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[Teothehun]

Due to low popularity, no new challenges will be issued. Perhaps the challenge will return in the future, but in the mean time, the short story challenge is ending.

Readers and writers, I issue to you all a challenge with the intent to test your creativity - the En Mass challenge.

The rules of the En Mass challenge are fairly simple: create the best short story you can while trying to follow the restrictions that have been presented with the challenge. Unless specified otherwise, these short stories should range from 100 to 3,000 words about anything in the Mass Effect universe. These can follow any structure, whether it be a journal, a script, a poem/song, the first chapter of a longer adventure, etc., but it must tell a story. To begin the challenge, I, Teothehun, will be the one to dictate what these rules are, though should the following grow large enough, the suggested challenges of others will be used favorably over my own. The challenge has a week deadline from the time it was issued, subject to change if popularity increases, decreases, or other factors change.

Your story, should you choose to accept the challenge, will be posted in your own thread with the addition of "En Mass" somewhere in the thread's title in order to signal that it is competing in the challenge, should be posted here so that others participating in the challenge may see it. The 'post your own thread' rule is being amended, as I've realized this is the easier system for now.

Regardles of whether you choose to write a story, you may still decide to rate them. The rating system of the En Mass challenge is only used to rate En Mass participants, and it is different than the usual forum standard which ranges chaotically from "lol 10/10" all the way to "11/10, would bang". If you choose to rate a story as an En Mass critic, you will be using a scale from 1 to 100 with 47 being the "average" score. Keep in mind, again, this scale works differently from other scales - to get a 47 is considered to be a good score, not a bad one, and will likely be the most common score given.

Critics should be clear in explaining why they are assigning the rating they have chosen, and should be careful not to assign ratings above 70 unless the story is truly memorable. Lastly, while 100/100 is technically a part of the rating system, for all intents and purposes it cannot be reached - this is creative writing, it could always be better; if someone is handing these out, they do not understand the rating system, and their criticism should likely be ignored. In the same breath, a "0" score is also impossible, even if a challenge rule is flat out ignored, because as we all know, it could always get worse.

Without further ado, let's get to this week's challenge:

~~~Week of 3/5/2013 - Unlikely Heroes ~~~

1. Your story must feature a "Mary Sue" type character. A Mary Sue (or Gary Stu for males) is a female who seems to have no flaws and excels in everything to the point where she can outperform specialists in their respective roles. It is typically bad writing to include a "Mary Sue" because perfect characters are quite boring to read about. Nevertheless, you must include a character who is flawless in every way, and she must be integral to the story somehow. The challenge lies in making a story interesting, despite featuring a Mary Sue.

2. You must include a self-insert, and they must be the central character. A self-insert is a character who is a reflection of the author. A self-insert is usually looked down upon since quite a few authors like to make their self-insert a perfect character who instantly ends up a hero with everything he/she wants. Nevertheless, you must must include a character who is a reflection of you, the author, and what you would do in the story. You do not have to name this character after yourself, but you should best illustrate your qualities/flaws.

3. Much like a Valve game, this week, there is no 3.

~~~Good luck!~~~

Modifié par Teothehun, 13 mars 2013 - 08:24 .

[Skanni]

Why, did you make this thread for me? Been wanting to post this for a while... Setting is before the extended cut version. Every kind of spoiler in this story. Not really fitting rule number one, not litterally at least.

This is my Shepard. This is my story.

Starting out as a female alliance soldier was quite the idea; what's better than go kick some alien asses with a heroine carrying giant guns and plasma granades? That's what i thought when i started ME1.

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And so I, or well, Shepard, went through the first game with a steady pace; a war hero background, willing to risk her own life on the battlefield with her vanguard skills. Yet she was no different from any other soldier: she fought to protect her allies, and proved to be brave, lucky, skillful. But she was not special.
Finding herself to save the galaxy from Saren, preventing the reapers from annihilating all organic life; it all seemed unreal, as unreal as the fact that she actually managed to pull it off and save the ones close to her... apart from Ashley. But this casualty was bearable; she was a soldier, and she was ready to die. At least, that's what she thought at the time.
And so friendship became the fuel of this newly born leader, and of course, love, passionate love that bloomed between her and Liara.


But it was not over; no, it was just the beginning. The collectors stroke, and death became her partner. Thousands of civilians died under her powerless eyes, and she started to feel overwhelmed. An oppressive feeling that weighted on her back and grew for each life she could not save. Yet she couldn't give up: for herself, for the whole Galaxy, for Liara.
The suicide mission, as it was called: playing chess with Death, continuously held in check. Managing to come out alive with her full crew and a destroyed reaper... was like daydreaming. Of course, dreams don't last.
And so time passed, she seemed to recover, and aided by her friends she felt like she was ready to face the incoming threat. But she wasn't.


Witnessing the death of the ones so close to her, witnessing Earth getting ravaged and destroyed, people dying in the millions. But she tried: oh, she tried so hard, so desperately! Everyone has to live! Everyone has the right to chose his faith! But Mordin, then Thane, then Legion; and lastly on Thessia, seeing Liara's tears for her fallen world... She broke.
It was too much for her. The pain was unbearable. But it was then that she understood: her pain came in two different types. The first was brought by the Reapers, but the second, and perhaps the greatest of the two, was self inflicted.
The frustration she felt when abandoning Earth was nothing compared to the unexplicable feeling of sadness that overcame her when she saw Liara's tears on Thessia. The same bonds that strenghtened her, where her fatal weakness. A weakness she could not allow.

Those were her thoughts when Specialist Traynor came in her cabin. Yes, she was pretty, she was charming... But she wasn't Liara. That night, tears were covered by water.

Cutting off bonds was not easy. Watching Liara's rage at the discovery of her betrayal was probably the hardest thing to do; yet the ones around her would not leave. Nobody did. They were there for her, they were ready to lose everything... Shepard couldn't allow that. Not again.
And so they followed her, deep into the illusive man's base. A few hours before the assault, Traynor came into her cabin, but Shepard's thoughts were distant. She asked her to be left alone with her own nightmares: that was her path after all. The following day, Traynor whispered: " I love you". She did not answer.

Back on Earth to fight for one last time. It was there, in the Forward Operating Base that Shepard's eyes crossed Liara's ones." I... Have a gift for you", she said. Asari mental connection. Shepard couldn't let her do it; she would have seen through her feelings, her thoughts, her sufferings!
But she was so helplessly beautiful... In an instant: the cosmos, a far away place, eternal, cosy, so perfect. She leaned towards her, resting her head on Shepard's shoulder: at last, peace.

On top of the citadel, where both dreams and nightmares come true: " You will die. And you will lose everything you have ". The ultimate sacrifice; one life, to save them all. One woman to vanquish the sufferings of a whole galaxy and make sure they never come back again.
Doomed to share the Reaper's mind and fate, she would not only die, but also lose everything that she held dear, everything that had allowed her to say: " I am alive ". A pain so much worse than death herself, it's almost impossible to comprehend.
But she had come prepared. As her body was ceasing to exist, endless tears seemed to stop time. Her thoughts ran wildly from her friend's faces, to Anderson's last words, only to rest upon that warm, blue smile...

An explosion. Then silence, and visions of hope.

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With a little bit of imagination, and one hell of a game. Now, back to lurking.

Modifié par Skanni, 08 mars 2013 - 01:42 .

[Teothehun]

Thanks for being the first to bring forth a short story - this is a new idea, and I do like to see the writings of others (I didn't want to be the first to submit a story for my own challenge). At least it sets an example, though I admit, I was expecting people to make their own threads with 'en mass' in the titles, perhaps it's better to amend that rule for now and redirect short stories to this thread.

Now then, I'd like to say a few things about the story using the En Mass review system,

The 'personal Shephard' idea might irk some (after all, playing with a character who's part of the canon is risky), but I think given Shephard's status as a player-controlled hero, the idea is passable since it could explain what goes on outside the dialogue. You also found a very creative loophole to the "self-insert" rule by adding your own Shephard, which satisfies the requirement as Shephard IS technically 'you' - I commend that creative use of the rule.

However, I have a few criticisms, and as this is a challenge, I'd like to share them. Your grammar was off in quite a few areas; enough so that it interferred with the reading. Also, you have a habit of overusing ellipses, going a bit overboard with the "...". As well, I'm not too sure if the Liara relationship was a good basis for a story, nor was it a great idea to try to encompass events from all three games in one short story.

Moreso, rule 1 of the challenge wasn't adequately met. I couldn't tell if the Mary Sue was supposed to be Shephard herself (which wouldn't satisfy the rule, since you demonstrated flaws through emotional vulnerability), or Liara or Traynor (neither which expressed the flawlessness of a Mary Sue quite well enough).

The En Mass score I'd give would be a 30. I enjoyed the read, I did, but I think there's some cleanup to do, and the rating system is not intended to give above-47 scores when a rule isn't followed.

Hopefully I've helped. The short story challenge isn't intended to be negative, it's designed to give feedback to writers while also providing a challenge to them. I'll post my own story soon.

[Skanni]

I appriciate the criticism. In all honesty i wrote this story more for personal entertainment than anything else ( which is pretty weird as i don't write much ), so the fact that Shepard does not fit your first rule is true, although if I try to envision the Shepard of my story from an outside point of view she would actually appear as a perfect soldier that fights through hell and completes impossible tasks where any other person would have failed ( I won't lie, it takes a bit of imagination and is completely up to the reader). This is a description of her mind and thoughts, where even someone as perfect as her shows weaknesses.

Also, as you may have guessed I'm not a native speaker so I apologise for any grammar mistake. If you could point them out I'll gladly correct them ( I've already changed a couple of spelling mistakes and removed some elipses ).

Thanks for your time.