Pride Unbound [August Writing Contest Entry]

[Crystal Tears]

Haven't actually wrote any true fanfiction for a while, so it was nice that the contest let me dabble. o: Now I can't stop writing, damn you all.
Word Count (including title): 999

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Pride Unbound

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She had lied when Doctor Chakwas had questioned her about the dreams. Normally, Shepard would’ve told the Doc the truth and revealed that still some fragments of being exposed to a reaper artifact were floating around in her brain in the form of strange, lucid dreams. However, things were quickly spiralling out of control, and the last thing she needed was to be locked up in the medical bay, trying to convince the Doc, and most probably by extension; Mordin, that she was actually, perfectly capable of functioning.

It was far easier, and convenient, to lie about everything.

Besides, she was Commander Shepard: Hero of the Citadel, Savoir of the Council and exquisite example of what any human should strive to be. A few creepy dreams weren’t going to keep her down, even if they had been caused by a relic built by a race of sentient machines hell-bent on the destruction of the galaxy… again.

She could handle it.


“Shepard,” the rough voice of Grunt; a massive, ‘perfected’ Krogan broke her train of thought. She looked up, one ocular implant flickering red through the disintegrating blue iris and pupil. Her look was dark, gazing up at the hulking reptile through her crimson locks. “You can’t fool me Shepard; you haven’t been right since you came back from that space-rock.”

Of course, the only person brave enough to confront her on her demeanour was a towering armored lizard with four balls and a head strong enough to crack bulletproof glass. She smirked, her attention going back to her desk and the colourful liquid in the bottle she had been working on. “Grunt, you’re far too perceptive for a krogan.”

“Heh,” he took that as an invitation to move closer. “What’s goin’ on Shepard? We run into trouble, you’re a lot more… violent, then before.”

“Should I kill the collectors nicely?” She answered with another question, hoping to cut the conversation there.

“Nah,” Grunt smiled as best he could, though it looked far more sinister then it was probably intended. “Just,” he glanced around her quarters, seeing bullet holes in various objects, and the picture of her friends on the original Normandy had been smashed. “Just, well… What about that Eclipse woman? You nearly tore her head off.”

“I needed answers.” Irritation was beginning to show in her voice.

“I’d expect that from Jack,” he didn’t seem overly bothered by Shepard’s violence, not openly anyways. However if he was making such a point about it now, her decisions must’ve concerned him more than he was willing to let on. “Not from you.”

She stood then, not nearly as tall as Grunt, but Shepard had a presence. She was a survivor and a ruthless one at that. Shepard was known for beating the odds, and getting the job done, no matter the costs. The Collectors were just pawns for the Reapers, nothing to be concerned about in the moral department. Husks were even less than their insect commanders, mimics of whatever organic life had been literally thrown on a skewer and transformed into simple, zombie-machines.

When it came to other species; real species that were capable of individual thought and had the power to control their own destiny..

‘Do not think them any better than the rest. All are shells, hollow carapaces of sentience that are nothing without unification.’

“I’ll do as I please.” She snarled suddenly, trying to ignore the resounding voice that was coming from the recesses of her mind. She could almost feel something moving in her skull, trying to wrap around her brain and take control. “If you don’t like it,” her flickering eye almost seemed to glow brighter with her foreboding voice. “Then get the fuck off my ship.”

Grunt had little emotion on his face as the words slipped off the Commander’s tongue. He smirked a second or two later, nodding. “If you want to tear the enemy limb from limb, don’t let me stop you.” He turned, stomping back to the elevator. The alien paused as the doors hissed opened though. “Just don’t see your friends as expendable Shepard, if you start treatin’ us like tools instead of allies, I’ll tell the Doc exactly what’s goin’ on with you.”

He left after that.


The bottle went flying across the room, crashing into wall.

“Son of a bitch!” She cried, clenching her fists as she watched the booze run down the wall just next to her bed. “I’m fine.”

Flashes of the mercenary’s agonized expressions suddenly erupted in her mind. Shepard’s eyes closed tight, and a hand rose to touch her forehead. Every flash showed different details of the interrogation, something that she knew she wouldn’t have approved of before being exposed to the object.

‘She was nothing.’

“Oh shut up.” She slumped back down in her chair, looking back at the smashed picture of her friends.

‘They are all nothing; do not try to convince yourself otherwise.’

“They’re my friends.” She noted, shaking her head, trying to free herself from the strange, alien thoughts.

‘They are tools, a means to an end. We are not so different Shepard. You hold yourself over them and others, you consume them and resources in a relentless pursuit of perfection.’

“I am not after perfection.” She snarled, staring at the rare ship model of Sovereign, the first Reaper she had ever seen, and the first she had killed. She remembered how it had trumped anything the Citadel or Alliance fleets had. With massive, mechanical tendrils that each fired lasers capable blowing apart a Turian dreadnought, and an overall body shape resembling a squid; Sovereign had been terrifying.. “I’m after you, all of you.”

‘We are perfection Shepard, we are the unification all species desire, we are billions of voices yet one, and we will purify the galaxy..’ There was an eerie pause, before vivid images of Earth’s destruction, before ending in her own corpse, being lost in a sea of bodies.

‘And we will end you.’

[mr_pikachu]

Review of “Pride Unbound”

Plot (17/20 points): The plot here was interesting, but it didn’t quite grab me in the way I would have hoped. Much of the story was spent explaining what was actually happening, giving various backstory details and such. Frankly, it may have been more effective to spend the first hundred words or so actually showing the events which kept getting referenced so that readers wouldn’t be in the dark. You may have been more efficient within the word count had you given the past in one section and the present in another rather than reverting back and forth; that may have ultimately allowed you to give more details that would have helped the reader grasp the situation.

As it was, there was a lot to digest all at once, and it didn’t always come through clearly. Nonetheless, from what could be discerned, it was a pretty good idea with some curious twists and both personal and interpersonal struggles.

Plot Originality (8/10 points): It’s not like I haven’t seen similar stories before – someone is exposed to a foreign entity that envelops and ultimately overwhelms the individual. This was done uniquely enough, though.

Writing Style (16/20 points): I would have liked a bit more explanation of what was actually happening with Shepard. The narrative jumped around a little bit between introspection and external interactions. That’s not such a problem if the reader can keep up with what’s happening, but since the scenario was still being established even in the end, it was much more difficult to track. For that matter, bouncing between four separate interaction types (Shepard-Chakwas, Shepard reflecting on the past, Shepard-Grunt, and Shepard-inner voice) was a little much to process when they came in such a rapid-fire manner. The goal may have been to throw the reader into a whirlwind like what Shepard herself was experiencing, but since we never had a clear foundation for the context it didn’t quite work.

Spelling and Grammar (7/10 points): There were some issues here. I didn’t see any especially severe errors, but there were enough missing words and punctuation miscues and typos in a small space that those mistakes were especially noticeable. For instance, semicolons and commas were, at times, used inconsistently, and on a number of occasions periods ended quotations when commas would have been more appropriate. Phrases like “crashing into wall” were also clearly unintentional errors.

Characters (12/15 points): There were a fair number of characters here, and we never got particularly close to any of them. Grunt was about as well-developed as Shepard herself was. While there were some allusions to differences between Shepard’s past self and her new, twisted demeanor, the change never felt adequately expressed, especially since we never had any real information about what Shepard did during the interrogation. Her current self was clear enough, but the shift was never quite there.

Settings (13/15 points): This helped you quite a bit. The little context we were able to grasp came from the setting, not the characters themselves. Specifically, the details about Shepard’s destruction of her quarters and of the photograph – physically representing her connection to her old self – were quite enlightening. Without some more characterization, this alone wasn’t enough to set the scene, but it was at least helpful.

Overall Appreciation (9/10 points): I liked what you were trying to do here. It missed on a few key elements, so there wasn’t quite the connection with Shepard that you may have wanted, but a kernel of great quality was certainly evident in this piece nonetheless.

Final Result: 82/100 = 82%

Closing Comments: Your overall idea was pretty good, and I think that with a bit more development of the background it could really hit home. To be blunt, we almost didn’t need the internal dialogue at the end; Shepard’s external behavior was actually more effective in conveying the point. More of that misbehavior or more backstory (provided explicitly instead of in recollections) may have been a lot more helpful than bringing in an additional voice. I’d rather like to see this piece rewritten with more of that flavor, actually, just to see how it feels. Living through both sides of Shepard could provide a much more interesting contrast than living through one side that is only remembering the other.

[Gavin Luper]

Review of “Pride Unbound”

Plot (16/20 points): I really got caught up in the plot of this story. Granted, it was a lot to take on at once and I felt like I was walking into a story half-way through – which, of course, is what was happening, but it made it briefly difficult to keep up. Giant lizards? Spaceships? Okay, a sci-fi is what we’re dealing with, then. Having said that, I liked the progression of the story, Shepard’s thoughts, the conversation and conflict with Grunt, the end where the lucid dreams are tormenting her. It was enthralling and the fact that it wasn’t resolved within the parameters of the story didn’t bother me: it felt like a short piece taken from a much longer piece, and that suited me fine, because it was like a small chapter and it felt self-contained.

Plot Originality (7/10 points): The core theme of this story has been done before – and I can’t even think off the top of my head in which texts, but there have been loads of them, I think it’s quite common in sci-fi or fantasy to deal with this idea of an entity controlling or infecting a person from within (okay, Animorphs and Harry Potter for two really random examples, but I’m sure lots of sci-fi shows have done this kind of thing). This was done pretty well, though, and the idea that the exposure to the reaper object has just kind of caused Shepard to have these dreams rather than be completely taken over by the foreign entity is a bit different, as with the actual world view of the voice in the dreams. Unique enough to not feel like a rehash.

Writing Style (16/20 points): I really like your writing style; it has a very literary quality to it and you sound like an experience writer so I could kind of sit back and allow this nice little story be told to me. Toward the end of the story it ramped up a bit and became more dramatic, and this flair worked really well. You balanced narrative with dialogue very well in this piece; and I liked that the dialogue was actually rough and ready, not dull and script-like. There was a bit of an attitude to the narrative voice that, even though it was in the third person, gave the narrator an edge.

Spelling and Grammar (7.5/10 points): Mostly the spelling and grammar were at a professional level, though there were a few points where I thought the commas were a little overused. Also, the capitalisation of the subject pronoun after dialogue bothered me a bit, and there were instances where a new line could have worked for the line of description that followed some dialogue. There was also at least one word omitted altogether (“crashing into wall”). On the whole, though, it read well and was gramatically strong.

Characters (12/15 points): I quite liked the interaction between Grunt and Shepard, and it was through this exchange that we learned a lot about both of them. Shepard’s cold, hard exterior is new, so we can determine that she was previously at least a little more merciful. Grunt, despite his externally threatening appearance, is the voice of mercy and reason in the dialogue. I liked both characters, and I felt genuinely worried for Shepard when it became clear she was being tormented by this alien voice in her head. Her growing wrath and pride is quite frightening.

Settings (11.5/15 points): The setting did its job, I think, in this story. It wasn’t really necessary for it to play a much larger role, although it might have been helpful to have a bit more of a scene-setting sentence when Shepard first wakes up, just to establish exactly where we are, because I didn’t work out we were in Shepard’s quarters until it was mentioned a good few paragraphs in, and by that stage I’d distracted myself trying to work out where we were. The end visual of the Earth’s destruction and Shepard’s corpse being lost in a sea of bodies was a very strong, and disturbing, way of concluding.

Overall Appreciation (9/10 points): The story read well, flowed well from its sudden beginning to its troubling finish. It didn’t jar, it didn’t break in its tension: it was a success and a good, sustained piece of suspenseful science fiction.

Final Result: 79/100 = 79%

Closing Comments: A very successful piece that really engaged me. A bit of work on the grammar and formatting would hone this a little more, and perhaps a little more description of the surrounds and what exactly is going on in the world of the story would be helpful. I had the feeling that I was reading a small fragment of something in a large, established canon and I wanted the backstory; I wanted to know what time and place we were situation, and that didn’t happen. I’m sure in a longer piece it would, though. In all, I think the success of this piece came down to its strong characterisation, especially of Shepard, and great dialogue. Congratulations, this dealt with the idea of excess pride – and perhaps wrath – very effectively.