Thousand Shinji Chapter 11: The Value of Character (Is Ignored)

[leliel_12]

[Trigger Warning: Emotional abuse, body horror, mentioned animal death, torture.]

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Nocht: …Well. This was…not what I expected…

Leliel: [Looks up from giant bowl of tea-like liquid] What, the chubbiness? Even if we are far-removed echos of each other, I wasn’t born into a relatively functional ecumenopolis in a rather less functional empire. I’ve got time, food, and luxury to become soft.

Wanderer2691: …I think he means the shirt.

Leliel: [Looks at luau shirt covered in Imperial skulls and Aquilas.] Ah. Yeah, turns out that version of the Imperium is actually somewhat livable, that Shrine World’s gift shop only did sane price-gouging for pilgrims. Got some nice tanna too, though I’m pretty sure this is not actually tanna, on the basis I can drink it without my tongue plotting sedition against me.

Futaba: [Haggard expression] Can I have some of that? Because…I looked at your notes, and…ugh, I’m already suffering bonus objective failure regret at not being able to stab anyone with that chainsword…at least it’d be different…

Sophia: [Perks up] An interesting turn of phase. One I am in full agreement over, as it is clear that this fiction fears anything novel for all of its pretensions of making Tzeentchji more capable of agency.

Shinobu: [Uncomfortable look] Yeah…I thankfully missed that, but going by the notes, this chapter isn’t just a retread. It’s the fic actively forcing things to remain on the rails of the plot when Warhammer threatens to change it into an honest AU, and of course, mismanaging Misato.

Chapter 11

Shinobu: And we begin with…well, that did not take long…

In the ever present struggles between Gendo and SEELE, the Pilots were the ultimate prize and target, which meant that they could not be moved against too strongly. Still, there was always observation. But something had gone wrong with the observation around the First Child. The agent that had gone in to see why the monitoring devices had suddenly stopped working had simply disappeared.

Nocht: …question. Doesn’t Kaji work for this cult? At least, ostensibly?

Futaba: He does…

Nocht: …is there a reason they aren’t asking him to observe from a safe distance, given how he already has Tzeentchji’s trust and Rei trusts Tzeentchji? Especially after one agent already vanished?

Shinobu: Because that might involve some scheming that involves having to walk a narrow line between security and upsetting Asuka and Misato by hurting Kaji, which as we all know, is anathema to a story about a schemer whose whole thing is worshiping a god that is all about burning your morality for your ambitions and plans, as well as espionage drama in general. It’d get in the way of the power wank.

Emma: Yeah, that’s an actual challenge that would need to be navigated carefully. Not… whatever this is.

DUMMY PLUGGED: 227

So now it was time for his partners to try and find some clues as to what had happened. Guns drawn, they slipped into the complex after the First Child had left for school.

Wanderer2691: …oh yeah, sure, send your highly trained agents after somewhere their buddy vanished after going dark instead of, I dunno, a team or drone, at least? Yeah, that’s totally not at all the author punching Easy Mode the moment he has to reload a save. [Pauses, frowns] Okay, when did Futaba take my controller - damn it!

TALON ON THE SCALES: 53

The building, as always, stank, but now it had the miasma of rotting meat clinging to it. Quickly ascending the stairs while sweeping for any targets, they reached the floor where the girl had her apartment and stopped. The stairwell leading up was stained with old, bloody drag marks. Following them, the agents emerge into what appears to be a slaughter house, with bones everywhere.

Nocht: Having smelled this, however, the agents never entered, and had redoubled back for the flamers, and one look later, set it alight. The end.

Futaba: You joke, but I kind of suspect SEELE, of all people, would notice and prep when people suddenly leave a building, as was established. Especially one a Child lives in, let alone this Child in particular. This “scheming” skill has been modded down for cheats!

Sophia: I also strongly suspect they should have noticed the miasma of rotting meat in the building they keep their greatest asset in. The intense surveillance of your masters is not something that can be cast aside when convenient.

TALON ON THE SCALES: 54

DUMMY PLUGGED: 228

"My god… what the hell is going on here?" One of the men asks.

"Let's… let's get the fuck out of here," the other agent suggests.

Turning around, they find the stairwell behind them filled with mangy looking cats and dogs, their eyes glowing ominous in the darkened passage. Backing away in horror, the level their guns on the approaching horde.

Shinobu: Right, nope, animal death and body horror, skipping over a bit!

Leliel: Thankfully, this is actually something I’d skip for quality; basically, a bunch of sick animals, and the crows, have become guardians of this little defiled unholy garden. They chase Hapless Victims 1 and 2 upwards, to the boneyard, when…

The crow, an enormously fat and old bird with greying plumage, was perched upon a head; a human head. It had clearly been out in the sun for several days, yet neither animal nor insect had touched it, only rot touching its desiccating flesh. That was not the true horror though, for the head was clearly that of the girl they had just watched leave the building ten minutes ago.

Shinobu: [Smiling] Ew. Not quite DARK PRINCE levels just yet, this isn’t fetishized and is creepy, but ew.

The head was on a table with another skull sitting beneath, arcane looking symbols carved into the surface of the wood. Somehow they both knew that the cleaned, grinning skull staring back at them was of the man they were looking for.

Shinobu: [Blinks] …Wait, you guys waited so long your agent had his entire fleshy mass removed before you moved in?!

Sophia: Remarkably efficient, for someone who has no access to burying beetles.

Nocht: And yes, the implication is that this is the man who intruded on the rooftop graveyard when we were introduced to it…which is to say, he had all the warnings as well. This is the kind of dereliction of duty that would get a Commissar to shoot an entire squad - and in the Assassins, reclassification as live models for lessons.

TALON ON THE SCALES: 55

Wanderer2691: So Team Vermin Bait opens fire at the animals (and why didn’t they already?), but they’re Zerg rushed and-

One man soiled himself in fear and they both whimpered as the circle closed in tighter.

Wanderer2691: …was that necessary? Really? Fucking really?

Futaba: [Fetal position] Always the same…always the same…never changing, always the same…

THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 205

When the shooting began the old crow had stopped its cawing. It stared at the two interlopers long and hard before letting out a single caw.

The men's screams were drowned out by the flapping of wings.

Sophia: May the Great Sea wash them to better shores.

Leliel: [Bitter laugh] I wish. There’s one massive humiliation left for these two.

Nocht: Emperor preserve us…but in any case, Rei returns to find Old Priest, the crow who “leads” these guardians, waiting in the doorway to alert her, and she goes up to the currently-very-active graveyard.

Still carrying Old Priest, Rei went to the largest concentration [of feasting scavengers] and found two men lying on the ground, one already nearly picked to the bone by the vast congregation of feasters, while the other was still alive, his body covered in wounds that were already dripping with pus as his body desperately fought off the hundreds of infected wounds covering him.

Futaba: …well that was fast.

Sophia: But also accurate. As doubtful as the scholarship that designed this shrine and its components, the Grandfather’s blessing does make His gifts abnormally fast and often acidic in nature. This is not a flaw.

Stroking Old Priest, Rei sets him on the ground before kneeling down and picking up the man's head so that she could rest it in her lap. One of his ears, having been mostly torn off in the initial mauling, simply plopped off as lack of blood and infection had caused rapid necrosis and rot. Rei ignored it to brush the blood matted hair out of his face.

Sophia: Nor is this, this is fairly tame for the kind of debris Mortarion’s children would leave in their wake.

Delirious with fever and pain and several mind altering diseases, the man just stared up at her and croaked, "Mama?"

Sophia: … This, on the other hand, leads to me not doubting Leliel’s warnings more than I naturally do.

Emma: This would be really interestingly creepy without the context of literally everything else about this fic and its obsession with “moms you can also fuck”.

Futaba: [Snaps out of fetal position with absolutely hateful expression] EXCUSE ME, WHAT?!

Cooing gently, still brushing the man's face, Rei says, "Yes, it's mama, and she wants to know all about what you've been up to lately. Won't you let mama know what you've been doing with your life?"

Futaba: [Blue fire sparks] …You don’t get to call yourself that, you rotted wretch.

Shinobu: Yeah…I’m not sure if this is making me more or less worried for the Gremlin’s sanity, because…well, this is kinda offensive to Wakaba’s daughter for many, many reasons. And it’s certainly once again fetishizing this kind of decay.

THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 205

The man began to talk, telling her everything his fevered brain could dredge up, which while not much, was certainly very enlightening. He spoke for a good ten minutes before he finally expired.

Gently taking his head off her lap, Rei turned to Old Priest and said, "You can have the eyes, I know you like them."

Futaba: That bird deserves better than being a trash disposal for a lazy slime like you.

Nocht: … “Lazy?”

Futaba: … Yeah, that was a weird insult. But fitting. She takes the laziest possible route to worship.

As the murder and unkindness shifted to partake of this new addition to the banquet, Rei had but one thought.

I must tell Shinji about this.

Futaba: …Especially when it comes to letting the MAAAAN have more authority!

Leliel: [Disgusted noise.]

HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 314 (Because it’s not like the Plague Druid can’t investigate on her own first! She has boobs!)

The SEELE agents in Tokyo-3 were more stirred up than a kicked hornet's nest. First they lost one man when he went to renew the monitoring equipment about the First Child, and now the two who went to investigate the first man's disappearance had also dropped out of contact. Someone was keeping them from investigating the First Child, someone powerful, someone unafraid to act so openly against them.

Wanderer2691: Even more upsetting, something that physically prevented them from learning on Gendo or going blatant themselves, especially when three vanished without a trace! It’s not like SEELE can invoke Human Instrumentality Committee privileges!

TALON ON THE SCALES: 56

DUMMY PLUGGED: 229

"It can't be Gendo or Section 2. They don't want to up this game any more than we do," one man tells another as they begin doing the final check of their equipment. The main planning had been done out of town, but whoever was doing this had to be taught a lesson.

Nocht: An excellent point, which is why you immediately retreat to gather intel as opposed to double down. This is an entirely human reaction, but from what I understand, Keel’s smarter than this and he’d become aware of the issue long ago.

TALON ON THE SCALES: 57

"Who else? Bastard's the only one with that kind of pull in this town," another man points out.

"I don't know who, but I'm telling you Section 2 doesn't do shit like this. All of our sources inside say that they didn't even know about those guys," the first man says while doing a weapons check.

"Then we obviously need to get our sources deeper," the second guy replies.

Shinobu: [Third Guy] “Or maybe, just maybe, NERV doesn’t actually know, and so the guys we put in at its foundation don’t know either, because they’d be running scared too? Occam’s Razor, moron!” And then slapped him with the butt of the rifle.

Futaba: In the universe where the author had basic narrative object permanence and realized NERV was freaking out too, and SEELE would know that.

Emma: Not only is this stupid and doesn’t make any sense, it’s stupid and doesn’t make any sense in ways completely orthogonal to the ways military doctrine is frequently stupid and doesn’t make sense.

TALON ON THE SCALES: 58

DUMMY PLUGGED: 230

Futaba: It’s at that point the power goes out, and the Redshirt Agents of forty people - and you send one guy, then two, to investigate an anomaly involving freaking Rei?

TALON ON THE SCALES: 59

Shinobu: That aside, there’s a noise outside, and when investigating, it reveals…

"Hey, what's this?" One of the men asks, pointing to a funny looking ceramic jar with a stylized animal head on top.

Sophia: … That had better not be what I believe it to be.

Eyeing it cautiously, they sweep it with a battery of instruments and find…

Nothing.

Futaba: I mean, maybe? We’ve seen that instruments go crazy around Chaos phenomenon in this fic before with Evas, and so it could just be ash and not something that-

Gingerly picking it up, one of the men opens up the lid and finds…

Nothing. Nothing but dust and ashes.

Futaba: … It is. Godammit. Welp, here comes the curb stomp again. Second verse, same as the first…

Sophia: Ah, yes. This is a world where everything bends around a single baseline child to such a degree that one of your Thousand Sons handed over the sacred souls of his siblings to him as a toy. This is… a desecration. This is one of the few things they have left, and they have violated it for… him.

Nocht: [Checks visor] Ah. This is one of the Rubric Marines of your more familiar continuity…I am a little flummoxed by how his armor was transmuted to ash until needed, but, it is hardly the strangest-

"There's nothing here, probably just some dead hobo's ashes," the man holding it asks.

[Long pause]

Nocht: [Coldly] I was not aware of proto-Panpacific funeral customs that put the unfortunate in urns on the street to be knocked over.

Shinobu: [More coldly] They really do not. Cremation urns in Japan are generally taken to a family crypt and stored there, not on the street, if at all possible. IDing bodies is less of a cultural consideration, but even a John Doe or someone lacking identification would be stored somewhere. It would not be put on the street just to molder, and if so, you’d see a temporary shrine around it.

Wanderer2691: I urge you to revisit how Academia Nut thinks of secondhand clothing stores as “fabulously ghetto.” This next point is more for getting Japan in general utterly wrong in a way that is almost certainly offensive to…anyone who has ever practiced cremation, especially Japan, but given how it includes NGE in it…

DUMMY PLUGGED: 231

"How the fuck does a hobo get such a fancy urn?" Another man points out.

Futaba: [Sputters in Egyptophile] Forget ‘fancy urn’, what culture are you even from?!

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_funeral)

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopic_jar)

Futaba: Beyond being jars, do these look similar - like, at all? And Egypt’s a pretty freaking important place, I’d kinda expect a successful roll on lore huh this looks kinda Egyptian, especially after it showed up with a clatter! Fuck’s sake, you fight Angels! Who’s to say this isn’t, I dunno, Sarcophagel?! Am I the only one with any common sense or ability to see patterns here?! [Electrical zaps from headband]

Leliel: …er…hey, where’d you get that headdress, and why’s it have a crow head made of…blue…crys…tal…uh oh.

Shinobu: …is there something I should know about…?

Nocht: [Gripping sidearm tight] The domain of Tzeentch, the Raven God, in the Warp, is called the Crystal Labyrinth.

Wanderer2691: Here we go again…In any case, more points for yet more Japan fail and nobody who is already on edge getting suspicious.

DUMMY PLUGGED: 232

TALON ON THE SCALES: 60

The power then goes on in the warehouse district once again, nearly causing the men to jump out of their skins.

"What is going on here?" One of them asks as they begin moving back towards their base.

The lights go out again, accompanied by the sound of swirling wind and blowing sand.

The lights flicker on again.



Futaba: *Morgana* “NOT-A-CAT SCARE! MEWGA-BOOGA-BOOGA!”

Shinobu: Hey, don’t drag him into this, I don’t want to have to make up an alibi when he inevitably murders Tzeentchji with a slingshot.

For five minutes the base tries to reach the team, eventually dispatching a ten man team who find all five men in five or six pieces each, their torsos seemingly blown open from the inside out, with the jar sitting innocently in their midst, upright and untouched, not a drop of blood on it despite the massacre all about.

Emma: I enjoy how much the ineptitude of the writing in this thing has turned this into “describing what might’ve been a scary scene in a visual medium”. Establishing tension in prose works entirely different and this? This point-of-view-free scene summary is not doing it for me.

Leliel: Seriously. This sounds like a general outline for a script direction for the SFX team - it’s okay to be a little purple in this instance, fucking descriptions man! You are writing in pixels, there is no particular limit on the size of your verbiage if you need them!

Emma: …You know what this is? Invoking actual fear in the reader in this medium would require illustrating the internality and emotions of these soldiers to put the reader in the scary situation. These are Redshirts who exist to be ROFLstomped, so the author can’t have enough imagination and empathy to give them that internality.

That team quickly grabs what is left of their comrades and retreats back to base, sealing it up tight as they try and figure out what the fuck is going on.

The lights go out again.

"Someone is fucking with us!" One man cries out.

"Want to tell us about the colour of the sky Captain Fucking Obvious?" Another says bitterly.

Wanderer2691: That sound you just heard was the mood dying again, somehow. Relatedly, the “Second Death” is a metaphor for being in Hell in a lot of Christianity, so, fitting. No offense Sophia.

Sophia: I am not taking any. If the Immaterium was this dull, I would suspect the extinction of everything above microbial life in the mortal coil.

As the minutes tick by and angers flare, one of the radio operators suddenly asks, "Hey, did you guys retrieve Kowalski's radio?"

Doing a quick scan of the bodies, one of the men replies, "No."

Nocht: Take your bets - hissing recording of his last moments, threats, or just static?

Leliel: Side note, Kowalski is a Polish name. Because SEELE is headquartered in Europe, this isn’t worth a point, but fascinating that these Totes Stealthy Operatives have a guy who is probably checking a Japanese phrasebook a lot. (Yes, this is petty and there are likely actual native speakers for infiltration, but it fits the competence shown thus far.)

Looking askew, the radio operator just flicks a switch and the transmission can be heard. For a moment there is silence, and then a deep and quiet voice with a strange reverb effect says over the channel, "All is dust."

Nocht: Who had threats?

[Shinobu and Sophia raise hands, Nocht passes the tanna to them.]

Futaba: [Dust around her levitates] Run. Run, you dumbasses, RUN-

Switching it back off, he asks, "Anyone have any idea what that means?"

Futaba: [Crown crackles] It means realize you need to warn HQ and tell them about the canopic jar while skedaddling like any moron, RUN-

"Sir… something weird is happening," one of the men on lookout replies.

[Blue flames appear again - with a bit of pink]

Futaba: DOES ANYONE HERE KNOWN THE FUCKING BASICS OF THIS THING, I DUNNO, CALLED ‘A PLAN’!? THIS IS HOW YOU BEAT MALENIA, YOU DEVELOP A STRATEGY OF HOW TO DEAL WITH A CRISIS LIKE ANY MORON WOULD-

Shinobu: [Notices Nocht drawing his pistol] Futaba! Futaba, do you really think this author would allow them to outshine his Stu in any way? Especially when he’s trying to make said Stu’s pets look cool?

Futaba: [Flames die down, grumbling] Yeah, and that’s what these miracles of sorcery are to him. Pets. He could do so much and yet he only cares about clothing and money and girls…

Sophia: [Stares silently at Nocht.]

Nocht: …no promises. If she goes down that path, so do these wards, and I cannot allow that for anyone else here. But yes, the clandestine secret society not having a crisis plan isn’t something that requires the touch of the Great Conspirator to see the contrivances in. Particularly given how this is the only way SEELE would not know of the distinct cultural thematics shared, oh yes, by Tzeentchji's own Eva. (Edited in after the fact, thank you senselessmusing.)

TALON ON THE SCALES: 61

The power had gone out again, and now pea soup fog was rolling in, impossible for this climate and this time of year and the weather they had already had that day.

Wanderer2691: The elevation of Tokyo is 131 feet above sea level. Wait, this isn’t Irrelevant Verbiage Facts Hour?

"All is dust. All is dust. All is dust. All is dust. All is dust. All is dust. All is…" The chant went up, the whispering phrase repeated over and over and over and over again. It seemed to be coming from all around.

Leliel: See, this is how you write a creepy scene. Let’s see how it’s ruined!

"Yogi, shut off that… radio…" the commander says, his demand trailing off as he realizes that the radio operator is dead, the man's head and spinal column ripped off and rammed through the main radio unit.

Emma: *Bursts out laughing* Oh my GOD. That’s fucking cartoonish.

Shinobu: [Snerks] Seriously. It’s the kind of thing you expect in a gorey B-movie homage.

Leliel: All I can think of is this Doctor Who episode with the Weeping Angels animating a soldier to serve as their ambassador, and he remains polite and upfront, even apologetic about having to relay taunts and trick people - and that was supposed to be mildly funny, and thus creepy, because it shows just how ruthlessly practical even the “kindest psychopaths in the universe” can be.

The chant was coming from all of their radio units. Including the ones set to broadcast.

"This is impossible!" One man screamed.

Nocht: …did I do this ‘meme’ correctly? …battle should not be leaving me so bored, I can guess the next scene is going to involve either a punch or a bolter round exploding a SEELE heretic.

Emma: See, that weird chant over every radio, even the broadcast ones, would be really good… if the horror hadn’t already been escalated by the fucking Mortal Kombat fatality. As it stands, you’ve put the setup after the punchline.

He promptly exploded, something punching through the cinderblock walls of the factory, an ammo drum, and his body armour to detonate inside his torso, spraying blood and gore all across his shocked comrades.

Nocht: …This is not a bet I wanted to win.

Futaba: [Clutching her head in suppressed rage, crow crown glowing purple] Always the same, always the same, always the goddamn same, no changes, nothing…

Outside, in the direction the shot had come from the fog had opened up a corridor to reveal an enormous armoured figure dressed in blue and gold armour, the helmet sculpted into an elaborate Egyptian style headdress. In figure's hands was a gun that looked like it should be crew serviced if not for the fact that it properly proportioned next to the giant.

Emma: Okay, theoretically I really like the idea of displaying that Astartes are a horrifying, unstoppable monstrous force compared to baseline human soldiers. I say theoretically, because in this fic, it can only ever lead back to power wank over Tzeentchji.

Wanderer2691: Can? Emma, these guys are pretty much Tzeentchji’s Warp Pokemon. They’re inherently power wank, especially because it’s established that a Rubric can only exist on Earth thanks to his “unbelievable potential.” [Thinks] Actually, come to think of it, why’s the order to kill everyone instead of capture, given how clearly outmatched everyone mortal here is? Tzeentch powers can create sleeper agents, it’s part of the reason they’re so good at infiltration.

PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 155

Futaba: …and this wretch calls himself a hacker?! One capable of outwitting the MAGI?! Ugh, if I had the same ability to hack brains, I’d be in charge of Yogen-Jaya in a week, mark my words…oh yes, everyone playing their part, just according to the program, what riddles we could solve-

Shinobu: [Quietly pokes Futaba and points down at floor]

Futaba: …uh…Kage? Since when were you…floating?

Nocht: Since your recent typing as a Psychic. It is more that everything around you is now levitating. And also, broadcasting thoughts, because I understood my own reference.

Futaba: [Blushes as everyone is gently set down] Right…and wait, how did this get on my head…ahem! So, yeah, the trash mobs open fire on the Rubric, his defense pretty much eats the damage alive and he blasts a bunch in three shots, only leaving when a grenade launcher is brought out.

Then the figure stops and vanishes in front of them, as if made of dust and blowing away in the wind. But there was no wind, the air was completely still. Soon the fog had consumed the position, leaving the men to rub at their eyes and clutch their guns uselessly, their breathing fast and frantic. Had they actually even seen any of that?

Leliel: …I certainly doubt it, because a Rubric’s dust-body outside of their armor has had the crap beaten out of him. That’s actually the main reason they can be beaten at all, break the armor and the undead ash inside can’t move it anymore until repaired. Stored in fun size with a prepared canopic jar? Legit, but here, it’s not only ignoring the core physical weakness of Rubrics, it’s actually giving them a freaking teleportation ability because of it - and the thing is, Thousand Sons in general do teleportation, it’s part of their “smart warfare and psychic powers” doctrine, as they can and do brief Warp jaunts. It wasn’t even necessary to dust out, this Rubric could just jump into a glowing portal!

PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 156

TALON ON THE SCALES: 62

Futaba: [Eyetwitch] Of course the rules are themselves being twisted around his precious little wiener, and he doesn’t even have the decency to admit to it - ugh, moving on. Basically, they double back, panicking about how each of those men were “the cream of the crop from seven nation's Special Forces divisions”, which leads me to think someone pulled a fast one on Keel given the competence on display but in this fic is just Stu-stroking…

TALON ON THE SCALES: 63

Futaba: …and three Rubrics do non-canonical dust teleportation and pretty much cutscene boss their way through the entire cell; the sole surviving doctor tries to take their secrets to the grave with him, but a telekinetic wresting away of his pistol stops that, and…

The armoured giants faded away into dust in the wind. For a moment only the sobbing of the doctor could be heard, but it was soon replaced by a grim, echoing laughter and the sound of approaching footsteps accompanied by the thump of something heavy and metallic on the ground.

Wanderer2691: ZOINKS! IT’S THE ALIEN!

(Roughly equivalent person to Tzeentchji, with all apologies to Wendy Oldbag.)

Futaba: It was fun while it lasted…

Emerging from the thinning fog was the Third Child, chuckling grimly at the slaughter all around him.

Nocht: …I admit I do not think this is pointless enough to warrant a point, they were threatening Rei and exposing him, both…

"Oh, this will be a most interesting enigma for my father and SEELE to fight about as they each blame the other for this awful, awful mess," Shinji says with a humorous tone.

Nocht: This, on the other hand, is quite possibly the most cliche and eyeroll-worthy villain quote I have ever heard, and the fifth overall in this exact phrasing. For the record, those previous four times were spent facing my Blood Angels, who were Slaanesh’s chosen in my universe, and Salamanders, who are perpetually engaged in a game of hoard-measuring with each other in said universe. Fuck off, Tzeentchji.

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 420

Finding limited mobility returned to him, if only enough to allow him to speak, the commander says, "NERV will never get away with this…"

Futaba: [Psychic crackle] Ooooh, so Gendo, who is notably aware his son inherited his scheming and hates him hasn’t actually shown any nervousness SEELE can pick up on, huh? How convenient. Who needs cunning when you have power, he hasn’t had anything resembling a worthy rival…

TALON ON THE SCALES: 64

His voice is cut off by the ability of speech being stolen from him again, "NERV had nothing to do with this or the disappearance of the men sent after the First Child. You merely stumbled upon something beyond your comprehension and paid the price for interfering with the Children."

Shinobu: *Guard* “Uh, there was a rather stinky graveyard, hive-minded vermin, and diseases. Am I getting the general gist?”

Nocht: *Tzeentchji* “[Sad arrogant sorcerer noises]”

Sophia: People who say “beyond comprehension” always underestimate what humans are capable of comprehending.

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 421

At a gesture from Shinji, the commander is lifted up off the ground, suspended impossibly in mid-air. His eyes go wide in terror at the implications of this.

Leliel: …once again, the fact that SEELE, the organization that literally has the itinerary for how the Angels attack in the form of the Dead Sea Scrolls, not foreseeing this is a bit…suspect.

Wanderer2691: In fact, as a slight spoiler of the sheer WAT that is going to be the ending of this fic, there’s absolutely no conceivable reason why SEELE wouldn’t have anticipated the development of psykers. So for that, both these counts get a flat ten points, for being fractally wrong.

TALON ON THE SCALES: 74

DUMMY PLUGGED: 243

"You see… the Children, we are very special people who can do very special things, and ironically piloting the Evas are probably the least special things about us.

Shinobu: …Oh fuck me he’s monologuing. Uuuugh…I’m comforted that, should we not find a way to stop her corruption and she teleports to Sophia’s universe to find Magdalene and demand Thousand Scion training, my girlfriend will have way more fun motive rants and gloating. Certainly more on the exposition of clever schemes and not verbal wanking.

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 422

We have… secrets that we do not want to be exposed, and your men stumbled upon something they shouldn't have

Futaba: Yes, because they are checking on an investment and trying to save humanity, and you should have made contingencies for that. Try to keep up, ‘kay?

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 423

We will protect our secrets as we must. I do apologize for taking a page from the Night Lord's playbook,

Nocht: You take those words out of your mouth you mustelid excuse for a heretic. Even beyond offense on my lords’ behalf, the more familiar Night Lords have a purpose beyond sadism, demoralization. You’re just doing this to be a menace.

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 424

but I wanted to give NERV and SEELE a boogeyman to hunt for, something that they would never find because it won't exist when they turn their lights upon it," Shinji says crookedly.

Leliel: …and explaining it does little to help, because fucking how? All you’re doing is laying clues there’s a third party, and the thing is, SEELE is gonna look into it. The only reason they don’t get more involved and, I dunno, call a temporary truce with Gendo to figure out who the third player is, is author fiat, and absolutely nothing you’ve done is anything but a signature they can follow up on. Again: Nurgle. Is not. Preferentially. Subtle. And big honking undead Chaos Space Marines even less so!

Emma: Yeah, all you've done is create an “enemy of my enemy” situation where you are the worse enemy. You should be trying to pit them against each other.

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 425

PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 157

DUMMY PLUGGED: 244

Looking at the babbling doctor, Shinji smiles and says, "Poor man, he's lost his mind. Only way to soothe his broken psyche after tonight will be to obsessively write down names. Not important names of course, just the names of every SEELE compromised agent I can extract from you."

Futaba: …and not any of, I dunno, their operations?! Projects?! Ways to take control without anyone noticing?! YOU! ARE! A! PSYKER! MENTAL REPROGRAMMING AND SLEEPER AGENTS ARE IN YOUR SKILLSET!! Is the new world going to be decided by the vision of a fucking moron…? [Crystal Raven’s eyes start glowing as her eyes spontaneously develop markings resembling a wadjet.]

Wanderer2691: Uhh…what the incipient wyrd said. For an “inheritor of Gendo’s brilliance”, Tzeentchji sure ain’t capable of spotting opportunities…

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 426

PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 158

The commander finds his voice returned to him again and he shouts out, "You won't get anything out of me!" He then spits at Shinji only for the wad of saliva and mucus to freeze mid-air and rocket back at the man.

Nocht: Behold, a man I’d be much more honored to call an enemy than the great prick that is our supposed protagonist.

Smiling, Shinji says, "I've always wanted to hear someone say that since I learned this ability. My word choice was very precise when I said extract."

Shinobu: Gee, I wonder why.

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 427

"Discedo solus, what in God's name is that supposed to mean?" One of the shadowy members of the SEELE council asks.

Leliel: …are you fucking kidding me. High Gothic. This is your idea of “subtle confusion.” High. Fucking. Gothic.

"Nothing. It's Latin, but its nonsense," Lorenz replies flippantly. "Whoever did this probably just looked up a couple of words that looked right and mixed them together without thought for grammar.

Nocht: Yes. It appears that is indeed his idea of subtlety, a language literally nobody else speaks on this version of Terra. [Facepalm]

Emma: Just use Latin! It’s pretentious and ominous!

Wanderer2691: Background, High Gothic is the “noble’s language” of the Imperium, often reserved for political and religious use; it’s stylized as grammatically iffy Latin, but is openly said in-universe that it’s really just a lot of loanwords from Latin combined with Emps-knows-how-long generations of linguistic drift. It is not something you want to draw attention to if you don’t want people figuring out there’s a pattern. And of course, once again, Academia Nut thinks he is Dah Smarty, Guyz, for calling out the pseudo-Latin that cheerfully admits to such in-universe is pseudo-Latin. For his next trick, that the sky is not truly blue but has a more difficult time absorbing blue light, ergo reflecting blue! PRAISE HIS BRAIN, DAMMIT!

EXCOMMUNICAE CANONICUS: 159

The message is clear though."

Futaba: “I am a perverted moron that is going to derail the plans of my god, succeed because I read Prima Strategy Guides for reality and am only useful as chaff for someone with the barest clue of what they’re doing and worked through hell for what she has, extra lives to people who shoot me!”

Leliel: …I’m honestly not sure if it’s just corruption or if she’s being possessed by the ghost of Canon Asuka now…or possibly Ocean from Ride the Cyclone.

Shinobu: …If she starts getting into Social Darwinism and pop music, you’ll be the first to know.

"Oh?" Asks the French member of the council.

"Get out. Ladies and gentlemen, we're being told to leave Tokyo-3 by a force capable of dismembering a heavy assault black ops team without anyone knowing, driving a hardened war veteran insane, and then mailing the torso of the commander with the words Discedo solus carved into his chest to my name," Lorenz says, somewhat exasperated by it all.

Wanderer2691: Charming. And somehow, even more of a cartoon than the Radio Spine.

Emma: Mailed? Did Tzeentchji pay the fees for shipping something heavy? Did he get one of those styrofoam refrigerator boxes to ship meat in so no-one noticed the smell? *beat* AM I MEANT TO BELIEVE SEELE HAS A P. O. BOX?



(Pictured: This SEELE)

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 428

DUMMY PLUGGED: 246

"This is a declaration of war," the Russian member exclaims.

"Indeed, but it is not Gendo, as much as you all might want to blame him," Lorenz says, looking out over the members anonymous and not.

"You have his word for this?" The Russian asks contemptuously.

"No. Conveniently for him, he is in Antarctica retrieving the Lance of Longinus as per our orders, and is thus out of secure communication at the moment," Lorenz says evenly.

Shinobu: *Keel* “And also probably wouldn’t be acting like a two-bit gangster as imagined by a cruel four-year-old. Also, never would have raised a knife if he could have helped it, seeing as how his schemes don’t have anything to do with Child Monitoring Duty.” [Thinks] …Or anything else Gendo, Father Of The Year, does for that matter.

"Very convenient," one of the American members says broodingly.

Futaba: Yeah, convenience is on the side of this asshole who doesn’t deserve any of it, all in the name of “power while keeping to the plot”!

Nocht: [Cocks head] …Hold on to that thought. [Passes note to Leliel.]

Leliel: [Reads] …even if this didn’t save her from a life of intrigue, mutation, and milking the air dramatically, it’d be my pleasure…

"Yes, so convenient in fact that I believe him. The timing of the raid was to be done when he and his second in command were out of the country," Lorenz notes. "It is not his style to leave the execution of something like this to a subordinate like that. He might never get his hands dirty, but he wants to be there to watch."

Futaba: This is…honestly, I’m not sure, he is directly present for most of his schemes, because, well, he’s the Commander. Even if he was honest, he’d still be a hero unit. And he’s enough of a control freak that is plausible. But he also clearly is able to tear himself away for other duties. So, I’m not gonna score…yet…

"Unless of course he knew that we knew this sort of thing would be outside his style," the American from before points out.

"True, but we could play 'He knows I know' all day and get nowhere.

Wanderer2691: So, it’d be faster than this fic’s pacing?

Nocht: …some Ministorum priests would declare penance for that kind of joke…

Emma: You are not William Goldman and you will suffer for this blasphemy.

In any case, not only is this sort of thing outside Gendo's preferred managerial style, it is outside any sort of sane response.

Futaba: [Pupils shrink, eye twitches as the button spontaneously presses itself.]

TALON ON THE SCALES: 76

DUMMY PLUGGED: 247 (Yeah, the notoriously paranoid conspiracy wouldn’t make the loss of their “top agents” an immediate priority. Sure, Jan.)

The occasional agent on either side going missing is simply part of the game we play.

Sophia: It is apparent that many followers of the Primordial Truth would be right at home on this Terra, it clearly has the same level of political strife that mutilated bodies are considered to not be out of the ordinary.

DUMMY PLUGGED: 248

TALON ON THE SCALES: 77

A normal response would have been to lead the follow up agents down a false or dead trail, taking them away from whatever he desires hidden. Killing anyone who approaches your secret is not the way to hide it. That merely shows that you have something to hide and where it can be found," Lorenz explains.

Wanderer2691: Spoiler: None of this is followed up on.

TALON ON THE SCALES: 78

"Unless of course this is merely the proverbial scrap of red cloth being waved in front of us, concealing the dagger," the paranoid American points out.

Shinobu: So as you can see, the author’s need to wave around his Stu’s dick is part of a cunning scheme and not an obviously dumb indulgence that by all rights should blow up in his face. I have no idea if I’m picking up Futaba’s increasingly Arcanite thoughts or not.

Emma: Oh fuck me, this entire scene is just ass-covering. “If I have everyone point out that this is stupid, it will somehow help the reader’s suspension of disbelief”.

"I will concede that point, and we are looking into just such a possibility, but the move is too aggressive for Gendo right now. He still must maintain the pretext of cooperation," Lorenz says with a sigh.

Nocht: *Keel* “Which is why I, recognizing both that and my ability to find my rear end with both hands, am leaning on that cooperation to find our mutual enemy.” And in the next week, Tzeentchji’s vaunted mind was splattered across the ground, the end.

TALON ON THE SCALES: 79

"No… no, I feel that we have stumbled upon a third player in this game, a player that may not even realize what the game is. They are powerful, but inexperienced in this sort of thing if talented. Whoever is doing this, they want us to fight with Gendo," Lorenz points out.

Futaba: [Gesticulates at both Nocht and the above paragraphs wildly] HELLOOO! EARTH TO CONSPIRACY CYBORG!? HELLOOOO? IS THE VISOR BLOCKING YOUR PREFRONTAL CORTEX? THIS ISN’T A HIGH DIFFICULTY! FUCKING HELLOOOOO!

TALON ON THE SCALES: 80

"Like that goal is difficult to achieve," the Russian comments dryly.

Sophia: Few things more reliably unite more than a shared enemy, however. Something I believe this author is unfamiliar with.

"In any case, we need more intelligence on the situation before acting, but because of the actions, we can't touch Tokyo-3 for the next month at the very least.

Futaba: … À̸̢̤͌̍͜Ȧ̵͍̟ͅǍ̷̦A̷͓͐Ä̴͍͎̓̈́Ǎ̷̪͓Ǎ̴̧̰̔Ä̶̛̳̝̦́Ã̸͍͋̅R̸͕̂̃R̷̪̈́̉R̷̭̈́͘͝R̷̮͒R̸̗̰̆͗̃G̶̩̜̑͆́H̵͚̣̙̀͆́H̵̤͖͂̚͠H̵̩͆͜!̷͙̏͘͘


(https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Psionic_Inundation)

Nocht: … ouch?

Leliel: Seriously, watch where you aim the mind bullets! Especially when it’s at the guy who is indoctrinated to kill you if you lose control.

Futaba: He’s welcome to try. Right now, I’m pretty much bordering on being the renewing flame that will burn this suicidal idiots to ash. Or Chaos Spawn, either work! What is barring them, the Human Instrumentality Committee, from recruiting things related to the possible security of continued human existence!? Legally and publicly!?

TALON ON THE SCALES: 81

DUMMY PLUGGED: 249

At least Section 2 will be tied up for at least as long trying to figure out what happened," Lorenz notes unhappily.

Sporkers:



TALON ON THE SCALES: 82

DUMMY PLUGGED: 250

"I would hate to be the one in charge over there right now," one of the members notes dryly.

Wanderer2691: …assuming there’s anyone in charge at all, at this level of competency for SEELE it’s entirely possible they forgot to assign duties.

Leliel: I want to pause here and state that while we’re going to exposit more later - writing a conspiracy, especially one as vast as SEELE, is a delicate balancing act. One needs them to be competent, but not so much so that they seem unstoppable…but not enough competency, especially in day-to-day, it comes off like the only reason they succeed is author fiat. This fic manages to fail in both ways, with SEELE coming off as especially sinister Keystone Kops, while Tzeentchji is a true master of his craft and espionage because shut up. Now, we get that portraying a Chessmaster, especially a protagonist, this way, is hard, because the very concept of the manipulator is that they know more things, and thus characterizing their gaps so you can focus on their personality is hard…

…so naturally we have an example that made it look easy.



Sophia: …this is not the symbol of a church of Excess?

Wanderer2691: Bondage hand aside, this is the avatar and sigil of Handler Walter from Armored Core 6, and the most you see of his appearance given how conversations are all over radio in that game. He’s, as the title sounds, your operator for mercenary work on the dead planet of Rubicon, a cold man who never lets you forget your character, C4-621, is a debt slave who lost their right to even their proper name and body, being heavily cybernetically modified to be an ideal mech pilot. He only cares about the money and making sure your contracts with the local megacorps are fulfilled…

Leliel: And about 90% of what we just said is bullshit.

Watch on YouTube

Leliel: See, Walter is a genuinely cold and stoic person…but he isn’t actually a mercenary captain, or even in it for the money. See, Rubicon is dead because of the Fires of Rubicon, an event where the alien superorganism Coral, which was being used as both fuel and mental connector to the mechs got set alight, which essentially set the very fabric of space aflame.

Nocht: Huh, self-performing Exterminatus of a corruptive xenos force. Convenient.

Wanderer2691: Yeah, you wish. Enough Coral survived to draw the corporations back, and Walker, a survivor of the Fires, discovered it was not only alive, but interested in growing. He’s secretly backing you so he can finish the job, stopping the resource war over it forever and its apparent will to assimilate everyone. He actually cares a great deal about C4-621 and regularly slips his coldness to reveal he’s worried about your health and really wants you to help pay off your debt; it’s clear he also hates the very idea of debt slavery of corporate soldiers to begin with and he’s doing it just as much to screw over the megacorporations who enforce that system and want to use Coral for their own gain, playing both sides of the Arquebus/Balam corporate war to destroy each other and Coral. In the ending you side with him, he sacrifices himself to finish the mission, and leaves it in his will to pay for your freedom.

Leliel: …and that ending is also largely considered the bad one, because there’s an important factor Walter does not know, and really, can’t - Coral is not only alive, it contains within it sentience. Friendly sentience.



Wanderer2691: This is Ayre, the other mission control for you. Not her sigil, Ayre herself - she’s a C-pulse wave mutation, effectively a naturally occurring self-aware AI consciousness in the makeup of the Coral, one of many; the reason Coral-infused tech sometimes goes berserk is that Coral minds hack them and fight back in a panic on realizing they’re trapped, or to protect other wave mutations. Thing is, sentient Coral waves can only communicate with particular kinds of enhanced humans, ie the kind with Coral tech built into them, manifesting as voices in their heads…which given how mutilated enhanced humans are, are generally written off as hallucinations. Since it’s heavily implied that C4-621 can’t speak due to said mutilations, Walter doesn’t notice that you are paying attention to a voice he can’t hear at all, allowing Ayre to integrate herself before she admits fully to what she is. And before our esteemed Assassin says that this is proving Walter’s point, it’s also from Ayre - and the context clues of everyone else that has interacted with Coral minds - that her species is what Stellaris would call “Radical Xenophiles”; the fact that humans have used them as a disposable resource and raw materials inspires nothing in them but sadness.

(Stellaris Wiki)

Leliel: They want to merge with humanity, it’s true, but it’s entirely symbiotic; you and Ayre are what the wave mutations as a whole want, as far as any concrete lore in the game goes, and she’s literally just the occasionally-snarky hacker voice on the comms. The fact that Walter has been so traumatized by the Fires and is unable to hear the Coral explain that they’re sorry about all that, they can’t help how flammable they are, until it’s too late, is explicitly a tragedy.

Nocht: I…have my doubts, it sounds suspiciously like the T’au in their distinct paternalism and even more invasive, but I admit that if the choice were between that or…most other Imperial rivals, I could manage, and from the sound of it, the narrative does recognize why others would also be skeptical. But even beyond that, I already respect this person wrong, even from the (in my view) naive point of view; he clearly is no coward and has a sense of duty to those weaker than him.

Wanderer2691: Precisely; Walter is working off a huge misunderstanding, but given that, he’s shown to be pretty freaking brilliant - and in fact apart from the existence or not of Coral, he never loses, because in all three endings both Balam and Arquebus get fucked. At worst, it’s a temporary but strong victory over the megacorps in a way that avoids the potential accidental xenocide, and allows the humans who want to live free of the corps a chance to rebuild. And he does all of this without any of your megacorp contacts being any the wiser.

Shinobu: Yeah, if he knew, he’d probably be bound for a much happier ending to team up with the Coral, simply because he’d realize he can afford to be kind - and has a plan and backups that don’t get blown over by a stiff breeze.

Futaba: …Please, God. Let this next bit be far away from the World’s Stupidest Intrigue, pleeeeeeease…..

"Thanks for letting us in, that rain sure is coming down hard out there," Kensuke says while towelling off his hair.

Futaba: [Pales] Oh no.

Emma: You jinxed us, kiddo.

"No problem guys, just keep your voices down, Misato-san has been working late for the past couple of days," Shinji says, putting a finger to his lips.

Futaba: No no no no no no noooo…slice of life…harem comedy…nonsense…[sobbing]

Sophia: Unfortunately, the particular Path to Glory you have taken steps upon is guided by the Changer of Ways, who is generous in both His gifts of malleable flesh and tests of those who call upon him. It will not be the last time he comes across as cruel for the sake of the Design.

"Ah," both Toji and Kensuke say, hushing up immediately.

"Hey, what are these stooges doing here?" Asuka asks from behind a curtain.

Shinobu, Wanderer2691, Leliel: Suffering…

Shrugging, Shinji says, "We have yet to find a Shemp, and you don't want to break up the Three Stooges do you?"

"Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk," Asuka says sarcastically from behind the curtain to flick them each in the nose.

Futaba: Why are they even making that joke…? Freaking Alabama, now this…?

Wanderer2691: I’m going to let it pass as the partly American Asuka is making the continuation for that joke, only Shinji has knowledge - and they’re classic media for a reason. Manages to avoid a FATED BASTARD by including himself…barely.

Leliel: Yeah, gonna be honest, the next bits are fine; Misato reveals she was awake long ago due to her new rank of Major, which Kensuke notices and congratulates her on; since Gendo and Fuyutsuki are out on business, she’s the ranking officer, and so she’s the ranking officer for a warehouse district-related mess.

"You won't be home for dinner tonight," Shinji finishes for her.

Sighing, Misato shakes her head and says, "No, not going to be home for dinner tonight, probably not tomorrow night either. So don't worry about cooking anything for me."

Nodding, Shinji says, "A pity. You will be back to regular hours, or at least regular for you, once you're no longer the senior officer in command, right?"

Smiling, she says, "Yeah, I promise I'll make it up to you guys somehow. It's not fair for you guys to be ignored like this."

Sophia: This is almost… sweet. What horrible thing happens next?

Futaba: Well, in a while, she joins the harem as the Token Slaanesh Lady, but that’s not next. So…

Giving her a quirky grin, Shinji says, "Don't worry about it Misato-san, we both know you'll be back."

This comment caused an unexpected outburst from Misato… or at least the equivalent of an outburst when she was in her professional mode. She just tensed up at that statement before going over to Shinji and Asuka and bundling them up into a fierce hug and saying, "I can definitely promise you that."

Shinobu: [Cocks head] I have no idea why she’d be like that. Or is this some attempt to write her affection starvation, but I think at this point she’d be pretty casual and aware they trust her. Not a point, but…huh?

Releasing them, she then smoothes out her uniform and gives her two charges a fierce look, reminding them, "Now while I'm gone I don't want to find out about any hanky-panky between you two."

"We'll remember to destroy the evidence," the say in unison.

Smiling, she says, "That's what I want to hear."

Sophia: Ah. That.

Futaba: [Growls as the pink/blue flames start licking her and changing her outfit to something blue and vaguely Egyptian, button is spontaneously pressed.]

THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 206

DUMMY PLUGGED: 251 (If anything, she’d get annoyed or say she was being serious; she is concerned about their welfare.)

"Or rather don't want to hear," Shinji points out.

Smiling and mussing up his hair playfully, Misato says, "Exactly.

Shinobu: … See note above, and add to it that her entire job is organizing Eva logistics and mission control. She is not someone who does not want to know things.

DUMMY PLUGGED: 252

Now remember that you have a harmonics test coming up tomorrow. I can trust you two to get to NERV on your own if I'm still working, right?"

"Of course," they say in stereo, their synch training still remembered.

Nocht: [Unnerved expression] …Does this ‘training’ involve Genestealers, while we’re on the subject?

Leliel: No, you weren’t there for that training, but it’d be less creepy. People assimilated into a Brood Mind are generally in a less abusive relationship with each other.

Shaking her head, she gathers up her things and heads to the door, slipping on her shoes and saying, "See you guys later. Do please remember to do your homework in between make-out sessions, okay?"

Futaba: Yeah, like he cares. Too busy indulging himself to make a good study, not when he could be working on those vaunted ‘plans’ of his, the overconfident twit… [Eyes start glowing blue as she mutters under her breath]

THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 207

"We will," they say.

"Bye!" Misato says before heading out.

Toji and Kensuke just stare at the two of them in shock for a moment, Kensuke more than Toji as he had not quite been paying attention to how far along the two of them were in their relationship. Sliding next to one another, their sides pressing together, they grin mischievously and ask, "What?"

Futaba: [Levitating] …dereliction of duty, failure to imagine, he has fucking high school to wave his dick around, like mutation couldn’t give him something interesting other than size…

Shinobu: [Starts edging closer to her] And using the relationship as a way to boast to his male friends, and Asuka’s into it. Somehow.

THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 208

HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 315

"You're scandalous," Toji says with a shake of his head.

"I see that Hikari is rubbing off on… is that because she is rubbing up to you, or are you still fantasizing about that?" Asuka asks.

Futaba: [Heedless of the whispering susurrus surrounding her] Oh yeah, that’s what she is, just a trophy that rubs him, she’s a goddamn class rep I could create a good ring to start pressuring the teachers, get some nice computer classes going to ensure my minions have the proper skills-

Shinobu: [Swipes crown, puts it in the purity box.]

Futaba: GAH! [Falls back to couch] …Honestly, I’m wondering what inventory those things are coming from. The chainsword, now that; it can’t be all Sophia…

Nocht: That is a note, and she does seem to have been quarantined well. This speaks of effort on Chaotic behalf…but yes, Hikari would be targeted not as a weak point, but an ideal agent, as opposed to…arm candy for Toji.

THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 209

HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 316

That pretty much caused Toji's brain to lock up.

Shinji just laughed at Toji's mental paralysis and, grinning, he glances at Asuka and then asks Toji, "At least tell me you two have moved up to this?"

He then kisses Asuka, their tongues playing with one another for a moment before breaking off to turn to his friends and grin, saying, "Aren't girlfriends grand?"

Sophia: I strongly suspect you could fulfill anything you find grand in your romantic partner with your hand and a book of affirmations.

Nocht: Finally, something I disagree with the Daemon Primarch on - he wouldn’t be able to show off and insult other men otherwise with a pornslate!

HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 317

Both Kensuke and Toji fainted, causing Asuka and Shinji to break down laughing.

Futaba: Oh hey, so am I! [Crazed hysterical laughter as the psychic flames flare]

Wanderer2691: …I’m glad she doesn’t have any weapons on her…

A few hours later after Toji and Kensuke had left the two of them lounged together in one of the chairs watching TV, and Shinji commented, "Does anyone in this house not have abandonment issues?"

Shinobu: …oh, great, he’s going to be oh-so-superior about how above pain he is…

"You probably," Asuka says while munching on popcorn.

Shinobu: …or by proxy, assuming her issues are worse than DA MAN’S.

HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 318

"I think wanting to gut my father for leaving me counts as an 'issue'," Shinji points out.

"The fact that you don't says that you're handling it well," Asuka points out.

Sophia: So being honest about patricide makes up for it? Funny, that’s never been my experience.

Nocht: And given what he’s molded himself to be in order to follow his mentor’s teachings…I am twice unconvinced.

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 429

"You worked with Misato for years before coming here, any idea what went wrong for her?" Shinji asks.

Shaking her head, Asuka replies, "No, she never really talked about it."

Futaba: …oh ehm gee, there’s something wrong with her? By the Architect, I never knew, given how we never fucking see it! There’s canonical moments where her inability to see positive relationships as anything but romantic and obsession with killing Angels have been exposed, and you missed all of them! Is the world bending so much that he’s able to pull these assumptions out of his - don’t answer that, I know the answer’s gonna be yes, that’s just another item on the bucket list for when someone who knows what they’re doing is in charge…

DUMMY PLUGGED: 253

"We'll have to do something nice for her when she has the time again," Shinji decides.

"A shopping trip perhaps?" Asuka suggests.

Futaba:



(Owl House)

…we are not doing that again, don’t you dare with “bitches be shopping” after that nonsense in Chapter 8.

HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 319

Glaring at her, he says, "Something that would not be a form of torture for me."

[Sound of metal tearing as the button is all but telekinetically crushed]

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 430

Smiling impishly, Asuka says, "But kind gestures like that usually involve some sort of sacrifice of the self."

Emma: And then Tzeentchji exploded at the thought of making a genuinely selfless gesture. And they all lived happily ever after.

"Oh, and what exactly would you be sacrificing?" Shinji asks.

Her impish features changing to one of perfect angelic innocence, Asuka says, "Why, I would have to sacrifice my own relative beauty for surely after such a trip Misato-san would outshine me like the sun outshines the moon."

Nocht: …I would make some mocking mimicry here, but I think even my attempt at playing a woman for this parade of stereotypical vanities would probably get me stabbed the next time I met one of my Callidus sisters. Deservedly so.

HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 320

Glaring at her, Shinji says, "Okay, after that load of bullshit, I'm afraid that it's now going to have to be tickle time."

"You fiend, I still haven't figured out a counter to that," Asuka says in mock horror.

Emma: Guys, where did we put the bucket?

Wanderer2691: [Tosses her one] We have spares! [Urp]

THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 210

"I know," Shinji says with a smile while snaking his hand up her skirt to the ticklish spot on her thigh.

Leliel: Reminder; both of these characters are 14. My eyes are not yet bleeding but I can feel the pressure.

Emma: Leliel, pass the not-tea.

THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 211

Soon they were rolling on the floor giggling and laughing before Asuka suddenly cries out, "Son of a bitch!"

Sporkers, By Contrast: THANK FUCK!

Stopping immediately, Shinji notes that she's holding one of her eyes and he asks worriedly, "What happened?"

"One of my contacts fell out," Asuka says while patting down the ground looking for it.

Joining her, Shinji says, "I didn't know you needed contacts."

"I don't… not exactly…" Asuka says before looking up at him and opening the eye she had closed to reveal that the whites had not returned her eyes still blood red.

Futaba: [Jaw Drop] This fic actually remembered that bit of continuity?!

Leliel: Someone call up Charlie Mange and tell her to pack the hotel up warm, there’s a snow warning in the Inferno tonight!

Brushing a lock of hair out the way, Shinji smiles and says, "You need not have hidden such things from me, the gifts of the gods are to be celebrated and embraced. And besides, such change and growth is the pinnacle of beauty in my eyes."

Shinobu: *Tzeentchji* “Particularly given how I can use that mutation for my own-” Wait. Bloodshot eyes? I thought a significant part of them had turned blood red!

Wanderer2691: Yeah…we did too. I mean, it’s an early mutation but…it’s kinda weaksauce to have the gift of the Blood God being that it looks like you always just had arena sand kicked into your face.

Sophia: Of course not. If she displayed her God’s favor more creatively, she might become less conventionally attractive, and thus, less of a trophy.

HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 321 (Because Gurl Mus B Hawt.)

"Thanks Shinji. Still, I would prefer not to have the rest of the school learn about these things," Asuka says, going back to her searching.

Nocht: And then promptly grew a tail with a bone mace at the tip.

Futaba: So, basically, they find the lens, she puts both of them in the cleaning solution, she pins him in a practice spar…

"You're getting stronger too," Shinji says with a smile.

"I have a good teacher," Asuka says, leaning over to kiss him. After a moment of making out she suddenly finds herself pinned on the floor in her underwear, wondering what had just happened.

Futaba: And then he commits telekinetic BAD TOUCH. ACK! [Spontaneously assembles shield of junk]

Emma: I think on some level this is actually grosser than the fucking “plague mommy kink”.

THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 212

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 431

"You need to work on your capacity for treachery though," Shinji says smugly.

Leliel: NOT. HELPING.

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 432

"You know, I'm not even mad at this point, I'm impressed. How did you get my clothes off that fast?" Asuka asks in mild shock and awe.

Shinobu: The creator and master of this fic having no respect for women or privacy, as a start…

Emma: Yes, women are always admiring and impressed at being stripped without consent.

HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 322

"A good magician never reveals his secrets," Shinji says while waggling his eyebrows.

Nocht: [Aiming rifle at the spork chamber screen.] I know I can’t shoot him through the text. But this feels so much better…

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 433

"It was telekinesis, wasn't it?" Asuka asks.

When her bra unhooked at the back on its own, Shinji just grins and says, "A good sorcerer still keeps his secrets, but he tends to flaunt the implications more."

Emma: I can’t believe he passed up on a “lmao bras are SO HARD to undo” joke. He’s slipping on the terrible cliche sex comedy front.

Futaba: Oh! Oh, I appreciate that byline, that implies that when I rip every scrap of lore out of that underused sex toy you call a brain and build my kingdom of wires and knowledge atop your corpse, I’ll have plenty of grateful subjects free from your sexual harassment to come forth and accept my guidance…pwhehehehehee….[Warp fire flares again as she tents her hands, glasses fogging over as her cheeks start displaying metallic-looking circuit patterns]

Shinobu: [Glances nervously at Nocht] Right…before she declares herself the Gremlin Queen of Malware and becomes a source of real-life creepypastas, let’s pause and take a moment to reflect on the thrust of this scene…beyond harem comedy. Misato’s trauma…which only just became relevant, as an afterthought. Told to us, by people in-character.

(https://www.orchardwriting.com/blog/2015/3/12/show-dont-tel)

Leliel: We’re gonna get into the absolute worst incidence of that later this chapter…but honestly, who here did not get that Misato is supposedly the character focus of this chapter? If not, I don’t see why, given how she wasn’t present for half of it.

Wanderer2691: And when you’re speaking of a Warhammer 40K crossover…that’s really dire, because some of the strongest character work comes from the Daemon Primarchs. We’ve sung our praises for Magnus, and how it’s shown his genuine idealism combines with his arrogance to create a volatile mix that destroys himself and everyone close to him, but we also have Angron’s rage being born of how he feels he failed everyone he loved as a gladiator, Peturabo’s cycle of rages and peaceful craftsmanship making him come off as more dangerous if he was simply angry all the time, and…well, actually I’m going to let Sophia take over. Floor’s yours, Your Eminence.

(Credit to Emma herself).

Sophia: Was it really necessary to use a pre-enlightenment picture? No matter. I spent my childhood on Colchis being used by my foster father as his religious protege. I suppose I should that Kor Phaeron for showing me the way eventually, but the truth is he was always blinkered, always unable to perceive the primordial truth beyond what he could benefit from it. I was as dutiful a daughter as I could be, but it was never enough. I unified Colchis for peace, and all he could see was his own glory. I assumed my very creator would be different, but she was not. I was nothing but an engine of war to her. She wanted absolute adulation, but my worship was a childish dream, deserving to be destroyed. I wanted the truth. I wanted my devotion and efforts to be acknowledged. Isn’t that what we all want?

Emma: Yeah, this might be where I have to break sporker kayfabe and step in. What Sophia just said is true, but also even toned down for sporking, Sophia is a pretty goddamn unreliable narrator and a Bad Person. She thinks “planetary scale human sacrifice” is an appropriate expression of affection. She thinks admitting she selected the Ultramar system out of spite means she’s being honest. I’m not interested in canon’s “lesser evil” waffling about the Imperium, yeah, but I’m not interested in whitewashing Chaos, either. That’s what I want to do. I want to write sympathetic, compelling villains, and I want the narrative to be honest about how horribly broken everyone in this family is, on either side. This? This is just… pathetic. It’s uninteresting. It’s an unwillingness to get elbow deep in the messy guts of characterization. And this is an improvement?

Leliel: And that is a lot of my point. Because Sophia, or in canon, Lorgar, works on actions that make internal sense. Her fan Aurelian or the canon one, ultimately the Primarch of the Word Bearers is a person who desperately wanted to have truth, and was repeatedly mocked, humiliated, abused, and bullied by their progenitor until someone offered the patronage of Gods who, while awful, were occasionally appreciative. To never even acknowledge that Misato Katsuragi, of all people, has deeper characterization than just the sweet, hypersexualized soldier with incredible competence in her element, indicates just how vapid Academia Nut was in his read of the series, and his ultimate refusal to write women as more than the most basic of tropes. We have a soon-upcoming plot element that’s going to demonstrate this, but let’s just say that, for now, it’s really fucking telling the episode dedicated to expositing on who Misato is as a person barely has her in it in favor of fucking harem comedy. Just note that, reducing the amount of characterization a female character has that makes her less desirable to a harem and forces engaging with her on anything but a surface level fuckable object with issues that can be solved via dick, is definitely a factor worth a point for crappy male-is-might “romance”.

HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 323

"The Tenth Angel has been identified, and it is currently in orbit above the Indian Ocean, making its way here," Misato tells the assembled Pilots the next day, bringing up images on the projectors to show the bizarre shape of the latest Angel with three eye-like lobes and numerous smaller projections.

Nocht: [Blink] …well, that was sudden. Harem, allegedly sexy nonsense, then…xenos assault. I don’t disagree that it happens, but before there was a note of the sudden break in the frequent malevolent boredom of war, waiting for the next push.

Futaba: To be fair, this Angel did show up suddenly in series too…but on the other hand, NGE actually had an “oh shit Angel” moment, and actually built up the plot by showing Gendo and Fuyutsuki overseeing Antarctica and expositing on it and the aftereffects of Second Impact. But that’s also melancholic and shows that neither the Commander nor Vice Commander is completely soulless, and we can’t have that!

"Code named Sahaquiel, this Angel appears to be using parts of its body for the purposes of orbital bombardment. Protecting the pieces with an AT-field, they build up a massive amount of kinetic energy as they drop, and then upon impact a small portion of the Angel flesh is converted to energy, releasing a massive amount of energy explosively," Ritsuko explains, showing additional images of the Angel correcting its aim for drift.

Shinobu: …well, that’s kind of…prosaic for the Archangel of the Sky.

Nocht: …I am sorry, but I can't help but see that and imagine the great beast is looking out upon its enemy and thinking “...excuse me, do you mind? Is there something on my lashes?”

Emma: I’ve always thought it looked like the old Avast Antivirus logo.




Futaba: Uh, yeah, officially licensed pachinko here, giving a better sense of scale as well.



Nocht: Aaah. Now that is a proper enemy for Titans.

Shinobu: See, while Sahaquiel is also a filler Angel, it’s also one of the first that shows just how outmatched the Evas are a lot of the time, and how careless they are of destruction they cause while searching for Adam. It was basically performing orbital bombardment as a practice run before it tried landfall in and of itself, and there’s notes of how many tidal waves it was provoking in the process. More importantly - its threat causes Misato’s mask to slip for the first time, and while her plan works, even Ritsuko, Queen of Hard Decisions and Steel Willpower, calls it out as insane and based on her own rage rather than tactical consideration. And then she announces a rather pathetic bribe to get the pilots to go along with it, which even Shinji doesn’t really buy.

Emma: It also continues the scaling up in alien-ness of the angels. Like, we had Ramiel but after that, all the angels were pretty familiar elaborations on Humanoid or Animalistic kaiju that attack you with their teeth or acid attacks or whatever, and then we get this big dumb eyeball in the sky doing mass-driver bullshit with chunks of itself. It feels like a real step up, is what I’m saying, and from here on out, the Angels just get more and more insane.

Leliel: Also, the explosions aren’t due to the Angelic matter converting, which implies it’s made of freaking antimatter. Rather, each droplet it spits to triangulate its course both carries a bit of its AT Field with it, and is also traveling really fast. It’s basically a living meteor shower, as opposed to matter/antimatter annihilation, which would be, oh what’s a good simile…nuclear bombardment, only worse.

Watch on YouTube

Wanderer2691: TL;DW summary - the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuke ever detonated, was the equivalent to 1.5 kilograms of antimatter total energy conversion - and that bomb was roughly 2000 times as destructive as Hiroshima. The droplets Sahaquiel unleashes, given its size, are quite a bit larger than 1.5 kilograms from an eyeball perspective - forget the in-series statement that most of Japan would become an extension of the Pacific Ocean if the entire Angel hit, matter conversion would likely be “look ma, no Asia” levels!

Emma: Normally I’d see that kind of escalation as a funny alteration to make in a WH40k crossover, but I strongly suspect this is just a “no sense of scale” issue.

DUMMY PLUGGED: 254

"It is currently jamming us, so we won't know where an attack will come until the Angel is a few minutes from impact," Misato explains.

Futaba: *Maya* “Uh, we have a good estimate on how its aim is getting better and better at a fairly even rate, and where the center of the radius is since we do have canonically enough satellites to see where it is hitting -”

Sophia: *Misato* “Be silent, we do not wish for the author to feel insecure with his inability to do some creative estimation, and to actually rewatch this media he is creating fiction based on.”

DUMMY PLUGGED: 255

Leliel: The next bit is actually pretty clever. Shinji points out that there’s nothing stopping Sahaquiel from just safely bombarding NERV from orbit, especially because it can soak N2 mines (dunno where he learned that or the theory it plans to ram its entire mass into Neo-Tokyo, but, I can afford it happened offscreen), but Misato reveals that it’s likely the Geofront can survive all but at least a third of Sahaquiel’s mass being launched, and it’d take a good week that allows NERV time to plan while it regenerates that (and while he doesn’t know it, I suspect it needs to drop its full mass to get its core in proximity with Adam for fusion). It’s either a full rush to not give NERV time or nothing, and while Shinji does bring up that it can act in a clever way to disguise its fall, throwing out bits of itself as chaff as the main body descends, but…

Sighing, Misato says, "We have already considered this, and any attack involving less than 10 of the Angel's mass will be ignored."

Nocht: Huh? I don’t see…[realization] …oh. This is…

Wanderer2691: Yeah…as the fic goes…

The Pilots all became sombre at that announcement. The Angel could drop hundreds of bombs without using up a significant portion of its mass and completely flatten Tokyo-3 without actually damaging the armour layers underneath, and they would just have to watch.

Emma: Yeah, I really believe you’re “sombre” about this. I definitely don’t feel the author salivating and typing one handed over this particularly gruesome example of “Hard Men Making Hard Decisions”.

Nocht: I understand the dismay, but…I am a knife which is meant to deliver precision blows to prevent these cold equations and the grim necessity of military office. In the universe I come from, it is a sign of an abnormally compassionate person to even admit to trepidation for only bombardment of a single hive-city to be allowed for to eliminate the source of the bombs. I have no comfort to offer except that at least it was not Exterminatus, the destruction of one planet to save many others. May any who lose their homes be granted new ones with blessings of the Ecclesiarchy, and those who fall be remembered as martyrs, their woe added to the tally of suffering caused by…the...An…why are the Phantom Thieves looking furious?

Shinobu: …remember how we said that even Ritsuko called out Misato for a reckless scheme that was based largely in her own vengefulness? Not a bitter recognition of priorities, and in fact she was explicitly putting people at risk in canon?

Nocht: …oh. Oooooh…my sympathies are completely withdrawn, then. In fact, I’d dare say I would start quietly passing my concerns to not only my lords, but the Inquisition itself, for that level of…contextual manipulation reeks of a hidden sadism that did not care why people died, only that they provided cover to a thirst for war and battle. That is the kind of blood madness that leads one to Khorne, or fittingly, Tzeentch. Own your darkness, do not invent worlds where what you were planning was always justified all along without even acknowledgement of why others would be furious with you - and yes, I am aware of my fellows in the Imperium, Sophia. I took up this philosophy to remain sane rather than lose myself to the desire for a perfect kill and to be applauded for it.

DUMMY PLUGGED: 256

TALON ON THE SCALES: 83 (Weird how this not only forces stations of the canon but makes Misato completely innocent of any wrongdoing, huh?)

"Then we pray it launches all at once," Shinji declares.

Leliel: At you, hopefully…

Misato had taken Shinji and Asuka up to the cliff overlooking the city, and she stared out at the now dull landscape, the skyscrapers having lowered into the Geofront. The evacuation orders had been given, emptying the city of all nonessential personnel. Now all that was left was to wait for the attack.

Futaba: [Suddenly tenses] …I sense…disturbance. Something shifting in the Warp, like a cold tide dragging me into the blackened depths.

"Kids… I brought you up here because I have something to tell you," Misato says, tired and world weary as she contemplates the consequences of her actions.

Futaba: …it’s growing stronger…

Taking a deep breath, she begins, "Fifteen years ago an Angel, not an asteroid, caused Second Impact, something you already know. What you might not know was that there was an expedition there at the time, with one survivor. The Katsuragi Expedition. I was that one survivor because my father sacrificed his life to save me."

Futaba: [Jaw drops] …You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Trying to hold back the tears of memories long suppressed, Misato continues, "When I was a child, my father let his work consume him. He was never home, never around, and it hurt my mother and me. It hurt so much that when she filed for divorce, I was happy that he would be completely gone from our lives instead of hanging around, a wound in our family that refused to heal. He couldn't understand why I was so upset with him."

Futaba: [Warp fire flares as she gets up - and floats] You…are not…doing this…you lazy…entitled…horny…

Nocht: [Hissing as he draws his rifle] Get the picto-vox link…

Leliel: Weird way to call a video, but…

Pausing to collect herself, she touches the cross about her neck to gather strength before saying, "And then he invited me on one of his expeditions, and he died while I lived. I hated him as much as I loved him after that, never knowing what I really felt. And now I've sworn revenge on the Angels, maybe so that I can finally have some closure with regards to my father. Does that make me a terrible person? Am I sacrificing everything just to get back at the Angels and my father?"

Futaba: You…ARE SERIOUSLY…CLAIMING…THIS…IS…M̵̹̍̂͒I̵̢̖͕̅Ṡ̶̨̫̏A̵̻̎T̴̲̏͐̽O̵̡̭͊?̸̖͔̟̂͛̽!̴̤̭̲̃̈́?̶̲̼̤̾!̶̭̳̾̑̎͜!̴̮͉̀̽̌?̴̟͋

[Room starts echoing with chants in Prosperan as a third eye opens in her forehead]

Shinobu: Uh, guys? I think if you’re going to stop her from a life chasing dark magic and rending reality in twain now…!

Emma: …I mean, if this isn’t a justified reason, nothing is.

Leliel: It’s more for her sake…

Both Asuka and Shinji walk over to Misato and hug her. Bursting into tears, she returns the embraces.

Futaba: [Expression suddenly turns calm] Pwee…Pwheheheheh…hahahahahahahaa…it….it all makes sense now Kage. Why…why everything seems to fall into place for him.

Wanderer2691: Come on come on, load, we already have an interdimensional Word Bearer problem we don’t want mixed gender Arcanite Space Marines in Tokyo…!

After a time, Shinji says, "Revenge is what makes us human Misato-san. We have memories; we can remember that which threatens us, that which hurts us, and attack again at a later day. We did not become the species we are today by playing nice, and we will not survive by playing nice. Revenge at a time like this is not just acceptable, it is preferred. So long as your hate sharpens your focus and resolve and does not blind you, then hate them, for in a war of annihilation with no chance of reconciliation, hate is the only thing that keeps you sane. Better to hate your enemy while killing them than to feel nothing at all."

Futaba: [Slowly growing insane grin] I mean…look at this. Misato’s been completely devoid of her reason to fight, and now…now the moment it becomes convenient, suddenly she’s always been fighting the darkness within. All so he can fuck her as a mother figure. It’s…it’s the nature of reality. The nature of reality…is broken.

Emma: Also why is she articulating this? I’m serious, if a character is projecting and doing a whole “I’m fighting the Angels because I can’t physically fight my father” thing, they shouldn’t be able to just… articulate that out loud! Especially not at this point in their character arc! The readers should be able to work that out, sure, but stating it either indicates a deep mistrust in your own abilities, or a deep mistrust in your readers’ intelligence, and I think I know which one is at play here.

"Second Impact wiped out half the human population. Three billion graves, many without bodies. So many families destroyed, so many lives wasted even when death did not come… revenge is not justified, it is necessary. The Angels must be made to pay," Asuka says fiercely while hugging all the tighter.

Futaba: And spurring on to revenge, and spite, and darkness…dragging her down…making her like Shido, like himself…it’s the same flaw that made Yaldabaoth. Made the Imperium. Made the Anathema. But…if reality didn’t want to be fixed, it wouldn’t have chosen us…

"The Angels have taken something from all three of us, in different ways. We want revenge too Misato-san," Shinji tells her.

Futaba: He, his author, his world - it’s taken everything from them, it’s time we start taking back. This multiverse only allows hope if you tear it into being…[Warpfire stars forming a portal]

"We want to mount their heads on our walls like animals, because that is what they are to us: beasts worthy only of slaughter and butchery," Asuka says.

Futaba: [Fully manic] EVERY ACCUSATION A CONFESSION, EVERY CLAIM A DESIRE, EVERY HOPE AN AMBITION - THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE IS JUST A SHADOW BEFORE HIM, SHAPES THROUGH DUST RESHAPED BY HIS LIGHT - SO IT’S TIME TO BE THAT LIGHT…

Forming Portal: ALL IS DUST…ALL IS DUST…ALL IS DUST…

Shinobu: [Notices he’s being lifted up.] Guys, I really don’t want to see what the Thousand Scion homeworld is like!

Sophia: Don’t worry, I think they’ll like you!

Nocht: [Death grip on pistol] Show. On. Mark…

"We want you to stop hurting Misato, because you're the mother we wish we had never lost. You're a slob, you drink too much, and you're way too lenient at times, but we love you all the same because you care. You care about us; you care about whether we live or die even when you prepare to make sacrifice us in battle. We will destroy anything and anyone that threatens you," Shinji tells her.

Futaba: Destroyed like YOU! Destroyed like your luck, because nobody deserves a bastard whose main positive quality is LUCK! NOBODY deserves a hero like that! That’s not a hero, that’s a porn magazine for the author! WHO WOULD EVER RESPECT ANYONE WITH THIS BLESSING THEY DIDN’T WIN?! They need better heroes - a hero like ME! TZEENTCH, I HEAR YOU, AND I HAVE COME TO BARG-

Nocht: NOW!

Watch on YouTube

Futaba: [Warpfire extinguishes] … Uh…before I begin my path to universal salvation through domination…wha? Load save?

Leliel: A sentiment the person that song is about has about everything in his life. You say nobody deserves a hero whose primary trait is that he had nothing but luck on his side to work insane plots into being - but what about a HERO OF THE IMPERIUM?

Futaba: Uh…huh. Yeah, given that expression, he’s just as smug and undeserving an asshole as this stagnant failure of the Changer of Ways, missed shot. [Reopens portal] I HAVE COME-

Wanderer2691: This is, in-universe, a photoshop of Ciaphas Cain that he has never posed for, and in fact has a weapon that he would never be caught dead using, because it’d break his hand at best.

Futaba: [Portal closes] … Hit on the second try. Explain?

Leliel: Well, to explain Commissar Ciaphas Cain - and it is contractually required to belt out a hearty HERO OF THE IMPERIUM the first time his title is mentioned in a web page - one has to explain a bit of British satire, specifically the character Sir Harry Flashman, who may be one of the most successful products of fanfic of all time. Essentially, Flashman was a minor villain in the blindly pro-boarding school (Victorian boarding school, in Britain - those places were pretty much abuse factories) Tom Brown’s School Days, who was expelled from Rugby School for being kind of a prick to the titular Tom Brown - but in the 1960s, George McDonald Fraser made him the protagonist of his own series of books…without changing the fact he was a racist, braggadocious, lecherous, mean-spirited, and above all else cowardly asshole at all, but showing how in the expansionist days of Victorian Britain, those qualities, combined with a bit of luck, made him constantly the hero of the hour when fighting the Empire’s many (many, many, many, many…) enemies. Despite not having a single one of the supposed Fine British Virtues - his only real redeeming quality is his self-honesty and ability to admit that the imperial urge is one of greed - he becomes held up as the romantic idea of a swashbuckling gentleman, despite his heroism coming down to clever cowardice a lot of the time.

Wanderer2691: Now, we’re gonna admit, Flashman hasn’t aged well; man’s outright guilty of sexual assault and a lot of what he does comes off like what edgelords would call being ‘manly’ these days. But the idea of the ideal hero who’s honestly none of the supposed ideals is what led to the genesis of Ciaphas Cain as a character…but the twist is, Ciaphas Cain is a false ideal hero of the Imperium of Mankind - the thing described in every single 40K book as the “cruelest, most despotic regime imaginable.” As a Commissar, Cain feels he’s a failure because he doesn’t want to antagonize his men by shooting them for disciplinary punishment. Nocht’s pretty damn nice for even a normal human in that setting, let alone an Assassin, but - you saw how he was already putting blame on things the humans did on their enemies without missing a beat, at least until he realized the framing was wrong.

Shinobu: …Let me guess: Cain’s actually a person who would actually be seen as a hero by any other sane society, but thinks he’s as much of an asshole as Flashman because he can’t recognize his virtues for what they are - the Imperium wouldn’t.

Leliel: Got it in one!

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Futaba: …okay, yeah, my opinion on him did a 180 after the scream of unending imposter syndrome. But I don’t see the lore as to why I shouldn’t reserve him for enlightenment as opposed to assassination. Guy’s clearly more genuinely competent than That Prick.

Nocht: Here’s the rub - that same absurd luck that saves Tzeentchji’s ass all the time? Cain is one of the galaxy’s greats at improvisation, but that doesn’t change the fact he has the love of the Fates themselves, that’s why he even has a chance to work his way out of these situations to begin with. Him unleashing his rant about his exhaustion around Marneus Calgar, the First Captain of the Ultramarines and perhaps the one Space Marine in existence who fully understands the pressure of trying to live up to a mantle you don’t think you deserve for the sake of your men. Because the reason Cain doesn’t just admit the truth is that he would be considered a potential heretic who likely passed on his cowardice to his men - thus not only would he die, but he wouldn’t be assured of their safety. So he lets it build ever more pressure on him, since the only way out is if people let him retire…which they won’t, because of his supposed heroism.

Wanderer2691: And before you point out this is a fanvid; the accidental defeat-of-command-while-retreating is not only a combination of canon feats, what actually caused Cain to even be publicly known as a hero to begin with was accidentally luring an entire army of all-consuming aliens into a killzone - he basically was running from a surprise attack by Tyranids he had no legitimate way of knowing were there beforehand, only to accidentally find their main force and was able to sneak back to the main artillery force to alert them to their existence, flipping the ambush on its head. Tyranids, it should be noted, are generally pursuit predators and have a hive mind, and they didn’t realize he slipped their web until the guns were trained on them.

Leliel: Basically, you wanted an example of a real hero who has everything handed to him? That’s Cain - and it shows because he doesn’t want everything handed to him, his luck is a joke at his expense - because said luck means he just gets assigned to worse situations when all he wants to do is spend his life in peace. Combine that with how he is a genuinely good schemer, and thus is actually able to take advantage of his luck reasonably and show some genuine tactical brilliance in the moment (The Last Ditch is all about how his sense of self- and troop preservation causes him to default to a defensive strategy rather than seeking glory…which, when one is fighting Tyranids who did not expect a strong target but a feeding ground, causes massive disruption as they exhaust themselves and are caught flatfooted by effective counterattacks), means he comes off as actually intelligent rather than the Author’s Speshul Boy. If you want a heroic character who gets by largely on luck, you want someone who comes off as at least not undeserving of the fondness of the Fates, and preferably is a little flummoxed by it - which Cain proves is possible.

Futaba: [Blinks, then closes eyes.]

Shinobu: Maybe the world is broken. Maybe it isn’t fair. But it’s not so broken you have to break it further to save it! There’s still hope in places other than Tzeentch!

Futaba: [Tearing up.] Mmmmmpf….

Shinobu: [Hugs her.]

Futaba: [Slowly returns it, collapses into sobs as her outfit returns to normal and the Raven Crown phases out of being.] It’s just…it’s too much. There’s so much wrong…

Nocht: [Lets out long breath.] That…was a relief. I did not want that fight, even victory would feel bitter. Though, I have to wonder where that damned crown even came from. First Leliel’s chainsword, now that - and of Dark Gods not known to be allies…

Sophia: …Given how Tzeentchji is spreading false worship of the Primordial Truth, and belief feeds and shapes the divine, perhaps it is an immune response, of sorts? Finding potential champions to defend against his influence?

Leliel: [Frowns.] …That is disturbingly sensible. In that it implies canon Chaos is afraid of being corrupted by his prickery. That’s not a comforting thought.

Shinobu: Seriously. I may not like Yaldabaoth, but if he was spooked…speaking of, we had a crisis to resolve, so we were delayed on sporking this, so, let me post the last bit of this whole subheading…

"This Angel threatens you, threatens everything we love and hold dear, they all do. We would kill them for you even if we didn't already have reason to hate them," Asuka finishes.

Shinobu: …and start on how this, more than anything else, shows just how truly and utterly vapid Academia Nut’s read of Neon Genesis Evangelion is.

(https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/let-me-tell-you-why-thats-bullshit/photos/page/5)

Emma: Popcorn? It comes free with the sporkspace.

Nocht: [Looks at where the Raven Crown used to be] …fitting pic.

Futaba: [Inhaling] Okay, better now…mostly, I think I’m still psychic…but yeah, basically this fic, in its infinite wisdom, has made the plan Misato came up with partly to inflict maximum pain on an Angel without consideration for actual feasibility or health of the pilots, and mostly worked out of luck, be “the bestest and most humanest plan evar” - and so, completely blotted out the very darkness she claims to be ashamed of. If anything, that just makes it look like self-pity - “oh woe is me, I’m making a hard decision, someone praise me and tell me it’s okay to be a hard woman for how tormented I am, wah wah wah.” Which would be great if it was intentional, and again, ties well into our theory she’d be a great Nurglite, since that’s the kind of self-pity they’re really into, for example Mortarion (thank you, Leliel). But here, it’s so the author gets to have Tzeentchji and his cult of personality-slash-trophies comfort her and show off how ‘caring’ and ‘sympathetic’ they are, and so build the parental and later romantic relationship in the most lazy way possible. Because complexity is haaaaaard.

Emma: It’s continuing this fic’s “have its cake and eat it too” attitude towards having a villain protagonist. Oh, yes, the characters can do bad, heinous things, but the narrative will bend over backwards to make sure we all know they’re actually totally justified and great and the best option.

Shinobu: Not to mention, completely misses part of what makes Misato such a unique and identifiable character - her flaws, and not just her self-destructive hate of Angels, but her fear of emotionally deep relationships, and ingrained ideas of heteronormativity:



Shinobu: She doesn’t mean to, and she actually does do an okay job of being a mother otherwise, but Misato is actually something of a bad influence on Shinji because of her ideas of what a man, or a boy, should be. Professor Katsuragi sacrificing herself pretty much scarred the idea that at their core, men are supposed to be self-sacrificing, brave, and eager, into her brain (and Kaji cemented it) and Shinji is one of those things (here’s a hint, “I musn’t run away” conflicts with the two other qualities). Thus, she does some light antagonism, a la drill sergeant, to get him to man up. This only halfway works and convinces Shinji to bottle up his emotions, and yeah that doesn’t go so hot - she’s nowhere near the main cause of his issues, that remains Gendo and PTSD, but she isn’t the help she needed to be to stop the emotional and later cosmic train wreck of End of Evangelion, which she fully admits in her Instrumentality moment. So, as you can imagine, making it so that suddenly her hate is a positive trait that keeps her sane for the sake of making Tzeentchji the Manly Ideal of brave and eager by the author (and repeatedly saying that he’s totes enlightened in that self-interest rather than actually show it between all the Stuff porn) is kinda sus, not gonna lie. Also, is there a way to mute psychic broadcasts, because it always feels weird having Futaba’s references come out of my mouth.

Futaba: I’ll get some training while we’re on break in the TTS universe.

Leliel: Huh, convenient - ahem! Which brings us to our point, which is to say, on a purely narrative level, this entire scene right here? Doesn’t work. It literally shoves an entire character arc into one scene that is just as much about the plan for one chapter. There’s something to be said for fast pacing, but this isn’t just ridiculous, it’s categorically unwilling to engage in the very same character work in the series itself, much less on its own terms! Frankly, this is the reason a lot of “rationalist” fanfiction tries desperately to focus on the weirdness, because the authors are genuinely uncomfortable writing actual people, and so hide the fact that they’re hollow, shallow shells filled with general ideas of character traits, claiming the “logic” displayed by the characters makes them immune to…basic human emotions, largely. Ergo, the author is excused from writing actual dialogue or growing emotional connection - and having a relationship founded so easily on a shared enemy doesn’t make it better, because what happens when that enemy is gone? It’s a relationship founded on shallow premises and anger, when that’s gone you’re going to have to ask why you even liked each other in the first place, and even if it’s constantly present that level of darkness is just…no. It’s not healthy, and it results in both sides seeing the others as tools.

Emma: Yeah, I’ve always been of the opinion that “tries to solve everything like a rational fic protagonist” is a really good character flaw for a character. The problem is, rationalist fanfics are always written by people who don’t realize that that makes you a self-justifying, emotionally detached asshole who fucks up, instead of a Guru of Facts and Logic.

Nocht: I will interject here and say no emotion is truly bad, or truly good - negative emotion is a sharp knife, while positive is meat and drink. One can use the knife as a tool to cut better things into being, while one can overeat or grow sick from bad water. It is how one acts on it that makes it better or worse - and this “advice” about revenge isn’t good. It is reducing her hatred to seeking restitution for her pain and waving off all other considerations - for example, the previously mentioned plan-that-worked-through-luck-alone was born of immoderate anger, one that ignored the welfare of her own pilots. On a purely practical level, this kind of hatred does not make one a good soldier, because it takes your mind - no ability to see anything beyond the red haze, and lack of ability to prioritize objectives apart from a personal grudge. On an emotional one - it makes the act of revenge itself a stimulant, and the thing about any stim is that it sparks hunger for that high again, and if that requires taking from other relationships, the addiction will consume it; it is why my primary emotion when hunting a target isn’t righteous anger or hate, but fear - I focus on what my target could do, what my attached forces could do to stem the issue if I fail. The pain I feel when I fail spurs me to improve, and the relief of success is not something I can lose myself in and become the foundation of existence. This? This comes off as Asuka serving as a wingwoman for Tzeentchji playing chem dealer of retribution, convincing Misato her habit is entirely acceptable…and not really conflicting with the Nurgle theory, is it?

Wanderer2691: The drug analogy could be more Slaanesh, but I think that’s you - you yourself said you’ve been tempted by them. Even this fic says that Misato cares about losing even more of what she has - which besides being more of a Grandpappy Grossness thing, is also something that is really rich after the ‘rEvEnGe MaKeS uS hUmAn!!!’ edgefest. Yeah, kicked and abused animals develop grudges too, they’re just worse at directing them for one - and ultimately, all of that is ultimately based around ‘we will kill the Angels to protect you’, and after that nonsense, any level of ‘these are Chaos cultists trying to be comforting’ is lost in the fact of ‘this is love-bombing and quashing doubts about inner doubts after Misato realized she’s about to do something really amoral’. Because the absolute cherry on top is that here, this insane plan…is the best plan. It has been retconned by Academia Nut to be the best plan, because how dare the hot lady have some dark shit to work through in this psychological thriller? And because of that…her being the kind of person who would start worrying if she’s acting based on spite after making a hard choice is a really good thing, because after she does that, she’ll stop.

Leliel: But nope! She gets told that revenge is good, and that the ends justify the means, rather than “actually, you’re doing this to stop worse disasters”, which is what is actually going on. Thus, we get a very insidious form of manipulation, telling Misato her rage is valid…so long as it serves Tzeentchji’s purposes. Not only making her worse, but dependent on him and Asuka for validation. Which is a pretty Khorne-y recruitment tactic, but it’s Tzeentchji doing iot So with a final hearty Fuck You, Tzeentchji, let us award all relevant categories twenty more points for, once again, showing an outright fractal level of inanity in his viewpoints about Neon Genesis Evangelion, the series about how problems both drive away people from each other and towards each other to help, really needed one character’s entire core to her personality fixed with something that’d likely show up in r/im14andthisisdeep. Doubled from last time for not just being in the same chapter, but fucking up core themes as well as factual events of the series that were explicitly explained. And also because I don’t want to give it too much thought, that might take up brain space I could use to imagine how Ciaphas Cain would humiliate Tzeentchji through sheer lucky coincidence and unknowing daring plans, all while chewing him out as an obnoxious twat that makes Jurgen, a literal Blank who has given up on hygiene, appealing as a better romantic partner in comparison.



(IanYorston@mastodon.online on the site known properly as Twitter)

TALON ON THE SCALES: 103

DUMMY PLUGGED: 276

GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 453

HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 343 (Making Misato less morally ambiguous makes her more “desirably” feminine - to make this a reference, Katherine Halsey would be disgusted with you.)

PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 179 (The wrong god recruitment pitch again…)

Nocht: The Throne thankfully has mercy upon us, however, as the rest of this chapter is a fight scene - one which avoids more Mechanicus-style technobabble and listings of machines. Essentially, the Evas are spread out across the entire potential target one with close-combat armaments, and Sahaquiel launches its full descent, releasing portions of itself as orbital bombs against the Evangelions’ umbilicals, which all three block in distinct ways; Tzeentchji telekinetically lifts an armored plate and throws it at the bombardment to detonate in the air, Asuka tosses bits of the concrete at them more mundanely to deflect, while Rei recycles a building to toss in the way. At that point, the xenos’ central eye and core start directing the orbital drop to an unoccupied space, reasonably enough if one can at all control the descent, at which point all three pilots rush to its targeted impact zone, Tzeentchji catching it in his AT field, and…

Then Asuka and Rei arrived, their AT-fields at the ready, and they grabbed the Angel by the edges and hauled up, throwing it off Shinji. Manipulating his own field, he rips a hole in its defences and punches upwards, the prog claws extending off his wrist to jut out from over his knuckles. Punching upwards, he drives the blades directly into the crimson core of the Angel.

Shinobu: [Unamused] For the record - canonically, Shinji caught it and showed incredible willpower and endurance while Rei and Asuka tag-teamed it. As you can tell, this was clearly not MANly enough for the self-insert.

The Angel explodes, the Evas disappearing into the glare.

After about half a minute the Evas can be seen casually walking out of the smoke and fire, undamaged.

"Mission successful Misato-san," Shinji reports.

Leliel: And there it just…ends. No denouement, no character work, not even mention of Misato’s own grudge. The author is bored now.

Futaba: …well that was…awful. Gonna admit, I can still sense the teleport cooldown, and if the choice is between this douchebag being powerful and going all psychic bird supervillain, I can’t help but notice that Thousand Scions, being Thousand Sons with some ladies are probably exactly the kind of people who’d love Old Earth fighting games and JRPGs. And I’d be forever immune to a height complex.

Nocht: You have my word that it will not come to that. But…once again, the sheer objectification stuns me, including carving off bits of the Major that would allegedly make her less desirable as a treasure. Or would be obnoxious to deal with. Once again, I’m feeling a hole where what memories I lost to the mind cleanse, only knowing the relief I felt getting rid of them. [Quietly, to self] It wasn’t just my version of a Blood Angel there, was it…there was something I truly feared worse, and the comfort of simple death I knew would be a refuge to a hostage I might accidentally hit…

Wanderer2691: He’ll have plenty of time to ruminate on it, I’m letting him and Futaba relax in 40K, and I am extremely unhappy I mean that sincerely, in the spitefic - as we get into the point where the author clearly lost interest in the series, especially when it made Ritsuko look good…and things get fucking weird.

Meanwhile, Somewhere Across the Seas of Tindalos

Timeline TTS-323 (Xothian Classification)

Calixis Sector, Tranch, Necrontyr Catacombs

“Tsan-Chan and Ukai. Goddamn Ukai again. Does he ever quit…?” Diego ran his hands through his hair, his fungi fully displayed in his frustration.

“From the sound of things, it is actually a fairly admirable quality of his, especially in your dimensional variation of Terra,” Trazyn chirped, pleasantly. “Honestly almost like my own people in sheer determination, if a bit lacking in refinement or willingness to transcend life.”

Tranch was quite possibly one of the most unfortunate worlds in the Calixis Sector, and given how that particular astral grouping was both home to the enigmatic Tyrant Star Komus, the seemingly sentient wandering black dwarf whose appearance in a system heralded Chaos waxing in power at minimum, and was built upon the Warp-corrupted ruins of the Yu’Vath civilization, that was a category with brutal competition. But Tranch barely eked out over others in that besides being a run-down and less-functioning Hive World even compared to the urban hell that was Fenksworld or the Laithes and a domain of plutocratic tyrants both, it was also the domain of a long civil war with its own mutated miners, one that was not even inspired in any shape by Chaos (though with elements that were quickly hijacked by Chaos, given the abundance of psykers among them and general disaffection from humanity). Nearly a full decade of war bringing out the worst in both the ruling Oligarchs and the rebellious Pale Throng had turned Tranch from a mere dystopia into a dynamo of suffering where even its kings were more prisoners in gilded chains than true aristocrats. And as recently discovered, a Tomb World, a planet riddled with deep complexes of the great stasis catacombs of the sleeping robotic frames of Necrons; in an ironic twist, the very same Warp-nullification technology of the antediluvian species was what allowed the leading Shroud Masters of the Pale Throng to become such powerful psychics, serving as unintended training grounds safe from daemons while providing evolutionary pressure for psykers to be strong enough to overcome their interdiction fields to access their powers. Quite simply, to live on Tranch was to live in the equivalent of weight training for those with a talent for mentalism, to say nothing of true Pariahs; the Dark Conduits who were nearly as skilled at manipulating their negative Warp presence as true (if inexperienced) Culexus Assassins by simple intuition and hard-won experience.

It was fortunate that the Necrons were inactive, avoiding an extra bit of unfairness upon the citizens of Tranch as they violently reclaimed their old planet. And it was very fortunate for the Throng that the Custodians of the Current found Vulkan and Corax more willing to brook with the idea that the mutant was ultimately a secondary priority (and a far more distant one) then the corrupt Oligarchs that allowed enough mutagens for the human species to diverge so much in the Soot Warrens were the larger problem, particularly with Diego’s gene therapies to stabilize them into true abhumans (an unintentional pun to the Night Landers that led to the Shroud Masters being unnerved when the Custodians broke into a slight chuckle).

It was probably also a little Fate that Katya chose it over other staging grounds for building the pocket cults of the Custodians to support logistics for the great counterattack on the Drukhari, despite other, just as appealing worlds. Iocanthos, for instance, had its vast nomadic warrior-aristocracy combined with the sedate nature of what was technically an Agricultural World allowing for mass appeal from both her sides as the Goddess of Victory and the Mourner of Peace, and a proper amount of resentment against the cartel that composed its current prince of princes, who literally called himself King Skull the Magnificent - without abandoning the idea of compassion or even the Imperium, opening the populace to heresy meant for reform and freedom rather than Chaotic destruction.

But the Custodians chose Tranch to build their influence in, and because of that, they now had a meeting hall that was both under their watchful eye, and where Trazyn felt secure in - and had the ability to teleport him back to Solemnace if he needed to fetch his own resources.

Speaking of…

Depends on the definition of transcend, I suppose, the Widow Chevalier said with a shrug of her robed shoulders. He’d argue that the Tsan-Chan ‘Dhaosian Unity’ would be beyond the mere instincts of flesh in all ways, for all would be one, all separation between the family of mankind destroyed - but given how he actively disdained empathy outside the in-group as a vice born of glitchy altruistic instincts…

“That sounds disturbingly like Father on his worse days,” Corax muttered. “Similar taste in colors as well…perhaps the lack of true singular Ruinous Powers set him on a different, far worse path? … Which sounds like I am making an excuse for the Imperium as it is, I assure you I deeply appreciate you providing a way to deal with non-Chaotic heretics that sometimes does not waste some perfectly good ammunition.”

“Trust me, we know he isn’t,” Diego cut in. “He’s from what is on Holy Terra Merika, the descendant of a commune of surviving geneworkers of the Fourth Occult War, and he basically formed the beginnings of his ideology off a bunch of second millennium anime and a few copies of Nietschze. He didn’t actually know the difference between China and Japan when he founded his ‘Sorcerous Bushido-Confucianism’, and it shows - especially after he developed time travel, learned the differences, and doubled down rather than admit to sloppy scholarship. And he’s far more insidious than the God-Emperor, as a rule; he’d prefer enemies of the Tsan-Chan destroy each other in their relative past so his empire can conquer them in their present. What the God-Emperor did with a sword, Ukai Ichiro uses a poisoned knife. Even if he fails, he learns something about the society by seeing how they recover from the venom.”

“And looking over how Cranch developed his Kabal,” Taion interjected, a large sapient-skin vellum journal before him (the Drukhari were as predictable as the cancer-inducing sunshine), “by the look of it his inspiration was a particular beekeeper. Given the meaning of that kanji, I can only assume Ukai is obsessed with eusociality and molded humanity to fit it?”

Honeybees are behaviorally a democracy, Katya replied, clearly used to this discussion. As are most social insects. They have individual minds, but completely suborned to the group - the queen is simply the mother, not the ruler. He doesn’t think that’s possible to completely ape, hence why Inward Collapsing Void, the Empress of the Tsan-Chan, was cultured to life in his ritual chamber - but she is a nexus for the telepathy that links all Chani together and makes order out of the chaos of many selves, as they put it. Thanks to her and her self-made clone children, all those who are part of Dhaos, the Living Way, love each other as cousins at minimum - but it is conditional, and openly so as a way of ‘improvement.’

“They bear the name ‘Cruel Empire’ as a note of pride, as suppression of kindness for the sake of kindness is overcoming bestial idiocy to them - the quick hit of endorphins that come from indulging basal social instinct,” Diego finished. “Thus, true rationality, for all emotions are subordinate to their love for each other and enlightened self-interest.”

“...Dat ain’t soundin’ like love or friendship,” Vulkan stated, bluntly. “Dat sounds like them Tzeentch boys or Slaaneshi red room shit with some extra steps.”

“I am very glad we agree,” Taion said. “It reminds me of Moebius’ rank system for colonies - no wonder the Last Redoubt calls them Wasps, even beyond yellow and black uniforms. Nothing but the desire to harvest the meat of the world in the name of their young, which when the entire rest of the world is considered meat for raw materials in their geneforges if not potential slaves or pests to be exterminated…” He looked over the book. “Looking at Cranch’s behavior, I think he was the poison Ukai inserted - into both the Dark Eldar and the Imperium. The way he treated corruption in the Imperium like bees and spread it without technically making people who abandoned the Imperial Creed is obvious, but so were his rumors of Genestealer conversion. Everyone was suspicious of him but needed him, and given how riotous and criminal Drukhari society is, it was provoking several civil wars that drove him deeper into seeing the world as akin to his insects…driving him closer to the Tsan-Chan viewpoint.”

“And in one of life’s ironies, the most proudly alien xenos was corrupted into a madness that originated in a human Daemon Prince - no offense, Katya, you don’t deserve to be compared to my traitor brothers…or sister, now,” he said with a knowing look at Diego.

“Trust me, Sophia probably will not be happy about working with you either,” he replied with a shrug. “Honestly, there is a reason Katya’s plan has a ‘in case of Word Bearer Getting Ideas break glass’ backup and trying to use Necron tech instead of Warp sorcery.”

Something that with Ukai’s involvement is even more important. He and I are Elder Gods, not Daemon Princes, but we are close enough - and it is clear he is turning his sting on Chaos as well, as he is clearly getting whatever Tzeentchji truly is to try and dominate all forms of its worship, replace it with a paradigm based on greed. You know your Lorgar, would he tolerate three of the Four being subordinated as a harem to an Arcanite, of all things?

“I was more concerned for my own sons being exposed to her, that Sophia will be facing in the direction of the entity known also as That Prick isn’t something I doubt,” Corax said, bluntly. “Honestly, it will be a relief to return to stalking Lorgar after this, at least he has something resembling an ethos. Warp-damned nihilists.”

“A sentiment I share exactly. The Destroyer virus makes my people so dull,” Trazyn said. “But, when asking for my expertise, I notice you have been immensely cagey about who you wish to undergo biotransference…and how you plan to adapt a human to it. It took even us many generations to develop the furnaces, and we had the C’tan to assist us. All of the C’tan, not just three and a half independent transcended mortals.”

Well, for right now, we are trying some easier conversion of soul-to-necrodermis-program to get the hang of it - one that will give us practice, and even if all goes well will leave the soul intact. Katya motioned at a console, which alit in green as a hologram formed of a black-haired Human woman in thick spectacles.

This is Wakaba Isshiki - Futaba Sakura’s mother. And you, Trazyn, are going to help us put her soul inside a special kind of servitor called an Evangelion.


SPECIAL SPORKER ADVERTISEMENT:

If you were around during the A Brighter Dark spork, then you know at the time, we planned to do the…unique Fallout: New Vegas mod Fallout: the Frontier. Particularly after we met someone who was deeply involved in the project when it was being made, with a unique perspective.

The problem was the reason we emphasized with them is because of a personal emotional wound of ours - we were advised that, to avoid another bit of bleed that would have stopped us from being objective sporkers and reopen some emotional wounds (don’t ask here, we can explain over DMs), that while Frontier deserves to be sporked, we are not great as sporkers; it’s too personal, and I (Leliel) don’t have the PC needed to really play it, not to mention get seasick when doing an FPS of any kind. So, we were asked to step back and give our draft and Discord contact info to another sporker with less trauma triggers about doxxing.

The issue is with the fact that said person was pretty horrifically bullied by the mod team, and so handing off the spork to someone else without vetting them is something we are nervous about; we don’t want them to be doxxed again. So, if you are interested, please send a private message Leliel with Discord contact information so I can start up a DM with you, along with why you are interested. We’ll explain why we’re so cagey and vet you on Discord. Nothing personal, it’s just that we don’t want to add to their problems when trying to help them.

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