I don't often read others' fanfics, but this one intrigued me, albeit in the worst possible way. It serves as a perfect object lesson about the pitfalls of writing an alternate universe store. Hew too close to the canon, and readers will wonder what the point of it being set in an alternate universe is. Stray too far from the canon, and there will be nothing familiar for them to latch on to.
"Parallel Realities" somehow manages to achieve both. It completely alters Shepard's backstory, for instance, transforming him into some über-Gary Stu from a parallel universe, and yet whole sections of the story consist solely of dialogue that's been copy-pasted from the game.
And the Stu-ness of this story's Shepard...good Lord, the Stu-ness! I realise that Shepard is something of a Gary Stu in the Mass Effect games, but this story reduces him to a textbook example of the trope (I love how he somehow manages to have ALL THREE of canon Shepard's possible backgrounds). Not only that, he displays the classic Stu trait of being the moral focal point of the story: everyone who agrees with him is right, everyone who disagrees with him is wrong. He even murders a fellow Alliance soldier in cold blood simply for making a threat he was in no position to carry out, and at no point does the story suggest that this was wrong.
Other aspects of the canon are unjustifiably mangled. Why is Tali'Zorah living in a shelter? She's an admiral's daughter; hardly someone of low social standing amongst her people. Why is she so portrayed as being so weak and pitiful compared to her canon counterpart?
But it's the ending where the story goes from being enjoyable in "What the hell is wrong with you?" sort of way to just plain egregious. The parallel universe performs a coup on the Citadel Council, because the author...er...the parallel universe believes them to be incompetent. And somehow, they expect the people of our galaxy to simply go along with this without protest or rebellion. It's at this point that Parallel Realities, having already stretched one's willing suspension of disbelief to the breaking points, completely blasts it into oblivion.
FanFic A Thoroughly Bizarre Experience
I don't often read others' fanfics, but this one intrigued me, albeit in the worst possible way. It serves as a perfect object lesson about the pitfalls of writing an alternate universe store. Hew too close to the canon, and readers will wonder what the point of it being set in an alternate universe is. Stray too far from the canon, and there will be nothing familiar for them to latch on to.
"Parallel Realities" somehow manages to achieve both. It completely alters Shepard's backstory, for instance, transforming him into some über-Gary Stu from a parallel universe, and yet whole sections of the story consist solely of dialogue that's been copy-pasted from the game.
And the Stu-ness of this story's Shepard...good Lord, the Stu-ness! I realise that Shepard is something of a Gary Stu in the Mass Effect games, but this story reduces him to a textbook example of the trope (I love how he somehow manages to have ALL THREE of canon Shepard's possible backgrounds). Not only that, he displays the classic Stu trait of being the moral focal point of the story: everyone who agrees with him is right, everyone who disagrees with him is wrong. He even murders a fellow Alliance soldier in cold blood simply for making a threat he was in no position to carry out, and at no point does the story suggest that this was wrong.
Other aspects of the canon are unjustifiably mangled. Why is Tali'Zorah living in a shelter? She's an admiral's daughter; hardly someone of low social standing amongst her people. Why is she so portrayed as being so weak and pitiful compared to her canon counterpart?
But it's the ending where the story goes from being enjoyable in "What the hell is wrong with you?" sort of way to just plain egregious. The parallel universe performs a coup on the Citadel Council, because the author...er...the parallel universe believes them to be incompetent. And somehow, they expect the people of our galaxy to simply go along with this without protest or rebellion. It's at this point that Parallel Realities, having already stretched one's willing suspension of disbelief to the breaking points, completely blasts it into oblivion.