Author: The Shameful Narcissist

The State of the Writer: 1/24/21

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<–The State of the Writer: 1/10/21         The State of the Writer: 2/7/21–>

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

Finished Projects: 1

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Setting up notes in Scrivener

I wound up making a checklist of things I want to do in Scrivener before I start writing.  This was after I went through all of my old notebooks for any scribblings specifically related to the WIP like the stuff involving language and demographic background.  The checklist happened because I wanted a way to catalog what I still needed to nail down before I begin writing (plus I work better with checklists/to-do lists), but I also feel like I’m nearing the point where I just want to start and then figure things out as I go.

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The Broken Rose: Chapter 4 – Helpless

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Update: This year is already better for many reasons, but for me especially there’s more art from Bethany to grace my eyes.  I feel like we’re our own worst critics, and it’s for this reason and many fellow creators need to show love.  I adore the lighting on the piece at the end of the chapter, especially with the ocean out the window.  Words can sadly not capture my feelings for Aeris’ expression, so I’m afraid you’ll have to look.  As always, you can find her work on Art Station, Deviant Art, and Twitter, so please follow here there!

The Broken Rose Page

<–Chapter 3                                                                                                    Chapter 5–>

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII, its characters, and settings are all property of Square Enix so I can take no credit nor claim any ownership of that. I do take some credit for the story’s plot.
Banner Artwork Disclaimer:  The featured artwork for the banner is entitled White rose I and was created by the very talented Deviant Artist RemusSirion who was gracious enough to grant me permission to use it here.  The picture has been slightly altered from the original. All rights belong to the artist, and links are included for both the artist page and the work.
Chapter Artwork Disclaimer: The featured artwork for this chapter is entitled Aerith Gainsborough.  It has been slightly altered from the original.  All rights belong to the artist, and a link to the location has been included.

*******MAJOR CONTENT WARNING*******

Consistent and sustained graphic descriptions and mentions of rape/ sexual assault, sexual slavery/bondage, slavery, human trafficking, physical abuse, graphic descriptions of violence, mental abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, body shaming, starvation, torture, forced pregnancy, forced childbirth, miscarriage, forced miscarriage, abortion, and other potential disturbing and triggering topics.

Unable to walk or even crawl, Aeris is at Sephiroth’s mercy.

00-chapter-4-helpless

A painting of Aeris/Aerith sitting in the corner of what appears to be a cell with her back against a cracked and holed brick wall. She has her knees pulled up with her arms crossed on top of them. Her legs and feet are bare. Her head is laid in her arms hiding her face. She wears a pink ribbon in brown hair and also appears to be wearing a pink dress/robe. She sits in a shaft of light, and there are pink flower petals strewn around the floor of the cell with some on Aeris’s feet. “Chapter 4 Helpless” in pale pink is above and slightly to the right of her.

Every day Sephiroth knocked on the door, steeling himself against whimpers.  Then he would ask, “May I come in?”

And “Yes, master…” would be the reply.

The hush of the sea would frame his arrival as surely as split emerald light.  Silently silver and pale angel face with dark leather draped around.

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The State of the Gamer: 1/14/21

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<–The State of the Gamer: 12/31/20           The State of the Gamer: 1/28/21–>

A weekly post updated every other Thursday 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 Purchased

Nothing this week.

What I’m Playing

Title: Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight
Series: Etrian Odyssey
System: Nintendo 3DS

Cover of Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir KnightDate Started: 9/7/20

I think I played this once in the past two weeks.  I leveled my characters up to 50, and I was going to give the boss another try just to see the best strategy, but it was late by the time I got to level 50 so I left it for the next session…which hasn’t happened yet.

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The State of the Reader: 1/13/21

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<–The State of the Reader: 12/30/20         The State of the Reader: 1/27/21–>

A biweekly 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.

Purchased: 11

Total: $133.14

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The State of the Writer: 1/10/21

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<–The State of the Writer: 12/27/20         The State of the Writer: 1/24/21–>

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

Finished Projects: 0

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Setting up notes in Scrivener

I have reached the obsessive stage of my language creation lol.  I think I’ve found a pattern I like though, and I also think I can move on and back to other things while still working on this on the side.  I still have numerous items from my notebooks to work in, nor have I figured out some of the integral details of how the world operates.  It’s more hashing out how things work so that I can be consistent when I finally start to write.  Plus I want to go back to finding pictures of beautiful people lol.  I’ll start posting the ideas I have for the other characters, too.

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The State of the Gamer: 12/31/20

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<–The State of the Gamer: 12/17/20           The State of the Gamer: 1/14/21–>

A weekly post updated every other Thursday 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 Purchased

  • Calico – $11.99 @ Nintendo eShop
  • What Remains of Edith Finch – $5.99 @ Nintendo eShop
  • Final Fantasy IX – $10.49 @ Nintendo eShop

One of my friends reminded me about Calico on Facebook, and I immediately went to check it out/buy it.  The graphics are…a bit rough, and the controls are a little weird, but who gives a fuck YOU GET TO PET ALL THE ANIMALS.

I’ve seen What Remains of Edith Finch (it’s actually how I found about about The King in Yellow from a book on the grandmother’s shelf), but it was hard to turn down a copy for such a low price.  Plus I do like to both play and watch a game before I review it, and I’ve seen both it and some of the analyses of the same.  With those in mind, I want to go through it again.  Plus, it’s just an excellent game.

Snagging FFIX for the Switch has always been a planned move, and it was half off for year end so I just went with it.

What I’m Playing

Title: Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight
Series: Etrian Odyssey
System: Nintendo 3DS

Cover of Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir KnightDate Started: 9/7/20

Still haven’t picked this up, but I might tonight.  I’ve been thinking about it, and I definitely still want to finish it.

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The State of the Reader: 12/30/20

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<–The State of the Reader: 12/16/20         The State of the Reader: 1/13/21–>

A biweekly 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.

Purchased: 1

Books Finished: 1

Title: As You Like It
Author: William Shakespeare
Date Added: March 6, 2018
Date Started: September 3, 2020

Cover of As You Like It by William ShakespeareMedia: eBook/Kindle

I only had like one page left to read of this and finished it last session.  It is such a comedy in both the Shakespeare and “there are only seven types of plot” sense i.e. everyone gets married.  Oh and “rags to riches,” too, as the usurper duke finds Jesus, sees the error of his ways, and gives the old duke back his position.  There was a review on Goodreads that literally summed it up thus.   I still need to look up my own summary to make sure I didn’t miss anything, but this was one of Shakespeare’s easier plays to follow (despite the convoluted irony of Rosalind pretending to be Ganymede pretending to Rosalind, which frankly was hilarious), so I’m just doing that as a formality.

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The State of the Writer: 12/27/20

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<–The State of the Writer: 12/13/20         The State of the Writer: 1/10/21–>

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

Finished Projects: 2

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Setting up notes in Scrivener

Whew…creating a language is time consuming lol.  My plan was always to expand on what I’d initially started in The Serpent’s Tale, my first (and still unpublished) novel that this one borrows heavily from.  The male MC is a polyglot and fully fluent in the language of his background, and I’m kind of a doer when it comes to writing aka show vs. tell I suppose.  You can’t just say someone speaks a different language and not have them speak said language (it’s the same way how I had to literally show he’s an assassin by, uh, having him kill some people lol).  I made up more words in that language, which is called Rava, than any others, and it’s the only one where I even attempted grammar and syntax.

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The Riddle of the Wren by Charles de Lint (DNF)

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Title: The Riddle of the Wren
Author: Charles de Lint
Date Added: August 24, 2014
Date Started: August 26, 2018
Date DNF: September 5, 2018
Reading Duration: 10 days
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult (YA)

Cover of The Riddle of the Wren by Charles de LintPages: 295
Publication Date: 1984
Publisher: Firebird
Media: Paperback (Library)

Minda Sealy is afraid of her own nightmares. Then, one night, while asleep, she meets Jan, the Lord of the Moors, who has been imprisoned by Ildran the Dream-master-the same being who traps Minda. In exchange for her promise to free him, Jan gives Minda three tokens. She sets out, leaving the safety of her old life to begin a journey from world to world, both to save Jan and to solve “the riddle of the Wren”-which is the riddle of her very self. “The Riddle of the Wren” was Charles de Lint’s first novel, and has been unavailable for years. Fans and newcomers alike will relish it.

The Riddle of the Wren is the type of old school fantasy novel I would’ve devoured in my younger, high school days.  Published in 1984, it’s exactly the thing that would’ve caught my fancy, and while I started reading Charles de Lint during that time, I cut my teeth on his later works, and this one flew under my radar.  You can definitely tell he was a fledgling author in this novel, and it turns out Riddle is his first.  Like so many books of that era, it begins with the locale’s description before it gets to the main character.  It does fascinate me how the conventions of writing change through the decades, and what was acceptable and expected then would earn an immediate rejection now.

Both the main character Minda and her best friend Janey are likable, and the trope of Missing Mom/Dickhead Dad is strong with regards to the former.  Janey’s description leads me to believe she’s a WOC, too, so score one for de Lint being inclusive even back then.  Minda’s father Hadon blames her for her mother’s death even though she didn’t die in childbirth (not…that that would make it valid either), but rather when she was between one and two.  Arguably, of course, women can still succumb to complications even after that length of time, but either way Hadon is still a jackass.  Minda has a paternal uncle who would be a much better father than her bio, but even if she did manage to escape, Hadon would just “drag her back,” and apparently Tomalin, the uncle, would let him.   While Hadon isn’t nearly as abusive to his daughter as the father in Deerskin *shudders* we do not diminish abuse by those degrees.

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The State of the Gamer: 12/17/20

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<–The State of the Gamer: 12/3/20           The State of the Gamer: 12/31/20–>

A weekly post updated every other Thursday 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 Purchased

  • Cars 3: Driven to Win  – $7.99 ($29.99 original price) @ Nintendo eShop
  • Curious Cases – $3.99 @ Nintendo eShop

What I’m Playing

Title: Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight
Series: Etrian Odyssey
System: Nintendo 3DS

Cover of Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir KnightDate Started: 9/7/20

Whenever I get kind of stuck at a part, it makes it harder for me to get motivated to play it.  What I’m trying to say is I haven’t picked this up in the past two weeks.

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