As I mentioned previously, I’ve converted the little python link gathering doodad I did into a command for Sublime Text 2. But, because I am an aggressive footnoter, I decided I wanted some convenience functions for footnotes. And so I made some. Hooray.
As I was writing something else, I got distracted by a common problem and threw together a quick script to deal with it. It seems like I’m pretty much the opposite of Brett Terpstra when I write; his awesome Markdown Service Tools has a service to turn a group of tabs in Safari or Chrome to a list of Markdown reference links. But for me, it’s a lot easier to write first and find links later, as a lot of the time I’m not linking to research I’m doing now but research I’ve done in the past. So usually what I’ll do when I want to link to something is simply include a link reference as I write (so, in the first link on this page, I’ve just put [Brett Terpstra][TERPstra]), and then promptly forget about them. When I finally get around to rendering the thing, I usually find a bunch of links I’ve forgotten to fill in.
I think I have, if obliquely, expressed my feelings regarding the reductiveness of the ending of ME3, and at this point I feel like things are still unfinished in that realm. While I don’t yet feel ready to write much about the ending of ME3, I do want to write about an ending.
The Mass Effect series is full of fantastic writing, and particularly of moments wherein Shepard is (and therefore we are) forced to face decisions that are realistic in their complexity, if not their content. Even the game’s paragon/renegade dichotomy speaks to this—for one thing, there’s nothing preventing a character from expressing both tendencies; for another, the tendencies align more with the “lawful/chaotic” spectrum than the more traditional “good/evil” one. In particular, the tactical decision at the end of ME1 always stands out to me: sacrifice the council to minimize fleet losses, or let the fleet be culled to an unspecified amount at the expense of galactic leadership. There is no “good” answer (let alone a “right” one); instead, you have assess the risk to the fleet, assess the comparative value of this particular group of (kind of douchey) leaders, and decide which devastating loss is less devastating. It’s that kind of tactical and moral sacrifice that is absent from the boxed ending of ME3.
There is an ending to ME3, I think, that is beautiful and poignant and expertly written and that captures the moral and tactical quagmire that is the ME universe: the sequence after the mission on Thessia.
Exciting news! My essay “A Murderer’s Work” has just been published in Issue 44 of Creative Nonfiction. It’s an honor to be published alongside the like of B. J. Hollars and Patrick Madden.
And, if I do say so myself, the typography is gorgeous.
As you can see, I’ve shifted things around a bit.
I’ve been wanting to do this for some time, inasmuch as my old site—lovely as it was, to be sure—had a few key limitations, namely:
And so. Because I am a geek, I have made things as complicated as I possibly can without having my wife kill me.
