Re: Avatar of Victory

I'm branching out a little from HP fanfic, and wanted to give this a try, given how much I enjoyed the hell out of the Mass Effect trilogy back in the day.

Question for those who've read it: I'm just into the first few chapters, but does it get less rehash-y? So far it's reading like a novelization of the game, albeit with the twist of Jack being there right away. I'm finding that the biggest thing I'm getting out of it is that I need to play Mass Effect again.

So, for those who've read it an enjoyed, what's the long-term draw here? I mean it's 1,500,000 words; that's an investment of time.

 

In some ways it never fully departs from canon, but it adds layers of depth that draw upon the Spirit World form A:TLA that really create a fantastic story. What I mean by this is that while the big 'checkboxes' of the games still happen, the reason why they happen, and the way that they happen diverges a lot from canon. Everything to do with the Reapers is absolutely fascinating in this one, and there's more than enough change to make it worthwhile in my opinion.

 

Just wanted to confirm that Avatar of Victory is pretty damn good. The first two chapters had me teetering on the edge of stopping - mostly because I know nothing about Avatar, and the way people like Ashley Williams are couched in Avatar terminology was confusing, and the characters don't really start getting developed until the story adds Tali and Liara to the mix.

However, Ferros sealed the deal for me. Shepard is frustratingly but compellingly self-sabotaging, Wrex is awesome, etc. The spirit world/Avatar/bending stuff I had no reference for, but the story does a pretty good job of getting you familiar with it. Although I do still find myself getting a little confused whenever they talk about Earth's history - there's some joke about the moon getting turned into a fish that went over my head, and they talk about people being from the "Fire Nation" (that's not really a thing, is it? Please tell me Avatar doesn't really have a place called the "Fire Nation.")

I polished off Chapter 12 last night, and as I was bringing up the new one I noticed there are about 50 more. Oh, right. 1.5 million words. This is going to take over my life for a week, isn't it?

 

The spirits of the moon and tides manifested as koi fish and reside in an oasis at the North Pole.

Yep. There's the Fire Nation, Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom and Air Nomads. Legend of Korra adds Republic City to that mix, and there's these smaller civilizations like the Sun Warriors and those sandbenders.

I tried reading Avatar of Victory some time ago, but couldn't make it past the first few chapters. I remember disliking Shepard a lot, and I think Jack was thrown in early on for some reason and I hated that too.

 

No can do. Avatar!Earth is split into 4 countries/peoples (Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads) based on the element that the citizens are able to manipulate. The Avatar is the only person who can manipulate all 4 elements and once they die, they're reincarnated and born into the next country in the cycle (in the order above).

Also, the thing with the moon turning into a fish or whatever is because in the series, the moon spirit is literally a koi fish that hangs out in a pond in a lush oasis in the heart of the North Pole (no, it doesn't make sense but roll with it). At one point during the cartoon, Admiral Jackass has the bright idea to kill it, which destroys the moon and promptly starts the apocalypse (which the protagonists manage to barely stop a little bit later).

 

Yeah, I was right there with you. I almost quit as well, but It Gets Better. Mainly, you start getting a sense of where the plot has diverged from canon (and things like Jack being on the Normandy from the start begin to make sense.)

Shepard also gets more sympathetic. Not only do her actions and attitudes start to make a bit more sense, but she starts to pull up (at least a little) out of her full-on dickhead Renegade persona as the story goes along. I can't really say for sure, since I'm in the early stages, but it seems like one of the broad, long-term arcs is bringing her up out of that nosedive.

Case in point, I just finished the Noveria arc, and she saved the Rachni queen rather than killing her. I wasn't expecting that - I was bracing myself for it to go the other way, which would have been bad. I've never been able to do it on my various playthroughs of the first game, even when I was consciously trying to be a dick.

I'm sure it makes sense in context, and I have no problem rolling with it as long as it doesn't impinge too much on the Mass Effect plot.

 

So, the Of Sheep and Battle Chicken sequel has had like 3 updates cranked out in the last few days, and I'm finding myself enjoying this interlude more than I did like, the entire first half of OSABC. Probably because a lot of the angst has been character developed away. World building still great, writing still great.

Anyone think it should be put up for review?

 

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10602465/1/Biomass-Effect

All life on Earth had been consumed by Blacklight. With no Biomass to feed on, Blacklight had to evolve, adapt, and grow. Now a collective Council of Aliens discovers the existence of such a life form. How do the aliens see a form of life that is viral, how they deal with it, what are the consequences to the galaxy of such a race existing at all.

It's quite good. It's not a HFY!fic. Also, the Council is not stupid and the First Contact War was really well done.

It really makes you feel like the Blacklight is an all-consuming eldritch abomination.

 

Found this one a day ago and couldn't put it down:

Living an Indoctrinated Dream
By: Aberron
Sending Shepard back in time? Inefficient. Unlikely to produce significant changes to timeline. Sending the Illusive Man back in time? Difficulty level has increased. Jack Harper, The Illusive Man, is back where it all started. New Cerberus, New plan, and the Reapers watching, always watching. Sending a Hero back in time does nothing; Sending back this guy? Priceless. AU.
Rated: Fiction M - English - Illusive Man, Hannah S. - Chapters: 31 - Words: 338,453 - Reviews: 139 - Favs: 162 - Follows: 220 - Updated: Mar 17 - Published: Jun 17, 2014 - id: 10457949



And it is indeed priceless. I couldn't put this story down even when I wanted to. TIM is as much of an asshole as ever even when he's trying to be altruistic, and he makes a very good anti-hero. I even found myself liking him; well, as much as one can like someone like him. Canon gets thrown out quite early, though canon characters make appearances and cameos. Everything is still pre-game right now. Definitely worth checking out.

 

300k words for pre-game? wat. At least books?

 

Tim finds himself about 30 or so years back, before Shanxi and before Shepard is born. It's definitely not boring though.

Edit: Don't know about books - haven't read them - but people like Eva Core do make cameos.

 

I know I am a bit inconsistent with my taste but I don't really like stories in ME where Shepard is hoisted from her protag position. That is not to say I cannot enjoy stories about other characters in the ME world, I can.

One of my favourites was this story about the turian C-Sec guy in ME3 looking after the human teenage girl who is waiting among the refuges for her families to arrive from one of the colonies or there was the story where a human mother on the Citadel, after losing her husband and job opportunities after what happened in ME1 is joining a mercenary band in order to earn money to feed her young son , although I forgot which one. That one did a good job in showing the other side of a mercenary group, that it can have, and in the case of ME, probably does have multiple facets.

So, side stories about daily life or original adventures starring different characters or OCs? Yeah, I am all for it. Snippets about the game from the POV of side characters or the rest of the crew? Sign me up for that.

Rehash of the game, no matter how much world-building and stuff was added, but with a different protag other than Femshep, and I am quite unable to pass the first few chapters. Agayek's story was really the only one where I followed a maleshep story and even there I stopped reading at some point.

Stuff like that weird deus ex stuff I exited the second Shepard was sacrificed.

I know that others here prefer male shep (although why you would is beyond me) but are there any things in ME stories in particular that make you exit? And I don't mean stuff that makes you do that in general, like SI (please let us not have that discussion again). I have no problems replacing the protag for the main-story in stuff like HP or Naruto, for example.

 

Well I'm one of those people that prefer Maleshep, although tbh I usually only read crossovers. I just don't care enough about Shepard to read stories where he's the protag.

 

Why would you enjoy fem!Shep? What exactly makes it better for you over a male protagonist? Why would you even care about the gender of a character that can be either male or female?

I just dislike romance in Mass Effect stories. I'm not saying that there aren't any good ones out there, there definitely are, but it's not what I look for in ME fanfiction.

 

Yeah, I know what you mean. Usually, I don't read stories without Shepard, though this one really makes it work regardless just because of Jack Harper.

I think the thing with ME is that everything in the games is about Shepard. Without him or her, the whole plot line wouldn't really work. But with HP or Naruto...well, replace one of the protagonists and the world still works. With ME it's much more personal, mainly because all the other characters are there and doing what they're doing because of Shepard.

 

To be honest, while I primarily play a female Shepard, I haven't found many stories with a female Shepard that I like.

Stories that go way too into detail with military stuff at the cost of making me actually give a shit about the story (hello there Spacebattles). Though on the opposite side of the coin, I also hate stories where the military nature of the Normandy is completely thrown out the airlock and it feels more like a college dorm. I think those ones are mostly written by Tumblrites. You find that in other Bioware game fanfics as well.

 

There really is no easy answer for that.

On one hand, I played the games as femshep. So, my ME experience is one where I see femshep as the true Shepard, so there is that. The VA for femshep is also objectively far better. It's just more fun to play as a character whose voice is just more fun to listen to. Jennifer Hale is more dynamic, more real, more fun, more threatening etc, basically, she acts better and makes me believe whatever emotion she wants to convey. Maleshep just sounds bored and uncertain from the bits I have heard via youtube clips.

On a more subjective and unreasonable level, well, maleshep just comes across, to me at least, as a generic tough guy shooting aliens. He could be anyone else. Now, I realize that femshep and maleshep are mostly the same character, but somehow, femshep doesn't have that negative connotation and I am not sure why. Maybe it's the case that Jennfier Hale is breathing that much character and life into femshep that even the more generic and cliched tropes become just better executed or maybe it's because I haven't seen that many female characters in sci fi stories like this.

As to the romance, that depends. As a whole, yeah, romance, if one follows the ME story, should be secondary and in the background and too many people write it as the primary objective of the story and to me, that doesn't work, no matter the pairing. (although I'll admit that I dislike the idea of romancing Kaiden) All the power to those romance driven stories, and I admit, I did enjoy the occasional one (mostly as a guilty pleasure) but in general, I like those without romance or at least those where romance is in the background.

(that said, I have yet to find a fic which is shepard centric and entirely devoid of romance)

That's a good point. I have to say, I haven't found many military themed ME stories and would actually like to read more of those. After reading Of Sheep and Battle Chicken, I am more interested in the military aspects, however, yeah, a balance should be met.

Hate the stories where the Normandy becomes a love boat entirely manned by teenagers, although I don't think it is fair to blame tumblr for that one. It's not like that sort of thing didn't happen before tumblr and it certainly will happen after tumblr is gone.

---------- Post automerged at 07:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:35 PM ----------

Here is an interesting story:

The Kings in the Mountains by Seika

This is amazing, I absolutely loved it. It is a crossover with fate stay night and in a way, it is more of a fate story than it is a ME one, at the very least in terms of writing and spirit.

So, ME3, reapers are invading the earth, threatening to destroy it, so the embodiment of humanity and earth calls for her heroes to defend their home.

Various chapters deal with the reincarneted heroes fighting against the reapers. It really is not more than a few short fights but it is the writing style that sells this. Larger than life heroes, ancient and powerful, march to battle and the author manages to adapt to the style and voice of each and every one, whether it is a Greek, French, Irish or Babylonian hero.

The only reason why I am not putting it up for review is that it is so criminally short and half of the chapters are slightly reworked earlier chapters. However, the author shows that she knows her mythology and it is just a delight to read this.

It makes me want to write something like this but I am afraid I just don't have the chops for that but I would love to see other Heroic Spirits fight and the reaction of both, the humans and the aliens.

Spoiler

How do the British people feel when the Knights of the Round Table are defending them? What does a French person think when they see Jeanne D'Arc tearing through husks? Same with heroes of various other cultures such as Indian, Chinese, Turkish and what have you.

What do the canon characters such as Anderson or Hackett or Shepard feel when they see legends become reality?

it really is a pity that the story is so short, but what there is, is definitely worth reading.

 

So, this fic has engrossed me all night.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10584086/1/Asclepius-Abides

It's a story that chronicles the games from the perspective of Dr. Chakwas, in the form of a story being told to a poor soldier dying of radiation sickness after the Reapers got the boot shoved in at Earth.

It's told via flashbacks and is pretty canon-rehashy, but it's worth time. 3.5/5 ish. The Citadel Battle vs Sovereign is phenomenal and where the story currently lets off.

Fem!Shep ! Liara FWIW. It actually uses a non-fucked up Shepard that is self-confident and embraces her role as a leader, and is... dare I say nice, which is a rarity in the fandom.

 

Stuff that makes me exit ME fics? Enter Fem!Shep with uhh... Tali or Garrus or Liara or whatever pairing and I'm out.

Also, I played as Male!Shep so I view that as canon instead of Fem!shep.

 

I also played as a male but I can read stories about female Shepard, its when the author starts talking about how the female voice actor was so much better that I check out.