Author: The Shameful Narcissist

Northern Lights Audio Recording: Blurb

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It took nearly six months and it’s less than a minute, but I finally have a blurb/teaser for my Northern Lights Audio Recording project.  I still have some kinks to work out in regards to music.  There are songs I’d love to use, but since many of them are copyrighted, it might get a little hairy on YouTube.  I suppose we’re going to find out, since I made two versions of the blurb: one with copyrighted music and the other with music I’m going to buy the license for.  This post will contain the former (I haven’t purchased the license yet) and more favorite of the songs.  I’ve used it in my videos before.

Music

Artist: Enya
Song: As Baile

Images
  1. Sephiroth by Toximancy (Deviant Art Non-Active)
  2. Sephiroth Holding a Snowflake by Unknown Artist
  3. Sephiroth by RobasArel (Deviant Art)
  4. Sephiroth Dissidia by Sephy321 (Deviant Art)
  5. Sephiroth Sama by elsinrostro (Deviant Art)
  6. Sephiroth from Crisis Core screenshot
  7. Lucrecia from FFVII screenshot
  8. Lucrecia Holding Young Sephiroth by Unknown Artist
  9. Dandelions by Pchoppy (Deviant Art)
  10. Final Fantasy VII Aeris by Felix Liu

Now all of your curious people know what my “recording” voice sounds like 😀

James & the Dragon by Theresa Snyder (The Farloft Chronicles #1)

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Title: James & the Dragon
Series Title: The Farloft Chronicles
Author: Theresa Snyder
Date Added: February 23, 2016
Date Started: February 15, 2018
Date Finished: February 19, 2018
Reading Duration: 4 days
Genre: Fantasy, Mid-Grade/Young Adult (YA), Short Story

James & the Dragon coverPages: 61
Publication Date: June 21, 2013
Publisher: Self
Media: eBook/Kindle

What would you do if you were adopted by a dragon? When ten-year-old orphan James nearly drowns in a bog, he finds himself rescued by Farloft, a centuries old dragon with a glittering collection of treasures and an even richer collection of stories. But, dragons and boys are not meant to live together – or are they? When Laval – a wizard harboring a secret hatred for Farloft finds out about James, he sees his chance for revenge.

Farloft the dragon in instantly likable with his sound arguments and fascinating stories, although it’s unfair to ignore his nemesis, Laval’s, point of view.  The wizard has very sound reasons for hating the dragon, though Farloft’s prior actions were based on even more past experience, nor could he have known the unfortunate outcome.

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The Diamond of Darkhold by Jeanne DuPrau (Book of Ember #4)

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Book of Ember

<–The Prophet of Yonwood (BOE #3)

Note: Since this is a sequel there are spoilers for the prior book even in the blurb.  Something to keep in mind if you haven’t read the prior books and don’t want to be spoiled.

Second Note:  TSN gets (US) political for comparison.

Title: The Diamond of Darkhold
Series Title: Book of Ember
Author: Jeanne DuPrau
Date Added: September 17, 2017
Date Started: January 14, 2018
Date Finished: February 19, 2018
Reading Duration: 36 days
Genre: Mid-grade/Young Adult (YA), Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian

The Diamond of Darkhold coverPages: 285
Publication Date: August 26, 2008
Publisher: Yearling Adventure
Media: Paperback

It’s been several months since Lina and Doon escaped the dying city of Ember and, along with the rest of their people, joined the town of Sparks. Lina knows they are lucky to be there, but life aboveground is hard. Instead of opening a can for dinner, they must plant and harvest their food. And while there was no sun or moon in Ember’s sky, neither was there rain, sleet, or wind. Now, in the middle of their first winter, Lin finds herself feeling homesick for her old city.

It’s during this dark time that Doon finds an unusual book. Torn up and missing most of its pages, it alludes to a mysterious device, a piece of technology from before the Disaster. Doon becomes convinced that the Builders of Ember meant for them to find the device when they left the city, to help them in their new lives. Together, Lina and Doon must go back underground to retrieve what was lost and bring light to a dark world.

In the fourth Book of Ember, bestselling author Jeanne DuPrau juxtaposes yet another action-packed adventure with powerful themes of hope, learning, and the search for truth. 

The final installment to the series finds Lina, Doon, and the other Emberites fully integrated into Sparks so they all live as one people, but times are hard, and Lina finds herself longing for the warm familiarity of her underground home.  Doon’s discovery of the blurb’s mentioned book gives them a reason to return to the now dark and dying Ember where things don’t go quite according to plan.  There are people living there, but if squatting were still a thing in this post-Disaster world then the Trogg family would be squatters.

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The State of the Gamer: 10/30/18

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<–The State of the Gamer: 10/16/18            The State of the Gamer: 12/11/18–>

A weekly post updated every other 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!

What I Played

Title: Octopath Traveler
System: Nintendo Switch

Octopath Traveler coverDate Started: August 11, 2018

I’ve managed to snag the Starseer and Sorcerer jobs, and I’m preparing to go after the Warbringer by grinding in the Forest of Purgation.  I debated challenging the dire wolf there again, but the walkthrough I have for that suggests using Warbringer skills so I’m at least going to wait until I defeat Winnehild, which was the first I attempted to my rue.  I think I’m better prepared now, but I haven’t had a chance to hop on the sticks in about a week.  I’m hoping to give it a try tonight.

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The State of the Reader: 10/24/18

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<–The State of the Reader: 10/10/18          The State of the Reader: 12/5/18–>

A weekly post updated every other 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: 3

Books Finished: 4

Title: The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue
Series Title: Montague Siblings
Author: Mackenzi Lee
Date Added: August 18, 2018
Date Started: September 24, 2018
Date Finished: October 16, 2018

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and VirtueMedia: eBook/Kindle

This book was not remotely what I expected, and that’s a wonderful thing.  It was spectacular.  Even though it took place in the 1700’s, there was nothing occurring that’s not relevant today.  Racism, sexism, homophobia, ablelism, etc. were perfectly represented along with how people can have both privilege and oppression as well as the intersection of it to navigate, as is the case with Percy as the half-black son of an English gentleman and a woman from Barbados.  While he has wealth and the privileges that go along with that, he has more than one obstacle to navigate.  Monty showcases how you can completely not understand someone’s point of view if you insist on only viewing it through your own lens, and it was often Felicity who completely got where Percy was coming from even as she herself had some seriously problematic views about homosexuality.  None of the characters were perfect and that’s exactly what made them so.

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Later Levels QOTM: October 2018

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I’ve been following Later Levels for quite some time now, but I’ve never participated in their Question of the Month challenge usually because I couldn’t think of a good answer.  That changed with this month’s spooky query to go along with the Halloween season!

The question set for us by Megan is: In honour of Halloween, tell me what video game scared you the most. What is it about the elements, environments, music, or characters in the video game that scared you?

Without a doubt SOMA.

SOMA coverThis game messed me up for months after, and I didn’t even play it myself; I watched an LP.  While it has the customary jump scares of most first person survivals, that’s not were the horror lies.  It’s far more existential in nature, and it’s not until you reach the end that the full impact of it hits you like a truck.

It’s set 100 years in the future at the bottom of the ocean in a derelict, undersea research facility.  The world has suffered a catastrophic event where everyone on the surface is presumed to be dead, but in some cases death is far better than the alternative.  The atmosphere of the game does wonders for projected an unnerving and unsettling air as you guide the protagonist Simon through a facility as strange to him as it is to you.

That right there is where I believe the linchpin lies.  Simon is just a regular person just like anyone playing the game, and what happened to him could happen to any of us.  He’s not a space marine, super soldier, scientist, or warrior.  He’s just a regular guy from Toronto with horrible luck.  He didn’t ask to be in that situation, and though it’s utterly outlandish, it’s still not out of the realm of possibility given where technology might go.

Where the story ends is literally gutting and you sit there for minutes after the credits roll and the after credit scene has played as the horrifying realization washes over you.  You remember you were explicitly warned about it around the midpoint of the game just like Simon was, and a terrible decision you need to make as him suddenly takes on a deeper meaning.  Yet it’s not until the end that you understand the implications.  It’s an experience I’m never going to forget and that I’m still working on reviewing.

So that’s my scariest game!  Check out Later Level’s post linked above if you want to get in on the spooky action 🙂

The State of the Writer: 10/21/18

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<–The State of the Writer: 10/7/18          The State of the Writer: 12/2/18–>

A post updated every other Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 3

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 255,753
Prior Word Count: 256,723
Word Difference: -970
Status: Editing
Progress: Second edit of Chapter 12

If all goes well, I might be able to post Chapter 12 before I go on my November NaNoWriMo hiatus.  I’ve added everything I needed to the chapter and am currently doing the second edit, looking for any proofreading or flow issues.  So far things look pretty good.  I’ll probably do a third edit since I did make some changes, and I like to go over those with fresh eyes.

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