Inglorious Bosh'tets
Inglorious Bosh'tets is a comedic Mass Effect fanfic written by 500 Metric Tonnes of Palladium. In it, Tali'Zorah vas Neema learns two valuable lessons during the two years of Commander Shepard's absence: One, that the universe hates her guts and two, that the entire galaxy is insane.
Set in a bizarro version of the Mass Effect universe, Inglorious Bosh'tets follows Tali and her crew of complete idiots as they go from one adventure to another, each one stranger than the last. The universe itself looks like a mega crossover fantasy kitchen sink with Inglorious Bosh'tets and it's sequel Project Gethinator containing things such as Valhalla, The Warp and Chaos Gods, Chainswords, characters from games like Baldur's Gate, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox and so on, with the characters treating all this weirdness as completely normal.
In the end it all looks more like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy than Mass Effect.
The one-shot Fursecution Complex is also set in the same universe and referenced in the sequel.
- Action Girl: Tali is capable of handling a situation on her own, which considering her crew is useless is almost all the time.
- Alien Arts Are Appreciated: The Collectors have all the seasons of Doctor Who.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Literally. "Omega was a haven for criminals, assassins, pirates, slavers, mercenaries, thugs, smugglers, tax-dodgers, and jaywalkers."
- Badass Normal: Kal'Reegar, single-handedly slaughters all the mooks when he temporarily joins Tali's team in one of the chapters
- Butt Monkey: Poor Tali gets this a lot. Whenever something crazy happens, at least one of the crew (often Prazza, who's usually the cause of the crazy) will pin the blame on her.
- Cosmic Plaything: Tali simply cannot catch a break. Even the simplest missions have a tendency to go bad. Most of the time, Prazza's aggressive stupidity is the cause.
- Chaotic Stupid: Tali's entire crew. Especially Prazza.
- Crossover: In the same universe one can find things from The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Warhammer 40 000, Baldur's Gate, Event Horizon, Finnish metal and so on and so on. It would be easier to count what isn't in there.
- Expy: Skaal to Martin so very, very much.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: On top of the SF universe that is Mass Effect the author has added some fantasy and paranormal elements.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: This is what happened to a lot of people who viewed the "Forbidden Issue" of Fornax, which featured Prazza performing a sanity-blastingly obscene sex act that thankfully remained undescribed.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Tali and company investigate a derelict Cerberus cruiser and find it overrun with mutant monsters. Turns out the scientists on board had been researching a cure for the common cold. oops.
- It Runs on Nonsensoleum: Some of the technologies make no sense and are in-universe referred to as breaking the laws of physics. No one is bothered by this, nor does it stop the technology from working.
- Time travel is achieved by randomly pressing buttons.
- Long Runners: In-Universe, Doctor Who is still being made in 2185.
- Meaningful Name: One of Tali's crewmembers, who has configured his suit to dispense alcohol directly into his bloodstream, is named Juodaan'Viina, meaning "Let's drink booze" in Finnish.
- The Millstone: Tali's entire crew, although Prazza best qualifies for the description.
- Negative Space Wedgie: There is an in-universe technical term for this, Big Impossible Thing Causing Havoc. Such an event sent Tali and company to Earth in 2005.
- Noodle Incident: We're never told what, exactly, Prazza did in that issue of Fornax that got it labeled the "Forbidden Issue." But we know it was enough to violate thirteen laws in Citadel space, that it drove most people who viewed it to insanity or suicide and scarred the remainder for life, that Prazza did it to try to raise money for a Pilgrimage gift and got disowned by his family because of it and was unable to complete his Pilgrimage as a result, that the owner of the magazine was arrested the day after the issue was published and the magazine got a tarnished image and a ton of lawsuits because of it, and that it was something that went against the law of the galaxy, if not the universe, and most definitely didn't do much to improve relations with quarians in general.
- Overly Long Name: A Reaper is called Shug'nargoth'shemfhnargataghn.
- Only Sane Woman: Tali
- Running Gag: Almost every ship given to Tali ends up destroyed.
- Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: Tali has made this somewhat of a habit of hers. It's gotten to the point that Tali'Zorah is a legitimate scientific explanation for unexplained cosmic explosions.
- Time Travel: Tali and her crew briefly travel to and crash on Earth in the year 2005.
- X Meets Y: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets Mass Effect with a whole bunch of other things thrown in for good measure.