked and reasoned with him, urging the seeds of doubts that had grown in his mind to sprout into thorn bushes. But she hadn’t expected the indoctrination to run so strongly. But why was I surprised? was her question. She should have expected it. Benezia had chosen the same route. Why should Saren had lived? What made him so special.

‘Goodbye, Shepard. Thank you.’

Saren - dead.

Watching him put his pistil to life and pull the trigger didn’t have the satisfying tenor it might have when Wrex was injured. It had... shocked her, to say the least. Mortified her. She had taken no pleasure in popping another round in his skull, just to make sure it wasn’t an act. The awful squashing sound it made...

She shook her head as if to clear the dark images away--plenty of time to look at it in hindsight later, when she was sure Wrex was okay--and started to turn towards the small maitnence ladder, intending to climb up and fight her way to the Wards as quickly as possible. She wondered, distantly, if Garrus could manage carrying the turian in normal gravity. It was another two seconds before she realized that something was very wrong.

She turned around, pistil raised without conscious thought, and glanced around quickly for any sign of double cross. Had Sovereign faked Saren’s final death?

Her eyes were immediately drawn to the window overlooking the dogfight between the Reaper and the Systems Alliance. Sovereign could be seen now, claw-arms frantically searching for something to hold on to and finding nothing. He looked like a beetle on its back, and she wondered if killing Saren had some effect on the giant of a ship. The concentrated effort of the entire Arcturus Fleet finally seemed to be taking some effect, it seemed, and Shepard unconsciously walked closer to the large window, eyes widening in anticipation. He’s almost down! she realized, a faint hope beginning to brimmer on the edges of her mind. “Come on - come on - come on!” she whispered, hands tightening unconsciously into fists at her side.

---------

The Normandy

“It’s shields are down, now’s our chance. Hit it with everything we got.”

Admiral Hackett’s command was music to the ears of every trigger-happy Alliance pilot out there. Suddenly there wasn’t a lot of moving, but a lot more shooting. And it was taking damage!

Joker felt a feral grin widen his face as he cut power to the auxillery thrusters and charged up the latest and greatest tear-jerker the Normandy packed. “Hard on my flank, I’m going in!” he snapped, trying--and succeeding--to keep his voice light and military style. He brought her around hard and hit the power, thrusters burning at maximum. Alliance ships flashed by him, totally focused on destroying the Reaper below.

Beside him, Kaiden Alenko hit the release button.

The blast-tinting helped the eyes take in the bright blue ball of element zero energy, but Joker would’ve preferred it without. He was sure he could’ve maneuvered around the Reaper blindfolded with the adrenaline rush he was feeling now. The missile cut through the Reaper’s underside like jelly, and Joker let out a single ‘HA!’ in triumph as he brought the ship down and around.

“Think we hit something critical!” Kaiden crowed. “Ha ha!”

Joker chuckled, swinging the Normandy around to get a good view at the damage. The entire underbelly of the Reaper had exploded with the stress, spewing debris and wiring into the empty space around it. The second explosion only followed a millisecond later, erupting from the inside of the command matrix and finishing the thing off for good. Behind him, the crew cheered. High fives were exchanged over tech consoles, dry, joyful sobs from others. Joker would’ve joined in, if he hadn’t noticed something a bit wrong with his plan.

Oh, no.

“I think we hit something critical,” he muttered, horror struck.

---------

Citadel Tower

Shepard’s whooping screams echoed strangely in Citadel Tower, but she didn’t care. Tears spilled over the corners of her eyes, misting her vision, but she clapped anyway. You did it! she thought. She laughed hysterically, leaning against a tree for support. She punched the air with her good arm. “Woo!” she yelled, a seven-year-old cheering for her favorite football star.

And then she noticed the danger, and her grin completely faded. Uh oh.

Outside, propelled by the blast, a third of Sovereign’s claw-arm had filled up the entire visual area. She lost sight of the fleet completely before she realized that nothing was going to push it away any time soon.

So stupid. She shouldn’t have gone foreword like that. She should’ve gotten up the maitenence ladder first before watching. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Can’t fix stupid. Right. She turned tail and began to run for the ladder, but it was closer than she’d realized. She never even got a quarter of the way there.

It crashed through the Tower wall with a deafening collision of metal-on-metal, and she was thrown face down on the floor, landing painfully on a few rocks in the artificial pond. Something hit her really, really hard, and the darkness was sudden... and absolute.

---------

Now what, Auron?

Somebody asked you, once, about the logic of breaking an oath to keep it, but you’re not sure whom. Maybe it was one of your men. Maybe it was Ashley. Maybe it was your own question to your mother, as you sit next to her on Mindoir and hand her the ammunition rounds your father used to hunt wild gdaan up the trails. You don’t remember what your answer was, if you had one at all.

What does that make you, then, if you betray everybody you’ve known, trusted, and loved? Even if it’s for their own good? You’re still a traitor. A fancy medal wouldn’t change that. You deserve death. Maybe you have it here, under the wreckage of the thing you fought so hard to destroy. You’re a soldier, you expect to die fighting. It’s how the game is played. Death scares you now. But it shouldn’t. You know you never want to fight again. You can’t. You can still hear them screaming from last time. How can you fight with the screams?

Still screaming. Screaming your name, torturing you with their cries of despair. You can even make out some of the words. You shy away. “I found her!” you hear them yell. You’re under water, you can’t yell back. Shut up! you want to scream, but the words won’t come out. They stay locked in your throat. You know even if you tell the voices to stay quiet, they won’t stop. They never stop. They’d just pester you more. So you stay quiet, come what may. You’ll take your torture like a soldier.

Some of the pressure is removed from your back, sparking a thousand different sensations of pain along your spine and ribs. A high keening sound catches your ear, coupled with air moving out of damaged airways and a slight tickling in the back of your throat. You’re screaming. The sound trails off into a whimper, only because it hurts too much to scream anymore.

You can’t be dead. Death wasn’t supposed to hurt.

“Auron! Can you hear me? Say something!” The voices have hands. They turn you onto your back. That just hurts more. “Commander!”

Stop. Please stop.

“Medic!” Strange. Why is the voice worried for you? You haven’t done anything to earn anybody’s respect. You’re a traitor.

Hands on your face now, wiping away hot, sticky liquid clinging to your bare skin. It hurts there, too. Wrex, you try to whisper. You don’t know if you did or not. Somebody is sticking something down your throat. A tube? Fresh air pumps through your lungs, and you take it in gratefully. Your chest hurts as your lungs expand, but you can’t stop the flow of air. You can’t even slow it down. And it feels so good. Why wouldn’t you?

Somebody opens your eye and shines a light in it. You force it closed, and they don’t do it again. You don’t want them to.

“Bad concussion, Captain. We need to move her now.”

Somebody replied, indistinct. You force yourself to open your eyes, but even the low lighting shoots pain darts into the back of your head. You don’t care. You don’t want them to move you. You know if they move you it’ll only hurt more. No, you try to croak out. They heard. You can feel their eyes focusing on yours. You can’t see them.

You realize you can hear what they’re thinking.

And it scares you.

“Auron? I’m here, Red, hold on. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

This voice you could have picked out among thousands. You roll your eyes blindly to seek it out, but your lids are too heavy. They drop, and all sense of coherancy leaves you.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: How'd you guys like it? Hate it, love it? Tell me what you think! :D

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posted by Ashton @ 2:54 PM   0 comments
7.11.2008
Hi, guys!
Hi, guys. :D My name's Ashton, and I enjoy a lot of fun things. I'm OBSESSED with a wonderful game called Mass Effect, and two great bookseries called Twilight and The Host. I haven't RPed around a lot. I guess it's gotten kind of boring lately. Nothing to do -- ever -- and hanging out with the same group day after day on a dead website's sorta killed my socialiality. Wonderful, right? [/sarcasm]

I have a big family, and a new cousin just got added to it! *dances* Her name's Alix, and she pees, poops, eats, cries, pukes, sleeps, and burps just like any other baby. It's funny watching her puke on Uncle Franks. *cackles*

Me and my two younger cousins (Ian is 9, Allison is 6) wrestled Frank yesterday. I've taken Karate for five years and he STILL beat me. Cudos to Frank, he drew first blood. XD
posted by Ashton @ 2:42 AM   0 comments
 
About Me


Name: Ashton
Home:
About Me: I'm a geeky person at the bottom of the food chain. I love writing a lot, and I hope to get a book published one day. I RP, I play games, look up music videos, play with my dogs, etc. Photoshop is fun, too. ^^
See my complete profile

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