Fanfic can always save the day!

(I was going to post this on the ME3 thread, but since i thought i was going too much off topic, i decided to create another one.)

Anyway, i did a recent playthough of ME3 (just the end stages to be exact) to see the new extended cut, turns out that despite the new cutscenes they added, i still feel i am left in the vacuum, so after some search on some ME3 hate foruns, i came across this fanfic which gives you quite a good take on what would have happened after the ending (warning, it uses the Destroy/Red ending and Tali is the LI)

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8260224/1/Wings_Of_Fire

On an actual question, you guys ever came across a game like ME3 where fans got so upset they made up their own endings/explanations for it?

I for one didint had any problems with Baldur Gate trilogy's ending, everything seemed to come to a "full circle" so to speak. But those are my thoughts, what you guys think?

I want to get my terrible habit of quibbling over semantics out of the way first. I'm not sure I'd describe the plot of Baldur's Gate as a circle. More a pyramid maybe. Starting at the apex and moving downwards as the story progresses and affects more and more of the world until the scope has become so wide, by the end even the Gods themselves have been irrevocably changed. No, wait! Maybe a circle would work but instead of going around the edge, you start at the centre and spread outwards!

... Okay, that's not a perfect metaphor either. Whatever, semantics over!

Now, about this idea of 'fixing' a story. I don't think there's such a thing. I think every story, even those of fanfiction communities that borrow heavily from others, has a singular identity as its own story. The original should certainly be treated with a great deal of respect. 95% of the ideas presented were of course presented by the original, after all (there would be no reapers, krogans, geth, etc arcs for you to be disappointed by the resolution of without it). However, that doesn't make the alternative interpretation presented by fanfiction authors invalid. I would instead call it inspiring and a great compliment, particularly for the original author, that the audience found the story, characters and ideas presented so intriguing that they felt compelled to explore them further via their own creativity.

Full disclosure: I do write fanfiction myself. Not particularly good fanfiction but there you go.



Games? None come to mind. However, I doubt you could get very far in the Harry Potter community without finding a fic that ignores the epilogue. Particularly those that take issue with pairings. I could talk for days about that but this isn't really the time or place.

As i reevaluated my "full circle" statement, i realised that it was terrible wrong, so to speak, its much more of an spiral, as you said, starting from the middle and going outwards.

As for the fanfics, i have never written one, so i cant precisely tell what one feels that drives him to write them. What i can tell is many of fans, including me, (some of them being writters) went into full "rage" mode with ME3 endings scandals (i dont know if you participated in the bioware foruns during that time) and many fanfics were "born" out of this rage. I also completely agree with you that fanfics arent invalid, one fine example would be some of the Warhammer series fanfics, which even the official novel authors consider them canon within the fantasy universe.

Harry Potter and Twilight, i suppose these 2 make alot of fans create their own endings , but i am much more curious about games, because it seems ME3 was the first to cause such and outrage of the fan comunity (maybe Kingdom Hearts also had problems like this? since its the game with the most number of fanfics in fanfic.net)

On a completely unrelated note, it seems that bioware, not content with making the extended cut, will now make an additional ending with the upcoming DLC, Leviathan(i think thats the name).

Um, sorry no. The reason Kingdom Hearts has the most stories associated with it is because it's filled with Final Fantasy characters (bishonen), the Kingdom Hearts protagonists (more bishonen) and the dark counterparts of the first two categories (bad boy bishonen). So 90% of the Kingdom Hearts fanbase will be slash fic after slash fic after slash fic. 8% will be self-inserts so they can be paired with the author's personal favourite bishonen (or Kairi, for the guys or the girls who swing that way). The last 2% will be either crack fics or the rare few that try to tell an actual story.

Also, most of the crack fics will be taking the mickey (pun intended, ba dum tish) out of the fact that not even the fans know what the hell is going on in the Kingdom Hearts games anymore.

As for endings in games that people have felt this genuinely upset over, I don't think there have really been any. Sure there have been flare-ups from the more 'dedicated' segments of certain games' fanbases but nothing on this level. That's part of why the Mass Effect debacle was such a big deal. People care about story in games now. This might not be a popular thing for me to say but before 2000, no one cared at all about story. And even since then it's been more of a niche concern. If a game had a decent story, great! If not, no big loss. 'Game stories suck anyway.', right? But Mass Effect didn't. Sure, there were clichés thrown around in the main plot of the game but you could feel the effort and creativity that Bioware poured into creating the universe and that they threw all of it away on a cop-out ending was understandably infuriating.

And I looked up the Leviathan thing. It's not a new ending. The Leviathan is apparently one of the creators of the Reapers so doing that mission means you can quiz the... thing (I can't call him anything else without adding multiple swears) on what they were before you take your three (or four with ECut) ending options. Basically the writers are saying 'no, no! Really! They totally existed in the universe already! It wasn't an ass-pull, we promise! PLEASE!' ... You know, thinking about it, maybe they really did. The Leviathan was mentioned all the way back in ME1. Maybe they just never got around to bringing them up or didn't want to since finding something from millions of years ago would seem contrived if the Reapers are explicitly stated to wipe out every trace of spacefaring races. And by ME3 they'd written themselves into a corner.

... Huh. That'd actually be kind of tragic. Seeing as it's far, far too late now.