matt_doyle

So I haven't finished playing the game myself.  In fact, I have only just begun.  However, I have already seen a lot of things about the game I found deserving of commentary, rebroadcast, discussion, and archival.  Here we go.  This covers the ending, a theory about teh ending, response to the response to the ending, and wacky hijinks.



1) A summary of many reactions to the ending.

2) A textual discussion of the problems with the ending.

3) A video explanation of the problems with the ending -- articulate, critical, on point.


4) A controversial theory that may make the ending make more sense.  But it probably isn't true or intended.


5) The Co-Founder of Bioware responds.

6) Mass Effect 3 to receive extended DLC, free.

7) Why the DLC won't fix the problems.

In-universe humor:  Concerned Batarians explain that medigel works fine on their species.

Wacky Humor:  the Mass Effect Cartoon.

I am bummed that I totally forgot to celebrate this holiday yesterday.  So anyway, here I am today.  What is IPSTW day, you ask?  It's this.  In short, it's a silly holiday for writers to celebrate the diversity and originality of the Internets by sharing free fiction!  Many famous authors participate and share a lot of cool high-quality short fiction, and seriously, you should go read those three stories I just linked.

Alas, I have no new original fiction to share with you.  Somebody really needs to remind me of this holiday about a month in advance so I remember to write you something suitable.  I will, however, give you a meme full of fictions: the AO3 Hit Count Meme.

1. ANY OTHER KEY.  57 Hits, 0 Kudos, 3 Comments, 1 Bookmark.  Haruhi Suzumiya series fanfic, unfinished AU of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.  It's my newest story, unfinished, in a small fandom.  It requires canon familiarity.  Makes sense that it has gotten very little attention.

               I was beginning to see stars. Orihime! Hikoboshi! If it were time to send you another wish, I would surely do so now! As it is altogether the wrong season, instead, please remember me kindly!

2. Knight of the Star.  559 Hits, 6 Kudos, 6 Comments, 3 Bookmarks.  Arthurian Legend -- a novella-length retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, done for Yuletide 2010.  I'm very proud of this story, but given its length, I'm surprised how often it's been read.

             There is no great adventure in speaking to a nun,” Agravaine said shortly.

3.  Sir Dinadan's Tale.  68 Hits, 4 Kudos, 2 Comments.  A short, stand-alone sequel to Knight of the Star, featuring an altogether different knight.  Fairly new, not posted for any kind of challenge, focused on an obscure character... I didn't expect this one to get a lot of attention, but it has a dark sense of humor, a riddling contest, and subtextual homosexuality.  I really like it.

             I asked the boy what I might call him, and he said that his name he guarded, but that I might call him Starling Eater, and his brothers Magpie Eater and Raven Eater. I told him that might be so, but by the end of the evening one or the other of us would be eating crow. He nodded, ever solemn, and said that might well be true, but the other would be feeding crows, which stole away some small measure of my joy.

4.  The Language of Birds.  181 Hits, 19 Kudos, 7 Comments, 1 Bookmark.  Arthurian Legend, Lancelot/Sagramore slash, for Yuletide 2011.  Only the second time I've written explicit gay sex in a story (the first is also on this list).  I like the conceit and the character in this story, and it's very loosely another tale in The Knight of the Star, although it doesn't need to be.  I'd like to go back and fiddle with this one when I have more time, though.  I procrastinated and rushed this once, and there are things I could edit.
      
             “I pray you,” Gawain said, mild, cautious, earnest. “Forbear from this game, Sagramore, or choose you your prey more wisely.”

 “Prithee, Gawain,” Sagramore responded with great cheer, “educate me: have I instructed your hunting and dictated in which manner and season you should chase hart, or fox, or boar? Or maidens, for that matter, when you are so inclined?”

5.  Untitled.  Hits: 93.  Kudos: 1.  Dragaera fanfiction, for a long-ago fic challenge.  How Noish-pa got his familiar.  If it were not for the fact that this story was written for someone else, I wouldn't have posted it.  Save for one stolen line of dialogue, I'm really not fond of this piece.

               "Old man! I grow tired of waiting!"

"Have patience, my friend," he called. "Perhaps waiting has not yet tired of you."

6.  Unsorted.  Hits: 85.  Kudos: 1.  Ultimate Spider-Man fic, centered around Gwen Stacy.  Written for a fic challenge but originally posted elsewhere, so no wonder it's gotten so little attention.  Honestly, though.  I love this one.  Pure character study, really, but I connect with it.

                  She writes down all the song lyrics that make her soar because there are truths and passions that someone out there, at least, understands, and there are other people who get angry about all the crap in the world, and there are singers who can make her cry just by talking about it. She has a little book of truths just full of all these quotes and lyrics, all without context, and it’s her goal to say things like this to people, to make them think and find meaning.

7.  ...And Silver Fountains Mud.  Hits: 165.  Kudos: 1.  Mortal Instruments fic, centered around Alec and Jace, with a little Young Wizards shoutout because I could.  Written for Yuletide 2008.  Kind of hit or miss, really.

             "Don't be ridiculous, Alec," he said. "It can't be a dragon. Dragons are extinct."

8.  The Hands-On Approach.  Hits: 75.  Kudos: 1.  Bookmarks: 1.  Full Metal Alchemist.  Why Hughes uses knives.  I'm very fond of this piece.  It was for a fic challenge back before there was an AO3, so who knows how many hits it had over its lifespan.

          "Each blade struck a vital area, incapacitating or killing the enemy," Hawkeye said, crisply, with a cadet's precision and blank expression. "But the draw time for the knives presents a crucial delay. For every two knives you throw, you could fire five shots. Your aim with a gun is good enough that you would be more efficient with it. Why choose the knives, sir?"

Hughes frowned, then made a noise of realization. "There's an office betting pool now, eh?"

9.  Non Omnis Moriar.  134 Hits, 1 Comment, 3 Kudos.  4 Comments on the old archive, too.  Mina Harker after Dracula.  Written for Yuletide 2006.  Many more comments back on the old Yuletide site.  I always call this my most underappreciated piece, however.

                  I will not sleep until the dawn comes again, if then, because I am certain that I will not feel safe until then.

 God help me, I may never sleep easily again.

10.  There's No Rainbow Bridge Across the Generation Gap.    280 Hits, 6 Kudos, 3 Bookmarks.  37 Comments, but all on the old site. Norse Mythology, Yuletide 2007.  Loki discovers starting Ragnarok isn't as simple as he expected.  I have never had as much fun writing a piece as I had writing this one.  And it was very, very well received, for which I'm grateful.

            Jormungandr reared his head. The arched coil of his neck rose twenty feet above the water, his vast shadow falling across Loki's face, his eyes wide, red, and dancing with light.

 "Hi, Dad," he said, sounding a little embarrassed. "Um. It's been awhile."

11.  Delirium.  Hits: 136.  Kudos: 2. Comments: 6 (old site).  Roland/Eddie slash, for Yuletide 2003. I guess the gay sex isn't quite explicit, but believe me, at age 19 I was quite shocked and proud of myself for writing this.  It still holds up pretty well, too.

               "Have you ever heard of Stockholm syndrome, Roland old buddy?" he asked, rhetorically.

12.  The True Death of Frank Gardiner.  Hits: 1072.  Kudos: 4.  Bookmarks: 13.  Comments: 20.  A Lovecraftian story written for Yuletide 2009.  A Filipino pearl diver is forced to explore a shipwreck.  This has literally been read more than all my other stories on the site put together.  This is, in part, because I did a good job with it, but it's also because hradzka linked to it.  Which kind of makes it foundational to my writing career (such as it is) in a couple of ways I hadn't considered.

              I have seen things under the water that no laughing sailor's tale, no matter how gruesome or exaggerated, could ever fathom.  And the most fearful thing I have ever seen is the death of Frank Gardiner.



So.  That's that.  If you read any of 'em, let me know what you think!

First, have some belated reactions to Kirk Cameron's bigotry.  The second one is especially amusing, the first more thought provoking/regular provoking.

Second, how about an interesting look at Christianity's historical support of gay marriage?

Then, some more hopeful news.  Starbucks stands by its support of gay marriage.  Gay Mormons risk excommunication to make It Gets Better videos.  Miss Universe Canada is allowing a transgender contestant to follow her dream.

More dubious or ambiguous news, at the corner intersection of religion and gay rights:  the case for Catholic acceptance.  A look at why Levitical laws against sodomy and eating shellfish don't apply to Christians.  What weight-loss programs and "ex-gay" programs say about us.  An examination and indictment of the failure of Christian love with regard to homosexuality, and one of many inspiring responses.

A moment of levity:  how does a mad scientist come out of the closet?

The Florida Family Association is terrified of Bioware games being LGBT friendly, and warns that this activism may lead to Darth RuPaula.

I don't believe anyone "should" come out if in their own best judgment they're not comfortable with it, but here's an article about lesbians coming out that makes a case.


In some more anger-inducing but unsurprising news, here's one part of the National Organization for Marriage's strategy.  I am sad that such a promising acronym as NOM is being wasted on these clowns.


Finally, last but not least and not really news:  another study confirming that people exhibiting homophobia are more likely to be repressing homosexual feelings.

 
ETA:  Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, of recent saving-people-from-fires fame?  Also internet famous for his support of marriage equality.  Booker 2016, anyone?

Subject line quoted from here.

And today, I think, it's time for a link salad with almost no politics or current events.  Instead, we have:

By which I mean, it's time for another link salad!

Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Stephen Colbert weigh in on Bill O'Reilly's "Tides Go In" meme.  This is actually a year old but I just saw it this week.

The woman suing to prevent mandatory health insurance goes bankrupt... because she's uninsured and can't pay her medical bills.  This is just sort of sad.

In a very badly written article, a cancer patient is kicked out of a hospital for using medical marijuana... apparently legally using medical marijuana... in a hospital where they do medical marijuana research?  Admittedly the quality of the newswriting in the article makes the details tricky to figure out.

Jay Lake on Christian persecution complexes.  And then, The Ferrett on Jay Lake on Christian persecution complexes.  There's some interesting stuff in the comments, too.

A Democratic state senator says what's good for the goose is good for the gander -- if women need counseling and examination to get reproductive health care, men should get cardio exams and sex therapy before they're allowed to get Viagra.  In related news, women give Virginia senators some feedback.

James Inofe, the Oklahoma Senator denying humans can change the climate, seems to have forgotten about the Dust Bowl.

That's all for today, but I still have nineteen bookmarks on my sidebar to share with you this weekend.

Mostly, things one or more of you linked me to!


Sarah Rees Brennan on Lois Lane and Nellie Bly.


Social psychologists beware -- prominent researcher admits to faking dozens of studies.

Michelle Bachmann -- still enemy of the facts.

Second Paris built during WW1.  This feels like story fodder to me.

Dogs in Moscow ride trains, cross at crosswalks, defend against wild animals.  This definitely feels like story fodder.

Stunning pictures taken from orbit.

A Minecraft documentary.

Just posted two snippets of fiction, the start of a pair of sequel-stories to The Shepherd's Rule, my western noir horror bildungsroman with werewolves in AU Spanish Utah.  They were meant to be posted under a filter, but I forgot and just friendslocked them, so what the heck.  Why not. 

Here's what I'm reading this morning:

Ways to avoid The Drain of Writing.

25 Questions to ask as you write.

Bill Maher on why the GOP doesn't understand OWS.

Is OWS Changing the Discourse?

Big Money and George W. get involved in schoolboard elections.

Notes on 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!'


While I wrote 2400+ words over the weekend, over half of that was written yesterday.

Let's try for another 1200-word day.

And a promise:  Chapter 18 of The Hellion Prince will get posted tomorrow, no later.

Busy day.  Very little thought process.  So here; have some more of my link backlog...

Some discussion of Nephilim and Enoch.

iTime -- the best sci-fi short story I've read this year.

The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor -- another story, one I haven't yet found time to read.

An excellent text-based game, put together by a friend of mine.

Lost in Time and Lost in Space -- a brief article on the Fermi Paradox.

Feeling generally creatively and conversationally uninspired thus far today, so for the moment, here's more links:  the stuff I put up on G+ today, as opposed to my email backlog.  Still looking for a way to collect G+ posts and port them over directly, the way you can with Twitter.  If anyone has an app for that, let me know!

Reading The Bible Makes You Liberal.

Herman Cain thinks Jesus is a common-sense conservative...

Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan.

Jesus Joins Occupy London.

Super Heroes and Occupy Wall Street.

Why Americans are pissed at bankers.

A German law student takes on Facebook for violations of European data privacy laws.

Radar that can see through walls.


Now, somebody hire me for a career in journalism, please.

Internet round-up for this morning includes:

A Marine Sergeant berates the NYPD for harassing protesters.

Veteran support for Occupy Wall Street.

Sorry guys, those neutrinos weren't going faster than light after all.

Asking and telling is working out just fine.

Infiltrating and informing on the 99%.

Catholic diocese charged with covering up sex crimes.


I come from a largely Catholic family (well, Catholic on one side, Episcopalian on the other; but I'm much closer to the Catholic side), but as time goes by I find the behavior of the church itself as an organization more and more reprehensible.  There also seems to be a significant disconnect in values and openness to the modern world between your typical American Catholic and the Church hierarchy.  Makes me wonder if we aren't due for another schism.  I don't know a single Catholic round these parts who actually calls the current pope by his regnal name -- everyone still just calls him Ratzinger.