Parallel Realities/YMMV

• Anticlimax Boss:
  • Somehow, the fic makes an anti-climax boss out of Harbinger.
  • Kai Leng counts, given how much of a badass he was built up to be throughout the entire rest of the Mass Effect 3 arc.
• Ass Pull: Happens a lot. Of particular note: the way the Collectors are shoehorned into Tali’s loyalty mission, the fact that the events of the Arrival DLC involved a choice Shepard somehow already made before he ever set foot in the Mass Effect galaxy, Xiltro suddenly gaining a coding error and being unable to ‘jump’ into Shepard’s omni-tool, and the Illusive Man being half-artician.
• Canon Defilement: The fact that just about all of the major conflicts between the various races in the games have all of the subtleties ripped out of them for the sake of a fairy-tale ending leads to copious amounts of this.
• Deus Ex Machina: Shepard is prepared to sacrifice himself to activate the final temple that will destroy the Reapers forever. When he gets there, however, he runs into the Illusive Man, who turns out to be half-artician himself. When Shepard proceeds to stab him with Asha Bel, the Oracle says that the half-artician blood in the Illusive Man and the fact that the Oracle herself is a spirit of an artician (thus constituting the other half) will be enough.
• Idiot Plot: Let's say there are a lot of instances where the collective IQ of both galaxies drops considerably to allow the plot to run its course.
  • Shepard himself knows Tali as a childhood friend, and becomes concerned when she doesn't contact him for a regular chat shortly before the events of the first game begin. For some reason, it never occurs to him to contact Tali to ask what is happening with her.
  • The Mass Effect galaxy would’ve acquitted Shepard a lot faster and been able to prepare for the Reapers better if the Order hadn’t been so insistent on keeping its existence and the evidence they had of the Reapers secret from everyone who doesn’t know Commander Shepard intimately.
    • The fact that the Order attempts to excuse this secrecy with ‘we are the last resort, you must try to convince them yourself first’ (even leading up to Shepard’s trial on Earth) also means they’re stubbornly holding the idiot ball, considering the Order knew that the Council and the Alliance were both repeatedly brushing off Shepard’s attempts to warn the Mass Effect galaxy about the Reaper threat. What were they expecting to happen when Shepard stood trial on Earth and tried to warn them about the Reapers?
• Like You Would Really Do It: The general tone of the entire fic is rather hopeful, with the good guys always winning everything with severely limited casualties. So naturally, this happens when it’s revealed that Shepard will need to sacrifice himself to destroy the Reapers when he activates the final temple. Sure enough…
• So Bad It's Good: There’s something charming about the unabashed stupidity that occurs in the story that one can’t help but love it anyway.
• Thirty-Sue Pileup:
  • The fic hosts an entire parallel reality of Purity Sues.
  • Shepard himself is a mix of God Mode Sue, Black Hole Sue, Possession Sue, Purity Sue, Relationship Sue, Sympathetic Sue, and Fixer Sue.
  • Teilo is a massively blatant Fixer Sue for Garrus’ squad.
• Unfortunate Implications: At the end, the Council is usurped by Shepard’s Galactic Order on the premise that the Council was negligent. Rather than elect a new council from the species that are already there, however, the Galactic Order itself takes control of the galaxy from the Council. Take Over The Galaxy much?