Month: October 2017

Status Suspension and Final Preptober Things for NaNoWriMo 2017

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I’ve mentioned it here and there specifically in my State posts, but since it’s the last day of the month, I wanted to put up the “official” notice of my pseudo-hermitage for the month of November/NaNoWriMo.   I am going to attempt to write at least 50k words of a new story (the official NaNo stipulations), which means I need to make time to get out an average of 1667 words a day, though I’ll be writing by hand, so it’s going to be a more rough estimate.  I decided on handwritten because the last two stories were entirely on Word, and I was neurotic to the point of paranoia about losing my work.  Oddly enough, handwriting stories doesn’t take any longer than not.  It’s just a different initial stage of the writing process.

Since my three State and Final Fantasy Friday posts take hours to draft, review, and complete, they’re going on the chopping block for this month.  I’m also going to potentially cut down my reading or at the very least not pick up anything new (except for my lunchtime Kindle breaks).  I’ll still be checking comments and reading what blog subs I can on the weekend, though I’ve turned off nearly all of my notifications or attempted to…WordPress makes that so damn difficult.

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The State of the Gamer: 10/31/17

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<–The State of the Gamer: 10/24/17         The State of the Gamer: 12/12/17–>

A weekly post updated every Tuesday detailing my current gaming projects.  I have an account at Grouvee, which is a site you can use to keep track of your backlog, so please feel free to friend me there!

I’m switching things up a little bit with this status post…the week before I suspend it for a month hm.  Well, I never said I had good timing lol. RPGs and other story-like games with well-defined plot beats and a definitive ending will go here.  It also makes sense since I’m still embroiled in my (exceedingly) long term Final Fantasy play/replay project.  It doesn’t make sense to have 40+ hour games on equal footing with racing games, puzzle games, games that are ongoing (e.g. Brave Exvius), and/or ones I might do nothing but play one week, but not pick up the next.

Long-Term Game Projects

Title: Final Fantasy V
Series: Final Fantasy
Genre: RPG – Fantasy
Developer: Square
Platform: PlayStation
Release Date: December 6, 1992
Date Purchased: Unknown
Date Started: June 17, 2017

Progress: Karnak Castle

And I haven’t touched this.  I have more time on Tuesdays and Fridays since declaring Type-0 DNF…or I did in October.  I might use playing this as an award for completing my writing goals for the day.

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The State of the Writer: 10/29/17

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<–The State of the Writer: 10/22/17          The State of the Writer: 12/3/17–>

A weekly post updated every Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior week.

Finished This Week: 0

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 258,830
Prior Word Count: 259,494
Word Difference: -644
Status: Revising
Progress: Chapter 2

It almost didn’t happen this week, peeps, this final status update before NaNo, but guilt and obligation are heavy motivators.  This would’ve been a fun day if my back muscles hadn’t decided to clench around the middle of my spine on the way to my husband’s birthday lunch.  I’m glad he was driving, though I’m wondering if maybe my slouched position in the passenger seat had something to do with it.  Alas, we will never know.  I’m still in quite a bit of pain, and I’m hoping tomorrow it will be better.  Thankfully, modern medicine exists, because I’m way too busy to not go to work.  It’s been a rough couple of days.

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Final Fantasy Friday: Creepy Caverns

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Final Fantasy Friday

Hat trick of creep this week.  Bonus: it rhymes, too!  Also  reminder that this will be the last Final Fantasy Friday post until December.  I’m going to make an official announcement post about what’s going to be suspended throughout November, but I figured a reminder in the final one isn’t a bad notion either.

I’m currently recovering from anesthesia.  No, I didn’t get bionic limbs (though I did ask for them), just something weird but simple that required your favorite Narcissist to be knocked out.  Never fear, I woke up even more beautiful and amazing than ever, and when I returned home, there were offerings to my greatness at my door.  The peasants do love me ♥

I usually try to tie the week’s question with something going on, and I suppose waking up from brief, medically induced unconsciousness could be considered coming out of a dark cave so….

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The State of the Reader: 10/25/17

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<–The State of the Reader: 10/18/17          The State of the Reader: 12/6/17–>

A weekly post updated every Wednesday detailing my current reading projects and what new titles I’ve added to my to-read list.  Title links go to Goodreads, and if you have an account there feel free to friend me!  I’d love to see what you’re reading and/or planning to read.

Books Purchased This Week: 2

Title: Icefall
Series Title: The Clearsky Chronicles
Authors: Walt Stone & Mica Stone
Date Added: August 31, 2017
Date Purchased: October 19, 2017

Media: eBook/Kindle
Price: $1.99
Retailer: Amazon

Title: The Thirteenth Gate
Series Title: Dominion Mysteries
Author: Kat Ross
Date Added: October 25, 2017
Date Purchased: October 25, 2017

Media: eBook/Kindle
Price: $2.99
Retailer: Amazon

An easy buy after finishing The Daemonaic.  I thoroughly enjoyed the first book, and the prospects for this one look good, too.

Total Price: $4.98
Average Price: $2.49

Books Finished This Week: 4

Title: Death Note, Vol. 2: Confluence
Series Title: Death Note
Author: Tsugumi Oba
Date Added: September 23, 2017
Date Started: October 8, 2017
Date Finished: October 21, 2017
Reading Duration: 13 days

Media: Paperback (Library)

This volume focused more on the enigmatic L, which makes sense since the first volume did an excellent job establishing the rules of the Death Note and how it works.  Confluence stayed true to its title showing the merger of numerous factors and how the two rivals L and Light move closer together though they don’t yet know it.  What strikes me most about this series is how young they both are.  L looks like a messy teenager with gigantic eyes rimmed in either eyeliner or the need for sleep.  I’m honestly not sure which it is, though artistically, it looks more like the former.  Though Light definitely displays traits of a cold, calculating sociopath, catching him seems more like a game or diversion to L, as opposed to the polices’ reasons i.e. to stop a dangerous criminal.  I’m hoping the next book is available for pickup by the time I need to go back to library (spoiler alert: it was).

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The State of the Gamer: 10/24/17

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<–The State of the Gamer: 10/17/17         The State of the Gamer: 10/31/17–>

A weekly post updated every Tuesday detailing my current gaming projects.  I have an account at Grouvee, which is a site you can use to keep track of your backlog, so please feel free to friend me there!

Games DNF This Week: 1

Title: Final Fantasy Type-0
Series: Final Fantasy/Fabula Nova Crystallis
Genre: Action RPG – Fantasy
Developer: Square Enix
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release Date: October 27, 2011
Date Purchased: May 18, 2017
Date Started: June 18, 2017
Date DNF: October 21, 2017
Playing Duration: 124 days

Progress: Chapter 3

I decided to call it quits on this and add it to my Let’s Play list.  I realized I wasn’t enjoying it after I completed my first Elite Mission.   I don’t like the combat, though this is more than likely due to it being an action RPG, and I’m really hoping that the FFVII Remake isn’t like this.  Though on the other hand, I’m not really into Type-0’s story either, which shouldn’t be a problem with VII.  There are a lot of characters who are all Agito Cadets, but you don’t really get any story on them.  In the beginning you find out that Ace is the “best?” or something, which is what “Mother” says.  It almost seems like another attempt to replicate VII’s paradigms, but without VII’s heart. 

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The State of the Writer: 10/22/17`

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<–The State of the Writer: 10/15/17          The State of the Writer: 10/29/17–>

A weekly post updated every Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior week.

Finished This Week: 0

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 259,494
Prior Word Count: 259,807
Word Difference: -313
Status: Revising
Progress: Chapter 2

I decided to change the order of the beginning scenes in Chapter 2.  Then I changed them back after I remembered I’d chosen that order based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (which I just now decided would be the picture, because why not?).  I was going to do this long flashback bath scene after Aeris first wakes up and realizes she’s clean, but the more I though about it, the more I realized that I was right from the start.  I wrote some additional paragraphs, which I do like, so I’m going to try to incorporate them into the body of the story, but I need to put back in what I cut out.  Thankfully, I rarely delete anything plus I email myself frequently, so I have back versions of the story.  Sometimes my paranoia comes in handy (though that might not be the right term, since I have lost stories before).

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Final Fantasy Friday: The Key of Creep

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Final Fantasy Friday

In case you haven’t noticed, I am doing a sort of Halloween themed question series for the month of October, and quite a few motifs in Final Fantasy lend themselves to the frightening.  Per that vein we’re going to explicitly talk about musical motifs in asking…

What is the spookiest music?

Let me attempt to find the creepiest song in my most well known games.

Opening with Final Fantasy IV, I think “Golbez Clad in Dark” is a really safe bet.  I mean, it has both the villain’s name and dark in the title!

It goes along with the “Tower of Zot” music, too.  I have to give mention to some of the moon music: “Another Moon” and “The Lunarians.”  Anything (literally) otherworldly is a good bet for insta-eerie

For Final Fantasy VI I think it’s definitely the “Fanatics Tower.”  Discordant harmonies and regimented drumbeats are always good for a scare.

I’ll throw in “Omen” as an honorable mention, though it’s not particularly scary to me, it still follows a “horror” pattern.  Plus it sounds like gothic church music, which is also what I say about parts of “Dancing Mad,” making a nice musical bookend in VI to go along with VII’s visual and musical one.

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The State of the Reader: 10/18/17

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<–The State of the Reader: 10/11/17          The State of the Reader: 10/25/17–>

A weekly post updated every Wednesday detailing my current reading projects and what new titles I’ve added to my to-read list.  Title links go to Goodreads, and if you have an account there feel free to friend me!  I’d love to see what you’re reading and/or planning to read.

Instituting some updates/changes to this weekly update.  The way it’s currently done is too time consuming to sustain, so I’ll be removing and altering sections.  In terms of the former, the Sample section has been axed.  It’s redundant insofar as I include those books when I add them.  If I decide not to keep something per sample that will be noted; otherwise, assume if I add it to my TBR section that I’m planning to read it.

Books Purchased This Week: 3

Title: Ubik
Author: Philip K. Dick
Date Added: August 29, 2017
Date Purchased: October 13, 2017

Media: eBook/Kindle
Price: $2.99
Retailer: Amazon

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The State of the Gamer: 10/17/17

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<–The State of the Gamer: 10/10/17         The State of the Gamer: 10/24/17–>

A weekly post updated every Tuesday detailing my current gaming projects.  I have an account at Grouvee, which is a site you can use to keep track of your backlog, so please feel free to friend me there!

Currently Playing: 2

Title: Final Fantasy Type-0
Series: Final Fantasy/Fabula Nova Crystallis
Genre: Action RPG – Fantasy
Developer: Square Enix
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release Date: October 27, 2011
Date Purchased: May 18, 2017
Date Started: June 18, 2017

Progress: Chapter 3 – Expert Mission – United Front

I just started Chapter 3 and was giving access to an eidolon (Shiva I think) in addition to an optional expert mission north of the Togoreth area.  I initially walked all the way up there anyway (well, I rode a chocobo all the way up there) for another mission only to find out the prerequisite for that is the United Front task.  I’m glad it’s easy to get back to Akademia, but I wish faster travel would open up already.  I did manage to breed some war chocobos, so there’s that.  Right now nothing is attacking me while I’m on the birds, but I suspect the roaming monsters in the Togoreth region might very well do so.

I called it quits because it was almost 9:00 and I have more to do, but I think after I complete the Expert Mission, I’m going to go back and redo some of the earlier ones in order to make more gil and harvest more phantoma.  Apparently, replaying earlier missions is the only real way to earn gil in the game, according to the Google.

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